Tuesday, 8 July 2014
That Streisand Thing In 'South Park'
I seem to vaguely recall an episode of 'South Park' where this alien effigy of Barbra Streisand goes crazy-ape-batshit and stomps around a la Godzilla, and at one stage shoots laser beams from its eyes, either obliterating or turning everything it scorches into particles of anti-matter. Yes, it indeed shot very nasty rays, and any victim would feel the flesh melting away like a dodgy later of cheddar on an overcooked veal parmigiana. It nearly happened to me today. I was at my local library looking into some material for this talk I have to give in a few weeks. Until my insurance payout is finalised, I'm not getting a printer, so I have to use the facilities at the library. I downloaded some material and sent it to print, and stood to retrieve it from the printer/photocopier. I am not balletic in my movements. I am not trained in the dance. I stood up in my usual maladroit fashion, thus sending my chair rolling backwards on its casters. Shortly thereafter, I repeated my graceless movements, and it was then I was on the receiving end of a glare that could have stopped a charging elephant. 'Will you please watch what you're doing when you get up?' whined this woman who looked a little like Sheldon's girlfriend Amy on 'The Big Bang'. I was informed that I was sending my chair into her back, and she has a back injury, and my clumsiness wasn't really helping the situation. You know what? I felt bad about that. I did. My husband suffers the occasional bout of back pain, and my sympathy pours and flows in waves and combers for people thus afflicted. I apologised profusely, and my apology was genuine. I do not like hurting people. HOWEVER, if you are reading this, DEAR, could you not have accepted my apology with grace and civility? Was it necessary to continue to look daggers at me, hence reminding me of that radioactive Streisand thing on 'South Park'? Perhaps you would have been a happier little Vegemite had you accepted that I got up quickly, and the laws of physics and motion sent my computer chair rolling toward yours, and not sat their scowling and glaring like a malevolent parrot. I don't make it my life's calling to hurt people, in particular, people who are already suffering. I didn't walk into the library, rub my hands together in an unholy joy, plotting what was the best way to bother people, in particular, the surly looking one with the bad dress sense (not that I am sartorially blessed in particular, but I am confident I don't look like a scarecrow). I have a reasonably interesting life, and I don't have to enliven it by bothering people. Just accept accidents will happen, and stop sitting there looking like someone has rubbed fowl guano on your top lip, okay?
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