the first one

I realized something. I miss documenting the stories of strange daily interactions. People do and say weird stuff. All the time. And I used to write it down.

I think I'll start again. And now, since everyone thinks this blog no longer exists...I have a secret blog. Here's the first post on my secret blog:

I went to The Book Thing the other day. As I rounded a shelf, a white man with white hair who looked to be about in his mid-fifties (But I could be wrong! I would never think to assign a fixed age to someone!) said to his friend:

Watch out, there's a young lady behind you. Or a little girl, I can't tell which, but she looks young either way.

Clearly he wanted me to respond. Why else would you say something like that? My response was to keep looking at books and not lift my eyes in his direction. After a second of processing, however, I did mutter under my breath, That's...really rude.

I suppose Rude Guy thought I hadn't heard him, so he tried a different approach to...insult me?

Rude Guy: What do you do?

me: (while giving him a blank look) For work?

Rude Guy: Yeah.

me: I'm a teacher.

Rude Guy: You look too young to be a teacher.

me: ...That's not really a polite thing to say to someone.

RG: You'll appreciate it when you get older.

me: I'm an adult.

RG: Most women like that. Oh...okay. Okay.

(RG walks away to pretend to look at different books.)

A minute later, a lady walked around the corner and whispered Well-handled! to me, and then I felt all triumphant and stuff.

Moral of the story: When you find yourself saying, within the first minute of trying to strike up a conversation with someone, Most women like that...you're doing it wrong.

Then again, if a toothless man who looked like he just walked in off the street had said that to me, I would've just chuckled and brushed it off. I suppose my expectations for appropriate comments are directly proportionate to the amount of teeth the speaker has.

(Thanks, secret blog. I needed that.)