"Yeah! I love the color on these ones -" She waves at the shiny anodized kind. "How is that done?"

"It involves water, dangerous chemicals, and electricity. I tend to stay out of the way." 

"Fair enough." How pricey is this stuff. Some unusual expenditure is to be expected on waking up a new person one day but jewelry is not an emergency.

All of the welded and/or anodized stuff is pricey. There are some affordable wire-and-beads things. 

"Are you here with a group or just by yourself?" 

"Just me. Did a shift at the kissing booth and now I'm seeing what else there is."

"--Huh, I didn't know those were still, like, a thing." 

"I'd never seen one before, but it sounded fun."

"I figured it was one of those things like bobbing for apples that nobody did anymore because people care about hygiene now. And I don't think there's a kissing booth version of the thing where you bob for apples in vodka ostensibly for sanitary reasons." 

"I think if I were kissing people for noncharitable purposes nobody's first objection would really be hygiene."

She flaps a hand dismissively. "Not nobody. Not that you're wrong that there'd be social censure."

"Anyway, as far as I know none of those people had mono and nor have I."

"--I mean, you can catch, like, the flu, from kissing. Not that I'm judging you, just, it's not exclusively mono." 

"Mono was metonymy, yeah."

"Anyway, what do you do besides charity?"

"I am in a completely reevaluating everything about my life phase at the moment, actually, but I expect to pop out of it liking to read and do good in the world."

"--Well, I'm sorry for whatever made you feel like you needed to re-evaluate your entire life, but reading and altruism are generally good!"

"It has been on the whole a confusing but not unambiguously negative experience!"

"That's good. If I had to re-evaluate my whole life my first guess for why would be that I had learned that I'd been lied to about something really important and load-bearing."

"Nope. Just woke up feeling like a different person who did not really understand why I had been previously living my life in a way that did not make sense to New Me."

"Well, I'm glad you like New You." That sounds differently upsetting, honestly, but not necessarily in a way where it's now and not then that had something wrong with it! 

"Thanks. Anyway, I don't think we've met in either incarnation, I'm Bella."

"I'm Edie! I also like reading and altruism. I'm a sophomore majoring in political science." 

"Fortunately I had my identity crisis while still an undeclared freshman!"

"Seems convenient. Possibly depending on how your prior identity felt about reading and altruism? I can think of worse things than, uh, I guess a Lit degree isn't super easy to get a job with actually but." 

"Oh, I do like literature but admit I do not expect to find a career in the field. Maybe I'll major in development economics or premed or something. Prior identity was not particularly into either thing."