Two in One Hour

There I stood, on the sidewalk in Chinatown, stopped to adjust my coat.  The sun was shinning and I wasn’t feeling my usual persona of ‘missionary lady’.  A man of a few years younger than I, stops about 5 feet in front of me. and gives me a verbal compliment on what i was wearing.  I look at him surprised.  He repeats it.  In my surprised appreciation, I say ‘thank you’.  He comes up to my side and asks ‘May I take you to dinner this evening’.  I look at him not sure I heard him correctly, and say, ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’.  And he repeats it.  I say, ‘Sorry, I have a previous commitment, but thank you.”.  ‘Well’, he says, ‘if anything changes, keep me in mind’.  Now you know none of this was ‘for real’ but I have to say, it was a lovely, unexpected moment.  A while later, another man did something equally as charming.  Maybe the second was a result of the first.  Or maybe both were due to the crazy socks I had on.