How panicked should we be when another person gets us in their sites?  I’m not talking about a “stalker” in the criminal sense.  But when you feel as if you have a target on your back?  That someone has an opinion of you and you can’t change it?   Of course, I can’t write three sentences in a row without saying . . . There’s only one person we can change.  And, as we go lilting through this example, the most productive thing you can do (besides chuckle, chuckles always good) is to think of a time when you have “targeted” someone who doesn’t think like you or value what you value.

I do not believe that the Obsessed Stranger Lady is caught in ways I am not caught.  My obsessions are just different and better rationallized.  When I make comments about those clippy women walking through the airport in high heels and appropriate seasonall outfits, carrying giant garment bags like they’re nothing and rolling a computer without even breathing hard or stumbling or crashing into every out-stretched foot…really…”What’s wrong with those women?” …oh, yeah.  They’re vain and shallow and probably spreading flu viruses everywhere…surely,  “those women” couldn’t be all that bright…

Back to the Darkened Theater.  The Obsessed Stranger Lady approached once and suggested I stop bothering imaginary movie watchers.  (See previous two posts to catch up.) Not too scary, right?  I didn’t think about it again, until a few hours later when I was in a series of student short films as the only audience.  Wanting to open my laptop again, but wanting to make sure I wouldn’t disturb anyone who might come in, I climbed up to the corner of the huge empty theater, sat in the corner seat. . .  and lifted. . . the . . . lid of terror.    Clicking along and still alone in the theater, the woman spotted me when she peeked in the theater to count the audience (me).  Spotting me clinging from the back roof, the OSL rushed up the stairs to my side.  She demanded to know, what , exactly, I was doing?  I answered.  She responded by informing me of the prison sentence I would receive for taping the films . . . a sentence she clearly believed I deserved regardless of what I doing.  I explained I had no such intention and offered for her to check out my lowly laptop.  (“Nothing would thrill the student film students more than having their short films pirated and zipping around the Internet,” …I was thinking, but I didn’t say that either.)  OSL snarled.  I explained that, I would never want to disturb anyone’s viewing experience, which is why I’d positioned myself where I had (in the empty theater).  Obsessive Stranger Lady walked down the many empty rows, disgusted, wheels turning about what kind of person I was. Deep sighs all around.

You’d think I’d wise up about the importance of not annoying invisible people.  But no, I dared again.  I paid the price.  . . Manana, I promise.  I’m working on shorter posts.  So there you go.  Now, you KNOW  just what kind of person would do that.  Not really.  If you were that easy, you wouldn’t still be reading.