"messing around"?

Funny conversation with the pharmacy cashier guy tonight:

(I bring up a wrist support thingy to the register)
me: Just this please
cashier guy: Did you hurt your wrist (said with honest inquisitiveness)
me: (scanning previous statement for sarcasm... none detected. Considering jackass remark and rejects it. Instead goes for the honest response) Yeah. I went kayaking last week when I think I messed it up.
cashier guy: (with wide eyes) WOAH. You don't mess around do you?!
me: (scanning for further sarcasm... none detected). he he - no, I guess not.


I guess I don't mess around, according to the night shift clerk at the local pharmacy. What does that even mean? It took me a few minutes to realize that to him, I must be some kind of "extreme sports addict, living on the edge" kind of guy. To me, kayaking or any other outdoor activity, is a basic thing to do in San Diego. Like riding a bike to work or running around like an idiot with scissors in your hands. I think the vast majority of my friends have kayaked, and half of those friends are / have been kayak guides.

So it took me another few minutes to realize that once again, life has pointed out that my sense of what is normal is a bit skewed from the general public. I forget sometimes that people don't make sojourns in the desert to find themselves. Nor do I find it strange to ration your urine after making basecamp in the mountains to strategically pee out your "territory" to keep unwanted pests from raiding your camp. For that matter, I don't bat an eye when my friends (guys and girls) and I strip down to our undies in the morning to change into our daytime clothes after having spent 10 frantic minutes to unzip ourselves from sleeping bags in order to defecate in an ammonia laden pit toilet.

I need to find some normal people to re-calibrate my sense of "normalcy". To remember that these aren't the things that are experienced by typical city-folk.

But then again, as my friend Spot would point out - what is normal?