True Story*

It's not unusual for strangers to engage me in conversation when I'm out and about in the world. In the past month alone:

A croaky-voiced woman with lanky black hair approached me in the dishwares aisle at the Salvation Army. She started out pleasantly enough, talking about her daughter and her son-in-law. But all I did was blink and suddenly her monologue had become a vigorous harangue of President Obama. What surprised me was that she absolutely took my sympathy with her views for granted. It’s not like I was wearing my elephant sweater. She wasn't downright crazy, but she was definitely guilty of oversharing.

An elderly man at Trader Joe's stopped to say hi and chat with my boys. I was relieved when Nels answered his questions politely. I’ve been coaching my kids for just such a situation, because their natural inclination is to stare at the ground, feign deafness, and treat the unsuspecting stranger like a leper. I considered it a great success when the man told us about his happy memories of shopping with his mom and his own brother when he was a boy.

A harried woman in her late 60's (from Portland, she said, and Camas has changed since she used to come here all the time) stopped me on my way into the downtown Camas post office. She all but pleaded for directions to a particularly tricky-to-get-to local highway.

"I have an even older lady in the car with me," she said, "and she won't stop talking. It makes it very hard..." I wrote down the directions for her. She told me I'd done my good deed for the day.

A young grocery checker went on at length to me about his disapproval of another customer's use of food stamps to buy macaroons and a $15.00 piece of smoked salmon.

"Can I vent to you?" was how he started, and he proceeded to do so, though I’d rather he didn’t. There were no flashing glances of sympathy from the customer in line behind me; on the contrary, the longer he went on, the stonier her face got. She stood perfectly still, as though he might pounce on her next if she gave any indication of sentience. "I'm sorry, that's just my pet peeve," was how he finished, after what seemed like an awkward eternity.

Just today a grandfatherly man in line in front of me at Whole Foods was taking forever to return a $12.00 2-ounce bottle of organic hand sanitizer. He told me (among other things) how much he liked the fall colors I was wearing, and that he'd bought his wife a sweater almost exactly like the one I had on.

I guess I just look approachable. And for the most part, I'm glad that people feel comfortable talking to me. Because if they didn't, this wouldn't have happened at Fred Meyer today:

I had just picked up some ketchup when a young woman with a grocery list in her hand stopped me in the aisle next to the fancy vinegar and deplorable "cooking wine."

"Excuse me," she said, clutching her list, waving it for emphasis as she spoke.

"Do you have any idea what dry red and white wine for cooking are? Because I've looked at all these" –and she swept her arm toward the rows of bottles on the shelves— “and they're all the wet kind."

*With recent minor revisions.