So There I Was --

-- just now, in the grocery store, and I don't know, maybe I looked especially approachable because Santana's version of "Oye como va" had just played on the PA, and I may not have been completely successful in my attempt to prevent my appreciation of the song from expressing itself in a goofy physical manner, because, as someone once said -- I think maybe it was someone who used to play for James Brown, maybe it was Maceo hisself, in any case it was someone who was making a lot of sense -- funk is music which causes yer head and neck and shoulders to move in ways in which they ordinarily would not, and Santana's version of that tune may not usually be categorized as funk, I wouldn't know, ask someone who likes to categorize things, but it's funky and then some. And maybe I was especially susceptible to that funk because mere moments before, in my car in the parking lot, I was listening to the end of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads, where Chris Franz gets especially expressive on the drums. Again, I don't know if people usually call that funk, but it is. So I was already dancing in my car seat before I got to the store.

(And in general, I think that when you reach the end of your life, whether or not you enjoyed yourself, for example by dancing in the grocery store or singing along to music in car and dancing in the driver's seat, will have mattered more than if you looked silly, now and then, for example by singing in your car or dancing in the store. I get embarassed, just like other people. Only -- less, I think.)

Or maybe I just look like a goofy approachable mark no matter what music is playing. (Maybe they can all see that I have Asperger's or something weird, ayeee!) Or maybe it had nothing at all to do with how I looked or what I was doing. (Maybe most people are actually jealous of me because I'm so cool, and they think, Gee, look at the big stocky guy enjoying himself so much! I wish I could overcome my inhibitions and enjoy life and really live it like that big stocky guy is doing. Look at him dancing in his driver's seat! He looks like he could lift a car wheel off the ground without a jack, he's so big and tough I swear! He's so cool!) Maybe they just needed to fill a quota, bad. For whatever reason, as I passed the stand where, then as so often, representatives of a local metro newspaper were attempting to perpetrate something, one of the people behind the stand accosted me, saying I could win one hundred dollars. I felt it would be impolite to just walk past, ignoring the two of them, so I attempted to express disinterest politely. But an entry slip was thrust at me. All I had to do was fill it out! A hundred bucks! C'mon! Among other blanks on the slip, I saw one for my phone number and another for my e-mail, and I said, Yeah, but then my info would be on a list, and was about to move on, but the other person behind the stand, a burly guy with lots of tats, went. Off.

The bank had already sold all of my info to everyone! he exclaimed. Everybody who wanted my info already had it!

I moved on. A couple of seconds later it occurred to me to call back over my shoulder: "You don't!"

I don't know whether he heard me.