Old or Former Friends?

Every single day I interact with approximately 300 people. I love that aspect of my job. Occasionally, I even see people I know or have known some time during my life. This week was one of those times.

I was going to survey a couple standing in the shade. It's very warm here already, but I thought they looked familiar. The man was wearing a WV hat and shirt. I asked him if he was from Morgantown-home of West Virginia University. He said no he lived in a little town near Charleston. "Really" I said. "So what's the name of this little town." "You wouldn't know it." "Okay, but try me." It's called Belle, West Virginia." "No Way!" was my answer. He looked at me confused. I used to live in Belle ( I don't tell everyone that info) and went to DuPont High School. So I started to ask him another question, and his wife called me by my "maiden" name. And, her voice and demeanor allowed her maiden name just "JUMP" into my mouth. "Name Right?" (Remember I'm not using personal names any more) She shook her head yes. Wow! It really "IS" a small world.

This person is ABSOLUTELY the very last person I would have expected to see at our type of park. She was never one for "having fun" and apparently she still isn't. She said probably 3 words to me the 20 or so minutes I was standing there. Her husband, on the other hand, was very polite and started through the list of people that we both had once known. Most of them are either dead or in an assisted living place or maybe close to both at the same time. I'm not one to "reminisce" about old times that were not particularly that eventful or worth remembering, so I'm not really listening to all he is saying, but the look on her face was the very same one I remember as a child. "Condescending, snobby, almost even "bored out of her gourd" look.

Is this look supposed to convey something or she is just constipated, who knows, but it was so her. It could also be the fact that we constantly made fun of her as a child, or she never was very intelligent and I just can't handle stupid, I don't know. I just thought it was very "interesting" to see these people again, and they really hadn't changed much. Too bad. Life is too short to not enjoy your life.