Am I Stable?

Picture retakes at school today.

The photographer got Allie off-center the first time around so they refused to send us any photos. I was surprised by how angry I was. I tried to call the company and couldn’t get through to anyone. Good thing. I may have raised my voice or linked words together that might have left the customer service representative with the impression that I was prepared to take ownership of the school photography company via litigation and once all the paperwork was complete I would burn down the school photography company building and stomp around on the ashes all red faced and shit.

I hope her pictures turn out this time.

There’s a guy at work who refuses to say hello to me. I’m not the only person he doesn’t acknowledge so I’m not exactly broken up about it. However I always feel uncomfortable around him because I actually go to the trouble of stifling my urge to greet this man. I walk by him and I think he must notice my eyeballs bulging because I’m swallowing a, How’s it going? or suppressing a Good morning!

This is why when I saw he was alone the other day I approached him. I said, “Hi, I’m Greg. I wanted to apologize to you. You never respond whenever I say hello so I’ve gone out of my way to avoid saying anything at all to you. I wanted you to know that I think it’s ridiculous and immature behavior and that I’m sorry.”

I babbled on about him being the guy who doesn’t say hello and it was entirely his right not to say a word to me and how silly I had been. It was apparent that my apology made this guy really uncomfortable. He told me there was no need to apologize and even said he was sorry himself for not returning my greetings. He really hadn’t noticed anything unusual about my behavior around him and wasn’t aware that he never said hello. He said he was from the East coast (I couldn’t tell if that was an explanation or just background information). He’s new and just getting a feel for things around the office. After that he extricated himself from the situation as quickly as he could.

He didn’t run away from me, but I could tell he really wanted to walk much faster than he normally would.

This had to be the most passive aggressive thing I’ve done in a very long time. I made this guy squirm just because he didn’t return my hallway hellos. At this moment, I’m still trying to figure out what it was that I had hoped to gain from the encounter. I truly was acting on impulse when I approached this guy. I’m sure I had every intention of providing a sincere apology that would hopefully lead to us playing a rousing game of tether-ball together at recess.

Next time I see him I’ll ask him to lunch.

I’m pretty sure he’ll call human resources or perhaps even his attorney and the police (in that order).