I’m not sure whether it’s the people here, but I get some of the strangest reactions from people when I see them/meet them for the first time. I still haven’t gone strolling through the Mall of America yet, but aside from that… no one’s initiated any kind of interaction. Not even the people who know me.
Here’s an example. I started playing in a Tuesday soccer league last week—it’s at a local private school that uses the funky-recycled-rubber-tire-chucks for turf. (I discovered in the first game that if you slide on that stuff, it takes a couple minutes to pick all the little pieces out of your kneecaps.) Ours was a piecemeal team—a bunch of people signed up as individuals and got thrown together—so I hadn’t the slightest idea who to look for when I showed up at the field for the game.
A bunch of people were standing underneath the bleachers since it was raining fairly heavily for a while, so I wandered over there and started putting on my shinguards, cleats, etc. Then I heard someone off to the side say, “Hi Troné, I’m ______.” I didn’t catch the latter person’s name because I was busy jerking my head up and looking in that direction. Sure enough, it was Troné. Troné Bjorkedal.
While I doubt that name has any significance to you, it does to me—we graduated from high school together in ’95. After I realized it was her, I piped up, “Hi Troné, I’m Shawn!” She looked at me for a moment and said she’d watched my show. She asked if I’d had fun, stuff like that… given the way she responded to my “introduction,” I don’t think she remembered me from school. It’s not like we were the closest of friends, but when you’ve got a graduating class of about 100 people… very strange.
But the second example is stranger. Today, I went out to get a couple things laminated to preserve them for future generations to look at and wonder why the hell I would want to keep some crap that got published in People magazine. I brought in a copy of the magazine’s initial review of the show (2 ½ out of 4 stars… bastards…), a copy of the Bachelor issue that just came out and page 6D of USA Today from Wednesday, June 8th.
The last is most significant because we don’t get USA Today. I walked out to the mailbox on Tuesday, June 14th and sitting on top of everything was a full-page ad for Beauty and the Geek. It had some awesome blurbs from various sources (that weren’t People) saying that it’s “generous, warm and funny” and that “Ashton Kutcher is going to save TV comedy with a reality show…”. Who put it in with our mail, though… I haven’t the slightest idea. Probably not Troné.
Anyway, I figured that since I was getting just one page laminated from the recent article in People, I should buy a separate copy that I can keep around (just one more thing for future generations to wonder about…). Thus, I went to Barnes & Noble to grab one. They had already run out of copies on the shelves (I’m hoping they had another box or two in the back of the store, given that the issue has only been out for three days), but there were still a couple up by the check-out lines. I grabbed one, walked up to the counter and proceeded to purchase it. Here’s the summation of our conversation:
“Catching up on current events?”
“Looking to see a picture of myself in here.”
No reaction whatsoever.
Didn’t bat an eye. Didn’t tilt her head confusedly. Didn’t even reach under the counter to hit the emergency alarm. No reaction whatsoever. Well, I guess she reacted by dropping the light banter: she just rang up my order and I left. (I don’t think the store has guidelines about talking with the customers, but if there is, I’m pretty sure “seeing a picture of myself in here” isn’t covered on the list.)
