Carded, part I

I still have no idea what to make of something that happened a few weeks ago.

Here's what went down:

I'm sitting on the train, at the window seat, fifth row back, with a young man sitting in the aisle seat next to me (and people in all the seats around, this being the evening commute), with my li'l laptop on my lap, headphones in my ears.

A finger taps on my shoulder from behind me. As I glance up from typing, a hand comes poking up from (I presume) the row behind where I'm sitting, holding a business card, which is thrust up and set on my lap. Not on the keyboard of the laptop, but on the area of my legs between the edge of the computer and my crotch. The hand didn't even wait for me to reach for the card with my hand.

The card has a handwritten message on it.

"Got free time? Call me."

This is odd.

As I glance up I see what I believe to be the provider of the card walking down the aisle and exiting the train. It's a woman, whose hair is kind of a high-piled Afro that's tall on top and kind long in the back, but short on the sides.

As the doors close and the train proceeds forward I see her walking along the platform, but she does not look over, nor do I look over.

Flipping the card over, it is for a hair shop, which purports to specialize in "weaves, press n' curl, braids, African twists…" and so on. In other words, in the sort of services generally of interest to African-American females.

Although I am married to one, I cannot imagine she would have any way of knowing that. It definitely does not include the sort of services I require for my hair; that much is obvious from a glance, even from behind.

(Especially from behind.)

And that does not explain the ostensible proposition on the reverse.

If it was a sales pitch, as I said, I can't imagine she looked at me and thought, Yes, he'll want to come to our shop, or his wife will. And if was intended as a genuine come-on, I have to imagine that I am exuding some kind of musk or something that exceeds anything I have ever managed at any point in my existence. It would suggest that I was able to attract a stranger without even so much as making eye contact with her. Without me having been aware of her existence before her number was in my lap.

And she was not dissuaded by the wedding ring on my finger, which was in view when she thrust the card into my lap.

If she's looking for a sugar daddy, she must be oblivious to the fact that I'm riding public transportation.

I am baffled.

These sort of things never happen to people who drive their cars. I presume.

~

This is not the end of this, however...