Walking Under The Influence
So I was leaving the building,
On the ground floor,
When some woman,
Fairly disheveled,
With movements and gant …
Suggestive of recent alcoholic intact,
Also sporting a singular tooth,
Walked/stumbled/danced towards me,
Arms a’ flailing.
Then,
When she was several steps away from me,
She looked away from the direction she was heading,
Which was towards me,
And turned her head back towards the entrance of the building,
Saying something to the guards behind her.
Her move must have distracted her,
Causing her to forget where she was walking.
She definitely didn’t see me …
As she approached me rapidly,
For a drunk person that is.
So I swerve to avoid her running into me.
Though as I swerved out of her way,
She turned around just after the moment of avoided impact,
And spun one of her arms in a 180,
Which had in its hand a pocket book.
Now though I had gotten out of the way enough that she didn’t run into me,
When she spun her arm,
The pocketbook she was carrying hit my leg,
At which point she dropped it.
Now instead of an “I’m sorry” or an “Excuse me“,
Which silly enough I actually expected to hear from her …
She looks straight at me and says,
“What are you doing?”
In a fairly attitude filled manner.
Now,
I hadn’t had a good day up to this point,
And was far from being in good form for prime retorts,
So I offered the incredibly weak reply of …
“What are you doing?”
Original? No.
But I learned as a child that a good response to a situation where you don’t want to put any thought into the response,
Yet mildly annoy the person calling for a response from you,
Is to simply repeat what they said.
And honestly,
Considering I just had to do a tap dance to avoid being run into by this woman,
Yet she’s taking the approach of getting in my face for her inability to cordially navigate a phreaking large entranceway,
Meant,
It was pretty damn certain I wasn’t going to put much thought into a response other than just reiterating hers.
Move along,
That’s all I wanted to do.
So I turned to continue leaving the building,
When she tossed out the comment of comments …
“You look like a man !”
And the way she said it,
Was mean mean.
Wow.
I didn’t see that one coming.
Now technically,
Getting hit below the belt doesn’t really carry the same impact with me as it used to in the old days,
But still,
That was a hit below the belt !
It was a lucky hit,
Granted,
Because I really don’t think she executed a Function Call.
I think she just blurted it out because I was wearing a suit (sans tie of course),
And since I wasn’t staggering all over the floor,
Was considerably taller than her.
Now one might think,
At this stage I’d come up with a witty response,
But no …
I didn’t.
Oh trust me,
I did have to bite my tongue,
Because there were numerous delicious morsels of snide at my disposal,
But it was neither the time,
Nor the place.
I just wanted to leave,
Without creating a scene.
So I did one of my patented,
“Head bob up and down while slightly extending my neck in a Jar Jar Binks fashion while lifting my right upper lip just a notch below a snear and stating ‘Nice’ in a prolonged manner synchronized with the head bob“-moves,
Then turned and walked away.
She said something more to me as I walked away,
Not sure if it was trash or not,
Damage was already done.
My feelings hurt,
And confidence taken down even lower than it already is,
From the random shot of a drunk walker.
Again,
As I would say,
Nice.
Editor’s Follow-up: Now this singular incident did bum me out,considerably. It definitely ruined the rest of my day, my evening, and led to a nice night of insomnia. I was extremely aware the very next morning when I was in the same place where the Walker Under the Influence event did its damage to me. I had to keep myself from looking around to see if anyone was watching me. It sucked.
I figured that the rest of the day would be a bit of a mess for me too,
As a result,
It’s hard to shake those experiences,
At least for me.
Though I got a gift a few minutes later,
From the following words of a fellow attorney friend.
Friend: “Hey Amy, remember that drunk woman that ran into you yesterday?”
Silent thought: Gawd luv ya dude, thank you !!! I knew she was drunk.
Me: “Oh yeah, I remember her. She ran into me, didn’t she? I didn’t create the scene, did I?”
Friend: “Oh no, I was walking right behind you, I saw the whole thing. You were quite nice to her. Anyways, she got in the elevator I was in … and took offense at me when I called her “ma’am” and asked what floor she needed. Just so you know, she told me where she was going and the floor she wanted to go to, but it was the wrong floor … anyways, I let her get off on the wrong floor, probably still wondering around here for all I know. Paybacks, justice … one in the same. :)”
There is no way he can ever imagine how much him sharing that helped me.
