So at the beginning of our street, or the end, depending on how you approach life, there is a small carpet store. In it work two men whom I pass pretty much every day on my way to the tube, the grocery store, what have you.

My daughter Isabel began to wave to the man she sees most often, the younger of the two, many months ago. And now when I walk by this man and I exchange a restrained knowing smile (close-lipped, corners turning slightly upward), and sometimes a little nod or wave.

I have never spoken to him. I don’t know his name and he doesn’t know mine. I know him only as “carpet dude.” Yet he is familiar because I see him so often.

It occurred to me as I hobbled by today (I am not injured I am merely suffering from lactic acid galore thanks to a pretty intense personal training session yesterday — it’s the good kind of pain though) that it’s funny how we see some people so often but never talk to them or get to know their stories. It made me wonder whether carpet dude has any clue what my story is. I certainly don’t know his.

These days when I pass by I am sporting a crew cut. But not so long ago I was wearing a headscarf and before that I had thick, dark wavy hair at various lengths (fairly long at first, then a bob, then a short cut for five days until I went all GI Jane and shaved my head… for more on that story and photos see Cold Cap: From Rapunzel to Rambo). Oh gosh I almost forgot that I also left the house on occasion in a pink wig named Candy Floss (and for more on that and photos see Zero).

I wonder if he noticed. And if so did he figure it out or did he just think that I like to change hairstyles frequently and/or am a real weirdo.

If it weren’t for my kids (the constants in this equation) I figure he might not have known that the lady with long wavy hair, the bald lady and the lady with the crew cut are even all the same person.

One day soon I might go in there and see about a new rug for the dining room and maybe some carpet for the bedroom too. I kind of hate to disturb the status quo of our relationship, however, because it is so amazingly low maintenance and stress free.

If I walk in there and speak to him and look at samples and get quotes and all of that it will complicate matters. God forbid there is some sort of problem with the order. Then I might be forced to avert my gaze every time I walk by. Life is complicated enough as it is.

But I don’t have to decide today or even tomorrow.

Maybe I will just go somewhere else so I don’t have to deal. Interacting with people can be so exhausting.

In light of this, it always amazes me how people feel they have to discuss the weather or some equally inane topic when they are riding an elevator together. Somehow it seems better than just standing there. Than just being for the thirty seconds it takes to get to your floor. It’s this uncontrollable feeling that you ought to interact, have an exchange. But you really don’t. You can just stand there and be.

I remember when I was working in the US they began installing TV monitors in the elevators in office buildings (reporting the weather and equally inane topics) so that you could pretend not to notice the other occupants and just stand there staring at the screen. Captivated — no relieved — by the loop of extraneous information for that whole half-minute ride.

This doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue here in London. People crowd onto the elevator and then they stand there until it reaches the correct floor. In the tube elevators they don’t even all stand facing the same direction since you aren’t always sure which way the doors will open, which is a really hard one for folks in the US to deal with.

The next time you walk into a crowded elevator in an office building I dare you to shake things up by facing the opposite direction in which everyone else is standing. It will make people really uncomfortable. But you have to keep a straight face. Or to really get them going pull a sort of Clockwork Orange look like this:

Or you can just make life simple and get on and face the same way as everyone else. The beauty is that you don’t have to decide today or even tomorrow.