Park Slope Food Coop Walkers: Awkward Conversations 101

Should I be giving a holiday tip to my Food Coop walker dude(tte) this season, you think?

'Cause even you hardened haters have got to admit that the Food Coop's little home delivery service is not too shabby (btw, I can't seem to stop singing the Chanukkah Song). Anyway, I want to personally thank the Food Coop for not leaving me with my broken down shopping cart and letting me borrow theirs.

It's one of the few benefits of living in the belly of the beast: a privilege for those who live in a five block radius (or is it 10?). Anyway, you're fucked if you live in Crown Heights.

Fine, they don't push. But isn't it nice to be able to have an awkward conversation with a stranger who looks like Lyle Lovett or wants to tell you about the geomagnetic polar shifts that are going to leave NYC at the bottom of the ocean any minute? Yes, that conversation actually happened.

Here's how it went down:

The younger and I are getting walked by an elder statesman after making the colossal mistake of shopping the day before Thanksgiving.

Searching for an inoffensive conversational gambit, I remark about the weather. And before we even make it to Union and 7th, I am deep in a discussion of how for 12,000 years there has not been a geomagnetic something or other having such a deleterious effect on global behavior and weather. Yes, it turns out that all the recent global douchebaggery (as opposed to previous episodes) is a direct result of this phenomenon, according to my wize(ned) Russian emigre walker dude.

So, I queried as to whether it may be ending any time soon, like in time for the New Year. And that's when the dude brought up Atlantis. Yes, this was, he said, the last time the earth's magneticness, or whatever the fuck he said, had been in this phase. And that didn't END WELL.

By the time we got home, I was feeling a wee bit fate of the earthy. Until the seven-year-old turns to me in the lobby, looks at me quizzically and says, "WHAT was that all about?" before giggling her way up the stairs trying to haul a bag roughly half her size.

My latest string of strange conversations has left me wondering:

a) is the food coop the craziest population per capita in NYC and

b) what other people are talking about with their walkers or random strangers they meet at naughty office parties or rubbing up against them on the evening commute?

I know this is hard for you (well, all of you besides gogo, jake t and robnyc) but give me a little light for the Christnakkah season.

What's the weirdest conversation you've had with a stranger?