19 February 2010

Lurking Small-Talkers in the Teachers' Lounge

It's another rainy Friday, which most mean another tutoring day. It seems to rain a lot when I have to tutor, which also means there are no parking spaces in the school's tiny lot. However, today there were plenty of spaces (nevermind the fact I had to park twice because I still cannot manage to park my car correctly even though I've had it for 9 months now). Who knows what was going on, but I was actually the first one there, and got to claim the big purple lounge chair as my very own (it could probably fit two of me, which makes it a particularly special chair for the overweight). As other volunteers started filling in to the teachers' lounge, I read my book in a way to discourage discourse with me. I hate fraternizing with the other volunteers. It is so awkward.

Today there was a new volunteer; a creepy, leathery geriatric with a voice that sounded like he had watched too many cowboy movies in his youth. He tried to chat me up, but I smiled vaguely and held my book up higher. Can't people see that a book represents a wall between me and you? Thus, he was forced to chat with another volunteer who sat down at his table. Seemed they had met previously and this is what they had to say to each other:

Geriatric: Hello there, (volunteer name, that I didn't catch and should probably know)!
Lady: Hi. Good memory. You're...Jim!
Geriatric: No. That won't do. It's Dan.
Lady: Oh. I knew it was three letters.
Lady: My daughter's boyfriend's name is Dan. He's a really good guy.
Geriatric: Is he in school?
Lady: No. Not even close.
Geriatric: Is he the marrying type?
Lady: No, I don't think so. But neither is my daughter.
Geriatric: I didn't think I was until I was 42.
Lady: Well, they may just not be the type.
Lady: Or they could just be late bloomers.

I bet the daughter would totally slash her own throat if she had heard this conversation. That her mom's prowessness at small talk is to use someone's name as a lead in to a conversation about her daughter's boyfriend. And then completely not plotz at all when this almost-stranger-whose-name-is-not-Jim point-blank asks if this boyfriend is the marrying type. How fucking intrusive and odd! It was almost like they were flirting with how easy this all rolled out of their mouths. Tee hee. Marrying. Geez, shucks.

Let's just go make recalcitrant pre-teens read generic age-appropriate hand-outs with many typos already. Gawd.

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For the first time in the year I have been with this company, all the stalls but one were filled in the ladies' bathroom on my floor. I nabbed the handicap stall--as far as I am aware, there is no disabled person in the building (well, not physically disabled in any visible way, and we certainly have mentally disabled people, and I'm not just making a joke there). While doing my business, there was another lady in a stall who kept coughing in an attempt to cover her pooping noises. I find that coughing only leads to more farting, and doesn't really cover up any sounds. She should have just sat there holding her poo until we all had cleared out if she was that embarrassed. When I went to wash my hands, the pooper ended up being this really whacko lady in PR, who enthusiastically greeted me with a "HEY YOU!" as I washed my hands. That is so inappropriate. I couldn't scrub off my anger, and was left to stew at my desk for the rest of the afternoon.

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