Life In a Mid-Sized Town

It was the day -- no, rather, the moment -- when I realized that all aspects of my public existance had effectively changed. Actually, scratch that. It was the moment when I realized that I actually *had* a public existance...

I was walking on campus with a colleague, he ran into friends, we stopped, they chatted. Polite introductions were made, small talk ensued. I was mid-sentence when, from a block away, I hear a male voice yelling my name.

Now, sure, I've been back on campus for a few months at this point and have started to build a tidy little network of coworker-people-I'm-sorta-friendly-with-but-probably-wouldn't-be-if-we-didn't-work-together, but its still fairly unusual for me to run into folks when I'm out and about. Even here, in the Mid-Sized Town (hencewith to be referenced as MST) that I now call home. After all, its been more years than I'd like to count since I graduated and moved away, so college friends are long gone and, thus, social run-ins are a fairly infrequent occurance in my day-to-day life.

He yells my name again. This time with a degree of certainty and confidence one would expect only from a friend or close acquaintance (long-lost or otherwise).

I turn around. My group of new friends stands silent, waiting for some sign that I've been able to identify The Mystery Voice. Glancing down the block, I see just two mail carriers standing aside their mail delivery vehicle. Both are looking my way but its summer term...there's hardly anyone on the street...who yelled my name, I wonder? Coulda sworn it came from that direction...

I turn back to my new acquaintances.

"I was your mail carrier at 1223 Ferry Street back in 1996!"

Holy.

Freaking.

Crap.

Now, I know its actually not necessary to point this out, but its 2005 right now. That's a nine year spread. Almost a full decade during which this mail carrier has conceivably delivered millions of letters (billions maybe) to thousands of other young women. Does he have a photographic memory? How in the world did he recognize me from so far away? And from behind no less? Better question: should I run?

And then it occurs to me. Sure, there's a marginal possibility he's been carrying a torch for me over the past nine years or he might be a pervert or perhaps just maybe I used to wait around for the mail to come every single day and then bound out of my apartment into the waiting arms of said mail carrier to take possession of the long-awaited latest issue of Mademoiselle and a rent check from my dad.

But I don't think that's it.

Its the Mid-Sized Town phenomenon. MST residents are universally nice, to be trusted, genuine, sincere. And everyone knows everyone. Even in a town where 10% of the entire population is comprised of students...14,000 kids who arrive each fall and disappear each spring... when you live here, you remember names...faces...and apparently even addresses. Even after nine years.

So, even though to most city-dwellers (read: normal people), the mail carrier incident seems kinda super freaky and really semi-frightening and you'd think I should totally get like the license plate off of his little letter delivery buggy or something...when you live in a MST, there's a reality that one must come to accept.

No one is anonymous.

Now *that's* some scary shit.