Just ask Pat, who will tell you this is one of the many reasons he hates going to the grocery store with me. I am a magnet for strangers starting up conversations with me. And in my opinion, contrary to what Pat thinks, I don't believe I do anything to provoke it.
It can be something as simple as me standing in the line at the grocery store checkout with burgers and hamburger buns in my shopping cart. The woman in front of me sees the ingredients and says, "looks like you're having a cookout..." and then proceeds to tell me all about the picnic in the park she just had in which a family of racoons came down from the tree and took away their food.
Seriously. Other than the contents of my shopping cart, I did nothing to lure that woman to share her story with me. And there are many, many more examples of such occurrences. My last two trips to the grocery store involved a woman telling me about her love for Reese's peanut butter cups as she reached over me to grab one and went on to tell me all of the other peanut butter products on the market right now that I should try - including peanut butter pop tarts, and a mom telling me about her son's obsession with any type of food that contains carbohydrates). Both are true stories.
As I'm sitting here reflecting on the situation, I'm realizing that unfortunately, the common denominator is not the random people around me - they are always different. And sometimes, these Emscapades happen alone without a random person. The common denominator is me. Maybe Pat is right.
Have you ever seen those flow charts that ask you questions and depending on your answers, take you in completely different directions? Pretend that one line is Pat and one line is me and our reactions to such situations dictate the direction of these random conversations. We would both handle them very differently and thus, would have very different outcomes.
Take the raccoon picnic lady, for example. I wouldn't say that Pat would respond in a rude way, per say, if she would have made the picnic comment to him in the checkout line. But I would argue that he wouldn't engage in a conversation. He would probably politely smile or give one word answers to her questions and comments. Therefore giving the conversation nowhere to go but fizzle out.
I, however, would never want to be perceived as rude so I do engage in these conversations. I give more than one word, short answers and am genuinely interested (most of the time) in what they have to say. I like to talk. So sue me.
I've had a few of these Emscapades recently that I've been told are "blog worthy" so I decided to start this series. Rather than go back in time and share every checkout experience I've had at the grocery store in my lifetime, I'm going to start with the most recent occurrences which include the last week in June to present. Then I will try to keep up with the series as they happen.
Sound like fun?
To be continued...
Comments