When 4:30pm hits, and my work day concludes, I have a routine I follow prior to leaving the building. I go to the restroom to make sure my clothes are nice and neat, I put my headphones so I can ignore other coworkers who may be leaving and I head out of the building. There is one coworker here who I can talk to on the way to the train, because she doesn't linger. She talks, she walks, she texts on her fancy phone, and then when its time to separate we can make a clean break. That is the exception though, as most of the other co-workers want to talk, linger, and pry into my personal business. Well yesterday, I was temporarily held up by such a person.

I had to pick up mail from my PO Box yesterday, so I took a different train route and I just happened to see the Trash Analyst. Now this woman is annoying during work hours, so there was no telling what she could do or say without the confines of bosses, close offices, work, and the other factors that keep a job from becoming complete anarchy. I saw her and I immediately wanted to run, but she saw me, said my name at a high volume, touched my shoulder(no touching), and asked what I was doing going "her" way. I explained what I was doing, and she asked me how much a PO Box cost, how I was doing in the post-fire aftermath, what was I doing when I got home, what SHE had to when she got home, and man I was slowly dying on the inside. The 5 minutes it took the train to arrive seemed like an eternity. Once the train arrived she kept right on talking until we got on, and then she went, found two empty seats, sat down, and then slapped the one empty seat for me to sit in. I acted as if I was swept up in the train crowd, and I opted to stand, and then someone came and sat in the seat she had been saving for me. Once the train started moving, I gave her the damn-I-tried-hard-get-that-seat-look, but I don't think she was buying it, which isn't surprising because I damn sure wasn't convincing. I then pulled out reading material, turned my back to her, and waited for 3 stops for my stop to come. Once it came, I attempted to turn back to wave goodbye, but at that point the train really was crowded, and I just got off. I figure I saved myself about 10 minutes of extra small talk. I wonder if she'll mention anything about it today?

Make You Feel That Way - Blackalicious