Mark, the eldest daughter, and I were walking Piper the other night when a woman approached us. I thought she was going to comment about the weather (a common topic as people pass each other on the street around here!) but the conversation went sideways right from the get-go. And it wasn’t about the wind chill.
“So how do you like living in a POLICE STATE,” she asked. The look on her face suggested she was hoping we would commisserate. We pretty much stopped in our tracks. Then she made a comment about how the regular flu kills more people than Covid does.
I was tongue-tied. Mark took the direct approach.
“No,” he said. “No, it doesn’t.”
She balked. “GO AHEAD AND DRINK THE KOOL-AID,” she muttered as she walked away.
There was more to the exchange, but my memory is not my friend today.
I yelled something, not at her, but directed at what she had just said. I released it up at the sky, just to get it out of me. Something about living a long life, but I can’t remember the exact words now.
It was such an odd exchange between strangers that it almost feels like a dream. Did it really happen?
