Taking Candy From Strangers

I trust people at face value. One could say its because I have always been surrounded by relatively safe Mennonite Communities and to my chagrin that is a possibility. But I like to think I am more knowledgeable than that and this trust comes from me, nature, not stifling nurture.

The summer makes me bonkers as does Christmas break. I cant be at home all day it feels like life isn't happening. "I am missing life!" I will whine laying face down on the living room carpet as dignified 20 year old women are wont to do. My mom send me on errands because somehow to her that is an adequate solution to my disillusionment. Sometimes it works sometimes I meet people.

 I take my time in the cereal aisle and ask the elderly lady next to me whether the "Giant" brand of Honey Bunches of Oats is as good as the Bunches themselves. She tells me they are adequate. I tell her I like her necklace, I really dont feel anything towards it. She tells me how she bought it from a man who set up a booth downtown, she tells me how he is from Africa, she tells me how she used to have to place textbooks on the sides of her typewriter in college because you needed to press the keys so hard it would spring around, she tells me that someday she wants to visit her high school best friend in Greenland. I buy the "Giant" brand.

I flick through the cartons of half price vinyl. I ask the owner what his current favorite is. He talks to me about Amanda Palmer. He shows me glossy pink album art. The small Record shop doesn't have air-conditioning and as he speaks wet runs from his hairline down his pocked cheeks and leak off his several loose chins. He offers to sell the album to me for half-off. It makes me feel slimy. I say no thanks and go home and lay on top of my childish green comforter and listen to The XX not Amanda Palmer.