I am a people watcher. Wherever I go I spend a great deal of time just looking around seeing what people are doing, how they are dressed, what little moves they make and tells they may have. I can spot certain types of people a mile away and very accurately predict their behavior. I am wrong once in awhile, but not very often.

I used to sit outside the Thrifty Drug store in Tehachapi with an old friend eating ice cream on we called "Inventory Bench" because we wouls sit there and take the inventory of everyone who walked by. If character assasination were a crime, we would both be doing life sentences!

During the years I was involved in AA and NA I honed my skills at figuring people out quickly. I could tell if someone was serious about changing their life just by watching the way they walked in the room and how they sat. People watching there was shooting mice in a barrel! I know these programs aren't supposed to foster that type of judgement and aren't there for teh purpose of people watching, but they are and human nature is what it is.

The mall is an excellent place to people watch for myriad reasons. The age groups, income brackets, attitudes, cliques, etc. Christmas is particularly interesting because almost everyone is pissed by the time they have fought traffic and parking to get there then realize that in the next couple of hours they are going to spend more than they made in the last couple of months. It's fun to witness the dichotomy of grumbling mall scrooges elbowing their way through the churning mass of humanity as gleeful, hopeful Cristmas music wafts from the PA system.

Doctor and dentist office waiting rooms are also a palette of hunan colors and hues of attitude and personality. Nobody wants to be there, but I always try and make the best of it. Just today while waiting for my daughters to get exams, I watched a very attractive woman with her teen daughter as she grumbled about the wait and then groused on her cell with a son who had obviously screwed something up. When she hung up she grumbled "Idiot"! I had to go outside and laugh. When I came back in she was looking at me oddly and I said, "You sound just like me"!

All these are great places to pick on the human condition, but none come close to the true candy store of human diversity. Las Vegas! I have never run out of crap to talk, cultures to slam, drunks to dog or women to watch while there. From guys gambling away a savings account to married women on the loose with a casino full of young men and free booze, from foreign tourists dissing we Americans in God knows how many languages to Seniors on bus tours dressed in Neo-Gift Shop neon to locals looking bored and annoyed with the whole thing. It makes me want to go back just thinking about it!

So, the next time you're somewhere and see some guy looking around with alternating looks of humor and amazement, possibly even stopping on you for a moment, come over and say hi!