Strangers

I don’t talk to strangers. And it’s not because they are “strange,” as Jim Morrison once sang. Nor is it because they are supposedly potentially dangerous.

No. It’s because they just seem so egotistical and self-absorbed all the time.

I mean, each morning, when I see all the strangers on their way to work, they all seem so singularly focused on that one particular task, which so clearly only benefits them. And I’m pretty sure that they have never once given a single thought regarding how I might get to work. I doubt they’d even care if it turned out that my bus was late, or if I was stuck in traffic.

Then around lunchtime, while I am running an errand at the bank, I will see all these strangers queuing up in line. And I’ll bet you that the overwhelming majority of these strangers – many of whom are here to deposit checks and/or cash – will almost certainly put that money into their own bank accounts, rather than into those of other people. Such as me.

So until that day – which will most likely never come – when I peruse my monthly bank statement and find, much to my amazement, that a stranger has deposited $109.72 into my checking and/or savings account, I will continue my policy of not talking to strangers. Because they are all so unbearably selfish and conceited. At least as far as I’m concerned.

I swear, I don’t trust strangers any farther than I can throw them. Which is not very far at all.