A life of crime

After much thought and consideration, I have decided that I cannot pursue a life of crime. Ok, it really didn’t take much thought or consideration but my reasons for eschewing such a life may not be the usual ones. Along with the obvious legal, ethical and moral issues… there’s one outstanding barrier to this vocation for me, the “small world syndrome”.


This week alone, I have accidentally run into at least 8 people I know while out and about. And that’s not counting people who know and saw ME that I didn’t know or see.


You think I’m exaggerating? I ran into people I know playing poker in Daytona this week. I ran into people I know at the grocery store. I ran into people I know at a pub. I ran into people I know at the Scottish Highland Games where there were thousands and thousands of people milling about. Heck, I even ran into the same people I sat beside at the Copper Rocket the night before at the Scottish Highland Games! (Try having to explain that you’re really not a stalker, it was just coincidence - to four strangers you’ve run into two days in a row in two different areas of town.)


Lest you think it’s just because Orlando isn’t the biggest city in the world, the latest census puts Orlando metro at just over 2 million people. Surely with 2 million people in a town, I should be able to go somewhere without running into someone who knows me! But no. And it’s not limited to Orlando. I was killing time at the Philadelphia airport waiting for my connecting flight and ran into someone I knew from Texas. I was visiting a family member in Denver a couple of years ago and as we were driving down the interstate, I looked at the car driving in the lane next to us and there was my sister and her husband who lived more than 30 miles away on the complete other side of town. I was on my way to Virginia to see my family last year and had someone I knew from South Florida say they saw me that day driving past them in the middle of Georgia as they drove southward. I could continue to recount even more instances if you’re really bored.


It’s not like I’m in the public spotlight or have a high profile job. It’s not even that I’m extremely unusual looking where people I don’t know personally might be inclined to remember my appearance. If I, being a relatively obscure and un-famous (not to be confused with infamous) person have this much trouble doing things anonymously…I can only imagine how someone famous must feel!


So as you can see...a life of crime is just not a viable option for me. I can just see myself heading into a bank to rob it and running into someone I knew 10 years ago. “Hey Mindy! I haven’t seen you in ages. What’s up with the ski mask and gun?”