a stranger five minutes

Speaking of strangers, I do enjoy them in brief encounters. And by brief I mean five minutes of time spent or less. (No touching, please.) You can get a lifetime of info or entertainment out of a person in that short a span of time. After five minutes, however, they become tedious. Emails or phone numbers might get thrown into the mix and seven months later I can't remember if "Jose" is someone I actually know or some random guy I met in the grocery store parking lot over an accidental discussion about pedestrian's rights and the generally tragic disrespect for crosswalks and crosswalk signals. ("How 'bout I take your number, Jose?") Email is easy. I've got a filter. You'll get trashed through no fault of mine and have no one to blame but the spammers.

Anyway. Latest strange stranger encounter. I'm in the park with Fred. A guy walking toward us stops when he sees Fred and bends over to talk to him. Fred jumps back and starts barking at the guy. Not viciously, just in that way that seems to say, "Hey! Hey! Stop! Standing! There! Looking! At! Me! Yeah! YOU! Hey!"

As a general rule, Fred only does this to men with beards and crazy people. Provide a little liverwurst, however, and regardless of affliction or hirsuteness, he's yours forever. This guy had no beard, seemed normal. So I say to the guy: "You need food." He looks at me quizzically.

HIM: I need food?
ME: Well, you don't need food.
HIM: Do you need food?

See, here I thought he was just being dorky-funny-flirty. I usually play along. It's why I have so many forgotten names listed in my cell phone.

ME: No. (laughing) I don't need food. I just mean. . .
HIM: Why would you walk up to a perfect stranger and tell them they need food?
ME: Um. . . that's my dog you were talking to, and. . .
HIM: (Looking at Fred, as if noticing him for the first time.) Does he need food?
ME: Nooooo. . . it's just that he likes food and if you had food he'd like you.
HIM: So he needs food to like people?

And the conversation went along like this for about five minutes before I realized he wasn't being dorky-funny-flirty. No, he was just crazy.

The conversation concluded, thusly:

HIM: (Angry, pissy by now.) Well, all I have to say is that I work with some charities downtown that will GIVE you FOOD for your DOG if you can't FEED your dog yourSELF, so he won't BARK at people in the park.

No, he didn't have a beard. No he didn't look crazy. But the sports goggles instead of glasses really should have given him away. That and the four foot golf umbrella he was carrying on a cloudless and sunny morning. All that and Fred's barking, of course. Mia culpa, Freddie.

Anyway, I saw him again this morning and said "Hi" as we passed. He said "Hi," as well, but he did so with chin tilted superiorly as if to say, "I know you. You're that girl who doesn't feed her dog. You're that nut who tries to force your food philosophies on strangers in the park. Oh, I know you. Hi."

And there's a part of me that buys it, that is bugged by the fact that there's a guy out there -- even if he is crazy -- that thinks I'm a legitimately insane person myself. Or only slightly better, irresponsible when it comes to the care of my dog.