Virtual Scapegoat

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

I was in line at El Pollo Loco the other day. Wait, to clarify, I was standing in front of the register and there was no one else in line with me. I was the line.

There were other people there waiting for their orders. And there were employees bustling about the kitchen, moving about the back where they have their offices, cooking in the kitchen, and one woman was making sure everyone got their orders.

No one was looking at me. Not any of the people standing next to me. Not a single employee. The seconds and minutes began rolling by. Some people seemed to see past me, or to see to the side of me.

I’ll preface the rest by saying that I am an agnostic, closer to an atheist than anything else. However, I’m open to suggestion, being proven wrong, or just one day waking up and feeling wrong. (Less likely, I’ll eventually succumb to my Jesus Boy Bus Crush’s attempts to convert his fellow commuters so that he might consider sticking his tongue down my throat.)

When I’d been standing for about 4 minutes, I was gripped with a sudden fear/realization that I might possibly be dead, and no one could see me. I wracked my brain to remember a close encounter with a car that I thought I’d narrowly missed. I felt the walkman in my hand. It felt solid. I felt solid. But I was glued to my position and too startled to actually scream, “CAN YOU PEOPLE SEE ME? PLEASE TELL ME YOU CAN SEE ME. HERE, SIR, TOUCH MY FACE. IS IT NOT FLESH? AM I NOT CORPOREAL? ATHEISTS CAN’T BE GHOSTS!”

The feeling lasted for about 5-10 seconds, but the panic was acute and very real. Sure, it was panic influenced by movies like The Sixth Sense and The Others, but it felt more real than fiction. I’m certain I wasn’t just putting myself on for my own deranged amusement. Then again....

For at least 10 seconds, I thought I was a ghost, a specter, a spook, a wraith, a thing of airy nothing without habitation or a name (to twist around Shakespeare's words).

And why is this a confession?

Because it’s embarrassing! I really thought I might have died because no one at El Pollo Loco was available to take my order and, by extension, was refusing to acknowledge my existence.

And when the woman behind the counter finally said, “May I take your order?” I first wanted to kiss her feet and then I wanted to become irate about her poor customer services skills. Why couldn’t she have just looked at me and said, “Be with you in a minute, flesh and bone alive person!”

Then I wouldn’t of had to experience a crisis of (lack of) faith or my own existence.

I confess that I'm apparently a crazy person.