I’m in the laundry room at my apartment complex last night, and a nerd-cowboy is sitting in there reading the paper (and hopefully waiting on laundry). I’m calling him a nerd-cowboy because he was dressed like a cowboy, but he was also sporting a handy dandy pocket protector and one of those head straps that keeps your glasses from falling off. He probably had headgear at home.
He looked up and smiled when I walked in, so I returned the gesture and made my way to my washers (they’re mine because I always use them… and only them). My washers are on the opposite end of the room from where NC is sitting, so he’s a good distance from me. Factor in the sounds of washers and dryers running and it’s quite obvious to anyone that we’re not really in speaking distance.
So why did he start laughing at what he was reading in the paper and talking out-loud about it? Was he talking to me? Was he talking to himself? Had he been doing that before I came in, or was it simply a show for me? He wasn’t looking at me and wasn’t trying to project himself across the room so that I would know for sure he was speaking to me.
Why do people do that? He’s not the first to pull that stunt. Someone enters the room, and suddenly it’s laugh-out-loud and talk-out-loud the whole time. Are they trying to start up a conversation? Or are they trying to make you jealous that you’re not doing or reading whatever it is they are doing or reading?
Hopefully he stopped when I left. It’d be odd to think of him sitting in there alone laughing and talking to himself. But maybe he wasn’t alone. Or maybe he was in the middle of sharing the paper with a washing machine over a nice steaming cup of Tide…
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[...] Nerd Cowboy: he was shirtless in the laundry room when I drove by the other day. But he still had his glasses and pocket protector with him. I think I saw a graphing calculator in his pocket, as well. Or maybe he was just happy to see me. [...]