Whereabouts: Austin, Texas.
I picked up the phone and waited for the blank TV screen in front of me to show a person. I had never been to a bank where they had a system like this. Felt a little futuristic, for someone like me who lives under a rock. With a huge smile and bursting energy, a woman in her thirty’s with beautiful ebony skin and braided hair tied in a half-ponytail greeted me.
“Are you fasting?”
Even though it was Ramadan, I was slightly surprised by her question. In my grumpy mood, I was not hoping or expecting to have a pleasant and informed conversation with my bank teller. “Yes, yes I am!” I replied.
“My husband is fasting, too. I wake up every morning to make him breakfast.” She didn’t sound the least bit annoyed, unlike me who moments before this interaction had been grumbling to myself about fasting.
Inquisitively, being careful not to sound condescending, I asked, “Are you Muslim, too?”
“No actually, I’m not!”
I told her that I was really touched by her being so wonderful as to wake up at the crack of dawn to give her husband company and support him in his fasting, and that I think she was going to get a million blessings for it.