Stranger Than Fiction

Every summer I stay for two weeks in Bloomfield, Indiana. I spend the majority of these days at Shawnee Theatre. For the past six years, I have actively participated in a theatre program here. While participating in these plays, I have met many strange people. These people come from all over Indiana. Most of them are homeschooled. For some, Shawnee Theatre is one of the few social experiences they participate in. A few years ago, we were playing a theatre game where two people had to go out the the hall while the rest of the cast picked a scene to act out. A girl named Lori and I volunteered to go out to the hall. Since this was my Lori's first day, I decided to try to be friendly and strike up a good conversation. I started by asking, "Is your name Lori or Lauren?" To this she replied, "Oh, it doesn't matter, you can call me either one. It's a lot easier to pronounce than any of my elf names." Thinking she was kidding, I replied jokingly, "Elves? Oh, you mean like the kind that make cookies?" Then she said in an extremely serious, non-joking way, "No, I mean like the real kind." Hearing this really shocked me. It seemed like something a character might say in a movie. I had no idea that people were really this odd. This memory has remained clearer than any other memory from Shawnee just because it was so strange.