There's nothing like a little hot water on your neck to make you feel human again.
My apartment is in sorta-shambles thanks to remodeling work the county housing authority is forcing my landlord to do. Plus side: I won't have water dripping on my head through the ceiling leak this winter. Minus side: I won't have water dripping on my head in the shower for several days while they rip out walls and retile.
Having all my possessions either shoved up against a wall or covered with a dustcloth and thin layer of white grit is having an unnerving effect on me. Of course, the ante is raised by not being able to bathe. Today I showered at work. There's just something so wrong about being naked in an office, but it was hot running water behind a door that locked. Good enough for me.
I'm not sure if my general apartment instability-related irritability had anything to do with my confrontation with some chatty audience members sitting behind my friends and I at an outdoor concert on Saturday night, but I'm guessing "yes."
These rude talkers were prolific in their uninterrupted conversation maintenance abilities. I figured it would end after they'd settled into their seats, but no. I figured it would end when the band they had come to see came on, but no. I did the pointed look over my shoulder in their direction a few times, but they were magically insulated from my disapproving gaze. I finally reached back to touch the knee of the female in their group nearest me and asked, "Could you guys not talk so much? It's distracting."
She smiled at me and whirled around to tell her companions something involving the word "distracting." Then they got back to their conversation already in progress. For the rest of the concert, I weighed the pros and cons of repeating my request, getting security or just sitting there and taking it. I also had some fun imagining turning around to stare at them with a big cheese-eating grin on my face for an indefinite period of time. I decided against all of these approaches since I didn't want to escalate the issue or disturb others around me.
The show ended and only then did their conversation do the same. As the houselights came on and people shuffled out of their rows, I looked back at the main chatters and tapped the male half of the pair on the arm. He looked down at me, grinning but blank-eyed in his expensively nonchalant track jacket and newsboy hat.
"I've never seen a concert with a DVD commentary before," I sarcastically dripped. "It was interesting." Cue aforementioned cheese-eating grin.
The couple stopped walking and just looked at me, smiling, blank-eyed, vaguely confused.
"You just kept..." I continued, then made the international hand gesture for talking (also works for imitation of a duck's bill).
"Oh," the girl half replied, still cheek-to-cheek with smiling teeth, "we were excited." She delivered the news with a little bounce in her knees, as if I should pin a carnation on the prom queen. As they turned to walk away, she threw a "sorry" over her shoulder half-heartedly, without bothering to look. I threw back a half-hearted "thank you," without bothering to flip any birds.
I can only find comfort in the thought that they were blitzed out of their minds on some hot new designer drug that causes hemorraghing of the oral cavity and a warm glow of disconnection from reality and how one's behaviors affects others in a public setting.
If such a drug exists, its use seems to be skyrocketing in the L.A. area.
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