There Are Days...

I don't know how it happened but today a man I hardly know bit me on the ankle.

He was crawling around on all fours, growling like a dog, and so it seems reasonable. Both of us were fully dressed, there was neither hanky nor panky involved. He had two little girls on his back who were laughing their heads off and shrieking commands at him. My dog and I sat on the sofa in the man's house huddled together in frozen politeness (actually the politeness was me; the dog was frozen in horror) while this performance was going on.

But since that moment I can hear my mother's voice in my head, saying to her mother, lo, these many long years ago, "...Well, you don't see crazy people coming and talking to me on train platforms, do you? You must be doing something to attract them."

My mother would not get herself into a situation where a man could bite her on the ankle. Whereas I now feel that even in my total non-life here in the DC suburbs, if there is some looniness going I will find myself amongst it in some personal way, unable to explain to myself how I got into this position. I mean, the succession of events is perfectly clear. But the question "Why do these things happen to me?" is still a mystery.