I almost had a collision at the grocery store yesterday.

Almost.

I was coming out of an aisle into the larger main aisle when I pulled up short. A couple was approaching with their cart, so I stopped to let them pass.

The woman stopped too.

“No, no. Come on out.”

I thanked her and started forward.

Then her husband leaned toward me and said, quietly enough to sound conspiratorial but loudly enough for his wife to hear, “Be careful. She doesn’t have insurance.”

We all laughed.

“That’s okay,” I told him. “We can work it out.”

Then I looked at his wife.

“We can cook for each other.”

She agreed this seemed like a reasonable settlement.

For a few seconds, three strangers stood at the intersection of two grocery store aisles negotiating an imaginary shopping-cart accident involving an uninsured driver and compensation to be paid in home-cooked meals.

Then we wished each other a good evening and went on our way.

I have no idea whether he’d already used that joke twenty-nine times that day or had been carrying it around all evening waiting for exactly the right opportunity.

Either possibility makes me smile.

There are so many small negotiations between strangers in a day.

Who goes first.

Who holds the door.

Who moves the cart.

Who yields.

Most pass without becoming anything at all.

But every now and then, somebody tosses a little absurdity into the space between you go and no, you go, and complete strangers agree to play along.

For ten seconds, we had a story together.

Then we turned our carts in different directions and disappeared back into our own.

We never did have a collision. Just a brief connection.