An incident the other night brought the reality of my life of privilege into clarity and it involved a lost scarf. I don’t have a life of privilege because I’m very wealthy or particularly personable with many friends, it is largely based on my innocuous appearance and relatively polite manners.

If you were creating a dictionary with the term innocuous in it you might be well-served to put my picture on the entry. I’m not particularly large or imposing, I’m white, my features are regular and I’m decent looking without being overly handsome or particularly striking. I’m just a normal looking fellow and I try to treat strangers politely with a smile and a kind word, I save my dark side for family and friends, just ask them.

In any case, on with the story. I was out drinking with a friend and we met a nice young lady. Over the course of the evening she left her scarf at one of the places we visited that night. I happen to live in the neighborhood in question and offered to pick it up the next morning. I walked over to the establishment and politely asked if anyone had turned in a scarf. The woman behind the counter insisted that I describe the scarf and said she couldn’t hand it over without such a description. I was startled by this encounter, the reason being, normally when I ask for something politely, people assume I’m telling the truth and comply.

I think it’s an exaggeration to suggest if I politely asked to borrow the sidearm of a law enforcement officer, she or he would hand it over, perhaps admonishing me to be careful with it, but it is not much of an overstatement. I’m quite used to walking into places and asking for a little special treatment without any difficulty whatsoever. Can I have some fruit on the side even though it’s not on the menu? Can you plug in my phone for a bit? My ride is on the way, can I just leave the hospital after my procedure and wait for them outside by myself?

Who knows how many times my life of privilege has aided me without me noticing. When someone actually challenges me, it’s startling. What, do you think I wander into places and steal scarves from the lost and found? Do people do that? They probably do, what do I know, I have a life of privilege.

While I recognize that my appearance has more than a little to do with my life of privilege, I do credit my polite manners with at least some of it, so, pat on the back.

Tom Liberman