Laura and I had lived in NYC for over a year when we made a return trip to Texas to visit my mom and dad. While they were mostly prepared for our visit - the backyard oasis was in pristine condition, the house cleaned, the fridge and pantry well stocked - mom had failed to pick up one essential ingredient for the night’s fried chicken feast. And so off I went to the one and only grocery store in Tahoka, Texas - Thriftway - so that we could indulge in the artery bursting but oh so scrumptious southern meal.

As soon as I exited my dad’s pick-up at the grocery store, I was approached by a family friend. I shook his rough, calloused, overworked hands and immediately felt less of a man. What does he think about my soft, Lubriderm lotion coated hands? I thought nervously to myself. In the midst of the small talk he finally got to the question I knew he wanted to ask the moment he saw me drive into the parking lot.

Joe, are those people up there, well, are they normal?

I kinda chuckled in an effort to collect myself and to buy time so that I could discern what reply would be appropriate.

That’s funny, they ask the same about you guys here in Texas?

No, they aren’t normal. In fact, they are completely clueless about how this world works and you should see the way these people dress and what they eat. I think they are from Mars!

If I told you the answer to that question, I would then have to kill you.

So after chuckling a bit and shuffling my feet and discerning that none of the above answers were appropriate I said, If you can tell me what’s normal anymore then I’ll take you over to my house tonight and my mom will serve you up some fried chicken!

He laughed and said, I guess you’re right. But I could tell he wasn’t convinced. So I said that in the same way he worries about his crops and whether there is enough rain or not enough or too much, my friend on Wall Street worries about his position at Bear Stearns. I was about to give more examples of how similar the worlds are of one who makes their home in the city as compared to one who makes their home in a rural town but I could tell that we had gone beyond mere small talk and truthfully, neither of us had time for that. I had to get home and provide that final ingredient so as to make our meal complete and he was whipped from a hard day in the fields. As we shook hands to part ways I felt a little more secure in who I was because I realized that even though our lives look differently on the outside we are much the same on the inside. Our worries, our fears, the joys we experience, the desires we have, well, they’re pretty darn similar. In that way, we’re all pretty normal.