My wife has a strict rule: I am not allowed to be left unsupervised in public for more than twenty minutes. This weekend reminded me why. I’m standing in a long line at a garden center with a massive 50lb bag of specialized bird seed. This woman behind me taps me on the shoulder and asks, "Oh, do you have a lot of birds?" Standard small talk, But I’d been in line for fifteen minutes and I was bored. I looked at her, completely deadpan, and said: “Actually, no, This is for me, It’s a new holistic cleanse I’m trying, High protein, great for the hair.” The guy behind her immediately stopped scrolling on his phone. The woman’s eyes went wide. “You… you eat that? Is that even safe?” I leaned in like I was sharing a government secret. “The results are incredible. I lost 30 pounds last summer. The only problem is the side effects. Last time I did it, I ended up in the emergency room for two weeks. Tubes, monitors, the whole deal.” She gasped. “From the seeds? Did you get a parasite?” “No,” I said. “I was perched on a telephone pole trying to sleep and a hawk knocked me off. Fell forty feet.” The guy behind her made a sound like a tire blowing out. The woman just stood there, paralyzed, trying to process the mental image. Right then, my wife comes back from the bathroom, sees the look on the woman's face, grabs my arm, and starts dragging me toward the exit. “He’s kidding,” she tells the woman. Then she turns to me: “This is why we can’t have nice things.” I don't care. The look on that lady's face was worth more than the bird seed. 😂