The Outing.

I had an off-ish morning.
What happened was, I was talking to my Mum about cleaning, and she was telling me it didn't need to be done (which, trust me, it did). She told me I should clean out the chicken house, if anything.
Some more talk happened and apparently, I was disrespectful to Mum. She informed me of this. I apologized. She said she didn't believe I was sorry.
THAT WAS IT.
Not more can cut me deeper than that. Whenever I say I'm sorry, I mean it. Every time. For someone to say they don't believe me absolutely tears me apart.
So I went upstairs and got my stupid shoes on (I have one pair of shoes that are indeed "stupid"). Cleaned the chicken house. Said little, if anything to Mum.
She apologized to me during lunch.
I still felt badly.
I don't have bad days very often. But when I do, it lasts a few hours (depending on the circumstances).
Mum needed to go to the grocery store. I did too.
So I drove us, but she decided she wanted to stop off at The Haven thrift shop first. I browsed their records while Mum looked at other stuff..
I found seven records! Good records! In grand condition!
It was unbelievable!
I also found three Bill Cosby records for my Dad. He loves Bill Cosby.
The ones I found were
Fresh Aire by Manheim Steamroller
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme by Simon & Garfunkel
Pheonix by Dan Fogelberg
Still Crazy After All These Years by Paul Simon
(the 1975 one) by Fleetwood Mac
Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel
Angel Clare by Art Garfunkel

The three Bill Cosby ones are titled "Why is there air?" "I started out as a child" and "Bill Cosby is a very funny fellow right!"
My Dad was pretty excited when I showed them to him later.

After the thrift shop, I drove us to Lowes Foods.
No sign of Scott's truck in the parking lot.
We walked in, got a cart and started... well, picking out food.
I picked out some dried banana chips. Love those. So good.
Walked past the bakery section... They had bread samples. GOOD bread samples. I took a few.
In the dairy section, I got some Chobani yogurt (BEST yogurt I've ever had, by the way!)
Reached the end of that aisle when Mum got out the coupons. I backtracked through the dairy section to pick out some biscuits and cinnamon roll type things. I spotted "that lady" not far off... Wearing a pink shirt and baggy-ish pants. Her white and grey hair in the usual hair style. Curled under. Just touching her shoulders.
She saw me.
Glared at me.
I smiled.
Laughed to myself when I had walked past her.
She kicked me out of the Student Center at CCCC once. For having a hamster.
Daly calls her "stupid."
I strode through a few aisles, fetching things for Mum with coupons. She gave me one for an air freshener type thing. I started walking in the direction of the aisle I thought it was in. I heard a voice behind me. Something about "dreads" and "sister." It suddenly occured to me that someone may be trying to talk to me. I backed up towards the aisle I had just walked out of and saw a fellow and a little boy of about 2 years walking toward me. The little boy held the fellow's hand. I was assuming he was his son.
Once more, I heard something like "sister" (the fellow did not speak all too loudly).
He said, "Wow, congratulations on having dreads in Sanford!"
"Er, thank you." I smiled.
He extended his left hand (he was holding the little boy's hand with his right). I shook his hand. He told me he used to have dreads himself and that he's from Carrboro, where apparently EVERYONE had dreads. We talked for a little bit, then he asked, "So where are you from?"
"From here. I've lived here all my life."
"Really? Wow.." he shook his head. "That's awesome."
We eventually parted ways, me heading off to get the air freshener, him off to... who knows.
In my search for the correct aisle, I ran into him again. He said "Dreads again!" and laughed.
I found the air freshener, looked for Mum's cart, found her, gave her my find, and walked with her into the cereal aisle.
Life cereal was on sale!!
Mum got like, six boxes of it. Three kids eat a lot... Plus, "buy one, get one free" is a very nice sale for something like that.
Mum saw one of my neighbors and stopped to talk with them for a little bit. I grabbed some cereal bars to add to my stock.
As I was walking through another aisle, soon to be joined by Mum, I spotted a tan truck pulling in the parking lot. There are huge windows in the front of the store I could view this from.
Scott.
It was him.
He is the only one in Sanford with a truck quite like that.
I instantly got paranoid. Walking slowly, looking in all directions.
I texted Daly with the news. He wished me "luck."
Not even a minute later, I recieved a text from...
Yes, Scott.
It said, "Peek a boo i see you"
I instantly went, "D'oh. He recognized me."
I guess it was my Mum being with me..
Bah.
I did not text back.
I got less paranoid, though. No need to hide anymore. He's seen me. There's no going back.
So I continued to help Mum out with finding the groceries she wanted..
When it came time to check out, we found register that had no line. As our purchases were being rung up, Scott walked past me. He smiled and held up his hand in a "peace sign" gesture and said, "Peace." He laughed. I half-smiled.
About three seconds later, a girl from my Human Values and Meaning class stole my attention, asking what she missed at class on Thursday. I told her that we were given a few papers to read. She looked surprised, disappointed, but then shrugged it off. "Oh well," she laughed.
And then we left.
I drove home. All the way thinking about the encounter with Scott.
I no longer have a secret identity.