Dear Old Person at the Grocery Store on a Monday

Dear Old Person at the Grocery Store on a Monday:

You are the third old person this year who has seen me, asked me what happened to my face, and then responded with something like, "Well, I ain't never seen anything like that in my whole entire life!"

I am not the world's largest ball of string. I am not the lovechild of a giraffe and a zebra. I am not an outer space alien speaking in a foreign language of computer beeps. I'm just a human. I promise.

Most people have enough sense to be embarrassed after I answer their question. A few ask follow-up questions. None of them go in for a closer look like you did.

I realize you--with your red suspenders, pants pulled up to your man boobs and untied white keds--are the kind of hip, metropolitan guy who has seen everything there is to see in the whole world, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't study me with suspicion as you would a strange new bug in your bathroom.

Thank you,

Your Fellow Shopper on the Bread Aisle