Thank You, Come Again
When I was home over Thanksgiving, I saw a few of my high school classmates. I saw most of them under fairly normal circumstances: out at the bar, out shopping, or out for a walk. But I also saw one while he was at work, and it was extremely awkward.
No, he wasn’t working at the adult bookstore.
At 9am on Sunday, my mom and I were driving back to the train station (okay, so that really doesn’t say much for me that I rely on my parents for transportation) when we stopped off at the Mobil station so my mom could gas up. I ducked inside to grab a Snickers bar and a Gatorade for breakfast (it’s the breakfast of champions) and walked up to the cashier. I reached into my wallet when it hit me: I knew the cashier.
“Chris! How are you?”
It was my best friend from sixth and seventh grade. We hadn’t seen each other since high school, and hadn’t spoken for years before that. Here comes the small talk.
“What are you up to these days?”
“Well, um, let’s see, I’m working for an ad agency in New York City.”
This would be the time when I ask him what he’s up to these days, but I already know the answer: like me, he graduated high school with honors. Like me, he went to college. Unlike me, he is living at home and working at a gas station. Awkard silence ensues. He finally breaks it after ringing up my items.
“That’s great! $3.67.”
Lacking cash, I had to pull out my credit card. What followed was seemingly the longest processing of a credit card I had ever experienced. In the time it took for the screen to read “Approved,” a set of quintuplets was delivered, a war was fought and won, and several small governments were overthrown. The awkward silence continued. He breaks the silence again.
“So, are things good otherwise?”
“Uh… yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
At long last, approval. And I was on my way out the door. Except I forgot my bag. I heard him shout my name as the sliding glass doors were closing. I immediately realized what I had forgotten. For a split second, I considered taking the coward’s way out: run back to the car, hop in, and tell my mom to speed off, forgetting the transaction ever happened. Instead, I go back inside and get my bag. “Uh… yeah,” I mumble, ”sorry ’bout that.”
“Avagoodone,” he shouts, as I head back for the doors a second time.
“You too,” I said, hanging my head in shame.
Now he totally thinks I’m cracked out on something. Put the pieces together: I had just woken up, my eyes were still glazed over, my hair was a mess, I was fumbling for words, and to top it off, I told him I lived in New York City. And now I’m forgetting to take something I purchased 20 seconds ago.
Well, that’s one way to leave a lasting impression.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 9:14 am and is filed under On the Road. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:15 am
says:I feel the same when I come back to my hometown. My friends from school there still live and work in the same town and it is a bit awkward when I see them say as cashiers at the local grocery store.
A few of them used to be my best friends and I dont feel that we are very different. It’s just that at some point we took different paths. Mine took me miles and miles away and I would not have done half of what I have done had I stayed in my hometown.
But even if it is a bit awkward when I meet them, I have the decency not to make them think I am a drug addict. I guess it’s because I have improved my smalltalk skills over the years.
December 12th, 2006 at 11:16 am
says:That was likely more or less exactly his greatest fear, which he has been dreading since the moment he put on his Texaco vest….although I had a friend in Michigan who worked at the gas station like, ironically?
December 12th, 2006 at 11:26 am
says:Texaco vests are SO “in” right now.
December 13th, 2006 at 2:29 am
says:Bah, small towns are hard to get out of. I buggered off right after high school, starting one of the most competative programs at one of the best Unis in the country. I came back four years later with an English degree (damn my hippy ways!). I’m home now. It doesn’t suck completely, but then it’s not lasting either.
Maybe your old buddy’s just in limbo, planning his big escape and loathing the days when he’s caught at his worst. Anyway, at least he was friendly. A girl I went to school with somehow turned the entire 7/11 staff against me, and I thought we’d been friends. Life without slurpees is pretty rough.
December 13th, 2006 at 5:27 am
says:Dude~
Everyone knows the REAL breakfast of champions is redbull and poptarts–best served straight from vending machines.
Oh yeah–I’m a college student.
~Placide
December 13th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
says:Isn’t it weird how one always comes out of those experiences feeling like the loser, even though you are clearly the one making more of your life? I live in DC and grew up in the boonies a couple hours out. Have the same experience all the time. I actually posted recently about the travesty of a weekend in which I really wanted to appear the polished classy one in front of old classmates, ex boyfriend, etc, but somehow managed to leave my wallet at work that weekend and just sort of be a disaster. Check it out if you like.
December 13th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
says:I think it’d pretty unfair to judge how much someone is making of their lives by what their current job is. I’ve been known to succumb to the snobbery of success myself on occassion, but I’ve also been on the other side of the fence.
A good friend of mine got pregnant in our final year of school, and everyone abandoned her and chalked her up as another pathetic statistic.
Here we are six years later, and the ’successful’ people I went to school with are all off slaving away for some corporate soul-sucker, and she’s spent the last half dozen years as mother to her beautiful son. She’s worked hard to take care of him, and is now going to community college. And, oh yeah, some of that hard work came while she was pumping gas.
People who make different choices aren’t necessarily worse off, maybe they just have different priorities.
December 14th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
says:I agree with baredfeetandwhatevah on this one. Sucks for you to be working at an ad agency when you could be working 20 hours a week, living off of a kick ass inheritence and writing that novel. He sounded a bit more excited about his day than you did as well.
I should quit commenting, huh?
December 15th, 2006 at 6:33 am
says:Pants on, I’m not ragging on business people either. I’m just saying….different strokes for different folks eh. Have you ever come across a kind of stroke you found unpleasant?