Habits, Old and New

OK, I saw a promo for this new Fox show, "Moment of Truth" and while I'll guarantee that I'll forget to watch it, one of their promo questions did remind me of something. The question was, "Have you ever touched a co-worker in an inappropriate manner?" Ugh, dammit. Yes, I have, but here's the stupid story.

Year and years ago when I'd known my current wife for a couple years I got into this habit of playfully swatting her on the rear whenever we'd pass by each other. Well one day I was working in the Terry Courts kitchen at Purdue as a waiter and a female waiter I knew somewhat (but not well) was leaning over cleaning something. By now you've probably guessed that something in my brain short-circuited and I playfully swatted her on the rear. I, of course, was three heartbeats from having my head explode with embarrassment and the only thing I could think to say was, "Sorry, wrong rear." Luckily she seemed unabashed and perhaps flattered more than anything.

In the same vein, whenever my wife and I end a phone conversation we generally give it the "bye, love you" at the end and on SEVERAL occasions I've barely stopped myself from saying this to female customers on the phone. This isn't surprising really; you have a lot of contact with a spouse and you build up habits that are hard to break with others of the opposite gender. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about all this but let me assure you my affection for our customers is purely platonic no matter what I may accidentally utter on the phone. The worst danger in this area is people who tend to hug. Aside from my wife, I get hugged about once a year so I'm happy to accept your hug but remember that the previous 499 hugs I gave out came with a little bit more than a hug.

There aren't a lot of stories from my childhood kicking around in my brain but there's one that I can remember word for word. If I have time I'll transcribe it for you: "You took forever to learn to talk but once you did you never shut up." OK, that's it. That was pretty long by the usual standards. The point here may be that at some point I did shut up again. And I think that to a large extent any success I've had at these "job" things has been due to my ability sit down, shut up and work. In fact, I've been told that people avoided me specifically because I "looked like I was doing something important." (It's an easy face to pull off: lips together and slightly puckered, narrow your eyes and eyebrows down as far as they can go. Then stare determinedly at a fixed point. No one has ever been fired while assuming this face.)

Lately though I've gone completely the opposite direction. I can literally blast away an hour and accomplish absolutely nothing except lively banter about the lifestyles of Italian nuns. And I can see why people do this; it's damn amusing. It's probably the most entertaining thing I can think of. That said, we really need a short, polite, unambiguous way of saying, "Listen, I'm really enjoying this conversation but to be honest I have to get back to work because if I don't... well, there's going to be some sort of personal hell for me to pay later. So if we can, let's just pick this up later, OK?" Perhaps a code word of some sort. Not rutabaga, that's already being used to indicate when someone really needs a breath mint. No, I'd suggest watercress. It's short and gentle sounding, "Sorry, man, watercress." Who can get mad at watercress?

Anyway, watercress.