Sometimes you have encounters that don't have any neat explanation. Seems like I have more than the average person. Take yesterday, for example. While Buck was in with a doctor for some routine exam, I sat in the waiting room with coffee, miniature bran muffin and laptop, happily pecking away and getting fully caffeinated.
The room was almost full, but I had found a back corner by a coffee table with a lamp. My peripheral vision early warning system went off. "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" Looking up, I saw a plump, cheery looking woman bearing down on me, fingernail polish in hand. She was dressed in a white Pensacola Junior College sweatshirt and blue sweatpants.
Before I had a chance to react, she sat down beside me, started talking as though we were old friends, uncapped the bottle of clear nail polish, took hold of my hand, and began painting my fingernails! I barely had time to close the laptop lid with my other hand.
Why didn't I pull away? I don't really know, except that with her gray-blond curly hair and infectious smile, she didn't seem at all scary. In fact, I wracked my brain trying to figure out if maybe I really did know her.
After applying one coat of clear lacquer to my fingernails and chatting a bit about her retired professor husband, she got up suddenly as though some inner bell had run. "Well! My purse is way over there! I had better get back! Nice talking to you!" (All her sentences seemed naturally punctuated with exclamation points.)
I felt a little stunned. "Um, thank you. By the way, I'm Beth."
"I'm Irene! Bye!"
Could I possibly have had a visitation from Our Lady of the Manicures, out doing good deeds for the bare of nail and ragged of cuticle?
Note: This "lost post" is restored from February 4, 2004.
