Wednesday, July 04, 2007

A simple misunderstanding

We live in troubled times. It's a lucky thing I don't have brown skin. If there was any chance of somebody suspecting I was Muslim then my habit of screaming "If you don't leave me the fuck alone, people will start dying!" would get me into more trouble than it already does.

I had a simple misunderstanding with someone at work today that could easily have spiraled out of control. You know when you walk around a blind corner and almost bump into someone? The way you have a tendency to jump a little, do a little double-take as you realise there's someone directly in your path?

I had that situation at work today but the woman involved went a bit over the top. She actually shrieked a little and clutched her heart as if she was having a heart attack. No, she wasn't having a heart attack. Not to the best of my knowledge anyway. I'm not callous enough to mock a cow-orker for having a heart attack. OK, yes I am, but that isn't what happened in this case.

I thought her reaction was a bit over the top. After all, it wasn't as if I was a crazed madman wielding a knife. OK, I was actually carrying a knife. But that isn't the same as wielding. And I have a headcold at moment. So right at that moment I was wheezing and snorking a bit. But still, she was weird.

If the knife had been bloodstained I could understand her reaction. But the red stains on it were from the pie I had been slicing. Definitely not blood. And I obviously wasn't planning to stab anybody. I did stumble a little as I rounded the corner, so my arm... wavered a bit. It might have looked a bit like a stabby-stabby motion.

All I'm saying is the troubles of these modern times have made people way too paranoid. I mean, if we can't stagger around the workplace, breathing heavily, making stabbing motions with big, sharp, red-stained knives then the terrorists have already won.

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