I am one of ‘those people’ who can strike up a conversation with anyone and usually does.  Today however, I was standing in line at Best Buy for the third trip related to my out of commission laptop and I wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

The same could not be said for the gentleman in front of me in line.  First he told me all about his camera.  That’s why he was there.

“I spent one hundred thirty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents on it, and I took out this here plan that if the camera breaks, they replace it…cost me two hundred dollars.”

Who does that?

He went on to tell me that this was his third camera and he was in between vacations to Alaska and Disney World, both vacations were settlements,  resulting from accidents on the property of the Theme Park and a cruise ship. At Disney World he slipped in the parking lot and now has a lifetime pass as well as a part-time job as Tigger a few times a year. 

On the cruise ship, his fate was much worse.  He slipped on the deck and became ‘road kill’ for a 475 pound man in a wheel chair, not once but twice.  He is now headed for a complimentary fifteen day tour of British Columbia and surrounding sights.

He spent six years in the army, three working for the post office and more than twenty in the IRS, each occupation backed up by an ID card pulled out of his wallet, and has been ‘happily retired’ since 2006.  Apparently he’s only two broken bones away from owning the world record of number of casts worn by a single person – only 2 more to go and he ‘wins.’  I tried to verify his claim, but could not.

Finally I was rescued by one of the geeks (never thought I’d hear myself say that).

After dropping off the second recovery disk, I attempted to exit the store with no further eye contact or conversation.  Much to my dismay I was unsuccessful.

“I noticed you dropped off a disk.” He said.

“Oh… yeah… it’s a recovery disk. My computer crashed and they have to restore the whole system, the first disk was bad.” I responded (mentally kicking myself for re-engaging).

“Well, I coulda fixed that for you for next to nothing.  I fix computers too…”