Can you verify?

All dialog guaranteed verbatim.

Hapless Call-center Lady: Welcome to the card-member service line.  Can you verify the last four digits of your social?

Literal Minded Bugger of a Customer: My social? I wasn't aware that this involved socials, or that dances had digits.

HCL: That would be your social security number.

LMC:  Ah, why didn't you say so?  Yes, I can verify the last four digits of my social security number.

 [several seconds of silence]  

HCL: Sir? Are you there?

LMBoaC: Yes, I'm still here.

HCL: Sir, can you verify the last four digits of your social security number?

LMBoaC: I said yes, I can.  If you tell me the information you have, I'll verify it for you.

HCL:  No sir, I need you to tell me the last four digits of your social security number.

LMBoaC:   You want to verify what I tell you, is that it?

HCL: Yes.

LMBoaC:  Ah, I see.  You seem to have this a bit backwards.  Why didn't you say so?  The digits are XXXX [Those are not the real digits, by the way, or "BTW" for the youngsters in the audience.  If I told all of you the real ones, you might be able to verify them, which would not be a good thing for me, I gather.]

HCL: Yes, and how can I help you this evening?

LMBoaC: Well, I've had an account with you for many years, and have always paid my bills on time, but for some reason, you have increased the interest rate on my card to 29 percent, and reduced the credit limit to $390.  This would seem to indicate that you don't want my account anymore, so I would like to oblige you by closing my account.

HCL: Yes, I see from your account that you are a very good customer, is there anything I can do to change your mind?

LMBoaC: Can you restore my credit limit to $10,000 and the interest rate to 8.9%, which were the terms last month?

HCL: No, I can't, but I can give you a free gift.

LMBoaC: What would that be?

HCL: A credit card holder.

LMBoaC: Uh, no, that's OK.  Just close the account please.

HCL: I'm sorry I can't do that.  I will have to transfer you to someone else who can.

LMBoaC: Please do.

HCL: Before I transfer you, may I please have your daytime phone number?

LMBoaC: May I ask why?

HCL:  For account maintenance purposes.

LMBoaC:  Account maintenance purposes?

HCL:  Yes, so that we can maintain your account.

LmBoaC: You mean the account that I am closing and will no longer be maintaining with your company?

HCL:  Yes.

LMBoaC: Do you see the irony in that?

HCL:  I'm sorry sir?

LMBoaC: Never mind.  No you may not have my daytime phone number.  Please transfer me to the person who can close my account now.

[Beep beep.  Hold music.]

HCL#2: To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking

LMBoaC: Define pleasure.  Oh never mind.  John Albin, that's A-l-b-i-n  [I always spell it because for some reason despite only two simple syllables, no one ever gets it.]

HCL#2: Yes Mr. [sounds like "elbow"], how may I help you this evening?

LmBoaC:  I would like to close my account?

HCL#2: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, may I ask why?

LmBoaC: Well you've changed the terms so as to make it unusable, and I have other cards that are better, so I don't see the point in keeping an account that you clearly don't want.

HCL#2: I'm sorry to hear that, is there anything I can do to change your mind?

LMBoaC: No thank you.

HCL#2: I'm sorry for the inconvenience, I'm sure you understand the reasons.

LMBoaC: It's no inconvenience to me.  You're the ones losing my business. 

HCL#2: Yes, but you understand that with the financial situation we have to change the terms.

LMBoaC: What financial situation?  My account is in good standing.  I pay my bills on time and rarely have a balance.

HCL#2: Yes, but the bank has been losing a lot of money.

LMBoaC: Not from me.

HCL#2: No sir, you are a very good customer.

LMBoaC: It's nice of you to say so.  Please close the account now.

HCL#2:  Yes sir.  Is there anything else I can help you with?

LMBoaC:  No thank you.  Just close the account.

HCL#2:  Just to let you know sir, after you close the account, you will not be able to use it.

LMBoaC: Yes, that's the point.

HCL#2:  Your account is now closed.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

LMBoaC: No inconvenience at all. Good night.

[Click]

The financial system is doomed. 

