Unbagging the Cats 1

Unbagging the Cats 1

Thursday, March 15, 2012

The Shuttered, Off-Kilter Window To My Soul

I have an issue.

There is a person at my lunch table who persists in staring at my shoulder throughout our conversation. Every day. No matter what the topic. No matter what I'm wearing. My shoulder.

At first, I thought I might have a piece of lint stuck to my shirt. I looked for it. Like when a person talks to you while staring at your hair. You smooth it. But this is the shoulder. I don't have hair sprouting in tufts through the cotton of my shirtsleeve. The obsession baffles me.

Am I so butt-ugly that one cannot look into my face without perishing? Am I such a huge collection of matter that one must orient herself by focusing on a certain point, lest my gravitational pull make her feel as if she is spiraling toward the center of my black hole? Did somebody sneeze and leave a booger on me? Does my sleeve have a little smart-mouth that drones on and on while one is talking to me, requiring a firm silencing with a Tide Pen? Do I have a feminine hygiene product poking out of my pocket? Did I nod off to sleep in my classroom, resulting in a student-administered, oozing tattoo of a dancing hula girl? Do I have a large mole that strains the seams of my shirtsleeve? Do my irises spin like two hypnotizing black-and-white spirals, causing one to fall under my control with the power of suggestion, lest one looks away to break the spell?

I don't get it.

8 comments:

Sioux Roslawski said...

Maybe you are so intimidating, she cannot make eye contact with you? Like not looking straight at a wild animal, so as not to challenge them.

Maybe she has shoulder envy. Do you have wonderfully-built shoulders?

stephen Hayes said...

I'm sure it has more to do with the other person and their insecurities than it has to do with you.

Linda O'Connell said...

I once dated a guy who kept his eyelids at half mast when he talked. It was the death knell, let me tell you.

Donna Volkenannt said...

Hmm. Interesting dilemma.
Are you wearing shoulder pads?

Kathy's Klothesline said...

Try staring at her shoulder .....

Leenie said...

It's your invisible second head. The one with the Satan horns that tells you to do evil. She can see it. You're secret is out.

labbie1 said...

If you look anything like your avatar over there, yep, you are too ugly to stare in the face! LOL

Seriously, perhaps she is just a submissive. Just ask one day if you have something on your shoulder...

Val said...

Sioux,
Yep. That's me! The alpha educator. Others cower in my presence.

She only does this at the lunch table. Not in the teacher workroom, not in the office, not in the hall. So I don't think that's the reason.

As a matter of fact, I WAS once told that I had beautiful shoulders. A story which shall never see the light of day. But seriously. It's not like I wear a strapless gown to the cafeteria lunch table. My shoulders are well-covered.

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Stephen,
I don't know what her deal is. Other than she sits at the left hand of Val, and might fear retribution for monopolizing the copy machine, and is curious as to just how fast I can clock her with my south paw.

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Linda,
That is just creepy. Like a sidler without Tic-Tacs in his pocket.

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Donna,
Nope. No shoulder pads. I know we teachers are an unfashionable bunch, but shoulder pads are SO eighties.

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Kathy,
That's like Linda's previous advice of kneeling down to stare into a staring child's eyes. You guys are all about confrontation!

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Leenie,
The devil you say! It takes one to see one. I'd better not mess with her.

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labbie,
Well, that avatar likeness was captured on a very windy day. I'm usually a bit more well-groomed, having forked my hair before first bell.

At first, your asking business sounds like a scathingly brilliant idea. But then I wonder how I can get something on my shoulder every single day, on different shirts.