How to Humiliate Yourself in Public Without Really Trying
Yesterday, after my Spike Lee-August Wilson class, people were talking about me. I’m not being paranoid, as I usually am. It was sort of obvious, since there are only three other white kids in the class, and I was the only one who hadn’t left, that it was me they were talking about when I heard murmurs of “crazy white boy,” and so on. I didn’t really know what it was they were saying, or why they were saying it. I decided I’d shut it out of my mind and just go home. It had been kind of a crappy day.
So I walked down the stairs, and I ran into some dude who was trying to find the fourth-floor library. He was going up the main stairwell, which doesn’t have access to floors 1-5 (those are the library floors), so I had to explain to him how to first get to the library and then find the elevators and stairs. He was foreign and confused already, so instead of being able to explain it, I had to actually walk with him down the stairs and show him where to go.
So I did, and I turned around and left, and the guy turned after me and said, “Thank you,” and then snickered. I stopped, turned around, gave him an odd look, he gave me an odd look, and then I turned back around and started the long walk to the subway.
People at the Congress Hotel, a block away, have been striking for a long time. Since last summer, or earlier (maybe spring?), so I’ve gotten used to it. They’re annoying to have to walk past, but I sympathize with the strikers as long as they aren’t making a ridiculous amount of noise. I’m not sure why, but yesterday, all the strikers were women. I walked briskly by them, as usual, and all of a sudden I heard an amused chorus of “Wooooooooo,” as if I’d just walked by them completely nude, followed by amused giggling.
What the fuck was going on?
I kept going. I got on the subway, rode home, and as we approached Cumberland, I got up and waited by the door. I looked at my seat, since I’m crazy and obsessive-compulsive, to make sure I hadn’t forgotten the nothing that I’d pulled out of my pockets when I got on the train, and then I saw it.
A big red comb. Right there on the seat.
The comb was not on the seat when I got on the train; otherwise, I wouldn’t have sat there. How’d it get there? I don’t know.
Did I have a comb stuck to my ass during my entire walk from my class to the subway? It’s possible. It would certainly explain all the weird snickering and hooting.
So now, in addition to the 14 million other things I check before I’m ready to move anywhere, I now have to thoroughly brush off my ass to make sure nobody’s comb is somehow stuck to it.
Sigh.
Posted by Stan on March 17, 2004 3:01 PM | Permalink | Stories of Pain and Humiliation | Digg It
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