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while walking home from work i ran into two women. it was a mother and daughter. they were visiting the university i work at, considering it for the daughter for next year.
i met them by asking if they were lost or needed help finding something because they seemed perplexed about things. their faces lit up with surprise. then they said they did not need help but immediately commented on how nice it was that i asked. they went on to say that people everywhere here were so nice. nothing like at harvard or yale or the eleven other schools they had visited. i quipped that we run a happy campus but there are a few old cantankerous cranks around, we just don't let them out much. after a few more pleasantries i noticed the woman, the mother, intently staring at my face. when i turned to her, she said in a methodical and careful way that i had a very cuban forehead (i now assumed that both of these bronzed women were themselves cuban). she moved her hand over my forehead like she wanted to touch it but resisted. after a pause while i processed her comment making sure i heard it right, i assured her she was the first person to ever say that particular string of words to me and that i've been told i look like eddie munster plenty but never that i had the forehead of a cuban man. she then told me it was a good forehead clapped me on the shoulder in a familial way and with that we parted ways, everyone the better for the moment we shared.
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