5:31 PM — Out of Place
Today I got home from grocery shopping and started lugging my bags into the house. A man in khakis and a polo T-shirt was walking towards me, and I took a short-cut up my lawn to stay away from the unsavory individual. He was clearly not from the area, he had to be a Jehova's Witness or Insurance Salesman. He called out "Excuse me" in an Irish-ish brogue before I could entirely avoid him, and asked me directions to a place I didn't know. He showed me the Yahoo!Maps sheet he printed out, where he'd clearly taken a wrong turn in his tan-colored luxury vehicle. I directed him back on the right track, 100 meters back up the road.
It was a strange experience because I realized I had automatically moved to avoid a person who did not fit in the neighborhood. Not because he looked unsavory, in fact he looked quote wholesome, but because he was out of place--he was
white!