I am ashamed to admit this, but I don’t look cashiers in the eye. I know this is not the eclipse, it’s just band-aids and Brillo pads at Walgreen’s, but the truth is, it’s easier and faster this way. About 25% of the time they’re on the phone and not looking at you anyway, which makes me feel all “I won’t be IGNORED, Dan!,” and another 25% they’re taking care of someone else at the same time while eyeing the people in back of you, which gets me all hypervigilant, like I have to grab my purchase and sprint to the bus that’s not coming because, oh yeah, I’m not going anywhere.
And then of course, there’s my lack of facility with small talk. You’d think I could remember “Nice day today!” instead of relying on a nerve-induced blurt like “Were you vaccinated for the measles virus?,” but
nooooo….So unless I’m at a place I regularly frequent, or at Trader Joe’s, where I think they make their checkout crew memorize wacky Stepford Wifestyle scripts (“What lovely melons you have there!” “Whatcha got planned for the long weekend?”), I keep my head down, always try to have exact change and get outta there fast.
When I go most anywhere else beyond city limits, though, I feel totally safe to indulge in normal, nonmisanthropic interactions. And I’m pretty good at it! I was recently at Kripalu Institute, a retreat center in the Berkshires where everyone tries their best to let the other person go first, buying some birthday cards in the gift shop. The cashier was having trouble with the sale because one of the items wouldn't scan. I could see she was getting some kind of weird error message on her computer screen, and that she was super-frustrated.
"This isn't working, let me try it again," she says to me.
And to herself, a drop quieter, "I'm just going to breathe."
My gut reaction is to detach from her nonfunctioning orbit and just go to the other register, dumping her in a stumpy, Trumpy way that would quickly solve my problem and not hers. But I have nowhere to be, and her stated dedication—saying it out loud, as if it then goes on a post-it note you can only see in the fourth dimension—pulled me back to a reality where people are nice to each other, and where I’m a nice person who CAN SAFELY LOOK AT OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. I remain, invested. And this being Kripalu and me being the type to thank my socks for their hard work, I breathe alongside her, ‘cause I don’t want her to feel stressed.
How many times do you say It isn't working but not
Let me try it again?"10.26," she says after what was not a-long-at-all-while.
"Yay! It went through!" I say. "I was rooting for you!"
"I could feel it," she smiles.
And I feel a little shy in this new world we agree to be in together: a world where, for the time being, the purchase of a pink birthday card for someone who will soon be 94 (!) is all that matters. And because I am so dang relieved that it’s not me, it’s you, New York, I nervous-laugh since a smile isn’t big enough. She laughs as she hands me my change and I laugh as she hands it to me.
But wait,
hands is so the wrong word…She’s doing these wrist-twisting, hand-rotating
Shields and Yarnellian gestures that have me mesmerized. Presenting each bill purposefully in a flourish, like she’s trying to turn them into doves.
"11,” she says, and releases the coins to me in a jingle.
“12, 13, 14,” three Georges and here comes a hot rod Lincoln…
“20."
I look at the bills in my hand, and they give me that same tucked-in calm you get from seeing your folded laundry.
She explains, "I made sure all their faces are looking the same way now,”
Oh! I know that’s a thing they do in banks, but I am always getting taped-up or written-on dollars, on squirmy occasions still flaccid from the sweaty guy buying lottery tickets ahead of me. These bills are not like that, and I know it’s because she paid them extra attention for me, because I was just the littlest bit nice.
And me being me there’s melancholy, too, because it’s not as if they can see anything anyway. Can you imagine George and Abraham et al. having to witness, dry-eyed and cotton-mouthed, every transaction ever made?
Is it easy seeing green?
Is it queasy feeling greed?At least, in this case, it’s not like we're leaving our vintage POTUSes shaking their heads in shame at our consumerist culture. (A lot of us are trying to make it better, GW—please pass it on.)
As I walk out of the shop, I get this lemony flash of a summer day last August. I was running along the East River and stopped short when I noticed this crazy patch of blackeyed susans swaying together in the breeze like they were waving at me, yellow and happy like Big Bird and exclamation points, respectively. In my head I cue up my favorite singalong for flowers and kittens,
XTC’s The Loving, just like it does now. And I walk to the sun room to write out my pink birthday card.
What if the faces were to change
places?
The Benjamins pimp Helios’ ride
Lincoln blinks at the breeze;
Back on the register a bleeding heart winks
‘cause money grows on trees.
