cubicles

I work in a hospital, in the laboratory to be exact. I work with a lot of middle-aged people and have a hard time relating with any of them. A lot of times I go to lunch (we go in groups to the cafeteria) and just sit there for thirty-forty minutes staring at people and listening to them spew inane bullshit. But yesterday I hit the lunch-torture super-jackpot. For some reason this lady Anja always ends up sitting right across from me, which I have to say I REALLY try to avoid because she is one of a few people that insist on blowing their snotty noses right at the table, even if people are still eating...just thinking about runny snot during a meal makes me want to retch all over my cafeteria tray, so to actually have to hear it, with full throatal accompaniment sometimes, just about puts me over the edge. So towards the end of her meal, which incidentally I have to say looked pretty good...a delicious looking green and crisp salad with a huge ripe tomato and big creamy chunks of feta cheese doused liberally with a lovely raspberry vinegarette...she did her requisite full-trombone nose-blowing concerto. BUT, when I was looking away she started to PICK HER NOSE TOO!!! For the love of god, she was picking her nose. I kind of saw it out of the corner of my eye and then I looked right at her. She was like a deer caught in the headlights, but instead of a cute bambi looking at me with big glassy black eyes...there was this older woman looking at me, wide-eyed, with her thumb stuck up her nostril (YES HER THUMB, not a pinky or an index finger as is the usual custom of nasal gold-miners....she was using her opposable digit for god's sake). I have to say that I looked away first, and then she sheepishly put her thumb away and grabbed a napkin to finish whatever job she was trying to accomplish. At the time I was pretty damn disgusted, but now I have to laugh. It certainly made the thirty minutes go by a lot faster than having to listen to some shite conversation about how "The Newlyweds" made the city of Louisville look really nice in Wednesday's episode about the Kentucky Derby.