ust one of these nice stories.

Had all sorts of crises over the last few weeks. Outside of the overshadowing disaster of a month ago, I caught something from a friend (how do you catch things, what with doing a good job with a mask?). Had to go to the ER and make sure it wasn’t Covid. Upper respiratory infection. Then, to top things off, a crown popped off a day ago.

So I was worried about going in with my hacking – what happens if I accidentally cough and blow the not-set crown across the room? But things settled and everything went well. At the end, we were waiting for it to set and the dental assistant asked what I thought of the new Netflix live Cowboy Bebop?

That staggered me.

Then I remembered her talking about my Bebop shirt from last time and how she was also a fan. So we chatted about it, about how we agree that Jet was perfectly cast but Vicious looks like a half-drowned punk rocker past his prime. We laughed about Ein and some of the scenes. And that was nice. After days of getting rattled by everything (JB caught the infection from me and was gasping and hacking last night) it was fun to just yack with someone half my age about a shared passion.

Funny, but when we walked out, still talking about Bebop and all the cool things, I caught the receptionist looking at us with that pity/confusion thing. “Sorry,” I told her, “but we were just geeking out about a shared interest.”

Walked out of there feeling a lot better about things than when I walked in. And it wasn’t just the tooth. Stopped by a local coffee shop on the way home, got a cup and a croissant, sat outside and geeked out on a scifi book.

Yeah, the power of positive storytelling.

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