Monday, 2/14

Those are three words I hope never to hear again.

Saturday morning I was finishing up running. It was a very hard run; there was wet, greasy snow everywhere, which meant the footing was treacherous. And despite that I spent the morning charging up & down the hills of downtown Marquette, skidding every so often but not once falling, proving that I still haven't really learned my lesson when it comes to running in the winter.

But that doesn't really have much to do with the topic at hand.

As I was finishing I walked around the block where we live to cool down, even though the wind chill was a thousand or so below zero. Right near Third Street Bagel I passed a college aged young man, and they greeted me with those words that shocked me to my core.

And just what were those words? “Good morning, sir”.

I was shocked when he said that. I literally stopped in my tracks for a second; my first impulse was to run back down the hill, grab him, and say something along the lines of “Dude, ‘Good morning’ is fine, but ‘Sir’? Are you out of your mind?” However, I didn’t want to spend the next part of my day in jail, so I just stood there for a second in a state of disbelief, and then made my way back home, where my good post-run mood was just a little less good.

Of course, there was no reason for my mood to sag like that other than me being me. The college kid didn’t mean any harm; in fact, his parents should be proud of the fact that he’s polite to people he’s never met. It’s just that, well, I’M NOT A SIR. A “sir” is someone important or someone distinguished. I’m neither. You say “sir” to someone who’s your elder.

And therein lies the problem.

I guess to a college student I could be considered a “sir”. I certainly don’t feel like one and I never believed I looked like one, but to that college student at that moment, I was “sir”. I certainly didn’t enjoy hearing it and I certainly don’t have to like it, but to that young man, that’s what I was. A “sir”. And I suppose it could have been worse. Instead of being a young man it could've been a young woman referring to me as “sir”. If my reaction to a guy calling me “sir” was this bad, just imagine what it would’ve been like if a young woman referred to me that way. I mean, instead of writing this, you’d probably wonder where I was the next few days, because I’d be hiding in my apartment, under as many covers as I could find, crying my eyes out.

Thankfully, though, that didn’t happen. Or at least it hasn’t happened yet. But the next time I disappear unexpectedly, you know where to look.

I think I’ll be okay. After all, the shock was in hearing those words for the first time. Sadly, I have the feeling that I will be hearing them again, if not tomorrow, then sometime in the future. Hopefully, I’ll handle it better than I did Saturday morning. After all, I ain’t getting any younger, and to more and more people, I’ll be someone who they would consider a “sir”.

Sigh...

(jim@wmqt.com), in need of some serious help