My human era

I’m on the phone with a bank. Their hold music sounds like the theme from Monster’s, Inc.

I’m about to talk to my 4th person today. We’re attempting to set up mobile banking, and my next step is to recruit a hacker from Moldova to get into my account because that will be easier.

“Listen, don’t make me reset my password. I’m just going to forget it and have to change it again anyway.” 

“Can I put you on hold?” 

“Sure.”

I’m considering going professional at being on hold with banks. Once, I signed up for a Premium Platinum Rewards Sapphire Reserve First-Class Taylor Swift Edition Travel Card to pay for our delayed honeymoon to the UK — it made every travel plan a game of roulette, like when we got to Newcastle upon Tyne after midnight, and the hotel we’d booked didn’t exist anymore. Who hasn’t wanted to be on the streets of a foreign city with their bride lugging backpacks around and trying to find a hotel?

I’m in my human era. According to the internet, this is how we’re supposed to describe how we’re currently doing.

I realized this was truly my human era the other day when I was sitting in the parking lot of an Arby’s eating a poorly made Buffalo Chicken Wrap. My daughter had fallen asleep in her car seat coming home from church. Once she’s out, that’s the nap. No matter how Ethan Hunt I am, the transfer from the car seat to the crib fails.

I took a bite, and a mixture of buffalo sauce and ranch dripped down the front of my shirt. The Arby’s hadn’t given me any napkins, so I used one of my daughter’s burp cloths to wipe it up.

I have a wife and a daughter, and I own my home. I have checking, savings, and a 401k. I have a college degree, health benefits, and a coffee table that I didn’t pick up from the side of the road (Facebook Marketplace, next step up).

Yet, no matter how organized my life was, at that moment, I was a smelly human with buffalo sauce on my shirt sitting in a 4Runner. If I weren’t so exhausted from parenting a 10-month-old, I might have the brain energy to think I should be better than this. But I’m not. And no amount of discipline, hustle, grit, deep work, or habit hacking will change that. I’m human.

I’m not a pessimist. We can improve as people. Growth is good, and sitting here on hold, watching the daffodils and the hyacinth bloom outside my window reminds me that things can grow.

But as I’m transferred to my 5th customer service rep, I realize life is going to be annoying, it’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be tragic.

Yet the sauce on your shirt is still funny. The noises my daughter makes in her sleep are precious. There are too many moments of joy to honestly give up. The 5th-rep is Lisa, who makes silly jokes like asking for a drumroll when we get the online banking working.

I’m in my human era. This means frailty, sadness, joy, and hope are always outside my front door, inviting me deeper into reality. The only thing I have to leave behind is the idea that I should be any different.

Now, the online banking is working, I have to order a debit card, and Lisa is transferring me to another department.

“Ah yes, Hi, Nichole. Yes. I’m trying to order a debit card? Yes, my e-mail is samuel.scott@outlook.com. Sure, I can hold …”