This was a week of meeting random people.
On Tuesday, after I was done in Blocker Lab, I went over to get some food at Pie R Square ( a food place). I was sitting and eating by myself, studying for a test that was in 2 hours, then all of a sudden this sincere guy asked if he could sit with me, and I was like, “sure…that would be a delight” (I didn’t really want to study calculus anyways). Our whole “talk time” lasted for about 30 minutes, but it’s so amazing how I learned about this person. I don’t even remember his name, but I do remember his stories. One thing he told me was that last summer he literally walked the Appalachain Trail. He kinda had it planned, but not so much. All he had was a tarp and his brain. I asked him if he did any hitchiking, and he was like, “yea…I couple times.” “Cool,” I thought to myself. So, here I was, eating lunch, and thinking to myself, “wow…it’s so amazing how people see things differently. I could never imagine doing any of that, which is why it’s so cool to me.” Also, I have to add that he, from what I deduced from only talking to him one time, is a very “hippie” kind of person. He just had that sort of mentality about it. Yay. I got to talk to a hippie.
On Thursday, I was at the doctor, waiting for my prescription to be filled. There were 4 other people there, and there was that awkward silence that most people hate, so I decided to initiate a conversation. I was looking at this flyer about portion sizes or something like that, and I was just reading what it said to this one guy, because he looked fairly interested in it. We didn’t have that much time to talk, but I learned something about this person. He has a bad immune system. Reason: Well, last summer, he was told (at his job) to clean out a coke cooler with cleaner. Easy? Not quite. What his boss told him was to mix all purpose cleaner and bleach together. BAD BAD BAD BAD. What he didn’t do was dilute the bleach, and if any of you know chemistry, mixing ammonia and bleach together yields chlorine gas (which is green and deadly poisoness). He told me that his immune system hasn’t been the same ever since.
More random people please…
Posted by Courtney at April 30, 2004 03:03 AMThat is one of the things I love about Texas. When I was there for Xmas, I had a chat with an older man at the Braum's while waiting for the cashier to ring up my milk.
He talked about his wife and his time as soldier and the Veteran's organization. It's always nice to get into someone else's skin and experience a slice of a different life.
Posted by: mermu on April 30, 2004 08:39 AMOn one of our many bike rides last summer to Waller, we had just arrived at Stockman's for breakfast when this cute little old man was walking to his car. He engaged me in a conversation about bicycling and proceeded to tell me his wife of 47 (?) years had died within the last year and that he had just begun to "get out." He talked about what a wonderful marriage he had had for so many years and he missed he and it was hard to decide what to do. I think I remember his telling me that he was going to start dancing. Sweet old guy!
Posted by: Kathleen on May 4, 2004 11:05 AM