Aims, I know that the boys in blue couldn’t quite pull it out, but I gotta say it was one hell of a game and Michigan has nothing to hang their heads about. I think you guys would have had their number in the big house or on a neutral field.
Kelly
Substitute drunk woman with three drunken teenagers and a white van. Mix in one late night London convenience store, a measure of embarrassment and serve in one long car chase. Garnish with a lucky escape.
Then I could say wow, that happened to me too!
Amy x (the other one) (no not that one – another one!)
At some time in the next six months,
Stacy’s Solipsism Support Group Site
will go the way of all flesh
and become nothing more than a memory.
For most of you, I like to think,
a happy memory.
The ethereal cyber workshop is already abuzz
with a flurry of activity
as my new site of shameless self promotion
prepares to step up and take over,
hopefully making my name a household word
among literati…
🙂
meanwhile,
if anyone would like a copy of any of my little screenplays,
and/or permission to post them in an archive of their own
(well, yeah, they ARE copyrighted),
please let me know…
msstacy13(at)yahoo(dot)com
Yeah, those commetns can really bum out your whole day.
Sometimes things happen that I think “Wow, things are going my way!”, like when a driver yells ‘Miss can I ask you a question” (for directions that is).
But then there are those moments that somebody makes a ‘function call’ within seconds of laying eyes on you. What suprises me is that it is often an agegroup, boys ranging somewhere from 12 -18 years who seem to feel the need to make ‘the call’. Those moments still disturb me inner peace a lot. Then I grap my bike to do some miles to shake it off 😛
Totally OT: I am scheduled to have ‘the last/big operation’ in a week time *whhhhhaaaaaa*
Hey Amy…O Honorable Jägermeistress,
Talked to our friend that couldn’t be there last Saturday, she’s with her dad, and doing fine, thought I’d pass that along,
obtw, wanted to catch breakfast last Sunday before you left, knocked on the wrong door, got yelled at, so maybe next time
Stephie
Lighten up, Frances.
Isn’t is sad that no matter how many times you’re told how beautiful you are it only takes one off-handed, blind in the dark shot to bum you out for a couple of days?
Amy You have to pick your battles and be careful i am glad you walked away!! to battle someone already impaired well its just not lady like and we all know there was no more beautiful woman in that garage than you ! and one so intelligent as obviously the one staggering was one of low intelleigence” these are not the droids you are looking for” kudos to you Amy -Wan well done!
Hmmm…Stephie officially updating canned response to number
“What to do with staring old people in a Dunkin Donuts”
I like it much better, Thanks Yodette!
…one moment…two people…one a gem…the other can go stuff herself… 🙂
For optimal trouble, between “I thought I recognized you” and “oh I’m sorry I thought you were someone else”, add a quick eye flick to his wife. 🙂
I found it handy to have some “canned” responses at my disposal, for two reasons. Reason one being that usually these things happen when least expected. So in order to avoid sounding like I have over reacted or responded in such a way that I had become conditioned to say because I didn’t come up through the ranks. Besides this would only confirm they’re assumption of past history.
So I asked a few trusted friends how they would respond to a series of comments or situations that could possibly happen, ex being one of them (we’re like sisters). I was tired of having a situation that I responded to, then to spend valuable time to replay over and over, disect it, over analyze it and wish I had a do over.
Reason two is simple…I’ve never been that quick witted on my feat
A test:One Sunday morning over the summer, just woke up, hungry, no coffee, no problem, Dunkin Donuts two blocks away. Check hair, ok, make up, forget it, jeans and light weight polo, no bra, obvious maybe a little. Walk into Dunkin Donuts and there is a couple, late 50’s early 60’s sitting and staring and with a smile/smirk, wouldn’t stop staring eye’s burning a hole in me, it’s like, blink already.
So on the way out I walked up to the table didn’t even acknowledge wife, looked right at the man with a flirty smile (like I know his winky looks like) and said hi, I thought I recognized you, then after the bewildered look comes you say, oh I’m sorry I thought you were someone else…in such a tone that gets the wife’s attention. I left knowing that just maybe I created some tension, at very least you know she’s going to ask. Sunday morning, Dunkin Donuts, older couple=safe.
4am, two guys w/tatoo’s, in a bar=death wish.
A few trusted freinds that helped bring me up to behavioral speed=priceless
see, and my reply would have just been a well angled foot before her heel. After a discreet glance around, of course.
Sounds like a drunk person trying to be sober, maybe they’re the worst! :–
Nice