How to make friends and influence people . . . .

One of the many conversations I had with Annie during the Bluegrass Jam concerned a “self-appointed” camp host.  Bob lives locally and comes by the camp daily to make his rounds.  Almost as soon as Annie set up her camp he dropped by.  He remembered her from a previous year or some other function; I really don’t remember.   They talked for quite awhile and I got the impression that she was trying to give him the brush off.

Shortly after he left she came over to my camp and said “Did you see that pervert?”  I asked why she thought he was a pervert and she told me she caught him trying to look down the leg of her shorts while she was changing shoes.  Okay, that’s kind of weird but “pervert”?

Then she told me about part of the conversation.  After the normal small talk, Bob apparently told her what he had been up to for the past year.  He just got out of the slammer for stalking a woman.  He served 4 months in county jail for a crime he definitely did not commit!  Boy! I wish I had a similar story I could share with an attractive woman camping all by herself!  What an ice breaker.

I asked her how she replied to his story.  She told me she just changed the subject and started talking about her camping equipment with emphasis on her can of bear spray and her new hatchet.  Way to go Annie!

Then I thought to myself that our first conversation started when she asked me “Do you need to keep your ice chest in your car here?” and I told her that I really didn’t think bears were a problem at this campsite.  Then she showed me her can of bear spray and her new hatchet.  Huh?

Later I mentioned the coincidence of her showing both Bob and me her bear spray and hatchet.  She laughed and said “With you I was actually thinking of protection from bears”.