Invisibility

I first noticed it when I was about 45 years old or so. At the time I hadn’t even begun to think of myself as old. I was so busy being, as I saw it , young, that it hadn’t occurred to me that I had at some point, already passed, become old. At least I think it was “old” that caused the invisibility. When I had been, previously, at some point in time, “young” I had been consistently visible.

But on that day when I must have been forty five or so I was in line waiting to approach the young person of undetermined gender who would be responsible for transmitting my request for a Big Mac to whomever or whatever it was that disgorged such culinary masterpieces to people such as I who requested them.

As my turn came I became aware that the young person was looking through me to the other young person of undetermined gender who was in the line immediately behind me. “May I help you?” the undetermined gendered server person who couldn't see me said. “Big Mac, large fries and a small chocolate shake” I said. I was assuming that I was imagining my state of invisibility.

As if from a tandem tape recording, I heard the person behind me order a cheese burger and a coke. Its voice perfectly overlaid mine.

And, momentarily, a cheeseburger and a coke appeared.

I thought of yelling, but I chose instead to remove myself from the venue.

From that point on I lived in a nether world from which I could not be seen by members of that cadre of persons of undetermined gender who lurked at the counters of every source of service that had been invented to date by the highly lauded service economy of the United States of America. As time went on, invisibility became the lesser of two problems. I gradually became aware that I didn’t speak the language that was apparently evolving from the mass of those individuals of undetermined gender. So whether I could be seen really didn't matter any more.

But what the hell.