Appreciation

Yesterday, while I was working at my desk, my cell phone rang, displaying an unfamiliar number. I was about to push the "silent" button when I noticed the area code was that of the east coast college I attended. I picked up the phone and said hello.

"Is this Michael?"

"Yes, it is." The young female voice was unfamiliar to me. Probably trying to sell me something.

"This is ______. I'm a currently a senior at ______." My school. "You're a recent graduate, right?"

"That's right."

"I'm calling on behalf of the Alumni Fund. You made a donation last year." Great. Here it comes.

"Yes, I did..."

"I just wanted to thank you for your support." Pause. Is that all she has for me?

"Oh... don't mention it. It was my pleasure." Following Tim's example, I donated $20.06--a sum corresponding to my graduation year--to the fund several months ago. I don't like being coaxed into spending money, but I felt bad, and I could afford at least a symbolic gesture.

"Well... thanks again." She seemed discouraged by my silence. Here voice was young and unsure, but adult somehow, neither small nor beseeching. Suddenly I felt like I was about to lose something valuable, or already had.

"Don't mention it," I say again, for lack of anything better. "I hope you have a great senior year."

"Thank you, sir. Have a nice day."

For a while after the call ended, I held the thin black cell phone open in my hand, looking into the mirror by my desk. What was that all about? I suppose they want to let the alumni know their giving is appreciated, no matter how small. That's smart business. And they get these kids to do it--current undergraduates, probably work-study employees of the alumni office.

Something seemed a little bit off. She was a senior. So, Class of 2008. Just two years below me. I should've recognized her name. I went to a small enough school. Maybe she was a hockey player, or a science major, or one of the other types of people with whom I had limited contact my last two years in college. If my cellphone were a videophone, would I recognize her face from my hours spent in the dining hall or at the campus post office? Might I have run past her on one of my nighttime jogs on the soccer field or the indoor track?

We could've known each other. But she seemed to have no idea who I was. Maybe that's why I was vaguely upset. Some of my best friends in college were '08s. I knew all of the musicians in that class, most of the actors. I may even know most of her friends. I'm sure she knows some of mine. But she might as well have been cold calling someone who graduated 30 years ago. At least she was nice.

In retrospect I wish I had asked her about herself. Anything to make it less awkward for us both, to head off this dawning intimation of vast, unexpected distance. And to let her know that, truth is, I appreciate her too.