Tiny graces

My insurance guy retired recently, a fact I discovered when I got a phone call from my New Insurance Guy about some papers that I needed to sign. On the phone, after his delightfully man-voiced spiel about I CAN SAVE YOU MONEY PLEASE GOD LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY Oh by the way do you need homeowner's coverage? he casually mentioned it. By the way, Gary's retired, did you know?

Why no, I did not. I kind of assumed you were Gary's overly enthusiastic new intern. But okay.

Most people, I know, aren't particularly attached to their insurance guys, but most people have not spent the entirety of their driving years being insured by Gary. To clarify, Gary is an old Army buddy of my dad's. Gary was not only the guy who paid for my rental car, but one of the guys who'd drink beer in the garage, one of the guys whose daughters I played with on the front lawn while the sun faded in the distance and our parents laughed inside.

Every time I had an accident or a ticket, my phone would ring a predictable three days later, and on the other end, you guessed it, was Gary: Lindsay Marie, what on earth were you thinking?

So to be fair, I pretty much had the best insurance guy in the whole entire world. And finding out that he had retired and my business had been handed to some stranger (well, arguably, considering that his office was just down the way in a town of 4000 people (when I called for directions today I got "Oh, sure, hon, just come north two blocks from the Harvest Market!")) was a little depressing. End of an era depressing.

But change comes, and men get older and want to play golf instead of selling insurance policies, so I accepted what was given me and drove up to my hometown today to sign a new policy (one that, indeed, is saving me a ridiculous amount of money) and to meet Gary's replacement, a man with whom I have no history.

Or so I thought. Until I mentioned my disappointment over the loss of Gary (and yet another connection to my long gone dad), and New Insurance Guy kind of looked at me anew, head cocked to the side, and said "Wait, who's your dad?"

The second the name crossed my lips the response was in the air, sunshine and daffodils and furry puppies everywhere. "Sure!" New Insurance Guy said, "Sure! He was the readiness NCO here at the armory - I served under him until 1992. He was such a good guy." He shakes his head. "So you're Bob's girl. I never would have guessed." Truthfully, I look so much like my mother I may as well have never had a second DNA donor.

Turns out, my New Insurance Guy is...an old Army buddy of my dad's. And no, he's no Gary, but you take what you get, right? Lemons, lemonade, and suddenly someone who knows that you're Bob's girl, an identity you used to shine up every day and wear proudly like a badge, an identity you haven't worn in so many years that it's no longer contoured to your body.

I'll go ahead and take the New Insurance Guy, and his smiling reminder that I'm still that little dark haired girl with the palm tree obsession who held Daddy's hand whenever possible and was known around town as Bob's girl. Yeah, I'll take it.