Strangerazzi: Paranoid Lady
MK
Sent to you by MK via Google Reader:
Hello! My name is MissDotti and I’ll be your guest blogger for the day! I hail from Newport, Michigan where the weather is just as unpredictable as the people who live here!
I’ve always been a big people watcher, so when Marykae started Stranger of the Day, I was thrilled with the idea of being a Strangerazzi!
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I encountered this lady at my chiropractor’s office last Wednesday while I was waiting for my husband to finish with his appointment.
She had entered the waiting room with who I assumed is her daughter. As they walked in, Paranoid Lady was bombarding her daughter with questions like “How long is this going to take?” and “Will you be alright in the waiting room if it takes too long?” She was really concerned about how long the wait would be and how long they would be in the office. Judging by the mood of her daughter, there didn’t seem to be anything urgent going on outside of the chiropractor’s office that would make them want to hurry things along, so Paranoid Lady’s line of questioning struck me as somewhat bizarre.
Now, in this office, people tend to be very amicable, and will often strike up conversations with each other. One lady, sitting across from Paranoid Lady and her daughter, was reading a magazine and started talking about an article she was reading. She was talking to no one in particular, but Paranoid Lady’s daughter responded with some interest. This really set Paranoid Lady off, and hence began another line of questioning in hushed tones, as if no one else could hear them:
PL: Do you know her? Why haven’t you introduced us?
D: No, I don’t know her, I was just responding to what she said.
PL: Why would you do that?
D: I was just being nice.
PL: But you don’t know her! Why would you talk to someone you don’t know like that?
D: You’re acting like I just told her my life story!
PL: Well, you need to be more careful, you don’t know her!
Eventually, the lady with the magazine was called back for her appointment, so this line of questioning stopped, and Paranoid Lady seemed to calm down and entered into more normal conversation with her daughter. That is until another mother/daughter pair entered the office. This pair sat on the other side of me, and were talking amicably about school and home stuff. The daughter in this case was around 14 o4 15 years old. She was chattering nicely with her mother, and at one point she got very excited about the socks she was wearing. She pulled up her pant leg to show off a wonderful pair of knee-high socks that I really wish I would have been ready for with the camera.
I made a remark to the young lady about how awesome her socks were and she and I began talking about our love of quirky socks. Yet again, I hear off to the other side of me the hushed tones of Paranoid Lady and her daughter:
PL: What kind of mother lets her daughter show off her legs like that in PUBLIC?
D: Is that really something you need to worry about? Her legs are covered with SOCKS. Pretty socks, at that! *smiles apologetically at the sock girl*
PL: And what’s with THIS woman encouraging her? *thrusts her finger in my direction*
D: I hardly think that’s any of our business.
PL: What is this world coming to?
D: Apocalypse, apparently, if you’re to be believed.
It was at this point that my I saw my husband coming down the hall, so I quickly got up to meet him. As he and I left, I could see Paranoid Lady’s eyes latch onto my husband, and I just knew that her poor daughter was going to have to endure another round of questioning regarding the Bad Lady Who Just Walked Out the Door With the Strange Man.
I feel for Paranoid Lady. Either she is entering in the scary realm of dementia, or so many bad things happened in her life to cause her to be so paranoid. Either way, my thoughts are with her family who has to endure the barrage of paranoid questioning. I certainly hope she has good days, too.
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