“Why are you short staffed?” I asked. 

He responded so quickly the words practically exploded out of his mouth. “Because people are lazy and don’t want to work!” 

I tilted my head, a bit surprised by his outburst. He laughed self deprecatingly. “Well you know, haha, I mean it’s just hard to find people willing to take a job…” he trailed off.

I was sitting across the desk from a man who claimed he was interviewing EVERY person who had applied for the job which we were discussing. 

Yet although I had officially applied on the appropriate website for this position, I hadn’t received a call from him for this interview. He only scheduled it when someone on his staff informally introduced us and mentioned that I had applied.  Then that same staff person strongly suggested he meet with me.

Twenty four hours later, I found myself sitting across from him. 

​“Well you must have done something to provoke him…,” her voice trailed off.
​
“Yeah,’ I replied, “I did something alright…I existed…”

I walked away shaking my head.

I was so frustrated. I was telling someone about a recent experience in which a man approached me in the grocery store, and paid me a compliment about my smile. I said thank you, and turned back to my shopping.

I thought that was the end of it.

Then he asked for my number. I politely replied that I don’t give it out, but thanked him again for his kind words a moment ago.

And that’s when things took a weirdly dangerous turn.

​I once had a man of God, a preacher, tell me I was full of hubris and headed straight for damnation. He was furious because I told him I didn’t need a poorly written book, and sitting quietly in a big building being lectured at weekly, to know how best to live my life.

Perhaps I should have phrased it a bit differently.

After all, he was very concerned for my soul.
I, however, wasn’t sure he knew what my soul looked like.

He angrily asked HOW I KNEW right from wrong, if HE (or someone like him instructed in the ways of GOD - all caps emphatic in his voice) hadn’t told me what was what?

​There is something magical about hanging out on top of a mountain, eating cherries, and laughing with your friends over life’s odd moments. 

I find it easier to talk when the world - with all it’s distractions of pings, clicks, likes, advertisements, shoulds/buy me/pay attention to what I’m saying because if you don’t you won’t be accepted/wanted/valued - is far below you. 

Even better when your cell service is listed not as 5G but as SOS…(which I define as shizzle out of service).

“I’m sorry. But can I make a reservation?”

I’m sitting on a train to Boston. The seats are wide and comfortable. For the most part, things are quiet, other than the occasional murmur of a conversation. 

A few stations ago, a group of young women got on the train. They were trying to sit near each other. I cleared the seat next to me for one of them, and went back to reading my book.

“I’m sorry to bother you but…”

It was her friend’s voice across the aisle that broke into my concentration. None of them were loud, but it was the “I’m sorry” that kept me re-reading the same paragraph.

In the space of a less than two minute conversation, the girl had said it SIX times.