The other day I got copied on an email from a co-worker who
was emailing our building admin to tell her that there was a “very strong smell
of gas.” Apparently, everyone around me was getting the “very strong smell of
gas” as well. And this turned out to be for good reason, as the building admin
replied that they were using some sort of torch and laying tar on the roof and
so that’s why everyone was smelling it.
So I emailed a co-worker/friend and said “bad sign that I
didn’t notice?” and he wrote back “a bit.” But then I couldn’t tell if he was
kidding because, no joke, I didn’t smell a thing. So I was like “no,
seriously….are you still smelling it? Like, it’s currently happening as we type
this?” And he confirmed that he was not joking, it currently smelled, and wtf
is wrong with me?
Which then led to a rabbit-hole Google search that lasted
nearly 30 minutes to figure out what I was dying from, other than gas-related
brain death.
And we laugh, but this is concerning. Not because I’m dying
of something and my lack of smell is the first sign. I mean, that might be it,
but that doesn’t concern me. What does
concern me is that I can literally be oblivious to the “strong smell of gas”
that all other human beings around me are experiencing, yet I literally have to
leave my desk with someone is eating loudly in my vicinity.
Other things I haven’t noticed in real life:
A giant crane that was outside of my work building for two
years, that I walked underneath every single day, and didn’t notice until a
co-worker casually mentioned it and I said the words “what crane?” and meant
them.
A giant driving range along the side of a road I would run
by on a weekly basis without noticing it until CB casually mentioned it one day
and I said the words “what driving range?” and meant them.
A sliding glass door that my face met at full speed when I
was in high school, so violently that my friends then put a giant, taped X on
the glass so I wouldn’t do it again. Because that was a likely outcome. And I was not drinking.
A regular bedroom door that my face met at full speed when I
was at a New Year’s Eve party a few years ago . Thankfully, only one very nice
friend witnessed it as I tried to casually walk away as if it hadn’t happened.
I was drinking.
Yet, if someone is eating a banana nearby, or using the
wrong version of “there/their/they’re” in an email, or clicking their pen
during a meeting, IT’S ALL I CAN HEAR/SEE. Which says something about me, though
it’s unclear what that something is. Mainly, it tells me that my children
should depend on their father for the big picture stuff but come to me if they
want to know the best way to multi-task what you’re doing while counting the
amount of times someone slurps their soup during lunch. Which is a skill, if
you’re me, because otherwise you’d be unemployable because all you can do is
focus on the fact that they’re the worst.
Happy Thursday!
No comments:
Post a Comment