Maybe I will sign up for self-defense

So there I was, walking out of Costmo with my heavily laden cart when the gent with his own basket began to merge into the traffic pattern from the left. Oh, it was downright bubbly, the way we bantered and chattered, two strangers strolling toward the door. Hmm, now that I think on it some, we quite closely resembled the two jabbering gophers with the British accents from Looney Tunes: "No after you." "No, I insist, after you." "Thannnnnnk you." There were the self-depreprecating comments from him regarding his age. There were the humorous comments from me regarding his age. And then we arrived at the exit.

The security drone at the door scanned both our carts just as the kindly old gent asked me if I was related to Sally Nobody because I looked just like her. "No," I replied, "no relation but I knew who she was—didn't she teach at the Little College on the Hill?" At this point, the slightly obese and way taller than me security drone chimes in with, "Oh, I took a math class from Sally Nobody. It was haaaaard." At this point I had an out of body experience and heard myself say, "Oh, isn't it ironic that I teach math there now?"

"What are you doing?" my left-brain said to my right-brain. "They might be close friends of Sally's. They might turn on you."

You see, I believe I have Sally's job ... or the job Sally believed was hers because she taught there as a non-tenured full-time instructor when the tenure job was posted. Slowly after I arrived, the story came out that members of the hiring committee were nervous about walking to their cars alone after Sally had not been offered an interview. Something about an angry husband. And then I swooped in with my stunning personality and who was the first non-hiring committee, non-department member I meet but Sally herself all smiles and giggles. Months later I learned she was checking out the person who "took her job." Oh, boy.

So I skittered away from the two gents at Costmo before either of them recalled just how good a friend of Sally's they might actually be and then connect the dots to me. Nothing like small town living.