4/09/2012

WHAT'S STRANGE AND WHAT'S NOT?

As I plod though life I seem to attract an unusual number of strange things. There was another one yesterday.

We were at a restaurant planning to have an early lunch and a tall young man I assumed was our waiter approached us and I greeted him with some form of, “Hello.”

He said, “My ferret died this morning.”

Having never known anyone whose ferret died this or any other morning I was somewhat taken aback. However, I think I did manage to say something clever like, “Oh.”

He went on, “She wasn’t eating right so I took her to the veterinarian yesterday and was told she would be all right but they called this morning and said she had passed away.”

By this time I could see the young man was seriously distressed so I asked, “How old was she?”

“She was only eight. The one I had before lived to be fifteen.”

He then took out is cell phone and I wondered if he was going to call to see if his ferret had been reincarnated but in reality he wanted to show me the picture of is beloved ferret and I will admit, it was cute.

He went on to describe at some length what a wonderful pet this ferret had been. He never did mention her name though I’d bet the little critter had one.

I suppose there was nothing actually wrong with his telling us all this, it just seemed strange and, as I said, “I seem to attract an unusual number of strange things.” In fact, for me "Strange" is getting to be "Normal."

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
April 9, 2012