strangereality155

Work again. Thoughts racing through my mind - or better to say, objectively, that I (whatever I am) was aware of the phenomenon that I have been acculturated into believing is my mind undergoing the kind of activity that I habitually, reflexively, without thinking, call 'racing'. In actuality there is just one thought succeeding another, overlapping, mirroring, apparently influencing; phenomenologically speaking, there is no reason to infer a consistent, pervasive entity such as 'mind' at all, but I have probably irritated the reader enough for the moment, so getting back to the point - I decided I wanted a cup of tea. I stood up from my desk and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" said one of the ladies, quite aggressively.

I work late shifts at an office with several middle-aged women. I sit in one corner, doing my job; they sit in another corner, doing theirs. We don't really get on.

"I'm going over to the restaurant," I said. "Just getting a cup of tea."

A cup of tea at the restaurant costs 50p. It's also a longish walk there and back. I was intending to have an illicit worktime cigarette en route. I was further intending to enjoy the fresh air, the late evening sun, the few minutes of silence and solitude. The two most luxurious elements of life: silence and solitude. 

"Why are you going over there?" said another one of the ladies, a red-head with an incredible crash-helmet hairstyle, the kind beloved of women of a certain age. "Why don't you just join our tea club?"

As is well known, most workplaces, especially the nominally British kind, operate an informal collective whereby members club together to pool their resources, and purchase large quantities of tea, sugar, and milk, at the start of every week or month. My office's tea club was a monthly affair. It cost £1 to join, payable on the first of every month.

I had declined to join the tea club on several occasions. As was well known by the ladies, and, presumably, obscurely resented. 

I was halfway to the door. I needed a snappy comeback. I said: "I would never want to join any club that would have somebody like me as a member."

A very well-known and humorous quotation by Groucho Marx. But not all that well-known, as it turned out.

The reaction was palpable: the ladies group-flinched, simultaneously all managing to look at each other, and at me, askance. They had genuinely never heard of what I thought (and still think) is a very famous saying that everybody should know. From where they were sitting, I had merely said something weird in a peculiar, stagy manner, for no apparent reason. The reaction was one I have come to know very well in my dealings with people: confusion, suspicion, unease. They looked as if they expected me to pull out a couple of pistols and start shooting the place up.

I did not linger. It's best not to, I have found, under those kinds of circumstances. I have been making people uncomfortable for more than three decades now. I know the signs. I know how to handle aftermaths. Deliver a slightly self-ironical smile; bow the head slightly; exit quickly, let them forget about it. They always forget about it. The impression remains, but the concrete instance is forgotten.

When I got outside, even I had forgotten. These moments occur so frequently that they are no longer anything special. I only remembered it just now, when I was tidying my DVDs. I found a copy of Duck Soup that I bought for a few pounds in a  bargain shop a few years ago and have never watched. I turned it over and saw Groucho on the back. Then I remembered.