Are you in the zone?

There’s this older gentlemen who lives on my floor in my building. Every time I ride the elevator with him it’s a hoot.

Today I had my laundry bag in my hand as I held the door for him to get on. He was dressed for the gym, complete with a sweatband on his head. “Are you in the zone?” he asked me. I quickly looked down to see if I was wearing an Autozone or Discovery Zone T-shirt, never mind the fact that I don’t own either one. “I’m sorry?” I asked him. “Laundry!” he said. “I’ve got about five loads you can chew on.” I have absolutely no idea what he meant by that. He continued to happily mutter nonsense about laundry until I got off and told him to have a nice day.

But that doesn’t compare to an interaction with him I had around this time last year. Spring had sprung and the weather was characteristically un-Chicago. “It’s so nice out there!” he commented to my boyfriend and me. “I just want to go outside, take off all my clothes, and roll around in the grass!” We weren’t quite sure what to say to that, so we smiled. To this day, every time we see a nice grassy hill we joke about how much the old guy from our building would love it.