It was a small room, windowless, stuffy...not even the size of a normal bedroom. I showed up 15 minutes early, a little out of breath and sweaty from my bike ride but with a powder blue tie on. After checking in with the court assistant I sat in the movie theatre-esque seats and waited for the judge. People trickled in, apparently no one could find the court on the second floor of the post office. The judge was one part business, one part silly, and one part wisdom (he knew the origins of names and spoke multiple languages it seemed). I was a little nervous as I stepped up to the front when he called my name, Pablo Daniel Wallace Pitcher DeProto...I said six words in my court appearance. "Good morning your honor," and after he said that all my documents were in order and that he had signed my official name change..."Thank you." And with that, with this single serving encounter, my journey of identity took another step with my legal name change...
As any of you who live on the west coast know, there is no Dunkin' Donuts on the west coast (but there are DD commercials...weird). Anyway, so any time I go to Chicago to visit I make sure to stop by Dunkin' and grab a large cup of coffee (three cream, three sugar). So I had my cup of coffee and a smile on my face, we walked over to another local coffee shop so that Marcella could get a latte. She eyed me as I walked in with my DD cup, her eyes sizing me up. "Sir, let me give you a taste of OUR coffee," she called out from behind the counter. I had been to this coffee shop before and had their coffee. I tried to stammer out the explanation of why I was drinking Dunkin' Donuts but she wasn't having it. So I walked out with two cups of coffee. The coffee I was supposed to try was too hot and so I didn't try it until we had walked a ways. I almost gagged. It was not good. And so I tossed the coffee in the garbage and went back to sipping my DD coffee. It was a single serving encounter with the woman at the coffee shop because...well, I wasn't going to go back and tell her how bad their coffee was...
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…
