I get a strange feeling sometimes when I'm in close proximity to other people. When I got on the plane on Saturday, for example, I looked around at the fifty-odd other passengers on the plane and wondered. How did they all happen to be going to Fort Lauderdale on the same day as me? Do they all have sisters in Miami? Well, of course not, but then I wonder at how maybe this person sitting in front of me just happened to schedule a business trip on the exact same day that I scheduled a vacation to South Florida. I realize that the coincidence is statistically trivial, but it still kills me.

I get the same feeling sometimes when I'm at Taco Bell and there's someone waiting in front of me. How is it that this guy decided to come to Taco Bell at the exact same time that I did? When I get to feeling that way, I want to buy the guy ahead of me a soft chicken taco and ask him a few questions. Where was he born? Where did he live as a kid? Where did he go to college? Where does he live now? When today did he decide to go to Taco Bell? Was there traffic on the way, or red lights? I want to know about each one of the uncountable, exasperating coincidences that led him to be at the Taco Bell at Broadway and Alameda in Denver, Colorado, at 2:27 p.m. on Saturday, November 8, 2003, just in time to stand two feet in front of me and order a ground beef supreme chalupa.

I'll probably never do that, though.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/21/2003 03:46:00 PM