"Forgive Me...

for interrupting," said the grinning man standing directly in front of my sister and I, "but have you ever been to Turkey?"

Karen and I were riding the green line into Park Street, on our way to Shalimar of India for a delicious lunch.  Sitting in the middle of the car, where the seats are higher and face each other, we had been discussing the plight of a friend of ours who is Korean and is interested in a boy from a very wealthy family (oh dear, gossip).  I noticed the man across from us when we first sat down, only because of his enormous presence.  I don't think he was an enormous person, but he had on very shiny glasses and a giant green coat, a striking color next to his dark skin and his large white, white teeth.  As Karen and I were talking he kept looking at us and looking away, smiling.  I thought perhaps he enjoyed the thought of Asians, or the terrible gold-digger type comments that were coming out of our mouths, or, of course, the quite likely possibility that he thought Karen was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.  As we closed in on our destination, it became apparent that he, too, was getting off.  He stood up, rather closer to us than was comfortable and started looking purposeful.  That's when he leaned in:

"Forgive me for interrupting, but have you ever been to Turkey?" he asked me.  

"No..." says I, "I'm sure I'll make it there someday."

"I hope you don't mind my saying that you should go sooner rather than later, while you are young.  You won't return."

(confused silence)

"You see, in Turkey, a woman of a certain... type... is highly desired in certain social circles.  You, my dear, are a delicacy." 

(shocked, amused, taken aback)

"You should go to Turkey, maybe take your... smaller... friend.  She will come home, you will not."

So wait... are the Turkish going to eat me?  This is not, thanks to my terrible memory, an accurate transcript.  But he definitely said delicacy, and he may have said luscious.  I felt like a pudding.  

Karen summed up the event quite nicely "He looked at you and thought to himself, 'I have knowledge that will change her life,' and was compelled to share it."

So now all I've got to do is come up with the money for a plane ticket to Istanbul.