My pleasure

A twelve-piece nugget in the uncanny valley.

Each suburban parking lot looks the same when you squint hard enough. Find yourself in Duluth, Minnesota parked in a quiet corner between the Home Depot and the Barnes and Noble and you could be in Tempe or Houston. When I got my driver’s license at sixteen, I found solace in the ritual of a twelve-piece nugget eaten behind the steering wheel of a car. After school, I’d slump into the driver’s seat, the black leather warm after a tiresome day in the student parking lot. I didn’t bother calling my mom to ask what was for dinner. I found myself, wordlessly, in the Chick-fil-A drive thru, my debit card at attention as dutiful and methodical as an epipen.

The high school seniors, clocked in for their after-school cashier shifts, their loose-fitting polos slipping out of their khakis, exchanged their ‘Thank you’s and ‘My pleasure’s, all a means to an end: the familiar heat of a white paper bag, heavy and uniform, sitting ever so patiently in the passenger seat while I found my perfect quiet corner of the parking lot.

In New York, there’s little access to the comfortable invisibility I used to feel as a teenager behind a gear shift set in park. I relished in the guilty pleasure of a cookies and cream milkshake behind tinted glass, or the private joy of an extra honey mustard hiding at the bottom of the takeout bag. In New York, many pleasures are public, with ample opportunity for shame. Bites of pain au chocolat on the subway platform leave a brazen dusting of powdered sugar on my lapel. A lick of ice cream on a stoop in August disobediently stains my jeans with a glob of dark chocolate, distracting and unnerving.

This summer, a family vacation to Yellowstone took a detour when my dad suffered stroke-like symptoms and was airlifted via helicopter three hours away to an emergency room in Idaho Falls. My mom and I followed behind in our rental car as the sulphuric pools of the national park shifted into long, wide farm land. My dad was heading into his MRI as we arrived at the hospital. I left behind a half-eaten Subway tuna sandwich in the backseat, which I regretted later. When he returned, we sat and sat and sat, the technician taking his time reporting the results. I grabbed the car keys and left. I’d pick my mom back up when the results came through.

A twelve-piece Chick-fil-A nugget meal found itself in the passenger seat a short drive later. I settled on a parking spot next to the movie theatre across the street, all neon-ed out and chrome. The lobby was dark and the last movie goers of the night headed back home in their sedans. Hidden behind tinted glass, a steaming waffle fry burnt the roof of my mouth.

Any fast-food shop or big-box retailer in an unfamiliar town is a portal to the uncanny valley. You’ve been here many times. It sort of smells the same. But the ketchup packets are found on the opposite end of the counter and the bathroom stall opens left instead of right. From my point of view I could have been anywhere between Jackson and Cincinnati. The Jason that took my order in Idaho Falls might as well have been the Chase that served me a milkshake in Florida, or the Justin that refilled my Coke in Texas, all archetypal and polite. I dunked a nugget in ranch and shook off the unease. I shamelessly wiped away ketchup stains and licked the salt from my fingers with glee.

Back home in New York, why should I be so quick to hide these simple delights? On a crowded F train or busy Williamsburg sidewalk, why not embrace the inevitability of the private moment in public: the sticky ice cream cone staining my nail beds, or the dash of cookie crumb tumbling from my chin? If you cant beat ‘em, join ‘em. Maybe I should just let them watch.