I was in the local supermarket this afternoon, as I am several times a week for going on 9 years now. So it's not entirely unreasonable that other regular customers might also be familiar with me. I'm kind of oblivious to other customers myself (although I have a keen eye for staff), but the purple hair would tend to stand out in my patch of suburbia.



I was near cold meats when I heard an adult voice call from quite nearby, "There's the Crazy Lady!"

Now, call me paranoid...

Go on, I'll wait.

...

Excellent, thank you. Call me paranoid but I did wonder if she was referring to me. I was dressed as normally in a Bananas In Pajamas glow-in-the-dark t-shirt, with purple trousers and socks, and red shoes. My partly purple hair was in two braids. Perhaps shockingly I was not wearing makeup (and never do). I'm never entirely sure how visible the usual layer of cat fur is to the casual observer.

So I looked up, and the woman's 8-9ish year old daughter was staring right at me. It was a trifle disconcerting, but I was more concerned about the mother, for if she had identified me thusly, it had been done with little regard for my feelings. If she thought I was deaf, it was still done without politeness. They went on ahead, but it just so happens I caught up with them in the next aisle. Here's an opportunity, I thought.

What kind of opportunity? An opportunity to put my foot right in it, that's what it was. I could go with my curiosity and ask the woman if she'd referred to me as TCL, but then what? Get offended? I wasn't especially offended - I am certifiably crazy after all, and while these things are not usually announced publically, she may have been quite correctly educating her daughter to the presence of Madness.

There was also a possibility that *she* might be offended by my question, or become defensive and shouty and I'm really not keen on that sort of thing. So for once in my life commen sense overruled monkey curiosity and I did not ask her if I was The Crazy Lady, perhaps proving that I'm not one after all.

Go me.