Social norms, as best I can remember in my college studies, are unspoken rules that determine how we act in the good graces of everyone around us. They're the guidelines that separate the socially acceptable from that one guy in everyone's town that aimlessly wanders around carrying a jar of grape jelly, whom he has named Ted and dances happily when motorists honk at him to pull his pants up and get out of traffic. If you don't have anyone in your town like that I apologize - they make life so much more interesting.
Sometimes social norms are very black and white and easy to understand. An examples of this would be don't laugh hysterically at the heartfelt and more serious portions of a person's eulogy and then stare violently at the preacher during the amusing asides.
And sometimes social norms can be a little on the grey side.
Today I had a very strange experience with the grey area of a social norm.
My wife and I were at Target with our two year old boy at the check out line when a very nice gentleman who was ahead of us checking out caught notice of Jack and gave him a smile.
This is not totally out of the ordinary as with most small children who draw attention to themselves by loudly greeting every single person or in our case stuffed animal in their sight. And in most cases the greeted party will return a smile or a "Hello," or sometimes even go as far to attempt a Q&A. You know the usual "What's your name?" or "How old are you?" are always favorties that sometimes I forget are being asked of the two year old and instead answer myself. The looks I get for that are priceless.
Regardless everything was going fine and normal until the gentleman in front of us suddenly dropped his smile and began to MEOW loudly and agrily at Jack. Obviously I knew the gentelman was just playing around and I graciously but cautiously handed out mercy laugh for a brief second or two. Strangely a second or two became three or four and then five or six and then I found myself continuing an historically long mercy laugh as this very different individual continued to MEOW at our two year old.
Just to make sure I wasn't the only one still lauging at this man's break with sanity I turned to gauge the reaction of my wife and our son. The look of horror and bewilderment that was displayed on their faces was priceless. My wife looked as if at the outset was smiling but then as the seconds ticked on couldn't hold it together any longer and the grin had become a pained grimmace. Our son was not only not amused at all, but to my pride held one of the most expressive eyebrow raises I've ever seen.
Usually in moments of sustained awkwardness the cashier should carry some of the water to break the ice, however our cashier was either enjoying the front row seat to a person losing their mind or was too terrified himself to do anything about it.
That's when my wife stepped in and by stepped in I mean gave me the look indicating that I should step in. I really didn't know what I was supposed to do. My instincts have always been to abide by social norms and in this case the social norm would be to smile politley at the gentleman and throw in the mercy laugh. But I'd already done that. It was almost as if this guy was simply seeing how long he could keep up the consistent meowing at a two year old just to see our reaction. In his mental breakdown he was in a sense asking "Would you please ride the crazy train with me?"
Finally, I guess after having his fill of the slow train wreck the cashier louldy wished the man a pleasant day and gave him his receipt moving him along.
It was odd to me because the man never broke character. He never smiled or winked or made any gesture whatsoever to us that he was within his right mind. And according to the unwritten rules of society this is acknowledgement of sanity is a given. So was the guy crazy or is this the direction that social norms are going? Are people going to push the boundaries more just to get their kicks out of unsuspecting and innocent bystanders? I guess only with first hand experience we'll know for sure.
Oh and on a side note - apparently this guy was meowing at the cashier long before we even stepped up so he was totally bats#%t crazy.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Today I became a regular
I could easily be accused of being a creature of habit. Typically around lunch time, I'll have at the most three restaurants that I'll go to, where I'll choose one of three different items on their respective menus. I'm not sure if you'd chalk this up as being an obsessive compulsive nut, but so what. I like what I like and I've gotten myself set in a routine. If anything my frequent patroning of certain restaurants is a good thing. I 100% guarantee you there is at least two places in town that I am personally keeping afloat with the business that I give it on a weekly basis.
But when is my frequent visits to a restaurant too much? Maybe it's when the person I'm calling my order in knows what I want. Maybe it's when they know the exact amount of ice to put in my sweet tea (I always ask for light ice). Or maybe it's when the cashier that I see on a weekly basis begins to start up asks how work is or mentions that they haven't seen me in a while after I've been out of town.
Maybe, but no. Today I learned the perfect sign that I frequent a restaurant too much.
As I mentioned before there's a couple of delis in town that I alone could keep in business for years to come and one in particular I visited earlier this afternoon. Everything went as normal. I ordered, paid and made my way down the line to where I normally pick up my order. Then suddenly I heard it in the back where the skilled sandwich techicians were working on other orders.
"Hey it's Tuna guy," bellowed one of the guys in the back about as loud as anyone could do inside of a crowded restaurant. Immediately everyone's head turns to me. As if I'm the only guy in the world that would order tuna? There has to be someone else in the line - some greasy hippie or yoga instructor - that looks more like a tuna person than me. Looking back I should have looked at the person next to me and said something like, "How humiliating for you? What're you some kind of a tuna addict?" Everyone would have a nice laugh at their expense and I'd get away scot free. However hindsight is 20/20 and I'm more a 10/15.
