Skip to main content

The Strut 2

I walk funny. Or at least that's what I've been told. It's not exactly like I can watch myself while walking, so I just have to take other people's word for it. If enough people tell me that I have a bit of a strut, then I have a bit of a strut.

Luckily for me, it doesn't come up all that often. Aside from the anecdotes in the linked post, it's not a daily part of my life. About the only thing that comes to mind was that one of the Mild Exes once asked me to do a "pimp limp" version of the walk down the runway. Otherwise, it's just not something I think about. In fact, I'd pretty much forgotten that anyone has ever told me this before.

That changed recently. One day at work, I had to talk to my coworker so I stopped by her desk. We chatted about the issue, and then I wandered off to get some water for myself. Now, I should note that there is a fairly high wall surrounding her cubicle, so as soon as I walked away, she couldn't see me. I don't remember if I told her where I was going or not, but either way, I was simply going somewhere else.

On my way back to my desk, I had to walk past her desk again. As I passed by, she called out to me. I don't remember the exact words she used, but she did call me by name. That would have been all very normal and routine, except for the fact that she couldn't see me when I walked by. Remember, there was a cubicle wall blocking her view. She had no way of visually identifying the person who walked by. So how the heck did she know it was me?

Me being me, I asked her that very question. Her answer was both simple and astounding at the same time, "oh, you have a very distinctive walk. I can tell when you walk by." I was more than a little amazed at this revelation, especially given that the floors aren't made of a hard surface. Whatever sound any of us are making with our footsteps are inherently muted by the floor. Even so, she was able to correctly determine my identity.

I should also note that I am not unique in this regard. There is apparently one other coworker who also has a distinctive gait, so she can identify the two of us simply the sound of our footsteps. I don't know that anyone else has ever pulled off this trick, so maybe this one coworker just has amazing powers of perception and hearing. Either way, though, I was suddenly reminded, very quickly, that I walk differently than most people.

I think I may need to work on my ninja skills.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...