Waiter at Pelican Brewery - Pacific City, OR
His name was Aaron. We figured that out because the hostess kept saying it as she seated other customers around us. We had driven for hours and hours down the WA and OR coasts on the beautiful highway 101. After checking in to a hotel we found out way to the Pelican Pub and Brewery, nestled right on the beach with a breathtaking view of an enormous rock, like the tip of an iceberg, poking out of the ocean as the pinks, yellows and reds of the sunset curled over the water. Aaron was a bundle of energy. He talked to us about our beer selections, the IPA is quite hoppy. He talked to us about the card game we were playing, he talked to us about his favorite band that came out of Oakland, he drew us a map to help us get back to I-5 on our way home. Each of these conversations was 2 minutes as he ran in and out and around the restaurant serving food, getting drinks, etc. They were all truly single serving encounters.
Definition: single-serving friend
(from the movie Fight Club) A "friend" you meet once, for example on a plane, and never see again.
Every day we pass through people’s lives, sometimes without even noticing that they exist. And half the time, they don’t even know that we exist.
This morning I went to the DMV here in Oakland, CA. I stood in the snail paced line up to the cubicled square island of stations, got a letter followed by a number, G202, and went to sit down in the interlocked plastic chairs for the computer generated voice to call me. Forty-five minutes later I finally got to walk over to station 17 and give in my documents. I walked up to a heavyset African-American women in a blue sweat suit with oval glasses. She barely looked at me as she roughly asked for my documents. I dropped something that she didn’t need from my folder on her desk, I fumbled to find all the things that she needed and she glanced at me with an obvious “hurry up” look of exasperation. Finally I gave her everything with a “I need to have my name changed on my drivers license, here is my marriage certificate.” The expression in her eyes changed and she smiled as she handed me back my application form saying, “you have to fill out this box and put your…maiden, i mean your madden, i mean your…i don’t know what to tell the groom’s, name on this line.” She started laughing and continued, “Damn, that’s what I want, a man who will take my name…Congratulations.” We continued laughing as I paid my fee and 2 minutes later I walked away from her station.
I will remember that 2 minutes for a long time. And hopefully she will smile from time to time as she remembers our encounter. Maybe it will be on a day where she is having a rough time and just needs a smile.
Who are those people you meet in a day whose life you may change for just a moment, who might change your life, who you brush by, who you make laugh, who notice you playing with your cell phone, who you talk to for a few seconds. I go to the coffee shop on Lakeshore every few days and order a large coffee, does the person who takes my order remember me? The light skinned woman with the buzzed curly hair, the man with the limp…
We spend so much time wrapped up in our own worlds that I want to challenge you to notice the “single serving” people who are part of you life. Write a story about someone who passed through you life today, maybe for just a second, maybe for a few minutes and remember the impact they had on your day or that, maybe, you had on theirs…
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