Instead I went all idiot with this gem.
"Tuna's good for your heart with all the uhhhh omegas....omega twos or threes or whatever."
"Have a good one Tuna guy," sandwich dude waved.
But oh no, I wasn't even about ready to let this go.
"So this makes us feel special. Give the regulars a name after what they order. How inventive." I tried to play on sandwich dude's lack of self-confidence as a lowly deli-worker.
"Exactly." he said.
So much for that strategy.
"Tuna's not the only thing I ever order here. What about the days I order the sliced beef?"
"Angus Beefman," he answered.
"Ham?"
"Honey Baked Homie"
"Chicken?"
"Cock a Doodle Dude"
That one was actually kind of cool. I had nothing left to argue my case. I was officially a regular. Destined to endure the humiliation of being called Tuna guy or whatever else they had planned for that day on as regular a basis as I visited that particular deli. I could decide not to visit that place ever again. Put my foot down and demand respect, but every fellow regular knows that you'll just keep coming back. You might change your timing a little to avoid the wise-cracking sandwich makers, but you'll always be back, because you're an addict.
But when is my frequent visits to a restaurant too much? Maybe it's when the person I'm calling my order in knows what I want. Maybe it's when they know the exact amount of ice to put in my sweet tea (I always ask for light ice). Or maybe it's when the cashier that I see on a weekly basis begins to start up asks how work is or mentions that they haven't seen me in a while after I've been out of town.
Maybe, but no. Today I learned the perfect sign that I frequent a restaurant too much.
As I mentioned before there's a couple of delis in town that I alone could keep in business for years to come and one in particular I visited earlier this afternoon. Everything went as normal. I ordered, paid and made my way down the line to where I normally pick up my order. Then suddenly I heard it in the back where the skilled sandwich techicians were working on other orders.
"Hey it's Tuna guy," bellowed one of the guys in the back about as loud as anyone could do inside of a crowded restaurant. Immediately everyone's head turns to me. As if I'm the only guy in the world that would order tuna? There has to be someone else in the line - some greasy hippie or yoga instructor - that looks more like a tuna person than me. Looking back I should have looked at the person next to me and said something like, "How humiliating for you? What're you some kind of a tuna addict?" Everyone would have a nice laugh at their expense and I'd get away scot free. However hindsight is 20/20 and I'm more a 10/15.
Instead I went all idiot with this gem.
"Tuna's good for your heart with all the uhhhh omegas....omega twos or threes or whatever."
"Have a good one Tuna guy," sandwich dude waved.
But oh no, I wasn't even about ready to let this go.
"So this makes us feel special. Give the regulars a name after what they order. How inventive." I tried to play on sandwich dude's lack of self-confidence as a lowly deli-worker.
"Exactly." he said.
So much for that strategy.
"Tuna's not the only thing I ever order here. What about the days I order the sliced beef?"
"Angus Beefman," he answered.
"Ham?"
"Honey Baked Homie"
"Chicken?"
"Cock a Doodle Dude"
That one was actually kind of cool. I had nothing left to argue my case. I was officially a regular. Destined to endure the humiliation of being called Tuna guy or whatever else they had planned for that day on as regular a basis as I visited that particular deli. I could decide not to visit that place ever again. Put my foot down and demand respect, but every fellow regular knows that you'll just keep coming back. You might change your timing a little to avoid the wise-cracking sandwich makers, but you'll always be back, because you're an addict.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Today the humiliation begins.
Today I decided what better way to embarass myself, but to write a blog. Not sure how much or how little I'll contribute to this, but I imagine it will depend mostly on my threshold of humiliation. See no matter where I start with either a conversation or a facebook post or any other form of communication I end up outing myself as a total goofball. Not something I intentionally try to do, but tends to happen nevertheless. I would love to be able to say that I'm not the only one who has this magical gift, but 33 years in I still have not met them. Literally every person I've ever met has their head more squarely attached to their shoulders than I do. I honestly get nervous when standing in open fields because I'm afraid my head will float away without a tree branch in sight for it to get snagged on.
Example:
Last week at work I was sitting at my desk typing away when I decided to blow my nose. I reached over and pulled a visibly white kleenex from the box and went at it. I tossed the kleenex away and went about my work as usual. A couple of hours later I had the itch again and grabbed another kleenex. Only this time the kleenex in question was some sort of tannish, peach color. Clearly this was not from the box I had just used two hours before so I was pretty confident that someone was fooling around with my lack of mental capacity and switched boxes with me, knowing full well that I would believe that I was losing my mind and the clown show of the day would commence. Or was it in fact the box that I had drawn kleenex out of for the last three months and I just never really noticed that it was anything but the standard kleenex color of white? I looked in the bin to check my discarded one from before, but alas I was foiled by the diligence and hard work ethic of our janitor and it had already been tossed out.
