People I'm Next To

I'm next to this guy who is sitting in front of a styrofoam plate of tamales, under the coiled Christmas lights of a food truck's tent. He's here by himself, aside from the four tamale friends that he has briefly found. He's "not a small man," which is my polite way of saying that he is quite fat. He's shaped like a wide diamond. Aside from the protrusions you would expect from him being both human and male, he'd form a pretty good triangle if you folded him hamburger style. But this is about tamales, not hamburgers. He is eating his tamales slowly with the care and grace of someone basking in a rare moment of transcendence. There's a hint of something else, too--as if he's taking care to avoid a catastrophic misstep. The mix is about four parts "that feeling of slowly lowering yourself into a perfect bath," one part "action hero figuring out the color scheme of timebomb wires." After each bite, he closes his eyes and quietl...

I'm next to this girl, for half a moment. She is 13, or 14 and is in a rush. She is maybe 5 feet tall, and all elbows, knees and feet, a textbook example of the lanky, gangly teenager. She has dark jeans, and a red t-shirt with her school logo on it, an exaggerated pirate that would totally be racist if pirates were a race. I'm standing in a middle school office doorway as she stumble-runs by me and bursts into the nurse's room. This aggressive pace is not to the receptionist's liking, and she lets the girl know with a sharp command, "Walk!" Appropriately enough the receptionist looks like the type of lady who would be yelling at kids to walk. She has firmly pressed lips looking white from loss of blood flow, a severe precise hair cut, and an oxford collared shirt buttoned entirely up, with a goddamn cameo securely fastened at the top button. The girl looks panicked, more than is usual even for a chastised kid. She hovers in the nurse's door, whil...

Two cute girls in their early twenties are sitting across from each other having an in depth conversation about what I think is a church. The girl with the boyfriend lives in a house with a bunch of other girls who also go to the church. Apparently, she's spending too much time with her boyfriend, and has been told by church masters that she's going to have to pick up additional church duties. So, she's scheduling her boyfriend around Jesus. Looks like Jesus is pretty needy - there were so many activities that I'm not able to list them all despite my hugely invasive eavesdrop. Basically, instead of hanging out with her boyfriend, she has to read bible, talk about bible, go to presentations about bible, and go to bible themed 'parties'. She's gonna have enough trouble getting him fit into the weekend, let alone fit into her vag one day.

I'm next to this person, who is probably a guy. I have no idea what they look like, which is how is should be since I'm sitting down on a toilet. They are on the other side of a closed door to a public restroom, presumably staring at the men's sign as he knocks. As there is one toilet, and only the door between this stranger and a nearly pantless me, I am forced to answer this person with the standard phrase, "Occupied." To my surprise he responds, which is not standard, with a, "WHAT?" I nearly yell back to clarify before I realize the logical fallacy I have nearly aided. Why would he need to know what I said when simply saying anything answers his querulous knock. He yells , "WHAT?" again, this time the muffled tones denoting some urgency. I refuse to take part in this debate, so I stay silent. He has all the clues he needs to solve the mystery of whether he can poop yet. He jiggles the handle and walks away. This whole thing leaves...

‪This guy is sitting next to me and saying stuff. I'm outdoors in a chair. Oh right I guess I should answer him. ‬ ‪Okay, he wanted me to read his "philosophical treatise". Also, you should know that he had a violin case‬ ‪strapped over his back. He surprisingly doesn't smell like he's homeless so that was a bit of a relief. My guess‬ ‪is that he's a future homeless. Anyway, the universe is made up of spheres. That, and there is a potluck I ‬‪should go to where I guess other people are free to invent incorrect ideas about things. I said I would "definitely‬ ‪not be there" and he said that that's fine because I could just play in the drum circle instead of talking about stuff.‬ ‪I also told him I would "for certain not play drums".‬ Then he took out his violin. I purposely avoided eye contact and at the same time felt the illness in my scrotum like I always feel when I'm about to be embarrassed for someone. He even said something lik...

I'm next to two dudes. They are pretty ok. Turns out they are my new People I'm Next To teammates. So be on the look out for future post by Casey, and OSU Econ Guy. Who knows, maybe this blog will even start being updated regularly. And yes strangely enough that is his real name. Casey...wierd.

I'm next to this woman. She is a little taller than me and very slender. I say slender because she doesn't look strangely thin, just linear. She has shoulder length hair that has seen one too many straightenings. Well to be perfectly honest I am probably not qualified to say that in an official capacity, so lets just say my layman's judgement on her hair is that she sticks it between too many hot iron plate devices. Although I maybe remember hearing straighteners are ceramic now, but this digression just proves my point about not being an expert. So to get back on track a short story; her hair looks dumb. She has boots on too, these boots are rain boots which is reasonable since it is raining. They are unreasonable because it looks like a 5 year old ate a pack of crayons and started vomiting paisley all over them. So another short story: her boots are dumb. Otherwise she looks fairly normal, she does sound obnoxious though, which is the point of all of this. She i...