And something I assumed wouldn't happen

[womzilla]

Tuesday morning was a minor disaster at work--on Monday night, the company's network department made a change affecting how our customers send us order messages, and even though we had tried to go check their work and verify that nothing was hosed, there were things we missed. So, instead of leaving for work at 8 AM as I usually do, I ended up sitting in my study monitoring the situation until everything was fixed around 11:30. This was only a minor disaster because of the hundreds of customer connections we have, fewer than a dozen were still down by the time the market opened.)

Anyway, when that was done, supergee drove me to the train station. I had a few minutes before the train came, so I bought a coffee and a yogurt in the deli attached to the station and walked up to the platform to wait. Sat down, ate the yogurt, walked over to the trash can to throw out the yogurt, and sat back down. A kindly middle-aged woman was walking towards me holding a granola bar. She said something I couldn't quite hear, so I took out my earphone--which she clearly had not seen--and said, "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you."

She said, with a slight waver that indicated that this conversation was already going off the rails, "Would you like this? Would you like some more food?"

I am proud to say that I didn't laugh, or choke, or sneer; I just slightly widened my eyes as if I had no idea why she might have said that, and said, "Oh, no, no thanks. I'll grab lunch when I get to the office." And she smiled and turned away.

Just a couple of weeks ago I had commented to agrumer, bugsybanana, and drcpunk that I was pretty sure that people don't mistake me for a homeless person despite my somewhat shabby clothing and aversion to the barber's arts. But apparently my threadbare coat has gotten to the point where merely looking purposeful and recently bathed isn't enough; I'll be getting a new coat before next winter.

(I buy coats more often than I move, but not much, and for the same reasons--it's hard to find one I like, so I stick with it.)

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The sandals probably contribute too. It's such an unusual choice. I wear boots here in the winter, but I'd wear sandals all through British winters and I frequently got asked about it and saw people looking at me with a "That poor person can't afford proper shoes" look.

It's very difficult when somebody is trying to do what would be a nice thing for a target person, and you are not in fact that person. It's like the nice people in the Iranian grocery who pack my milk and (halal) meat separately because they think I'm Jewish and I can't think of a way of telling them I'm not and it would be fine to throw it all in together.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to buy new coats, but then I keep going back to the long wool coat I've had for about 20 years now, which is not in very good shape. I really should just arrange to have someone steal it.