Submitted for Your Approval

Have you ever seen something in the course of the day that provokes your curiosity? I'm not talking about the normal banal things like an interesting ad on tv. I'm talking about the quirky anomalies you come across in everyday life that make you think, there's a story there. Not a big one, not an important one, but an interesting departure from the norm.

Today as I was eating lunch I happened to look out the window and saw a woman running down the street. It was more than a jog, but less than a full-out sprint. The way she was dressed and a certain ungainliness in her gait said that this wasn't for exercise, but yet there wasn't the urgency in her run that you would expect if it were case of, "if I'm late getting back to work I'll get fired", or, "I need to find emergency medical help and I don't have my cell phone", or, "there are rabid squirrels chasing me". Perhaps she was simply enjoying the simple pleasure of being in motion like children do. Watching her run I was only left with the unanswerable question: why was this woman running?

This afternoon as I was driving home on the highway, for a while the car in front of me was a Domino's delivery guy. Normally this wouldn't arouse my interest, until I noticed that the car was a relatively new and shiny Dodge Charger. I was tempted for a moment to try to take a picture with my phone, but then, not being Klingon, I decided that today was not a good day to die and went back to driving instead. Now the Charger starts at around $25k, which you would think would put it out of the range of your average pizza delivery person. What story explains how a Charger came to be used in such a manner? Perhaps the delivery guy's car is broken down and he managed to convince his parents to loan him theirs? Perhaps we're looking at a tragic consequence of our financially troubled times: a typical middle class man has been forced to take a second job to make ends meet. Or even worse, total unemployment has made this his primary job.

No, these mysteries are not Twilight Zone worthy, but like a good TZ episode, they leave you with unanswered questions that remind you that the world is always slightly stranger than we remember it.

God bless,
AJ