The world is full of characters. This is a polite way of saying that God slipped some of us a little more juice than others. He rewired the circuits of some to give the rest of us laughter. And depending on the circumstances, meeting them can be a little scary.

Linda is a mountain woman. Round face. Big, dark eyes. Salt and pepper hair. Hands that have the marks of hard work on them. Her charm comes with the personality of a frat party on Milledge Avenue.

“I was born and raised in these mountains,” she says to me. “I’m 76 years old, and I reckon I’ll die right here one of these days.”

Linda is a native of Hiawassee, Georgia. She is the owner of an antique/junk shop on the main drag near the middle of town. There is a sign that says, “Linda’s Home Décor”. That is stretching it a bit. I guess it all depends on your taste in décor.

Marion and I get out of the truck and wander through the maze of wrought iron and wooden plow stocks that surround the store out front. There’s a metal high-top table with two bar-height metal stools that looks practically new. Right next to that is a what looks like a 1950s rusted Skilsaw with a frayed cord. The blade guard is missing.

This is gonna be an adventure.

Linda is out in the parking lot talking to a customer as we go inside to begin our search for treasure. It’s not long before she comes inside.

“I’ve got just one question for you folks.”

We exchange greetings. Just the regular howdy-and-where-y’all-from stuff. Then she got to her question.

“Are you the folks driving that beee-uuu-tiii-ful white truck in my parking lot?”

We nod and start to speak but . . .

“See that piece of crap over yonder.” She’s pointing out through the door of her store to an older vehicle. “The one with all the paint peeling off the front end. You see that. That’s what I drive.”

I thought maybe it was a ploy to get us to feel sorry for her and buy stuff.

“But don’t y’all feel sorry for me. She may look like shinola, but she gets me where I need to go.”

Her store is actually very intriguing. Lots of stuff to see. Fairly well organized. Items from local craftsmen and artists. Items from the 1930s and 40s. This is our kind of place.

“Well,” she says. “If y’all can’t tell it, I’m kind of a crazy, independent woman.”

Does a cat have a climbing gear?

Marion chimes in. “I’m independent, too,” she said. “I told him (meaning poor innocent me) a long time ago ‘I don’t need no stinking man.’”

Linda got really fired up at that notion. She looked me dead in the eye.

“You better be careful with this one.”

Tell me something I don’t already know.

She went on. “You get yourself an independent woman and you’ve got your hands full. You mess around and she’ll be done with the likes of you.”

I’m slow, but I’m beginning to sense a shift in the way the stars are lining up here.

I’m looking through a stack of penciled artwork. Old farm scenes of gathering up hay with a mule-drawn wagon. A father and son in a cut-over corn field, the beagles chasing a cottontail into the hedgerow. My mind is wandering to other places.

“Hey Hun,” Linda says. “I want to tell you something.”

She proceeded to tell us about her husband and how married life had been for her. How when you get married, you’re supposed to take the good with the bad, but how her man had just a little bit more ‘bad’ than she could take.

“I divorced him 36 years ago and been happy ever since. Shoot, you couldn’t throw a man at me now and make him stick.”

Then she reached over and grabbed ahold of Marion’s forearm.

“Us independent women mean business, don’t we?”

I suddenly had the urge to run and cry out for my Mama.

I’m not sure what happened next. I guess maybe it was all the female bonding going on. But all of a sudden Linda took a liking to me. She followed me through the store. She started calling me Honey. She was pointing out things that a “nice fella” like me might like.

Marion picked up an old 1930s oscillating electric fan. I asked Linda if there was someplace we could plug it in, to see if it worked. She took me through a curtain in a doorway to the back kitchenette. We used an outlet over the counter.

Marion can be sassy when she wants to be.

“What y’all been doing behind that curtain back there?”

Linda laughed. “Lordy, I like you girl. I had my chance and blew it, I reckon.”

When I was a kid, I remember seeing a couple of our old barn cats playing with a mouse. It was a sadistic game. The poor little mouse had no chance in this world. Both cats just toying with him. They would gently tap him with a paw. They would take turns chasing him. I think they smiled at him, right before they ripped his little head off his body.

I was starting to get nervous in Linda’s shop.

We took our treasures to the counter. Linda let her hand linger a little bit in mine as she gave me my change.

“Honey,” she says to Marion. “I think you’ve got yourself a good one. Cute, too.”

Now I know that Linda is not only witty, but she’s very nearsighted, as well.

We said our long goodbyes, like we’d been friends for forty years. Marion and I headed for the truck and got in. I cranked it up and let my window down. Elbow slung up on the window ledge.

“Wait a minute,” Marion says. “Linda is waving at us. Looks like she wants to say something.”

Linda is spry for 76. She’s not hobbled over. She’s got a lift in her step. I wouldn’t exactly say she just walked over to my window. She sashayed over.

I wished I could remember what it was she came out to say, but I got distracted when she reached up, took my hand in hers, and rubbed my forearm with her other hand. Marion is sitting across from me on the passenger side taking it all in.

“Linda.” I’m trying to hold it together. “Are you asking me out on a date? It feels like you’re asking me out on a date.”

She laughed and rubbed my arm even more.

“Let me tell you something, Honey. If I wanted to date a fella, which I don’t, I wouldn’t rub his arm.”

She stepped back from the truck a couple of steps.

“I’d just . . .” Then she cupped her hands beneath her . . . you know . . . her God-given anatomical centerpieces. “I’d just shake these at him and get anything I want.”

I shall never, ever forget Linda.

Some things, try as you may, you can’t unsee.