Thursday, February 15, 2007

Public Transit Story #15: Bad hair day

Okay, I know it's impolite to stare. I try not to stare, even when I'm people-watching. However, it's really hard to watch people subtly, especially when your job involves watching a whole group of people for 50 minutes at a stretch, so that you can write up little notes later about how they "presented." Whenever I'm in a large group of people--outside work, mind you--I find myself observing like crazy. As with the Therapist Clock, I just can't shut my Observing Self off.

But this is a public transit story.

Yesterday I observed an older gentleman on the bus. He had the longest nose hairs I've ever seen. They were yellowish-white and extended at least half an inch beyond his nostrils. As if this weren't odd enough, he spent much of the bus ride twirling his nose hairs.

It was really, really hard for me not to stare. And I don't think I would have had such difficulty if had he not been playing with them.

3 comments:

Lea said...

What a wonderful case study he would make!

Gerbil said...

Yes, but I wouldn't want to be the author. I'd spend way too much time staring.

Anonymous said...

I think he probably just really wanted to have one of those long mustaches that he could twirl. But was unsuccessful growing a mustache, so he had to settle for growing long twirl-able nose hairs instead.