Do you ever overhear scraps of conversation, without context, and wonder about the rest of the story?

Sunday evening, I was at the airport waiting for my pre-flight meal at Anthony’s restaurant. At the bar (food bar, not drinks bar) were a man and a 12-13 year old boy, chatting idly and pleasantly. A woman sat down next to them, and the man proceeded to chat the woman up.

They exchanged the usual pleasantries – where are you from, where are you traveling to, etc. The man answered that he was from Bellingham, going to Las Vegas, but dropping the boy off at a camp for troubled teens.

The woman’s eyes opened wide, and she asked the boy, “Are you a troubled teen?”

The boy answered yes, with a smile. His appearance was innocuous – white, nearly adolescent kid on the slim side, wearing an oversized baseball hat over neat, short hair, and a button down shirt and khaki pants.

After that, the talk drifted to other subjects.

I had to wonder – what is the story there? I have experience with troubled teens – even with trying to get them to go where they don’t want to be. It seems rather rude and overly personal to blatantly announce, “He’s a troubled teen!” to strangers. The troubled teens – and some normal ones too – would not sit happily in an airport restaurant and chat about their upcoming trip to wilderness camp. In fact, short of force, you’d never get them to the airport or the camp at all.

There are escort services that parents can hire to take their children to and from wilderness camp, schools for troubled kids, and military school. They are pretty rough, tough experiences, even can stage a surprise ‘kidnapping’ with the parents’ consent.

Maybe the man was a paid escort? It might explain why the boy was talking so pleasantly with him – and also might be an explanation for the oddly personal, public ‘troubled teen’ reference. Interactions are always different with strangers than with parents.

Anyway, I’ll never know the rest of the story. I might write one, though!