Verbally accosted

I'm walking to my bus this morning, and a trio of high-school-age thugs is approaching in the opposite direction. These look like a group of kids who are concealing something, who might beat the shit out the kind of nerdy kid I was at that age. They wear like badges of honor the trademark baggy pants, angry faces, hands in pockets, and limping-stride that says "I'm tough." They're probably senior delinquents, ditching class to go cause some trouble somewhere.

I pass a lot of crazy homeless people on my way to the bus every day. Having been raised by a single mother who often traveled alone with her four children, I was trained early on to react a certain way to strangers, particularly groups of strangers. That reaction has become so ingrained that it happens now without me even realizing: I take mental stock of my personal possessions and their locations (without tightening any grasp or showing fear), I do not smile, and I look hard into the stranger's eyes so they know that I see them, that I could identify them in a police lineup if asked to do so.

I don't even realize that my defensive reaction has begun until the teenagers' cocky strut has brought them within a few feet of me, and one of them says to me, matter-of-factly, as though it were a command:

"YOU ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL!"

Surprised -- even shocked -- I stammer, "Thank you."

None of us slows our pace as this exchange takes place, and we pass each other without further incident or interaction. I am perplexed but grinning from their peculiar praise as I continue my walk to the bus. A few seconds later, half a block's distance between us, another one of them turns back and shouts at me:

"WE ALL AGREE!"