[wolf]

I meet or know a lot of people.

Some of them as a consequence of my work, others, well, I'm just a gregarious person, I guess ...

So all I was doing was taking out the trash. I have an emergency call for a volunteer organization I belong to to go to tonight, and also needed to grab some brochures out of my car.

So, off I go, just to take out the trash.

No such luck.

Guy pulls up, also to take out his trash. (A lot of people drive their trash to the dumpster, as there are only two at the opposite ends of the complex).

He hops out of his minivan and for whatever reason annouces that he is appropriately disposing of his little bags of dog poop, which were generated by his two little dogs.

As he does that, he actually looks at me, and then says "Oh, you're looking very well, do you remember me?"

Typically I fall back on the "I remember faces pretty well, but often can't put names to them ..."

"I used to see you at the SPCA!"

Phew, I thought. He doen't really remember. Good. "No, I never worked at the SPCA."

I was wearing a nuthouse sweat shirt.

"No, that's right! You're from the Emergency Service!"

"Uh, yeah."

I found out more about him that I would in a standard interview. Turns out he was visiting his mother who is a not-close neighbor, and was doing very well.

We wished each other a good year to come and parted.

As scary as it is to have work "follow me home" that way, it worked out okay. I don't typically get to see people when they are doing well and not wanting to kill me.