Day 2: The Day of Weirdness

So it’s Tuesday, and I must have forgotten to mark on my calendar that today is a day in which weird remarks will be made to me and odd occurrences will take place.

1st.  An elderly gentlemen stopped in to make an appointment for later in the week.  After the appointment was set up and I bid goodbye to him, he paused and said that he is a big sci-fi fan, that there were not a lot of science fiction fans in the world, and that he is on a science fiction website.  Obviously he’s never heard of the many game conventions throughout the nation – but what disturbed me the most is the way he said he was on a science fiction website.  Now I’ll have all sorts of horrific visions picturing him in some strong alien get-up.

2nd. Due to my recent infatuation with Red Dwarf and after watching the first episode of Season 2 last night in which they introduce an android who looks as if he’s made of mashed potatoes, I dreamed last night that I was dating a mashed potato man.  It was disturbing enough to wake me up at 5:30 a.m. after I licked his face. Gross.

3rd.  For the first time in.. I dunno, 3 months, I find myself having the same problem I had as a teenager.  I have a hard time keeping my mouth closed … literally.  This leads into a story.

When I was young I had a serious overbite which my parents saw fit to fix through braces when I was 16 after several mishaps including the following story:

There is a major problem to having a large overbite.  It’s difficult, and sometimes painful, to keep your mouth closed.  As a result, when thoroughly involved in something like say… piano playing, it’s easy to forget to swallow saliva and combine saliva with an open mouth and… well you can figure that out.

When I was around 14 or 15 I was competing in some piano playing competition.  I think that was the year I was competing in both the Jr. Virtuoso and Virtuoso categories.  Anyway, I was playing Brahms and I remember how thoroughly involved I get when playing that particular piano piece (Intermezzo in A Major).  There were quite a few mishaps that occurred by the time I made it to the piano – mostly due to my clumsiness and height, but when I sat down and began to play I totally lost myself in the zone.  This caused two problems.

• My mouth dropped open.
• Saliva formed… and dropped right onto the keys.

The feeling of my saliva on my fingers brought me abruptly out of “the zone” and I began to panic while playing.  My first thought was that I couldn’t play the upcoming part of the piece with slippery fingers.  My second thought was… oh no, how was I going to get the saliva off the keys for the person who came after me?  Do I stand up afterwards and rub my skirt over the keys?

I finished playing Brahms (flawlessly I might add) and stood up.  So I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to the person who played on the piano after me that day.  I was just so embarrassed, you see.  And no, it wasn’t sweat that had you and your family casting glances at me as we waited for the winning lists.