A Strange Woman
Dec 1st, 2007 | By Bock | Category: My lifeA woman comes into my local bar sometimes, at lunch-time, where people are eating, sharing tables, reading the paper.
She doesn’t ask if someone is using that space. She doesn’t ask if maybe someone has gone out to answer the phone, or to smoke, or to deal with a horrible road accident involving the decapitation of their close relative.
No.
She just sits in there beside you.
Close beside you.
So close, you feel uncomfortable — especially when you notice that she’s rocking slowly back and forth.
Strange.
.o0o.
I’m not a nice person when you don’t let me alone. I’m not an extremely tolerant person.
I’m just not.
Fuck off! Let me alone!
The first time I experienced this woman’s behaviour was in the evening when the bar was empty and I was waiting to meet someone. There was nobody else there, and I was quietly reading my newspaper, when she squeezed in beside me without a word.
Next to me!
Not: Is someone using this seat?
No. At my table!
Not, would you mind if I sat here?
No.
Just the two of us, side by side, very close, in this empty bar with all its empty tables.
Fuck off!!
.o0o.
I’m a small, mean-minded man, and yet for some reason, I neither laughed at, nor attacked, this poor devil. Instead, I recognised that I was dealing with a person who had much bigger problems in life than I have, and I felt sorry for the poor woman.
Did that help me?
No.
I still want to punch her in the mouth. Fuck off and let me read my paper!
Is she good looking?
Waaahhhaaayyy! Looks like someone’s got a lady fancier. Go on the Bock!
Has anyone else noticed her!!!
Dan: No
Jack : No
Kay: Oh yes!
In the narrative of your life, she may be a messenger. Or a metaphor for, um, something. Or your nemesis or your saviour.
In any event, Bock, I think you pulled!
Well, Sam, if I pulled, so did the other fifty or sixty men and women haunted by this person.
She must have room in her heart for all of you.
creepy!!!!
Where is this bar?
You want a creepy experience?
OK, I’ll give you the address, but you’ll have to leave your kirpan at home, just in case.
Ha Ha!
I do not carry a kirpan dear! I am not a baptized Sikh! I am more of a Chicken and Whiskey boy!
Sorry Bock, I’ll leave you be from now on.
Dan, I AM GOOD LOOKING (when I have my teeth in)! You can catch me in the Flag or the Windmill most lunchtimes.
Julie, have you met Jasjeet Singh? I think he’d like to be friends with you.
Jasjeet,
I’m at Dolan’s tonight for the Fun Lovin’ Criminals gig but I’ll pop out to the bar from time to time. I’ll have my teeth in, just for you! Or maybe you prefer them out?
This could be the start of a beautiful friendship!
There has been extensive studies done by researchers doing similar acts of invading personal spaces and to record reactions. Maybe she’s a sociologist?
Or just a sad nutter.
Or a sad, nutty sociologist?
Something occurs to me Bock. She is not the only strange woman going in there. Jesus, I am sounding like the Duke of Leinster. I know the woman you speak of, pretty weird. We will discount our own women and indeed male friends as they are the weirdos we know and love. I wish your weirdo would apply for membership so she could be blackballed and chucked back out onto the street, where she belongs.
To paraphrase,
Bock there’s only one thing worse then a strange women sitting down beside you ………….
Oh dear Jesus
S&C -
That was terrible!