Wake up and smell the coffee

Proust had his madeleine, and I have my burger, doughnut and coffee, one whiff of which is capable of launching me into an almost hypnotic state of nostalgia.  It all goes back to an afternoon in the Village when I was maybe three or four years old.  On the corner of Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue, there's a coffee shop.  There has always been a coffee shop on the corner of Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue.  These days, it's called the Waverly Diner, or something similarly logical.  I think of it as the new place, even though it has probably been called that for 30 years.

Back in the day, though, it was called Twin Brothers, and it was a little more on the doughnut shop end of the continuum.  Back in the day, most diners were, and most were  called something like that -- Twin Brothers, Four Guys, Three Joes.  They all had the same neon and chrome motif, white Formica counter, soda fountain, round stools that a little kid can spin around on, and the smell of burgers, doughnuts, and coffee. 

At the time my family was living a few blocks away on the corner of Houston and Sixth, and we had some interesting neighbors, as people in the Village tended to have back then. Next door to us was a divorced mom named Cathy Phelps, with two kids about the same age as my sister and me named Peter and Susie.  It's not a given in New York that two families with kids the same age living next door to each other will become friends, because nothing interpersonal is a given in New York, but we did in fact all become friends.

Elsewhere in the building, there was a guy named Bob Gibson.  He had three daughters who were quite a bit older than us, and baby sat from time to time.  Bob was a famous folk singer, a prominent member of the generation that immediately preceded and mentored  Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and the like.  My parents were sort of beatnik-ish, and deeply involved in the anti-war movement, civil rights, and lefty causes, which made "folk singer" a respected profession in our household. 

At the age of three or four I was only very dimly aware of any of this sociology, but it was part of the background of life, and I was aware that Bob was somebody.  I was also dimly aware that there was something dark and wrong about him, that made others wary.  I have learned (through family reminiscence and reading up on the folk scene) that what was wrong was drug addiction.  Bob also had a brother named Jim, who wound up moving in with and marrying Cathy next door and become a presence in our lives thereafter (and who may also have shared some of his brother's troubles, though I'm not clear on this).

So anyway, there we all were, folk singers, junkies, college professors, divorcees, lovers, teenage daughters, and little kids in and out of each others apartments doing what ever it is that such people do.  [I can't speak for anyone else, but I had a serious Tinkertoy jones] Though they were little more than kids themselves, my parents tended to be the most adult and level headed figures around.  My father was often the only male possessed of basic urban family preservation instincts and common sense, and my mother was often the only female who knew how to keep people fed and clothed, acting as a den mother to all manner of strays throughout the sixties.

Anyway, where were we?  Ah yes burgers, doughnuts and coffee.  One thing that was definitely not a regular feature of daily life in the level-headed beatnik home was greasy spoon food.  My mother was a relatively serious cook and homemaker, and my parents were relatively broke in those days, so we didn't routinely go out for snacks, and when we did, they tended to be wholesome.  So one day, one of the Gibson girls (I don't remember any of their names) invited me on an adventure in search of snacks, and she took me in hand to Twin Brothers.  Immediately upon entering, I was greeted by the combined aroma of burgers on the griddle, coffee, and fresh doughnuts.  I spun around in circles on the stool and cautiously accepted the Gibson girl's offer of a bite of burger, a jelly doughnut and a glass of chocolate milk, sensing somehow that all this was contraband.

Soon, the snack was over, and it was time to head back down Sixth to Beatnik Towers.  We arrived home to furor and panic, my father searching the streets, my mother ready to call the cops, and Gibson adults in high dudgeon.  It seems that not only was the snack itself contraband, but conveying me to said snack without proper notice and authorization was a rather serious transgression.  After that incident, to the best of my recollection I was no longer entrusted to any Gibson girls, and I believe that very shortly after Bob's family imploded and disappeared from Beatnik Towers.

Ever since then, any time I have walked into or past a greasy spoon or doughnut shop and encountered that combination of aromas, this narrative plays out in my mind, with a vibrancy and certainty as strong as anything else in my memory. Literally, every time for my entire life, a jelly doughnut can serve up near total recall of an event that happened at the edge of memory and experience.  It also triggers a flood of memories about Cathy, Jim Peter and Susie, and the ways we would exit and re-enter each other's lives over the following decade or so, which is a story for another day.  Perhaps I'll head down to the coffee shop for a jelly doughnut and a glass of chocolate milk, find a Bob Gibson record on iTunes and see what happens.