On weekends, I get up and go to a fast food place (a 'joint' I have been told, is, technically, a place that sells alcohol. Which, just me maybe, I think would do wonders for breakfast sales. 'Heck with the Grand Slam, gimme a Harvey Wallbanger'-I can just see the TV spots for it now, during the kids' cartoons.). Usually I buy a newspaper, not the one with my town's name in the title (because some days that's the only thing about Norwich in the paper), but the other one, and I stand in line inside and order at the counter, face to face with (technically) another human being and sit at a table and read my newspaper and eat my McWhatever and enjoy the pleasure of my own company.
This morning, not sure why, I wound up at the other place and at the drive through. All I could think of was being eight years old and in the basement of St Peter's Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Confession was heard. When I was in grammar school, right up the street, we used to be marched down enmasse (pun intentional) for confession before First Friday Mass, every month from September through June. First graders, eight graders, thugs, slugs, made no difference. We may have been all God's children but we were definitely Sister Mary Jean's charges and she had a clicker (and knew how to use it). Synchronized sanctity. On her command, we'd all stand, sit, kneel and had she so ordered, I suspect, rolled over and played dead.
The confessional, as a small child, was a scary place. It had a high ceiling with two holes shaped like crosses to let light in. It was made of dark wood and I was forever missing the kneeler as I'd enter from the (relatively) bright outside into the cave darkness of the booth. I was often never aware if the priest was already on my side or busy with the other penitent. I was in no rush. I'd hear a shifting of weight and the muffled sliding of a small window, closed, and then louder the sliding of a small window opening and I knew it was showtime.
Same kind of feeling this morning, with the engine running and the radio turned down. Pulled up to the display of all the different offerings (do I really need to see a cup of coffee? I am reasonably familiar with the concept, you know), not that the one in the bag you're going to buy will look like the one in the picture (I've spent many years seeking out the stores and fast food places I always in the TV commercials, to no avail).
This drive through, for all I knew, was outsourced to some third world nation (I've read about this, but don't understand what the point of that might be and am afraid someone will tell me) and is on the far end, and around two corners from the window where they keep the human in a glass box. I thought the person was ready to take my order when she welcomed me and I had to stop and start again which confused her a little bit which then confused me and then back to her. For a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee (illustration, optional) there was a lot of hullabaloo.
Much like the kid in the confessional, the codger behind the wheel of my car peered at the speaker as if by force of will I could see the person taking the order who may or may not have been the person filling the order. The microphone and the speaker (and probably the wiring for all I know) isn't designed by audiophiles. There's a distinct lack of fidelity throughout every transaction. I long ago gave up trying to guess what people look like by the way they sound on the drive through speaker. Otherwise, again this morning, Saul and I might have had some surprises on our way to Damascus.
-bill kenny
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