an experiment

I went to the post office yesterday to file the BF's taxes -- last minute, I know. The guy at the counter who helped me was very pleasant and patient considering there was a line practically out the door only minutes before the post office was supposed to close. As I'm standing there, I notice his name tag. His name is Tom. He was a small, mousey man with glasses and a balding pate; he was also incredibly soft-spoken - quite the inverse of the large, brash black woman working the adjacent window.

I decided to try an experiment and call him by his name, just to see if it illicited any sort of response at all. Working at the post office all day has got to get rather boring and lonely. People just want to get in and out as fast as they can. The people standing at the counter may as well be machines for all the typical customer cares. They just want the transaction to be quick, efficient and simple. I figured the people working there must feel a bit invisible at times. So as I picked up my change and receipt, I caught his eye and chirped "Thanks, Tom!"

He looked like he'd been stung by a bee. His eyes got wide for a brief second before he was able to choke out, "Uh, and have a nice day."

Isn't it sad that a stranger being friendly and calling you by name can be such a shocking and surprising experience?

So I mentor a first-grade boy named Dakota for an hour each week. I try my best to make sure that he has fun and that he's comfortable talking and sharing with me. I'm not his mentor because he's a discipline case or because he has academic issues. From what I gather, his teacher and the social worker thought he needed some help opening up and being social. So every week I make sure to ask him how his week went, if he did anything new or exciting or if he had anything fun to share. This week, he didn't really have much to say. When I asked him what he did this past week, he told me he slept when at home and had nothing to report about school. So to get him talking, I made a game out of it. We were playing catch and I made the rule that when you have the ball, you have to say something interesting about yourself. I started by saying, "I have three sisters," and the game went from there. The reason for my post is the following exchange:

Me: "My favorite music is rock and roll." (I toss the ball to Dakota)
Dakota: "My favorite music is 'My Humps.'" (He tosses the ball to me)
Me: "You like 'My Humps?' Do you even know the words?"
Dakota: (while shaking his hips) "Whatcha gon' do with all the junk, all the junk in your trunk..... That's all I know. But I know there's bad words in it too."
Me: "Yes, yes there are bad words."

Kids are funny.