Again with my strange magnetic power

I have vented before (more than 2 years ago, so, you know, past the statute of limitations for venting) on Too Saucy about people, and I'm talking total strangers, who feel somehow, for some reason, compelled to talk to me or be next to me - they've walked past 30 empty seats at a bar to sit at the one right next to me. They comment on the coat I am wearing while waiting for an elevator.

But today may take the cake.

This is, I swear, absolutely true and as close to verbatim as I can recreate.

I was at the Rainbow store, which is being forced to move to make way for a subway station on the new 2nd Avenue Subway under construction. It will be a very convenient stop, but I love that place, the closest thing to an old-time general store you can find.

So I'm browsing around - everything is 60 percent off!!!! - and one of the kids who works there comes up to me and says, "Excuse me, can I ask you something?"

Now, I've never seen or talked to this guy before, he was about 16, 17, hard to tell. Not very educated, but, you know, people have to work.

Me: "Sure."

Kid: "When do women start to get their periods?"

Me (internally): "Oh Jeezus H. Christ!"

Me: "Hmm, maybe around 13." (Who the fuck knows if that's even true, but I winged it.)

So now I'm thinking, "Ok, his girlfriend has got her first period and they don't know what's happened," but, er, who goes up to a total stranger in a store and asks that? Older friends, parents, teachers, school nurse, Google, yes. Guy at the Rainbow store looking at coffee mugs, no.

Kid: "And when do they stop getting it?"

Me: (internally): "Ok, now this is really bizarre," and I start looking to make sure there's a quick exit out of there.

Me: (and not sure why I kept talking to him, but he did seem harmless and now I was just curious where this was coming from): "Well, I don't know, in their 60s I guess."

(Again, who knows if this is true, but I was dizzy from an hour on the treadmill.)

Kid: "I thought so, look at that old lady" - and now he gestures to an old woman, easily in her 80s, maybe 90s, at the cash register, on a walker no less, buying a box of Tampons.

Oy gevalt.

So now it's absolutely weird. Why is he noticing, and, more important, why does he feel compelled to point it out to me.

Me: "Who knows?" and, as I probably should have 30 seconds earlier, make a hasty retreat.

People of NYC, seriously, you have to stop talking to me unless I talk to you first, okay?