Grotesque? But yes!

I was walking past the Alfa today -- no, it wasn't a victory lap; it's just on the way to Croissants de France in its exile on Petronia, and I had a pastry jones -- and saw a group of guys in deep-sea-fishing T-shirts taking pictures with the car.

As usual, I offered to take a group shot of all of them, and they gladly accepted.

"Isn't this the ugliest damn car you've ever seen?" one of them asked, in a good-spirited way.

"It's grotesque, and I like it," I said, ready to reel off a bit of its history and probably, in a very deep way, ready to defend a fellow offbeat.

"You mean that in the Italian sense I bet," said one of the other guys in the group, and I realized I'd have to rethink my stereotypes about deep-sea fishermen.

We had a few minutes' conversation about grottoes, and shells and bones, and "outsider art" and OCD in centuries before the terms were known. About teapot hood ornaments and drivers behind the 8-ball. About warty shells on doors and black-and-white trunk panels.

They went off in search of beer, and I my ham-and-cheese croissant. At C de F, the woman at the counter took my order with a smile, and we talked about how long it would take to get the store open on Duval (they had a fire on Valentine's Day of '05), and the pace of things in Key West. . . .

And she mentioned that she was leaving in a few days for a house she'd bought as a summer place in the Pyrenees. I realized I'd have to rethink my stereotypes about pastry shop clerks.