tow truck thoughts.

The Sheriff has had a rough (last!) first week of classes. Classes themselves are fine. But everything else? Not so much. First was an intense flu-like illness that Meatball and I shared that incapacitated me for three days. But I kept my head up, excited to go see my best friend at Bard College on Friday night and then to my parents' house in PA for my mama's surprise 50th birthday party.

And then my ancient car (we're talkin' OLD, as in 1990 Honda Accord...my car is legal to drink!) decided to not start back up again after I made took a quick break to pee in Lee, MA. I spent my Friday afternoon and early evening talking to AAA and getting towed back to Midas to negotiate. I was not pleased.

Odd thing in all this was how nice to me people were. Now mind you, I am used to epic car trouble (especially, for some reason, on the way to Bard). I do not cry or get flustered or play the "I'm just a single white female and I'm so confused by MACHINERY!" role. But strangers in the parking lot, men and women, came over to try to help. Even though I knew it wasn't the battery, some dude insisted on giving my car a jump. Another man offered various opinions on what the trouble might be and even offered to call his AAA for me until I assured him mine worked fine too.

the sheriff, with car trouble.

The tow truck driver was enormously friendly, and kept apologizing for the fact that my car had picked a bad time (a Friday afternoon) to break down. When we got to Midas, once the manager told me there was no hope in fixing in that night, he personally offered me a ride home even after I told him I lived less than a mile away. He also offered to pay the six bucks in tolls that I owed the tow truck driver (who eventually insisted himself that he give me a ride back to Albright).

I could not help but think this behavior, while certainly coming from the kindness of their hearts, is cued and intensified by certain social markers I exhibit. I'm a white, blonde, young female. I'm reasonably pleasant looking, and very small (I recently realized that my floor lamp is taller than me. Problems). I was alone. I have no bling on my left hand. I was well-dressed for the weather in a wool coat and a scarf (definitely rockin' the yuppie look, compared to the driver in his John Deer hoodie). My car was old, but otherwise there were no overt signs that I might be on the lower end of the economic scale.

no mechanic really looks like this...

All of this creates a picture and an expected social outcome in people's minds: I'm not a threat. I'm not a criminal. I need their help. I deserve their help. I wonder if their behavior would've been different if I'd been dressed in shabbier clothes, if I'd not been white, if I'd been older, if I'd been a man (god forbid a black man). I wonder how much of our social interactions are driven by these cues and how we interpret them.

Or maybe all of these people were just being truly kind, seeing a lone driver experiencing car issues on a cold day and their reactions weren't even a little bit influenced by my skin tone, gender, size, looks. Seeing as I can't change those things just for the sake of a social experiment, I'll never know and can only wonder.

Just some pondering thoughts. Have you ever noticed yourself modifiying your behavior towards someone like this? Do you imagine that people do it to you?

Much love,
The Sheriff