Love at Culver's

Finding love on the road.

In the months that my dad was dying, I fell in love with the car rental guy.*

On my trips to see my dad, the people I saw over and over became part of the trip.  Every time I returned the rental car, there was Darnell, smiling despite the fatigue of being on his feet all day, and having two small kids at home.  It was a bright moment in a hard trip. 

I also fell in love with Chelsea, who was always at the hotel desk, working the night shift.  When she could get extra hours, she appeared in the daytime, too.  She told me one night that her fiancé broke up with her without warning.  She and her three young children were devastated. 

The other object of my affection was Cindy, a woman my age who worked at Culver’s.  She never failed to offer a huge smile, and was patient with every customer.  When people would ask, “Can I have ________?” she always answered with a lilting, “Sure you can!”  One day, she apologized for being slow at the register.  “I’m so sorry.  I get confused sometimes.  I work at Culver’s and McDonald’s, too, and the registers are slightly different.”  It’s a rare gift, to see into a stranger’s life.

Love is nothing more, and nothing less, than micro-moments of connection, psychologist Barbara Fredrickson says.  It’s the smile from someone on the other side of the counter.  The laugh with a stranger.  The conversation at the dog park.  The shared eye roll with another parent. She notes that “when you really “click” with someone else, a discernible yet momentary synchrony emerges between the two of you, as your gestures and biochemistries, even your respective neural firings, come to mirror one another…Love is a biological wave of good feeling and mutual care that rolls through two or more brains and bodies at once.” 

We get bigger doses with siblings and partners, co-workers and friends, and it also happens with strangers. 

Eye contact is the secret sauce.  We can catch the emotions of the people around us.  Dr. Fredrickson says that makes our chances for love – “defined as micro-moments of positivity resonance – nearly limitless.”

One slow night, Cindy at Culver’s explained to me that she worked a bunch of shifts at McDonald’s in January, enough to start her health insurance for the year.  After that, one shift a week was enough to keep the insurance.  She confided that she liked working at Culver’s better.  “At McDonald’s, I told them that Culver’s pays better, which it does.  But really the manager at McDonald’s is terrible.  One of those people who sucks all the fun out of the day.”  (Take note, places with hourly employees.) 

Service workers think no one notices their work.  They’re wrong.  The residue of a friendly person vs. a grumpy one lasts a long time. 

You can demand that employees be polite; you can’t compel them to be kind.  You can get people to do tasks; you can’t tell them to create a moment of connection.  The gift of a little more – from either side of the counter -- makes all those everyday interactions more human.  Even filled with micro-moments of love. 

The world is tough right now.  I wonder how many more strangers I can fall in love with. 

*When I told this to my husband, he said, “Damn, couldn’t you have chosen a plumber?”

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