Monday is here and I'm knee deep in it again. Tammy was pleased to have me back behind the wheel in the morning. You've probably figured it out by now but when I work from home Tammy is stuck doing all the driving.
This brings me to today's date. Today is Tammy's birthday! She's exceedingly cute on her birthdays. We celebrated on Saturday with her family. Tammy ground up a mess of 2 parts chuck and 1 part sirloin and God saw fit to give us a break in the rain so that we might indulge ourselves by grilling over open flame. I'm a charcoal guy, mainly because I caught myself on fire with a gas grill once. However, there is nothing like meat grilled over charcoal.
Sunday, for Valentine's we enjoyed a terrific meal at one of our favorite places Joeseppi's Italian Ristorante. Joe serves great food and truly reasonable prices.
This works as a great segue into today's topic. I'm a fan of a good meal. In fact, I don't miss many of them. That love of food combined with genetics and backed up with some bad eating behavior intersects in a spectacular way in me. I've spent a fair amount of time considering this melting pot; oh wait, mmm, The Melting Pot if you have 4 hours to eat dinner… Oh, sorry, so, I've come to terms with the outcome of all this collision of circumstance, biology and behavior. I've learned to love me the way I am and I'm surrounded by folks who feel the same way. Here it is, just putting it out there plainly, I'm a fat guy. I'm not "big boned", or "wide for my height", or "calorically challenged". I'm fat. Yup, it would be easier to be thin. Yup, I'd fit into the current societal vision of normal much better if I were thin. Yup, I would be in better health if I were thin. There's no doubt that these things are true, but none of that means that I feel second class or less deserving just because I'm potentially still packing around a cheeseburger I ate 12 years ago.
Now with that behind us I'd like to talk about a phenomenon that I first experienced on airplanes and has been recently reproduced for me on public transit. I refer to it as the "Oh no, please, not him" experience. This occurs as someone either sees me coming down the aisle of a vehicle and they have an empty seat next to them or the reverse as they come down the aisle and I have an empty seat next to me. They are unable to hold back as their thoughts ripple across their face like a cheap casino reader board. "Oh, no, please not next 
to me!"
I try, usually successfully, to draw myself in as small as possible to make room for my new row buddy. I do my best to keep from spilling over into their space. When it comes to the buses, I try to plan my trips so that I'm on bus with the most open seats, and I try to get on the route early so that I can cram myself up against the wall should it become crowded. Still though, it does occasionally occur that someone is forced to sit next to me. To everyone who has had to face this situation allow me to extend my sincere apologies and share with you a couple of facts. First, I shower and use deodorant. Next, I can and do operate our laundry room with enough precision to insure that my clothes are always clean. When I'm sick and contagious, I stay home and do my best to keep from sharing my misery. On the rare occasion that I do develop a cough, I do so into the crook of my arm and wash my hands frequently. This brings me to my last point of my apology, when I use the "little nerd's room" I wash my hands. So, in the event that you should have to sit next to me and that awkward level of body contact is experienced I hope you have some solace in the fact that I'm aware of your discomfort and are doing my best to be the best row buddy I can be.
Please allow me at this point to make a minor request. When we find ourselves in this situation it would be great that should you chose to stand rather than sit next to me, you not huff and sneer at me like I had insulted your parentage. Unfortunately not everyone can be as genetically blessed, behaviorally balanced, or "disciplined" as you. But if you insist on outwardly displaying your disdain for us pear shaped folks please forgive me if I start to laugh. I'll try really hard not to, but sometimes I can't help myself.
While I'm near the subject of bus etiquette, let me run down a couple of other observations. I'm new to this whole mass transit thing and something I try to do any time I find myself in a new environment is spend a little time getting the lay of the land. If you are lucky there are some posted rules or guides that help but sometimes you just have to practice your powers of observation. One of the first things that I noticed that people do at bus stops is form themselves into a line. It seems right and fair that the folks that got their first should get out of the weather first and get first pick of seats. For the first couple of weeks I would ride a bus from the Overlake Transit Center to the Bellevue Transit Center then transfer to another bus that took me to Seatac. While waiting for the bus to Seatac we'd all queue up and get ready for the bus to arrive with the exception of two construction workers. Observing this the first time I thought "perhaps they are new like me" and simply don't know. I soon realized though that my optimism was not going to get any bolstering here. They just decided that short of one of us falling down in front of them and forcing their direction of travel to be altered physically, no one else existed at that stop. Having read the self references above you can imagine I'm not easy to ignore! It was a challenge for me not to say something to them but ultimately I've felt better in the long run about holding my tongue. Really, no really. I mean it. Shhh, I heard that!
I think I'll finish today with this thought. Most folks on the bus and walking around these days in general, seem to be wearing headphones. I myself am a devoted audio book fan and do the same. In acknowledgement of the fact that just because I can't hear anyone else doesn't mean they don't exist, I will on occasion smile and/or nod at you. Sure, there's a chance that I'm on a cell phone, or that I've decided to interact to "The Voices", but there is also a distinct chance that I'm trying to be friendly. I know that this may confuse and even scare some of you, but why not try smiling back? I won't likely attempt something like a conversation with you as I'm obviously engrossed in my directly injected noise, so is it really a huge risk? Just a thought.
Don't drive angry! Drive weird!
No comments:
Post a Comment