some guy just called me "coach."

here's a story from yesterday.

i'm sitting here at my desk, working away. a lady came in for her appointment, flanked by two young children and a girl who is most likely in her teen years.
of course the two young children sensed people were hard at work and began behaving accordingly: singing, dancing, screaming, "look what i can do," etc. the teen girl proceeded to read my name on my desk and say it several times as if testing it as a new sort of mantra.
then she just had to comment..."you don't see many male receptionists around" and gave me a puzzling look as if she couldn't understand how a man was doing this job. i mumbled something about how they combined two jobs when i was hired and one of them was this. this subject immediately sent me into a "highly annoyed but quiet" mode.
the two young children went into the meeting with their mother and we just sat there, me working away, the girl looking around the room looking for something to do.
"hey joel...do you know anything about God?"
i tend to be pretty out of it, but i see through things. i knew the tone of voice, possibly because i was raised to have it myself.
"why, what's your question?"
"what?
"well, usually when people say 'do you know anything about' something, that means they have a question they want answered."
"what are you, some sort of God dictionary?"
"um...you're the one who asked me the question in the first place. if you have a question go ahead, maybe i can help."
"oh."
i could tell she wasn't sure exactly how to react.
"well, do you know about God? do you know him?"
"i like to think i do, but the more i study, the more i realize i don't know much."
the puzzled look returned.
she then said a couple things that, while true, were more or less general statements meant to save face.
then the little kids came back out and i sat there trying to work through a 20 minute circus.