How do you deal? Some people seem to take care of it all so very gracefully, while others kind of fumble their way through.
Two examples happened today.
I was scheduled to meet Lisa at 10 am, which, for all intents and purposes, is rather early, considering that I don’t have any classes that I’m scheduled to wake up that early for on Tuesday. I stumbled across campus towards the Engineering buildings, when I ran into Samir. He was one of the members of FOC 2004 representing the Math Faculty (I was part of Engineering). Anyway, he has now taken over the role of…hmm…committee organizer guy. I wish I knew the formal title so that I could give him full credit, but I’ve already forgotten. Anyway, I wanted to ask him all about his new position and how well he was doing, but all I could muster were a few incoherent phrases.
“So…how’s that thing…with the groups, and the people…”
“FOC?”
“Yeah, that’s it”
I think I must have seemed stoned or something, because I seriously could not connect my sentences togehter. Beforehand, while walking, I was feeling alright; perhaps lost in my thoughts. Then, all of a sudden, I was spewing out nonsensical crap.
How do you deal? I wanted to leave the conversation, but I tried to keep the pleasantries up because I genuinely wanted to talk to the guy (he’s a nice guy). In the end, I just excused myself to go meet Lisa. I wasn’t mortified, but really just relieved that I didn’t have to use stress my brain any longer.
Second example happened later in the afternoon. Now that I’m back at MKV, I recognize a few familiar faces. In particular, there’s Terri the cleaning lady. I see her around often, and we always greet each other. I haven’t been in the building for a long while, so seeing her again was pretty cool. Anyway, I was walking down the stairs to meet someone on the main floor. As I was heading down, another guy was coming up the stairs. He was running. Or, it looked like he was running away from something. As I continued down, I found out why. He must have let a big fart go, because it was stinking up the stairway. As I continued down, I run into Terri. Now, geez, here’s this rotten smell, that will probably be attributed to me.
How do you deal? I wanted to disclaim any responsibility. However, instead, Terri and I just greeted each other as always and exchanged a bit of dialogue, not really acknowledging the stench. I just kept on walking, pretending like nothing happened. Meh. Whatever, man. If she thinks it’s me, so what? It’s not like she’s going to hold that smell against me for the rest of my stay here. She’s not going to look at me and think, “oh damn, look, it’s the guy who farted”.
In the end, I’m under the belief that I’m a normal well-adjusted guy. These two situations haven’t done anything to disprove any of that. Still though, it makes me second guess whether I’m making an ass of myself, and whether my presentation of “self” is being changed by these odd situations.
Then again, if no one else really cares, why should I, no?
Possibly related posts:
Recent Comments