Back before I got COVID, I was at the one local farmer’s market in the college town that I now live in, and one weekend I went up to the one corn stand to get some nice fresh sweet corn like I always do when it's in season, and there bending over the bins were some occasional customers from the (Thai) restaurant where I work now, this (vaguely Jewish) (graying brown-haired) (curly) (bearded) (Jewfro) (scrawny) (bohemian) (college town professional) guy with glasses and his (taller) (thin-faced) (white) (cascading grey curls) (female) partner, who had been telling me just a week beforehand when they were in at the restaurant how they had worked remotely this summer and had gone on a long trip and camped among the redwoods.
(They really do give off “lovers” jacuzzi vibes like from that one old Saturday Night Live skit)
And so, when I saw them right there at the farmer's market, I said hi, and they both just looked at me blankly, and then I realized that they didn’t recognize me because I didn’t have on a KN95 mask like I always do when I wait tables at the restaurant, and so I self-identified as the waiter guy from the (Thai) restaurant and then they both were like “Ohhh!”, and we started talking about how people look differently with their masks off.
And, I told them a (probably true) trivia fact from a (music-loving) security guard who I knew from college, that the reason Roy Orbison always wore sunglasses at concerts and whatnot was so that when he wasn't performing, he could take them off and walk around everyday and no-one would recognize him.
“So I guess I’m the Roy Orbison of [the name of the (Thai) restaurant where I work now],” I was like, to their small smiles of delight.
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