Once upon a time when I was a wee slip of a girl, my brother used to tell stories about the things that had happened in school. He would always end his tale by saying, "and everyone laughed." I used to mock him for it, gently.
Today I walked into a room, and everyone laughed.
No, really. My campus, being the wired wave-of-the-future place that it is, has a series of network and electrical ports embedded into the classroom floors. There are metal doors overtop these outlets, of course, and of course they're almost always left slightly propped open. So I was walking across the room and I tripped on one of these things, making a horrible metal-on-metal noise in the process.
As I tripped, I heard people start to laugh a little. Within a millisecond I had clocked this, resigned myself to being laughed at, and chose my reaction: I continued walking, and without looking at anyone I raised my arm and acknowledged their laughter like applause. "Thank you." And like Nic said so often, "everyone laughed" even louder. Later I was complimented on my grace. Unbelievable.
(Even writing it, I am agog at my own performance. I am never this smooth in real life...I was just briefly blessed with one of those rare flashes of divine comedy. The good kind; not the Dantean kind.)
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4 years ago today: tymothi:j makes a debut.
