Weirdies

I went to Aldi yesterday morning. Just as I finished unloading my groceries into the trunk, an old man pulled into the space next to me, rolled down the window, and said, "I'll take your shopping cart."

I waited as he got out and found the requisite quarter. The quarter-cart swap made, I was going to leave when he said (in a loud, booming, cheerful voice), "I just spent two hours over at the gas station talking to my buddy."

Uncertain as to the appropriate response to this, I nodded and said something at least as profound as, "That's nice."

And then, in the charming habit of old people and small children, assuming that one of us was likely deaf so that every statement must be repeated twice to be certain of being heard: "I was over at the gas station talking to my friend for two hours. I do that now- go talk to him, then come here to get groceries."

And then I left.

J.D. Salinger could have written something about this, right? He wrote about children, but old men are really the same thing, in disguise.
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I didn't have time to take all the groceries in from the car. Always late to work. But then I realized the tortillas might not survive the heat of the day in the trunk. So I stuck them in my backpack so as to take them inside to work. I mentioned something about the tortillas.

Nate said, "I want one."
Neb: "What, a tortilla?"
Nate: "No, a Lear Jet." (One was flying overhead.)

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I dropped off my paperwork at Lehigh Tuesday afternoon. Arriving at campus right around 4:45, I parked and didn't put a coin in the meter, dashed over to the Graduate Programs Office, uncertain if they closed at 4 or 5.

Just as I got there, three ladies were walking out of the office and said "We're locking up." I asked if I could just drop off the papers I had, so one of the nice secretary-type ladies took them. "Oh," she said, "You're Nancy! I remember that we sent you a series of letters: admission, then the TA, then the Fellowship. Congratulations on getting that!"

And I said, Thank-you, and wondered how she remembered me out of the Sea of Grad School Applicants...? How many grad students ARE at this school, anyway? (I just checked. A little over 2000, total, for the University, which means this lady dealt with... maybe 200 admitted students? She's Arts and Sciences only.)

I didn't get a parking ticket.