Despite the impressions that I might give here, I usually go out of my way to be at least civil to random people I meet during the course of the day. For the most part, they’re the ones just trying to get through whatever’s on their plate and they want to be left alone just as much as I do. Of course on the other hand you sometimes encounter someone who couldn’t get a clue if they were being handed out for free. That was the kind I ran into this morning while I was waiting to get my oil changed.
I like to use the kind of enforced down time you only get in a waiting room to catch up reading, writing, or some other activity I can do quietly. Occasionally I’ve had people stop to ask questions about the iPad. I do my best to answer their questions without getting sucked into anything resembling an actual conversation. I dispense the requested information and stick my nose immediately back into whatever it was I was working on before they came by. Sometimes, like this morning, it’s just not that simple.
The old battle axe sitting next to me this morning apparently has a tough time taking hints or reading body language. Just because I’m typing away on the screen doesn’t mean that I don’t see you trying to read what I’m writing. It gets a little more obvious when you start leaning further and further in my direction as I move my iPad further and further away from you. I didn’t particularly want to cause a scene and yelling at old ladies isn’t really my style. That left me with only one option: a Google search for BDSM images. Since she was so intrigued with what I was up to, I even offered to let her check out the first page of results with me. As it turns out, she apparently wasn’t as interested in what I was up to as she thought she was. Hopefully next time she’s tempted to mind someone else’s business, she’ll give some thought to how much she really wants to know about the stranger sitting next to her.
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