She’s been a clerk at the county courthouse for the last 21 years. Witnessing and listening to sad life circumstances hour after hour, day after day, might have something to do with the anger.
My next rider, Pamela, was introduced to me as deaf, but “she can read lips very well.” And Pamela talked the whole way home. She can speak fairly well. I think she must have learned to speak and then went deaf rather than had been born deaf. But there was no need to read my lips. There was no conversation. It seemed like I heard her entire life story; except her deafness. Occasionally I would turn to her, nod and say “uh huh.”
When I dropped her off I wanted to talk about picking her up. She has no phone. No phone. None. She’d given us her email address so that we could contact her but ... she has no computer. She uses the computer at the library. When I had finally stopped the van so that I could face her and have a dialog she did not want to talk about how we would pick her up. She did not want to help me figure out how we, the dealer, would be communicating with her.
I think she talks incessantly so that she would not have to have a dialog. I don’t know. It seemed very pushy; defensive.
On a bright note, I met a Lisa. She’s in accounting. Twenty-four years of public and private. As a group the accountants I have met are not very interested in talking about their work. It’s just numbers. How much fun is that? Nine numbers and zero. Over and over. How could anybody be interested in that? Almost a hundred percent of them. Amazing.
And she broke the mold. Lilting, easy laugh. She’s part time. That might be the difference. After years and years of stressing out over tax season and ninety-hour work weeks, she found a way to work at a firm part time. I can see where that would make a difference.
And, it turns out we know people together. Sort of. We know of some people. But that gave us something to talk about; Wes and Bobbi, Karen and Dave and that lady across the street with the amazing flower-garden lawn.
The high point recently was meeting this young couple in the service drive. It was busy. We were understaffed. Stephan and Relucka simply wanted an oil change and tire rotation.
Relucka was quite cute and Stephan was wearing a black leather, fur-lined aviator cap. I told him I liked it and asked where he got it.
“Her father gave it to me.”
“Perhaps I could buy it from you. I have cash.”
"You probably couldn't afford it."
"Give me a number."
“Well, no. Besides it has lice.”
“Maybe you should pay me to take it then. Give me ten dollars and I’ll take the cap.”
He laughed. She laughed. We all laughed. We talked about juggling, customers and my ability to do little else at that point. She laughed again - which actually was the point. Finally an adviser became available and they got into the system.
They spotted the McDonald’s down on the corner and thought they would wait there. I offered them a ride.
"Oh no. We can walk."
“That’s what I do here.”
“It’s just right there. We can walk.”
“It’s awfully cold. You can walk back if you like.”
“Okay.”
We got in the van.
“You’re not from around here,” I said. “Where are you from?”
“Romania.”
“Welcome aboard. I am so pleased to meet you. You represent the 40th country on my list of customers and countries.”
“You keep count?”
“Absolutely. And it’s great to meet YOU!”
My shift was over at that point. I wanted to punch out, get in my own car and go sit with them. It was a powerful urge. We were having such fun.
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