I had just placed my lunch order at a fast food drive-through Thursday when I heard one of the employees on the speaker say to another, “Hey, come here and listen to this guy!” I drove on up the window and the woman was smiling as she took my card.
“Are you a news anchor or a radio host?” she asked.
Another woman who was walking up behind her said, “I recognize your voice but I don’t know what station.”
After I assured them that I don’t do anything on radio or TV, they told me that’s what I ought to be doing. They were convinced they knew me.
I drove away feeling amused and perplexed. This has happened to me quite often over the years — and it makes no sense to me, because I don’t see or hear anything in myself which looks or sounds like television or radio folks.
But as I thought about it later in the day, a sobering thought hit me. What if other people are right about me — and I’m the one who’s wrong?
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone