Tonight I met a woman who was interesting. She surprised me by walking in to buy our most expensive sewing machine. It's a weird thing to do, but not totally bizarre. People do their research at home and then come in and buy stuff. Everybody's different. And people who buy $7000 sewing machines are bound to be different. It's not bad. It's just that decision making strategies are very different for different people when it's about things that cost more than a gallon of milk.
So I was gathering stuff up to pack into the boxes she was going to take home and ladeeda and all we had were machines that were already out of the box and on the sales floor. So I told her about that and she decided to wait for the ones that would come in later that were still sealed.
We were sitting down chatting about the sewing machine and I had her info for financing in front of me and she said she was in between jobs and we were talking the way women talk when they feel as though they have something in common and I was joking around about us going out together because we both had blue eyes (I swear that's the truth--that's the reason I said we should go out; it was a joke.). So I kind of smiled and we chatted some more and we had a bit more in common and she got some tears in her eyes about some of her life events and I also had experienced some of the same life events and we agreed to have coffee together since it's good to have someone to commiserate with. That's what I was thinking. I said, "How about tomorrow?" And so I'm going to have coffee with her.
And then it got really weird. I accept most things people say, if they're strange, as some quirky bit of their personality. We all have things that are extra weird that might come out in conversation sometimes. Maybe a person mentions that his life was saved by a dream he had. Maybe a different person is convinced that she has a guardian angel. Some people pray to Jesus or Mary or the Holy Spirit or the Great Spirit or Mother Earth or what or who ever and are guided by their prayers.
So she mentioned that she was praying to Jesus and that he said she needed to care for her own needs and to be with people who cared about her.
It sounded familiar enough to me.
Then she said that she left her husband because Jesus told her to. Jesus didn't want her to be with a man of a different religion. And Jesus wanted her to change her name (which she did). And she wants to become an angel. And she wants to have a long discussion with me about it.
I think this goes well beyond quirky. In fact, I think it's delusional. And I'm worried that she's unwell. And I'm worried that there are some ethical issues that might apply to me selling a woman a $7000 sewing machine when she's talking to Jesus.
And I think I'll go to sleep and deal with it tomorrow. Wow, though. I really think she's cracked.
Posted by dotty at January 11, 2006 11:52 PM | TrackBack