Sitting in the line of cars at the bank drive-thru is now a “normal,” a “new normal,” to use the current expression. Gone for probably a year or so, or until a vaccine protects us from Covid-19, is that cherished personal contact humans have long considered “normal.” Not that I have any more personal contact with Judy Bank-Teller other than her dropping change into my hand and then counting out some cash as fast as a party magician and exchanging a perfunctory, “Have a nice day,” and “Thank you,” but, sans physical touch, not too long ago I was able to get to within a teller’s counter width of another person who was neither friend nor relative. Now, my only exchange with a stranger is through a pneumatic tube and a squawk box speaker at the drive-thru, where a be-gloved teller sits behind a wall of glass.
Forty-five minutes. That’s how long the wait was as I inched my Ram toward the carport-like structure of the drive-thru, and that was in a small town and during a time when people have very few places to spend any money. But, then, there were the advantages of sitting in a slowly moving line of vehicles instead of standing in a line standing, of not having to make the person in front of you think you are trying to see the nature of her bank transaction, and, of course, of listening to satellite radio stations or a burgeoning library of downloaded songs on my iPhone. I could even make phone calls. Hey, I guess the trip to the bank wasn’t so bad an experience. Time in my man-room-truck, all the comforts of a Barca Lounger, and a cup of coffee cooling just as the Second Law of Thermodynamics says it should cool! Wait! This is getting even better. Did I just get an idea for this blog? Is my muse sitting in the truck with me? Are the people in front and behind me feverishly jotting down on old Starbucks receipts some notes for their next novels as they also wait? Is the linear world of vehicles filled not with mere drivers but rather with drivers of society and culture? Is there a physicist behind me who finally understands while sitting in a string of cars that string theory has been a waste of time because there will never be a way in her time, however beautiful the math, to demonstrate it through clever experimentation?
You know, this sitting in the drive-thru experience isn’t so bad. Unfortunately, since there’s nowhere to spend the money I withdrew, I really don’t have to make another trip to the bank until the quarantine ends. I could, of course, sit in my truck in the driveway and pretend, could even run the engine, though that would eventually mean a trip to the gas station, where I would have to use disinfectant wipes on the nozzle handle and the key pad while wearing the closest thing I have to latex gloves, the rubber-coated garden gloves from the garage that then I have to clean with alcohol.
And maybe there’s a lesson in having to use the drive-thru, the lesson that life itself is a drive-thru. And yes, sometimes it means inching forward and having to endure the feeling that life itself sometimes seems to be at a standstill. But the feeling is just imposed by impatient minds. The line does move even though intermittently. Then, upon reaching the teller and finishing a transaction, each driver emerges from the carport and accelerates briefly until…
Until one enters the next line and intermittent movement toward reaching the next goal. But isn’t that why life is like baseball and war: Nothing really happens until everything happens at once. You inch toward the teller, and then you frantically reach for the pneumatic tube’s cylinder, fumble to put the money in or take it out, know that there’s someone immediately behind you wanting to take your place and knowing, also, that you have to get to the next phase of your life toward which you briefly accelerate before, once again, slowing down to an ostensible stop. Speed up; slow down; speed up again, like ellipsis marks separated by a string of commas…,…,…,…,…,…,…,…. But think of the alternative. You don’t want to arrive at that final punctuation mark, do you? Enjoy the stop-start-stop-start life you have in life’s drive-thru.
Forty-five minutes. That’s how long the wait was as I inched my Ram toward the carport-like structure of the drive-thru, and that was in a small town and during a time when people have very few places to spend any money. But, then, there were the advantages of sitting in a slowly moving line of vehicles instead of standing in a line standing, of not having to make the person in front of you think you are trying to see the nature of her bank transaction, and, of course, of listening to satellite radio stations or a burgeoning library of downloaded songs on my iPhone. I could even make phone calls. Hey, I guess the trip to the bank wasn’t so bad an experience. Time in my man-room-truck, all the comforts of a Barca Lounger, and a cup of coffee cooling just as the Second Law of Thermodynamics says it should cool! Wait! This is getting even better. Did I just get an idea for this blog? Is my muse sitting in the truck with me? Are the people in front and behind me feverishly jotting down on old Starbucks receipts some notes for their next novels as they also wait? Is the linear world of vehicles filled not with mere drivers but rather with drivers of society and culture? Is there a physicist behind me who finally understands while sitting in a string of cars that string theory has been a waste of time because there will never be a way in her time, however beautiful the math, to demonstrate it through clever experimentation?
You know, this sitting in the drive-thru experience isn’t so bad. Unfortunately, since there’s nowhere to spend the money I withdrew, I really don’t have to make another trip to the bank until the quarantine ends. I could, of course, sit in my truck in the driveway and pretend, could even run the engine, though that would eventually mean a trip to the gas station, where I would have to use disinfectant wipes on the nozzle handle and the key pad while wearing the closest thing I have to latex gloves, the rubber-coated garden gloves from the garage that then I have to clean with alcohol.
And maybe there’s a lesson in having to use the drive-thru, the lesson that life itself is a drive-thru. And yes, sometimes it means inching forward and having to endure the feeling that life itself sometimes seems to be at a standstill. But the feeling is just imposed by impatient minds. The line does move even though intermittently. Then, upon reaching the teller and finishing a transaction, each driver emerges from the carport and accelerates briefly until…
Until one enters the next line and intermittent movement toward reaching the next goal. But isn’t that why life is like baseball and war: Nothing really happens until everything happens at once. You inch toward the teller, and then you frantically reach for the pneumatic tube’s cylinder, fumble to put the money in or take it out, know that there’s someone immediately behind you wanting to take your place and knowing, also, that you have to get to the next phase of your life toward which you briefly accelerate before, once again, slowing down to an ostensible stop. Speed up; slow down; speed up again, like ellipsis marks separated by a string of commas…,…,…,…,…,…,…,…. But think of the alternative. You don’t want to arrive at that final punctuation mark, do you? Enjoy the stop-start-stop-start life you have in life’s drive-thru.
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