Colorful People ~ Everybody has a story

Today's Blog ~ Have you ever met a soul so fascinating you feel COMPELLED to tell everyone else about them? You may or may not like them, but DAMN, they are DIFFERENT! I recently met one of those types.

It all started out normally enough. I was going through the grocery store, getting some last-minute stuff for dinner. It was one of those never-ending days, the kind that seem to stretch on forever and ever, filled to the brim with a thousand little tasks, all of them NEEDING to happen.

I had just gone through a HELLACIOUS meeting for PTO. All those volunteer women, needing their vehement hot-air gossip-strength channeled into new and useful directions. A meeting that should have taken an hour, stretched to it's absolute disgusting longest yet (This year!) time of 3 1/2 hours. I know, I know, I should be able to direct the topics more effectively than that, HOWEVER, you may be equally disgusted to know that previous presidents had let meetings ramble for 5+ hours REGULARLY. They just planned an entire afternoon for each meeting.
And some things really DID need to be discussed. Fall Carnival is coming up on the 10th, and Book Fair is Dec. 1st. Not to mention funding grants, AR Test purchases, reading lofts, and maintaining the bulletin board. Plus, we had to get the vote in on a new popcorn machine, budget limits, and crosswalk issues. As a result, I was actually looking forward to the chance to wander around a grocery store and think about dinner ONLY.

Now mind you, wandering about in a grocery store is sometimes mind-numbingly boring, but, as my mother always used to say to me ~ " Just sit and watch all the funny people go by." That went for any number of boring activities; waiting in the car for mom to get back ( back when people used to leave their kids in the car) , waiting in the doctor's office, waiting in line at the post office, even sitting at church. And I have often found that a sure cure to your own issues is seeing someone else's. Also, I like people. They fascinate me. I am sure my mother's initial directive had something to do with it, but truly, once you start doing this, it's a little addictive.

Now, I have often carried the ~Watch~ dictum a tad further. I like to say hello to people, strike up a conversation, and, ultimately, find out about them. I firmly believe everyone has a story, and I guarantee you, they are usually fascinating and colorful! All you need is eye-contact, a smile, and a bit of common ground. And generally the more colorful the person, the more open/less inhibited they are.

So, as I was wandering around the grocery store, watching people, I wandered on into the produce to get some tomatoes for taco salad. I usually grow my own, but this year, I had only gotten a few, and we had already used them up, lickedy-split! As a result, I am a little on the picky side of what I percieve to be ~acceptable enough store quality~, and tend to spend a ridiculous amount of time choosing out 3 or 4 tomatoes. I kept picking through the tomatoes, checking them for firmness, softness, color, etc. Eventually this man came up and started looking through the tomatoes as well. Right away, my sixth sense ~colorful person~ radar started going off. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see he was clueless about proper tomato quality, so I loooked over at him, caught his eye, and grinned.

BINGO! We have a winner! I said " Don't you just love the wax on these puppies?" Immediately he started laughing. "Uhm, there is WAX on the tomatoes?", & he gives me this sort of incredulous look.
"Oh yeah", I tell him, " that's why they have that sort of shiny glow to them."
"But, why would they do that?, and how do I tell which ones are good?", he says.
"Well, the wax helps preserve the tomato, since they pick them prior to actual ripening, and they want them to stay firm, but have good color", I tell him.
He picks up a tomato in each hand, and says, " How firm should they be?"

Ohh, the beauty of the moment, hehehehe. He could not have walked into my little game any easier! Maybe he was trying, I don't know, but it was great.
I said, " well, here," and gave him a firm tomato in one hand, and a soft tomato in the other hand. " Tell me which one you prefer, go ahead, give them both a little squeeze, see what feels the best. Sort of roll your fingers on them, and see if they give much."
He gave me this look of absolute amazement. "I should squeeze them?"
" Yeah, just give them a little squeeze, see what you think. See there, on that softer one, the stem goes up and down a tiny bit, that's too ripe, and this one the skin doesn't even move. That's too firm."
Then I handed him another one, just about perfect. "Here, squeeze this one, see, it's just right, has a little give in the skin, but doesn't make the stem move. There's your store-quality perfect tomato!"
His next words were priceless ~ " Can you show me some perfect melons?"
I sat there and grinned at him, watched his face go several colors of red, let him squirm for a second. It was great! Then, since the ice was obviously broken, I asked him what he was buying them for. You should have heard him stammer! I loved it!

Anyway, after that, he sat there and talked to me for almost TWO HOURS about this and that.
Apparently, he was there picking up some odds and ends for a supper he was supposed to be cooking for his mom, who was coming to visit. As it happened, he was trying to impress her that he had been able to ~batch it~ for so long, and had spent the last 3 days cleaning up his apartment. She was due in the next morning, but he had totally spaced food. I guess he had been eating out ever since he had moved here, and only owned 3 dishes. It wasn't that this guy was broke, either, he just hadn't bothered to buy any, because he always ate out.

Then, seeing some paint spattered on his jeans, I asked, had he been painting as well? His reaction was hilarious. He looked like a little boy who had just been caught splashing his face and calling it a bath.
"uhhhh, Yeah," he says, "I was, I, but, I changed my shirt, damn, do you think she'll notice? I finished this afternoon, and it said it was quick-dry, so I figured it'd be dry by the time she got here."
"Uhhhh, you might want to leave the windows open and turn on a few fans, might gass her out with paint fumes," I said, thinking, sheesh, alll this for your MOM?
So I said as much, and found out that his mother is actually the ambassador to some country, ( I can't say which one, no-one is even supposed to know he is here ~ :-d) and that he had left in huff, and said he could make it on his own. And NOW his mother was coming to check up on him. I started laughing, and asked him what exactly had he planned for meals, and was he going to cook them?
"Oh no, no, I just have to have some food around that she likes, to make it LOOK like I know what I am doing, so I can offer her a little something here and there, and take her out."
I asked him if he had a few nice dishes to serve food on, and some utensils to eat with, etc. He said , no, he didn't even have a knife to cut the tomatoes with, BUT he DID have this list of stuff he thought he should probably get.
First item on the list ~toilet paper~
I about died laughing.
Second, ~ hangers~
I laughed harder!
"Oh MAN, dude, you need HELP!," and I now have one more colorful friend on this green earth.