...beneath these tragic waves
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the wafting odor
Jun 12, 2001

I've tried to avoid this topic, as it's not at all satisfying. Yet due to circumstances far beyond my control, I've been thrust into the uncomfortable duty of having to speak it. Let us talk about feet. Just for a moment.

You may not be able to tell it by looking at me (though I've always felt my vibe has sent the message), but I don't like to have unknown feet thrust into my face. In fact, far from it. Yet somehow my person seems to scream to others "put those buggers right here".

There's a few things you just don't do to me. You don't stick your finger up my nose and expect me not to do it back and you don't put your nasty feet in my grill. You don't do it when I don't know you, you don't do it when I'm about to eat, and you especially don't do it by putting them up on restaurant tray slides. You know the kind I mean. The sort of serving booth you had in school where you sat your tray.

There are two sorts of feet. Really sexy feet or really disgusting feet. Strangers feet fall into the category of "disgusting feet" no matter how good their foot might be otherwise. As you might imagine, that's magnified by 20 times when I'm eating. You might think that I've got it in for the foot, but that's just not true. I appreciate a good foot as much as the next person who thinks about things like this but I've got to get to know the foot. Dinner, a movie, and polite conversation first.

On the way home from the bookstore, my stomach told me that I should stop and grab a bite to eat. Taking heed of this, I ended up at the Japanese place I've mentioned before (and luckily didn't make a fool of myself this time), which is the equivalent, I suppose, of fast food Japanese eating despite it being high quality. The food takes a while to prepare (so I guess there goes fast food after all) but the cooks have gone from apathetic towards my chop-choppiness to trying to keep me entertained by doing the whole Shogun [Japanese Steakhouse] bit. They've even tried to throw food in my mouth upon one occasion, which is a feat over a big sneeze barrier, I'll tell you. The fact that it hit me in the forehead was my fault completely.

I was waiting for the food to sizzle to completion and enjoying the cooks tossing chicken to and fro when I suddenly felt my personal bubble being violently invaded. Glancing, which I soon learned to be a mistake, to my right I came face to extremely close face with some girl who was watching the food cook and apparently trying to decide what to eat. I don't know who comes up to a stranger, stands mere inches from them while leaning slightly into their body, but that's what was happening. And while I very rarely see women who are as tall as I, she of course happened to be exactly my height and therefore had her eyes drilling through my skull as if I were invisible.

I've never been fond of people getting that close to me unless they are trying to kiss me (and if that had been the case, we'd have a whole different story to tell...after I was released from jail for attacking her, that is) or ram heads with me like a mountain goat (I wouldn't have been too pleased if she had done that either, though I have to admit it would have been pretty funny once I woke up). The point is, if I don't know people, I don't want them so close that I hit them with my nose when I turn my head or vise versa. Nothing's worse than a nose in the eye. It hurts and it looks sort of silly.

After a moment I had become very uncomfortable with her being that close, and even more so with the fact that she didn't think a thing about it. I decided to shift slightly to my left while making it obvious I was moving to get away by giving her the "you're a psycho" face. Evidently taking the blow rather personally, she retaliated with the most vicious attack I could imagine. She stuck her foot on the counter and started fixing the flip-flop (yeah, some people wear those here while not at the beach... you should be happy we even have shoes here, contrary to popular belief) toe-wedge thingy. Right on the counter where my food, despite being protected by a tray and non-biodegradable styrofoam, would be. She couldn't just bend down? It seemed not. I failed to see the reason however. She wasn't a perfectly sphere shape that would cause her to roll oddly away causing hilarity to ensue. She was normal person-shaped, with knees that bend the proper way and everything (though I secretly wished, as I do for myself, that she had flamingo knees). She adjusted the toe-wedge, she prodded at her toenail to insure the paint was still *solid*, she spread her amphibious toes all around. She did it all... all on the counter. I didn't say anything to her. In fact, I couldn't bring myself to even look at her (and especially not her foot) any longer. I should have however. Someone has to take a stand against such insanity, so why not me? After all, I don't especially want that habit spreading and having foot after foot thrust in my face when I'm trying to eat nor just at random. And, I'll boldly say, you don't either.

Perhaps I'm being too negative. At least she wasn't one of those people who carry clippers on their key chains and therefore didn't start going to town with them over the food dish. So I guess, in the end, I should be grateful that she pretty much stuck her foot in my mouth.

(You people have got to start telling me when I break things. Specifically, the guestbook, which I break daily just about since I redesign so often. I don't sign it myself you know.)

"Feed my will to feel this moment, urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace what ever may come."

devolve | evolve

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