sometimes you just go with the flow

Some days have a theme. Tomorrow might be "Pen Running Out Of Ink Day," or "Finding Pennies Day," or something like that. Usually the cut-off is three -- if something happens three times, then that's the day's theme. Sometimes the theme is narrowly defined, like "Offer To Get Me A Coffee From Tim's Day," and sometimes it is much more broad, like "Can't Remember Where I Left Things Day."

Today was "Random Answer Day." This theme was particularly strong today; this happened a lot more than just three times. This is a somewhat frustrating theme, because it tends to double or triple the time it takes for me to do what I need to do (thus allowing me to move on to see the next person so that they can not answer my questions), but it had its upside. The funniest conversation I had today went like this:

Me: So what can I do for you today, ma'am?

Very Sweet Little Old Lady Who Has No Idea Why She's There: Well, last night they served spaghetti for supper, and I usually don't like the spaghetti sauce, but my neighbour told me they're using a different sauce, so I decided to give it a whirl, but I didn't think it was any different from the old sauce, and so I had a couple of bites but then decided to just stick with the garlic bread, because they make good garlic bread. But I think my neighbour might have meant that they changed the garlic bread, because it certainly was different -- I don't think it had any garlic at all! I used to make garlic bread for my daughter because she liked to have us over for dinner, but she has four kids and she doesn't usually have time to make garlic bread --

Me: Ma'am, I'm sorry to interrupt but I was just wondering what brought you here today.

VSLOLWHNIWST: Oh! [Looks at me like I'm completely daft.] The ambulance!

At this point, I decided that whatever the lady was there for, it was obviously not as important to her as the spaghetti sauce, so we discussed the pros and cons of various brands as well as the merits of making one's own sauce from scratch (a noble effort, we concluded, but not always possible and sometimes not as good as some of the really good brands).