One of the main differences between living in the cities, town, or a small town is the amount of time you can take to chat with people when you’re out and about. When you're in the city you might have enough time to exchange pleasantries with someone checking you out at a store.
While in town you might be able to build up some sort of rapport with people at places that you regularly frequent. But in a small town you will often be able to hold full conversions with these same people which is my father’s favorite thing to do.
Recently my father was doing this very thing while my mother was picking out new glasses. At some point during this my parents had mentioned that my father used to be a chaplain for the Federal Prison System for 26 years when they got out Federal employee health insurance that they have as part of my father’s retirement. Which is always important to be mentioned when he meets new people because his favorite joke is that he did 26 years in the federal big house. Which we’ll add on to that he got let out every night for good behavior
This is a joke that only goes off well if the people that he’s talking to pay attention to the fact that he was the chaplain at the prison. Which the people at the glasses store apparently did not pay attention to. So they proceed to tease up and say things about how everyone deserves a second chance protecting my mother to have to re-explain that he was retired from being the chaplain, not from being an inmate.
As I was not there to witness this event in person I am assuming that this explanation of the joke resolved the whole thing. Nevertheless the interaction was amusing and was a much higher level of interaction than those of us in the cities get with most people we meet while out on errands.
