Do You Mind? You’re in My Personal Space.

Out of all the available seating in this place, you decide to choose the seat next to mine?  Whatever happened to personal space?  It seems that as a society, we are forgetting more and more about what it means to be civilized.  We are not a commune of baboons, which migrate around in packs and are constantly grooming each other, searching for bugs. We are human beings with an indelible right to our own personal space and when you ignore those boundaries, well… “Houston, we have a problem”. 

As Sofia, on Golden Girls, would say “Picture it”.  You go to the Ladies Restroom and there are a vast number of empty stalls.  “Perfect”, you say aloud.  Since the restroom is empty, you go into the last stall, assuming that if anyone comes in, they assuredly will not take the stall next to yours because they will desire their own personal space as much as you do.  Not to mention that you would also be mortified if anyone overheard you taking care of your personal business. But you spoke too quickly because no sooner do you make yourself comfortable on the porcelain god and in walks someone, making a beeline for the stall next to yours.  For the love of everything that is holy, are they serious?  What of the other open stalls? What is wrong with this person?

You quietly seethe and wonder who was inconsiderate enough to commit this transgression. You look down and across to see if you recognize their shoes.  Ugh!!!  Who else would accessorize their feet with such heinous foot wear?  Just what you needed!  So now you wait, hoping that the other person doesn’t do anything too horrifying and that they finish up their business quickly.  In an ideal world, that would have been great but no, this is not your day.  You both decide to wait the other out and thus ensues a silent nerve-racking game of chicken.  No one wants to go first.  What now? Well, your body reminds you of all the stimulants you had during lunch (READ large amounts of fiber) and you know that you will not be able to hold out for much longer if this keeps up.  The uncomfortable silence is unbearable.  Beads of sweat break out on your forehead from the strain of holding on and your nether region is going numb from sitting on a hard surface.  Oh, if only your seat were made out of gel.  You would surely be gellin’.   

Finally, your body decides that it waits for no one and you let yourself go.  As this is happening, you quickly take action and do a ‘mercy flush’, hoping that the noise of the flush will disguise any unpleasantries.   As quickly as you can, you dash out of there like a bat out of hell, wash your hands for as long as it takes you to mentally sing the Happy Birthday song, and scamper out of the restroom as though your butt were on fire.  You are grateful that the wench had the good grace to not show her face until you were done but all of this could have been avoided if the woman had enough sense to cop a squat in another stall further down.  Why do people do this? It’s truly exasperating.  I don’t know how men do it. Poor things have to expose themselves to the masses.  As for Women…sometimes we can be the absolute worst!!!

Insert Foot in Mouth

“It’s not 6 p.m. yet,” I reassuringly say to myself, as I run into the house. Beads of sweat break out on my brow, as I quicken my pace. I walk the dog, put food in his bowl, check his water supply and put the radio on for him. I then make a mad dash out of the house and into my car. I have 30 minutes before my scheduled meeting, with my business partner, at Starbucks. That gives me plenty of time to make a pit stop for a slice of pizza.

As I walk into my favorite pizza place, the owner greets me and immediately knows what I want before I even speak a syllable. While waiting for my slice of heaven, I notice the lovely pregnant woman standing next to me with a young boy, who I assume is her son. I smile at her, as I usually do when I see a pregnant mommy-to-be but she barely smiles back. Undaunted, and totally out of character for me, I ask her how far along she is. Like something out of a bad movie, no sooner had the words sauntered out of my mouth when I quickly realized that I had stepped into the proverbial poo. She, colder than Antarctica, responded, “I’m not pregnant. I’m just fat.” She then stated that the only baby she has ever had was born 9 years ago and is standing right next to her. D’oh! My face froze in complete horror. Why, oh why isn’t the ground opening up to swallow me, I wonder. I scramble to apologize, my face burning with embarrassment. Somehow, in my sprint to get out of the house on time, I must have inadvertently opened up a can of stupid.

Where is that dang pizza? I look at the restaurant owner, silently pleading with him in my head, that he hurry with my order so I could leave. As he slowly approaches with my dinner, I barely give him the opportunity to reach me before I lean over the counter, like a wild woman, and snatch the pizza box right out of his hands. The poor man almost lost an arm in my haste to leave the scene of the crime. Chagrined and mortified, I quickly scooted out of there without a backward glance. I peeled out of that parking lot so fast, I’m pretty sure I left my tires behind. Gah! What had I been thinking? Obviously, I wasn’t. I smugly thought that these moments only happened to idiots. Well, color me dumb because I think I just became the president of the idiot club. Hmm…I may want to look into a sensitivity course. Ugh! What would Emily Post say about this?