Tell me your problems

I'm pretty sure I'm still a brat. Right now I'm sitting in Bentonville at the BBV Chamber Expo. One of my coworkers who's been here most of the day had class tonight, so I volunteered to cover 'til 7 p.m. And it just so happens that the Taste of NWA is tonight and it's three bucks for a plate to sample food from all over NWA. What a deal. It's not like I have a life or anything.

The interesting thing about any kind of trade show to me is that people feel like they have to say something when they walk by your booth. So I've gotten a lot of "My cousin's neighbor's daughter's boyfriend goes there" to "You guys have a beautiful campus" to my favorite of the day so far, "Can you teach me how to read?" Yeah, he wasn't kidding. And the answer is no.

Even more disturbing than the reading question was the 45-minute conversation I had with a young lady who told me about her husband's drug addiction and how he stole his grandmother's liquid hydrocodone and replaced it with water. Um, I'm not sure why people think I need to hear their personal problems. Especially about a stranger who went to prison because her husband wrote hot checks. I know I'm trapped here, but I don't know how that applies to my job. Not only am I not qualified to do adult education, I am in no way a counselor.

I was just walking around grazing, and some dude told me that his mom was married to a guy named John Brown and she divorced him for a guy named... wait for it... John Brown. Wow.