Awkward People

People are so fascinating! Have you ever had an experience where you saw an awkward person in their element and your day was brightened? I’ve had a few of those experiences the past couple days and I’d like to share.

Last week I was rather hurriedly driving in an attempt to get someplace on time. Stress was ailing me due to a large work load and I may or may not have been driving a little faster than usual. A bit perturbed by the lack of street light cooperation I pulled to a stop as the color red before me demanded. The bright white walking man appeared before the boy that was crossing the road in front of my headlights. We’ve all seen that bright white walking man before and we’ve all been perplexed at one point or another by the rather short time interval before the man disappears and the bright orange blinking hand appears. Obviously, this day the road-crossing boy, which I must clarify that by “boy” I mean grown college-aged man, was taken back by the sudden appearance of “the orange hand”. The boy awkwardly lifted his side bag, tucked it like a football, and very uncoordinatedly ran across the remaining fifteen feet of cross-walk ahead of him.

Now this experience made me smile and by smile I mean that I my whole face was grinning, accompanied by a good laugh. The best part of this story is that as I sighed from enjoyment I glanced at the white SUV to my right and realized that the girl behind the steering wheel was doing the same thing. We caught each others’ eyes and the icing on the cake was the genuine moment that we strangers shared together that day.

In a similar vein, I was studying today at a public computer and was suddenly distracted by the sound of a familiar melody behind me. Bryan Adams, Summer of ‘69. I quickly glanced over my shoulder to see who the listener might be. A very studious looking young man, obviously foreign, with glasses and big headphones was rocking out to this classic. I chuckled and continued studying. The song soon came to an end and within a few seconds the same song was blaring through the headphones again. This happened at least 10 times in the time that I was sitting there. The best part though, was when you’d get the sudden burst of, “it waz di summa of sexty nain” along with the chorus. I chuckled as a boy on the computer next to me turned to me and said, “I really need to help that guy with his playlist.”

Good times that made my day!