Weapons: Real and Imagined

After a week or so of being unable to work our On-Demand movie delivery system—near as we can figure, I broke the box with my incessant demands—I headed to our local cable company to get a new box as was recommended by the Help Line folks. The snow/rain mixture yesterday was perfect for a New England April Fools, but since my car was in the garage, I didn’t really pay attention to the weather conditions outside. Upon arriving in the cable company parking lot, I realized that I didn’t want to return my reportedly faulty cable equipment wet, so I slipped the 10"x7"x1" black box into the front of my coat and walked to the door.

Once inside the lobby, I was greeted by the receptionist who asked if she could help me.  As I reached into my coat to retrieve my broken cable box in order to explain the situation, I must have hesitated in my explanation of needing to return it for another. When I finished my one sentence, she looked at me, startled, and finally said, “You scared the hell out of me!”

Wha. . ? Ding.

I knew in an instant what she meant.  Here I was, dressed in my usual Johnny-Cash-all-black, reaching into my coat, without speaking (that millisecond of hesitation), and pulling out a shiny black object to present to her. Crap. In addition to being quite apologetic for frightening her, I felt really, really dumb. I joked that she must be used to some serious complaints about really bad service, but in reality, she probably holds contentious conversations with dissatisfied cable customers all day and she does sit behind safety glass while doing it! I really should have been more aware of the fact that my wordless reaching into my coat and pulling out the slim and long black item could have been misconstrued. Damn.

As if my readily-perceived-as-threatening actions weren’t enough, I am currently sporting a rather bright and obvious subconjunctival hemorrhage in my right eye that would give even the crazy, possessed-looking Black Swan a run for her money.  In fact, since discovering it on Tuesday, I have used its gory and disgusting irregularity to my greatest advantage in delivering the ultimate evil eye to anyone who is being particularly disagreeable with me (cue photo of my cute family). I must say, I enjoy having the ability to have a heated discussion end with my eyes wide open while looking slightly to the left, making unsuspecting folks shudder. It’s a superpower – of sorts.

While my stupidity with retrieving the cable box in a puffy-coat-meets-matrix manner is regrettable, my bigger disappointment is that my blood-filled conjunctiva only looks scary. In an odd moment of trying to console me in my disfigurement, my husband informed me that if my eye could actually shoot fire, it would most certainly be listed among our assets. (He’s a keeper.)

Scaring people inadvertently is not good.

Grossing them out on purpose is fun. 

Being able to shoot fire out of your blood-red eyes – now that would be priceless!