My day started out well enough.
I had a good breakfast and warm clothes to wear. Nothing better than warmth.
The trouble began when my parents figured out I had cut my own hair.
Try standing in the middle of Harbor Freight looking at nail guns without them seeing your head. It doesn't work.
After the episode in the store, the ride to the lot was relatively quiet, other than paranoid thoughts threatening to break me.
The few minutes spent at the lot were nothing more than customary work conversation.
"Leave the chain on the frame?"
"No. Put it in the bucket and put it with the generator."
"What was the thing we needed to look at?"
"I can't remember."
The ride from the lot to my grandmother's house was awkward country Christmas music and road noise.
Once at my grandmother's house, the question was asked again.
"Did you get a haircut?"
"I cut it myself."
"Why?"
"It'll grow back."
"But aren't you worried what people will think of you?"
"Should I be?"
Let me tell you. Four hours of deep-seated paranoia drowning out goodhearted conversation is NOT fun.
The ride home was nothing but more country music and silence, being as the three of us were too tired to make even the slightest attempt at conversing.
After we got back to town, we stopped at Dollar General to get drinks. I decided to use some of my birthday money to get some more body wash and a bandage roll.
The smile on the cashier's face was genuine enough, but as he asked what the roll was for (he was just trying to make conversation like any concerned human being with a pulse would do), I couldn't help but feel paranoid again.
Instead of saying I would use the bandage to bind my chest, I responded with
"I have a bad wrist. It messes up a lot."
His response was sincere. Almost a relief to hear him say it.
"That's never good. I hope it gets better soon. Have a nice night."
As I gathered my purchase and walked out the door, I started to realize that not everyone was out to get me and that some people do care, even if they don't know you.
That thirty second conversation was what made the issues of the day just a little more bearable.
