I wish I had eyes in the back of my head.
I know everyone wishes that, especially people with kids, so they could see what the kids are doing with the scissors and the permanent marker and the dirty diaper and the dog and the family heirloom without losing focus on driving.
I’d want the backward-facing eyes so I could stare at people in restaurants without fully swiveling my head like the exorcist. Steven says I’m the worst starer. He mimics the slack-jawed, bug-eyed look on my face when I stare, and it’s not flattering. There’s a word for the look, but you’re not allowed to use it anymore. You can’t even call it “special person,” I don’t think. But you get the picture.
It doesn’t help that I crane my neck to see and hear better. It looks like I’m trying to read small print.
Because I’m not allowed to stare the way I’d like, I only got a teasey smidge of this woman sitting behind me in the Indian restaurant on 6th Street and 2nd Avenue where we were eating the other night.
She came in with a group. I wouldn’t say she looked like Meryl Streep, but that’s who she’d pick out to play herself in the movie.
You could tell she’d expected to go somewhere much fancier than a chicken tikka masala joint. Judging from her ambitiously sparkly necklace, she’d probably suggested some place with a triple “22” score in Zagat, but gotten vetoed.
As soon as she sat down, she grabbed the vase with the single rose from the table and sniffed it deeply in a way that expressed, “I am someone who has an insatiable lust for life.”
But no one at her table saw her do it, because they were too busy picking their seats, looking at menus, and figuring out which way the bathroom was.
So, as soon as everyone was paying attention, she picked up the vase again, inhaled the rose so hard you could see a petal get suctioned to her nostril, closed her eyes and let out a loud “mmmmmm!”
Then, the man across from her — I assume her husband — said something I couldn’t hear, and she gave him this big life question to consider:
“What kind of person are you, Gary — an owner, or an employee?”
I wonder what Gary had just said. Probably, “I wish I could ask for the tandoori chicken to be all white meat” or “I wonder if they’d turn down the air conditioning.” Something wimpy and employee-ish.
I was dying to hear more, because I know there was a big show coming. This was the kind of woman who always has something to say, something she thinks you’ll type up and print out and pin to your cubicle wall. But I had to turn my head back to its normal, polite position. Also, the waiter brought over free ice cream, so. The florescent green scoop tasted like soap, but the orange one wasn’t half bad. Mango.
Now you.
Do you love to stare and eavesdrop on people in public places? What’s the best thing you’ve overheard or seen lately?
Are you an owner, or an employee? Elaborate, please.
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS
I don’t stare at people but I do like overhearing conversations. The other day, in Cobble Hill, I heard a woman ask a guy, “So, are you in love with her?” He replied, “Well, I keep going back to her so I don’t know what that means.”
I half wanted to follow them to hear the rest of that conversation.
I’m both an owner AND an employee. Decipher that. (Okay, it’s not a riddle. It’s true.)
Let’s talk about staring at people though. Last time I was at the eye doc, I failed the peripheral vision test. As in, I asked if the test had started, and the doc looked at me like, “You poor, poor girl.” So they gave me special glasses (it’s still okay to call glasses special) that I never wear, because they make the world seem like a fishbowl.
My point? It is SO HARD TO STARE AT PEOPLE IN PUBLIC. I don’t have “out of the corner of my eye.” Luckily, I can’t concentrate at all if there’s someone around with a slightly too loud voice, so at least I get the conversation, verbatim, and I can still hate-listen.
However, I run into door frames more often than your average bear, so that’s a bummer.
I think I have the same handicap! Or special-cap! I run into every door frame. And have to swivel my head, as I detailed, to see anything properly. But I refuse to get my eyes checked until I’m blind as Mary on Little House on the Prairie.
People watching is my favourite pastime. Hands down. My husband is often horrified on the outside but loves the scoop he gets as result.
You’re lucky! My husband isn’t that interested in the scoop. Which is why I blog about it to the rest of the world instead.
We are twins. My husband gives the same look about my public staring.I get so engrossed that I completely forget myself and act like I’m watching an after school special, eyes wide, mouth agape. I know its embarrassing for my dinner companions but people are so damn interesting.
I lived in New York in the 80’s and, man, that city was the bonanza for unencumbered rude staring. But NOT on the subway. I had to learn that fast. As a girl from a small mountain town in CA that was a quick and important lesson.
I still enjoy restaurant eavesdropping but I have to say now that I have two kids who watch what I do pretty carefully, I check myself. I’ve gotten better at being surreptious in my public gazing.
I TOTALLY forget that people can see me when I’m staring at them with my mouth open. I have some delusion that there’s one-way glass between us.
Teach your kids to stare like you do. They’ll have more to talk about.
Oh my GOD! I’m dying. I really want the rest of that conversation. I LOVE to eavesdrop! I show up early to places because I love to watch and listen to people. I tell myself that it’s because I “love psychology and human behavior”, but for some reason, people like to call it “nosey”. Whatever.
As soon as she sat down, she grabbed the vase with the single rose from the table and sniffed it deeply in a way that expressed, “I am someone who has an insatiable lust for life.”
I LOVE that! Classic. And I love that no one noticed the first time! Haha!
I keep my earbuds in so it looks like I can’t hear you when I’m walking down the street behind you listening to everything you say. My favorite ruse.
Back in my day, wives used to say to their husbands “Are you a man or a mouse?” But nowadays, all you hear is “Are you an owner or an employee?” I blame the rise in entrepreneurialism for ruining my language.
You’re right! That’s exactly the phrase I was trying to remember. Entrepreneurialism has ruined everyone’s language. Now, instead of “get rich,” you have to “step into abundance.”
Oh, is that what I stepped into?
But, seriously, I would think such a phrase as “step into your abundance” is more new age than entrepreneurial. Perhaps the two have blended together in an unholy alliance.