Tag: real-life conversations

An older woman talking to a slightly younger one, possibly relevant to this discussion:

“I ask myself, do I really want to do this? If the answer is no, then, come up with an excuse.”

Young child and parent walk into the coffeeshop:

Child (who is giggling and stomping his feet): “That was funny!“
Mom (with a long suffering sigh): “Yes, I guess that was funny.”

I am, of course, now deeply curious what transpired before they came through the door. 🙂

Conversation one: a law student asking a philosophy student whether, by Plato’s theory of perfect forms, there could ever be perfect justice. Philosophy student’s take seemed to be that Plato would say there could, but it was unlikely because so many things would have to be perfect to get there, but even so, keeping the idea of perfect justice in mind would mean one would get much closer to it than if one didn’t keep it in mind.

Conversation two: someone talking about being drawn to social justice as her form of ministry at her church, and how she’s working to convince others there that she should pursue same instead of more “traditional” forms of ministry.

Sometimes people are pretty cool, you know?

Man in coffeeshop (reading my T-shirt): “Talk books to me.”
Me: “Yeah.”
MiC: “Are you a librarian?”
Me: “No, I just like to read.”
MiC (pauses a beat): “That’s a good habit to have.”
Me (but only to myself): “It’s what keeps me sane.”

Some part of me will never get used to the fact that so many people — even interesting, likable people — see reading as something that’s good for you, or that you do to be virtuous — rather than something you do because it’s fun, or to unwind, or because in the end it’s as instinctive as breathing, and so it never occurs to you not to do it.

Dear Stranger Who Was Playing Unfamiliar-Yet-Interesting Percussion Instruments In the Subway,

I don’t know your name, but your music turned what could have an annoying diversion–after I took the E-train in the wrong direction and had to change trains–into a delightful and serendipitous diversion instead.

Thank you for that.

Me

Overheard in a coffeeshop:

Man next to me in the Starbucks is talking into his cell phone. “Cough twice if you feel unsafe,” he says into the phone.
(I did a doubletake and listen hard after that, but the rest of the call was just about setting up meetings …)

=-=-=-=-=

Conversation held in the subway:

Her: “Go out that way.”
Me (looking at emergency exit, bell-will-sound sign): “…”
(A man goes through. The bell sounds.)
Me: “But … it’s the emergency exit.”
Her: “Everyone does it.”
(No emergency personnel appear. Another man goes through. The bell is still ringing. I shrug and follow him.)

The couple in front of me at the bagel place are maybe college age, maybe slightly younger or slightly older. She’s already ordered as I arrive.

As he begins to order he looks at her with each question: what kind of bagel, what he’d like on it, and so on. At one point he hesitates, and she says, “I had sun dried tomatoes.” I’m not sure, but I think he asks for sun dried tomatoes, too.

“Toasted or untoasted?” the woman behind the counter asks. He glances at her, uncertain. “Mine is untoasted,” she says. “But I don’t like toasted bagels.”

He hesitates a moment. Then, “I don’t either,” he tells the woman behind the counter.

Things overheard in today’s coffeeshop:

“If the Greek gods get angry at you, they throw lightning bolts at you. If the Æsir [Norse gods] get angry, they beat you up in person.”

(Which strikes me as an oversimplification in at least two directions …)

Today someone who looked faintly familiar walked into the coffee shop carrying a tray of faintly onion-like-looking fruit, greeted a friend warmly, then turned to me, smiled, and said, “Would you like a fresh fig?”

“I’d love one,” I said. And then, as I was trying to place her and feeling embarrassed that I couldn’t, “I’m sorry, but I’m blanking on your name.”

“Do we know each other?” she asked, sounding a little surprised.

As far as I could tell, we didn’t. She’d just offered a complete stranger a fresh fig, because she wanted to. No other reason.

People are pretty cool, sometimes.

Sometimes, people just tell you a little bit of their story, and if you’re lucky you have the good sense to listen rather than hurrying on.

“I grew up in a small town,” the woman in the hot tub at the gym said to me today. “Of course I’d read about discrimination, but I’d never experienced it.” Then, the summer she was 17, she went to Florida.

“I sat down at the back of the bus,” she said. “And I started talking to the women sitting there, and one of them said, ‘you’re not from around here, are you?’

“I said ‘no, I’m from Missouri.’ I was wondering, ‘Is it that obvious?’

“The bus driver began yelling. I said to the woman, ‘who’s he yelling at?’ She said ‘he’s yelling at you, because white people are supposed to sit at the front of the bus.’ I said, ‘you mean I can’t sit wherever I want?’

“The bus driver said, ‘I’m not going anywhere until you move.’ So I walked up to the front of the bus, and I told him, ‘If I can’t sit where I want, I don’t want to ride on your bus.’

“Everyone applauded. And then I got off the bus.”

Later she called her family back home in Missouri in tears. “My grandmother said, ‘there’ll always be discrimination, so long as there are people.’ And I told her, “Not when I grow up. When I grow up it’s going to be different.'”

She’s still proud of herself for getting off that bus. And during her years as a teacher afterwards, she told her students it was their turn, now, to try to gain more ground.