An Odd Early-Morning Conversation

[gnomi]

Time: 7:00 AM, 16 November 2005
Place: Bus stop at corner of Harvard and Coolidge Streets, Brookline, in front of the Citizens Bank
Dramatis Personae:
RW: Random Woman
ME: Uh...me

{ME is waiting at bus stop for 6:55 bus that is already late, facing toward Coolidge Corner, from where the bus should be coming but still isn't. ME is wearing black skirt, green shirt, multicolored sweater, unzipped jacket, and black wool beret}

RW: That's a nice hat.

ME: Oh! {turns to face RW} Thank you. {turns back to face Coolidge Corner}

RW: You're a professional artist, right?

ME: {turns back toward RW} Uh...no.

RW: But only professional artists wear that sort of hat.

ME (confusedly): Not in this neighborhood. A lot of Orthodox Jewish women wear them, since they cover their hair full time.

RW: But I can see {RW gestures to the corners of her face, indicating the wispy bits emerging from under ME's hat)

ME: Well, yes. But the majority of my hair is covered.

RW: So you're like those Muslim women who cover themselves.

ME: Well, the idea's the same, yes, but there are some differences.

RW: It's all the same. You're all the same.

ME: Well, that's like saying that Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism are the same.

RW: Yeah, they are.

ME: Uh...OK.

{RW goes into bank. ME continues to look for bus, slightly more anxiously now}

{A couple minutes pass. Still no bus. RW reemerges from bank}

RW: It's all about love.

ME: Huh?

RW: Fundamentally, all of that stuff's about love. They're all about love.

ME {finally spotting bus at traffic light right before my stop}: Uh...OK.

RW: Really, it's all about love. They're all the same that way.

ME {as bus pulls up to stop and opens door}: Uh...that's my bus.

{ME gets on bus. RW crosses street through oncoming traffic}

ME {thinking to self}: Uh...OK.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Hat-wearing is love.

[cellio]

Maybe it made more sense to someone half-asleep (which would also explain crossing into oncoming traffic)? Weird.

[gem225.livejournal.com]

What a strange and uninformed person. I hope she doesn't cross the street through oncoming traffic a lot.

[byrne.livejournal.com]

See? People and fish are exactly alike. It's all about being not dead.

sheeee

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

My mother is a fish.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

My sister ate a fish once...

All together now!

[bitty.livejournal.com]

All you need is love.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I think I understand where this woman was coming from: an uninformed but well-intentioned Christian perspective. I've run into this sort of thing before: gentiles trying to grok Judaism without much of a clue. From a Christian perspective this interpretation makes sense: cover your head out of respect, tradition and doctrine; respect, tradition and doctrine equals love; head covering equals love; hence Islam and Judaism are the same because people in both traditions cover their heads out of love.

Now, the whole "You wear a beret so you must be an artist" bit was just hilarious. I myself might have had a hard time not bursting out laughing; I suspect you are far more disciplined in this way than I am.

[angwantibo.livejournal.com]

Love your neighbor (RW) as yourself (ME).

It's all about love.

[suzvoy.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you're not me? I get approached by strange people at bus stops ALL THE TIME.

[perpet.livejournal.com]

It's so great to read something that's bizarre like this. That poor woman. I think she meant well, but she comes off utterly odd. Reminds me of a story, as well:

I worked the front desk of a residence hall for about a month and a half, and one of the RAs spoke a bunch of different languages. One day, as he's bumming around the desk, I ask how many he speaks. He says he speaks French, English, Spanish, and his native language. The desk worker who's working with me asks what his native lanauage is. He tells her [I don't remember what it was], and she blurts out, "So you're African-African?" Lucky for me, he laughed, because then I could laugh, and we both explained to her how that could be seen as a bit rude. Sweetest girl in the world. Not great with the PC. :)

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

It's the same logic as the classic:
G-d is love.
Love is blind.
Stevie Wonder is blind.
Therefore, Stevie Wonder is god.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

I think she meant to say turtles instead of love.

Turtles standing on turtles standing turtles. Nothing but turtles, all the way down.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Could be worse. I tend to get approached by skinheads while on the bus.

(and by you and MAB while on the subway...)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Memo to self: Download Ari's schedule for better and more frequent stalking.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Actually her attitude strikes me as classical new age (or as I pronounce it, newage). The idea is that Hashem is the elephant, and all the religions are blind men. Each religion has a part of the truth, and most thing they have the whole. So love is the elephant, and all religions are the same because they are all about the love. They only think they are different.

As with most newage, this sounds great until you actually think about it. But newage is opposed to rational thought - it takes you out of the moment.

[donovanstitch.livejournal.com]

As a man who wears a kippa, strangers and colleagues offer theological musings of many kinds, but my favorite queries received to date are:

1. Is that to cover your horns? (from an earnest pedestrian in San Antonio, Texas)

2. Does that mean you've taken a vow of celibacy? (from a subway passenger in New York City, believe it or not)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

1. I thought one's horns tended to poke up through the kippah. :-)

2. HA! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Valiant effort, but you can't really hope for logic from someone who thinks that only artists wear berets...