Well This is Awkward

Someday I will live in a very busy place, and in the early morning I’ll sit outside and drink tea and watch the world hustle and bustle by.

The opportunity to do so rarely presents itself, but today I went to my math class and it was all review for the test, so I left and got tea and sat in the courtyard in the early morning sunshine.

Motorcycles were parked in the courtyard for an event later that day. A man was cleaning the fountain. People walked by.

Suddenly the man cleaning the fountain said, “Hey Emily!”

I recognized him. Um.

I bumped into this janitor last spring, and, being a friendly person, asked him all about his janitorial work.

He then proceeded to ask me out. Despite being, oh, probably at least twenty years older than me.

There’s not a lot that embarrasses me, but guys I just met, especially old ones, showing romantic interest in me, is just about too much embarrassment for me to handle.

This winter I ran into Mr. Janitor again when we both ushered for the winter concert. That’s where I experienced the great triple embarrassment.

Before I continue I will make note that I also find it embarrassing when people think they’ve offended me and they actually haven’t. This may be a knee-jerk reaction to being the “sweet little Mennonite girl” on campus.

The day I ushered, I didn’t have any supper, and was ravenously hungry. Somehow the Janitor caught on, and proceeded to buy me a brownie.

While the Janitor was buying me a brownie, a guy from Open Source club started to apologize for offending me so bad during the last club meeting. Even though I had zero recollection of ever being offended.

And while that was going on, some kid I didn’t know, who was with the Open Source club guy, started demanding to know who I was. “Who is she? Who is she?” he kept asking his companion, and when he was ignored, he turned to me and said, “who are you?!?”

I didn’t even know how to answer that question.

Today there were no brownies, not apologies, nobody demanding to know who I was. Just a friendly janitor who said “hi” and then went back to cleaning his pool.

However, when I got on Facebook an hour or so later, it was the weirdest thing. My friend Bethany, who as far as I know has never been to college nor has any interest in it, had posted a picture of the courtyard, and the janitor, and a little bit of my head hidden mostly by a bush.

The point of the picture was to point out the motorcycles. But seeing the picture appear like that, from someone who I would never have expected to be on campus, gave me an eerie twilight-zone feel.

…

I never posted about the janitor before, even though I thought it made a good story, because I was afraid he would somehow, someday, end up reading it.

But today I thought, you know, if he by some bizarre chance read it, he might be embarrassed. But then again he embarrassed me.

Maybe that is vengeful thinking.

…

I’ve decided I need to stop worrying about posting something deep or thoughtful or with a perfect bow-tie ending, and just post more often. Whatever comes to my head at the moment.

We’ll see.