Multiple Personality Disorder

I went shopping with my friend to Restoration Hardware in Palo Alto last night, but got tired of hanging around, so I walked to the front of the store to watch people walk by.  Two women came in my direction, embracing each other, hugging and walking awkwardly at times.  I couldn’t tell whether they were lesbians or not; or, friends or relatives seeking refuge from the cold.  I avoided making eye contact with them, in case they were homosexuals.  I didn’t want to deal with any questions that might come to their minds.  “What is he looking at?  Or, come to my mind, “What are they doing being so obvious?”

I turned around and took a couple of short steps in the same direction they were walking till they passed me, but when they did, I watched them some more.  I was going to get to the bottom of this, whether they were lesbians or not, but then after a few steps I turned around and walked back to the front of the store again.  I then saw a ragged black man walking towards me.  I did not want to deal with this man asking me for money, or anything else, so I turned around again and walked in the same direction as the two women.  The man started shouting at the ladies.  “Ladies!  Ladies!  Excuse me!  Hay ladies!”  he yelled.

The ladies finally stopped, surprised.  The man asked them if a purse he had in his hand belonged to them.  The ladies were shocked.  Some place along the way they must have left their purse behind, or dropped it on the sidewalk.  They thanked the man profusely.  The man waited there for a few seconds.  The ladies didn’t get it, so he asked them if they could spare some change, which the lady who had gotten her purse back obliged, after digging through her purse.  I guess the man, somewhere along his life had decided it was okay to be a beggar but not a thief.

The ladies spoke a different language than English.  They probably thought, “What a estrange country!”

I returned to the store wondering why people buy so many candles.