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“How are you?”

It’s not usually a loaded question. Normally, in a sane world, you are expected to say something like “Fine. How are you?” and get some standard response, like “Oh, not bad,” or maybe “Can’t complain!” or even my old stand-by, “So far, so good.”

Normally. In a sane world. But that’s not where we live, and these aren’t normal times. I don’t even know if they were ever normal, but statistics tells me that there is a place in there, somewhere between bonkers and wacko, that is defined as normal.

“I suffer from anxiety.”

That’s what she said. That was her response when I said “Not bad, and you?” That was what she said when she interpreted my response as an invitation for to open up and bare her soul to me. While I was checking out. In the middle of a department store. And it only got better. I never even got the chance to say “Wait a minute… you suffer from anxiety and you work here, at Target? You must be very brave. Or very crazy.”

“I had a bunch of friends over the other day,” she explained, “and one of them took my anti-anxiety drugs.”

Ah. That explained everything. I stared at her nose piercing for a moment, unsure of where this was going but secure in the knowledge that I didn’t want to do anything to encourage her.

“I filed a police report and everything, and they didn’t want to hear about it.”

I actually missed something, because it became clear that she was now talking to her doctor. I didn’t catch the transition where she left the police station and went to see her doctor, but I gather she went looking for replacement drugs.

“She didn’t want to hear it. She said she didn’t care. She was rude to me!”

I had no way to judge the veracity of this statement, no idea whether this young woman was under the influence of anti-anxiety drugs at the time, and I couldn’t know if this was a scam she ran periodically to get more drugs or an honest predicament. Not that it mattered, anyway. I stared at her nose piercing again, wondering why people did things like that and whether she really thought it made her look attractive. It didn’t, to tell you the truth. It made her look like she had something stuck on the side of her nose.

“She was rude to me!  She kept telling me it wasn’t her business, that she didn’t care.”

We were all done, my items had been bagged, she had been paid, and there was a lady waiting in line, and I kept trying to find an opening so I could wish her well and leave, but she wasn’t done.

“So yeah, basically I had someone call me a liar.”

She turned her head momentarily to look at the next customer in line. It was the opening I had been waiting for. “Well, good luck going forward” I blurted as I grabbed my bags and ran for the exit. It is a bad idea, as far as I can tell, to take anti-anxiety drugs and work in a place where you are expected to make small talk — and I mean small talk — with the general public. I made the appropriate mental note and moved on.