I talk to strangers.

"Don’t talk to strangers."

I never listened to that parental advice. To me, it seemed like a bullshit statement. Isn’t everyone a stranger until you start talking to them? Perhaps life should be a little more like the Ann Grifalconi book, 'Ain’t Nobody a Stranger to Me' (minus the whole underground railroad stuff.)

I survived a whopping 31 years at this point with my MO being: talk to strangers, take rides from strangers, eat food strangers give me…and yet I never had my picture featured on the back of a milk carton. I think I would be more traumatized by my 2^nd grade Catholic school picture decorating a (hopefully organic skim) milk carton in the 80’s than I would by actually being abducted by a strange man in a white van. Trust me, those uniforms were hideous. I’m a talker so I would probably tell him a few jokes and he’d drop me off at home and nobody would have to send John Walsh on a horse to try to find me. Quite frankly, after the week I had, a roofie laced lollipop from a stranger in a white van would probably make my day a lot easier. And honestly, I actually enjoyed that weird piece of rice/seaweed thing my Vietnamese manicurist fed me (literally, she stuck it in my mouth) while having my nails done. I wish I knew what it was so I could buy more.

Side note: I should definitely get some Glamour Shots taken for my “missing” poster…just in case.

Really though, how often do you talk to the people around you? I spent the past 8 years of my life shuffling between cabs and airplanes and hotels and meetings. Strangers. Random people with random stories. I’ve decided to occasionally tell some of these stories on the blog so, occasionally, you will find me blogging about my strangers. I simply cannot cover this topic in a few short paragraphs. This is a small example of people in my life who could have been strangers :

· Sakhi – my cab driver. He’s in his late 60’s…from Afghanistan, has two children in college, loves family time with his wife, travels everywhere and takes care of his elderly mother. He’s also basically a surrogate father to me. Whenever I need anything, I call Sakhi on his cell phone (we don’t even bother with the cab service number) and he’s there – he’ll jump start my car or give me the recipe of the rice his wife made me. He often texts me to make sure I’m ok or that I had a good day.

· Mo – my night valet manager at work. He lives in Alexandria to work and would drive to PA for 3-4 days a week to be with his wife and two children. His wife met someone online, moved to Vegas and abandoned the two small children who then had to move to DC in the middle of the school year. He had a built-in support system because he made sure he was never a stranger to anyone, he was always Mo.

· Edward and Edmund – The Somalian twins who are co-assistant managers/cashiers at my grocery store. Their cousin Solomon is the manager and Mr. Greg is the other cashier. Have you ever been to your grocery store cashier’s college graduations? If not, you should know them well enough to go because events like this are important to people.

I could write eternally on this subject but I’m going to abruptly end this blog about strangers because my sister was cyberbulling me to post something on the blog. So my dear sister weinerbeans, here is your half-finished blog about your fancy sister’s habit of talking (non-stop) to everyone in her visual field.