The other night was the birthday of Ryan Goeden, a friend of mine from school who I have always regarded more as an older brother than as a peer. Ryan runs what he calls a successful business. Ryan runs what I call a successful pyramid scheme. He takes my categorization of his work lightly...mainly because he makes more money than me. A lot more money than me. Anyway, it was Ryan's birthday, and Ryan wanted to have a bonfire. I have seen Ryan around fires before and he behaves for the most part, so all the friends in Walla Walla agreed to meet up behind our fraternity house's fire pit. The fire was going along great with the exception of a couple dogs making a mess of things by disappearing into the darkness, prompting drunken summons from their owners. Needless to say it was rather shocking to see two more dogs than there should have been emerge from an alley. They looked mean, and attached to the end of their leashes was a bearded gentleman with too-short jean shorts and one of those looks that you see in the eyes of street people and circus performers; you don't really know what's going to happen next, but you know that it's going to be crazy.
"Can I help you?" I asked, assuming that I would get an answer along the lines of "Yeah, can you tell me where my spaceship is?" Surprisingly, he simply stated that he brought his dogs over because they were getting along with my friends' dogs. He hung out for a couple minutes, got his mutts, and left. No problem. No crazy outburst. He didn't pull his penis out. He disn't attack anybody. He went completely against everyone's assumptions, and the reason that we had these assumptions in the first place is that he was exhuding the appearance of crazy. He looked and dressed crazy. We simply stereotyped him. It happens every day.
That has totally happened to me before. I had a pretty cool conversation with a local drunk who approached me because I was trying to help out a pidgeon with a broken wing. My first reaction was negative, thinking that this man obviously was not just intrigued by my unorthodox attempted bird-rescue, but as it turned out we just talked. I was kind amused by the reaction that I got from the people around me too, strange looks from the sight of a young woman and an older local drunken-homeless man enjoying pure conversation.
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