What started out as a quiet cubicle to cubicle inquiry of "Did you see someone messing with my kleenex?" quickly escalated to "ALRIGHT WHO'S SCREWING AROUND WITH ME?" announced through the entire office floor and continued on with a "AM I TOTALLY LOSING MY MIND HERE?"
After a fractic few minutes and me beginning to crawl under the desk, curl into a ball and wait on the men in white coats to come I received an answer.
"Patrick," the secretary calmly got my attention, "the last five kleenex in a box is always a different color so that you'll know to get a new box."
That's just wrong on an entirely awful level. Why would the brainiacs making kleenex decide that their informative different color kleenex was to be a tannish peach? It's not exactly a noticeably different color from white to begin with. I mean something like that leads people like myself, who don't have whole heap of alot of sanity left, to lose the little that they have over a kleenex - a friggin kleenex. Is that what you want kleenex? A bunch of crazed idiots running around with boxes of kleenex in their hands screaming, "Why am I losing my mind? It was white a second ago. I turned my back for literally a second and now it's tan - TAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!"
Please kleenex people, in the future, if you want to make it obvious that it's time to get a new box make it more obvious. Maybe plaid would be a good color or have printed on the actual kleenex something like "This is your fifth from last kleenex" or "Only A Couple Left". Those are both good examples of decent indicators. Not going from white to a somewhat tan "Could it still be white or is it just because I've been staring at a computer screen all day" color.
Like I said I have a tendency to embarass myself in spectacular fashion. But if my pain is your gain then so be it. At least you'll know that no matter how humiliating a situation may be there's always me to top you in just about every way.
All the Best
Quick note: If you're easily insulted by lack of proper grammar, punctuation or sometimes the occasional spelling mishap or your an english teacher, then you might want to steer clear of reading any of this. I literally throw this junk from my brain on a whim and really don't put alot of effort into cleanup.
Example:
Last week at work I was sitting at my desk typing away when I decided to blow my nose. I reached over and pulled a visibly white kleenex from the box and went at it. I tossed the kleenex away and went about my work as usual. A couple of hours later I had the itch again and grabbed another kleenex. Only this time the kleenex in question was some sort of tannish, peach color. Clearly this was not from the box I had just used two hours before so I was pretty confident that someone was fooling around with my lack of mental capacity and switched boxes with me, knowing full well that I would believe that I was losing my mind and the clown show of the day would commence. Or was it in fact the box that I had drawn kleenex out of for the last three months and I just never really noticed that it was anything but the standard kleenex color of white? I looked in the bin to check my discarded one from before, but alas I was foiled by the diligence and hard work ethic of our janitor and it had already been tossed out.
What started out as a quiet cubicle to cubicle inquiry of "Did you see someone messing with my kleenex?" quickly escalated to "ALRIGHT WHO'S SCREWING AROUND WITH ME?" announced through the entire office floor and continued on with a "AM I TOTALLY LOSING MY MIND HERE?"
After a fractic few minutes and me beginning to crawl under the desk, curl into a ball and wait on the men in white coats to come I received an answer.
"Patrick," the secretary calmly got my attention, "the last five kleenex in a box is always a different color so that you'll know to get a new box."
That's just wrong on an entirely awful level. Why would the brainiacs making kleenex decide that their informative different color kleenex was to be a tannish peach? It's not exactly a noticeably different color from white to begin with. I mean something like that leads people like myself, who don't have whole heap of alot of sanity left, to lose the little that they have over a kleenex - a friggin kleenex. Is that what you want kleenex? A bunch of crazed idiots running around with boxes of kleenex in their hands screaming, "Why am I losing my mind? It was white a second ago. I turned my back for literally a second and now it's tan - TAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!"
Please kleenex people, in the future, if you want to make it obvious that it's time to get a new box make it more obvious. Maybe plaid would be a good color or have printed on the actual kleenex something like "This is your fifth from last kleenex" or "Only A Couple Left". Those are both good examples of decent indicators. Not going from white to a somewhat tan "Could it still be white or is it just because I've been staring at a computer screen all day" color.
Like I said I have a tendency to embarass myself in spectacular fashion. But if my pain is your gain then so be it. At least you'll know that no matter how humiliating a situation may be there's always me to top you in just about every way.
All the Best
Quick note: If you're easily insulted by lack of proper grammar, punctuation or sometimes the occasional spelling mishap or your an english teacher, then you might want to steer clear of reading any of this. I literally throw this junk from my brain on a whim and really don't put alot of effort into cleanup.
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