"Only your father could take a part-time job at a small town paper and wind up the target of international assassins." - Marge, The Simpsons

All of Fairbanks, gathered for our annual equinox virgin sacrifice and beer fest.

Fairbanks is a small town, and being a small town, pretty soon you’re close to knowing everybody. If you recall the “six degrees of separation” theory, e.g., everyone’s within six people of knowing everyone else (i.e., I know Kevin Bacon, and Kevin Bacon knows this trashy starlet, who was the illicit lover of a former President, who knew the Pope, so therefore I could call the Pope and ask, “Hey, what’s with the hat?”), well, in Fairbanks I think that number drops to one or two at most. Three would get you all of Alaska.

This closeness has implications. If you steal a tank and tear up most of downtown Fairbanks, chances are that one of the cars you drive over in your drunken rampage will be that of someone you know – and that could be awkward at the next Christmas get-together. Nothing challenges a friendship like driving over your friend’s car in a tank.

In truth I was sitting in the parking lot of a local store, waiting to turn left. Left turns are the worst, especially with traffic in Fairbanks at rush hour. You might have to wait 35-45 seconds for an opening in traffic. So, I’m waiting at the stop sign (having been there 20 enraging seconds already), and then a mother with a passel of kids in a minivan pulls into the center lane to turn into a local fast-food restaurant (McNanookburger). Instead of turning at the next opportunity, the lady behind the wheel turns back to do something with her kids. Enraged by the now thirty-second wait, I think about honking the horn. I recall, however, that my horn is inoperable when the temperature drops below thirty (I have no idea why). I think that the universal “gesture of peace” might be more appropriate. I consider lifting my arm.

I then recognize the driver of the car. She’s my next-door neighbor.

That’s the difference in living in a small town. Everyone knows who you are. Everyone knows if you’re the guy who flips his next-door neighbor the bird because she pulls a doofus traffic move while her son is yakking up a chicken bone. You don’t want to be that guy.

There is extraordinarily little anonymity here. Consequently, most service clerks feel utterly free to treat you like you’re family, i.e., rudely or poorly. Last night I took The Mrs. out to dinner. As we were celebrating an anniversary, I took her to a place where the food doesn’t show up at the table wrapped in paper. I ordered iced tea. Beyond taking fifteen minutes for it to show up, I got one refill. Sigh.

So, do you nuke the poor waitress for poor service? Nah. She’s your boss’s daughter. Or your boss’s best friend’s daughter. Or the daughter of the guy who fixes roofs. You don’t really have that option, unless your self employed and can stop water from pouring into your own house. Plus, the waitress might have a gun and be a better shot than you.

Example: I went to Barnes and Noble the other day for their blockbuster opening here in Fairbanks. It was like an orgy of bibliophiles was released from prison into a sea of bookish love. The place was packed. The store manager declared it was one of the biggest opening days in the history of Barnes and Noble. The Mrs. and I went there on Friday, two days after the grand opening. There were five cashiers working, and the line was still forever long. The people in front of us each had fifty to seventy-five pounds of books that they were buying.

I think Fairbanks has more readers than average, what with the winter and crappy cable and all. It’s the same reason we have higher than average alcohol consumption, and greater number of kids per family. You have to have something to do in winter. This was a pent up fury of book loving people intent on grabbing their books on everything from string theory to lesbian studies, which in some metaphysical way might be joined, but I’m not gonna go there.

Barnes and Noble had released a joyous eruption of words, and the people of Fairbanks responded by buying everything they could at once, as if unsure that Barnes and Noble wouldn’t disappear into the night like Eddie Van Halen’s boyish good looks.

And, they have cappuccino. I like cappuccino. I ordered one. “Do you want that wet or dry?” I still have no idea what the difference is, but they gave me a cappuccino that was perfectly tasty and kept me up all night. Now everyone in town knows how I have no idea how I like my cappuccino, merely that I like it.

That was a huge digression. The nice thing about Fairbanks is the store was packed with people we knew. And every one (even the half-dozen folks we didn’t know) of them was polite, except the one that flipped me off on the way home because I was helping The Boy yak out a chicken bone instead of driving.

Glad I’m not that guy. But I have a long memory.