I'm not one to stride confidently down institutional corridors, sticking my head into rooms and asking is this spree eaters, is this babyshakers anonymous. I'm a wallhugger and a signreader, an arrowfollower and a squinter at directories. There are risks. Sometimes I end up in flickering sub-basements or echoing firestairs from which there is apparently no exit whatsoever. I like to wait in the car while someone else runs in real quick, god how I love that. Restaurant waiting lists, forget it. Someone else can give their name, that's their business if they want to open that whole can of worms. I prefer to avoid the warm human touch if there's a warm machine to touch instead. Even with machines there's occasionally a shudder of apprehension. If I try to insert my card the wrong way I feel a momentary flash of shame, the automatic teller a witness to my fumbling. Scrutiny is scrutiny, this is one of the salient lessons of the twentieth century. Just who is the automatic teller intending to tell so reflexively? When people I know die the first thing I think of is what unique excruciating memories of me they took to the grave, as if they are witnesses to a crime I committed but don't remember.