Everyday Epiphanies

Every once in a while, I see something that renews and reshapes my understanding of people. Here are two such instances.

The first was shooting this weekend. Several guys walked into the range. They looked like stereotypical street toughs. You get the occassional one of those at the range. The body language, the clothes, it was all there. Turned out it was their first time shooting. One had bought a .45 and a box or two of ammo. They all wanted to learn basic shooting. The Range Officer gave each of them instruction and I chatted with a couple of them as I reloaded. Turned out they lived a few miles away from me. They even rotated a couple girls (related to the gun's owner) from the minivan outside. I let the girls shoot a mag each from my .22 just in case the .45 was a little too much pistol for them. Sometimes looks are decieving.

The second was slighty later. I was in K-mart. I was only buying beef jerky and batteries. Honest. There was an Indian man in the detergent aisle talking on his cell phone in an language I don't know a word of. But yet I understood everything he said. His wife had sent him out to do some shopping and now he was calling her from the detergent aisle because buying "Clorox" turned out to present him with far more possibilities than he had previously imagined. It warmed my heart to know that deep down, all men are equally bewildered.