A Sharp No. 2

People say the strangest things.  And I'm not talking about, "Oh, my kid said..such and such," or any pedestrian, situationally funny phrases.  Do you harbor a really dark, sarcastic sense of humor, but then get surprised when a stranger says something dark and funny to you?

I was sitting at the Huntsville Library, mooching off of the free Wi-Fi to watch an online class.  And yes, it is mooching, because I feel obligated to buy something if I go to a corporate coffee shop to suck up bandwith and not sip espresso.  But, in any event, as I waited for my computer to turn on, I dug through the abyss I call my purse to find a pen with which to take notes.   A kind old gentleman approached me and asked if I had lost my pen.  Well, as a matter of fact, I had.  And before I could get up to mooch one from the reference desk, he was on it.  Like a hound in a badass game of Duck Hunt, he was on the task and scampered back in no time at all with a dull golf pencil from the reference desk.  I thanked him, and then thought to myself, "Eh,  this will work."   I left him with a courteous smile and he turned and left me to my work.  

Just a few steps later he made an about-face, and came walking back. Oh God, I thought.  Is he going to want to read over my shoulder or hang out for a while?  "You know,"  he said as he stuck his pointer finger into the air, "if you were looking for a gun, I wouldn't have been able to help you."  And then he turned around and walked away, presumably to mettle in someone else's affairs for the afternoon. 

Was that supposed to make me feel better?  Random, funny, and dark all in one.   All I know is that he was certainly a man I'd return a pencil to after borrowing it.