Short-circuits

*msn: A friend of Pinky the Punk

I swear sometimes my body is totally independent of sense.

There is no other explanation for the way I trip over curbs I have already seen, or knock over glasses of water I put out of reach just moments before, or spill food (and this, more than anything really really annoys me) ONLY when I’m wearing something new. (What’s more, having ordered something boring and unspillable in anticipation of this very eventuality.)

But I think that I would be fully justified in saying that, of all the different parts of my body that get up to all sorts of hi-jinks when I’m not paying attention, my face really takes the cake. (Eats it too, come to think of it.)

It seems I am incapable of thinking, reading, or recalling anything without making the appropriate facial expression.

I am well aware that everyone laughs at books sometimes, or smile when thinking back on some happy, blue-skied times, this is perfectly normal. (So you can stop worrying now.)

But (and I am quite sure about this, because people-watching is now a hobby of mine), possibly no one else will recall, say, a certain waiter, or perhaps a particularly condescending Student Administration worker, and proceed to not only scowl most gloweringly, but also to mutter, peevishly, all the things that could have been said but were not, in an increasingly loud and vehement voice, ending with a little triumphant smirk at the imagined outcome – gloriously vengeful, and very, very satisfying.

This is very bad. Not only because I will inevitably develop the reputation of being ‘that crazy lady on the train’, or that I may someday (soon, no doubt) be apprehended by gentle but firm men in white, or even that I may eventually lose control over my face entirely (at which point it will most probably proceed to eat nothing but cake, and a lot of it) but mainly because of the sad and sorry fact that I will never, ever, win $10,000,000 playing poker.