That Look

I'm talking with my lead at The Office on a slow morning. We cover car radios, Crutchfield versus Car Toys, car theft, the merits of various GPS units, the new cell phone toy offerings at Sprint and T-Mobile, and the merits of various plans. Imagine the sound of this conversation like a train: chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga. Nice and even.

I mention that I bought a used Blackberry Storm and he wants to see it, so I pull it out. He asks how it is. "I don't know yet," I said. "I haven't gotten to the store to switch my account over. It's used and I don't know how to clear out the previous account."

"Can't they do it at the store?" he says.

"They CAN," I said. "I just...feel bad."

And the train slams on the brakes: SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH.

"Um. WHY?"

"I bought it on eBay," I said. "It feels shady."

"It's NOT shady," he says. "You could have bought a used phone at Car Toys. That would be an identical situation."

"I know," I said. "But what if something's wrong with it? I've never bought a used phone on eBay before."

"Better to find that out now before you sell your OTHER phone," he pointed out.

"Yes," I said. "But...I'm scared."

He gave me That Look. I get That Look a lot. That look that says, "I assumed you were a rational human being because you have legs and arms and look much like me, although you have long hair and boobs, and I work with you every day and I KNOW you're pretty rational and can do math and stuff, and all of sudden I discover this huge pit of complete irrationality and I don't understand and I don't know what to do and YOU'RE SCARING ME."

Only because he is a man, it came out like, "...Hmm."

I get it from my lead, and from my dad, and mainly from AZ. (That would be The Boy, who is from Arizona.) We'll be chugging along talking about...oh, food, or Obama, or whatever, and then I'll suddenly veer off into a long and involved story about the Blonde Squad and some extremely small disagreement that we had and who was at fault and what's been bugging me about hundreds of bits of minutiae, and right before his eyes glaze over, he gets That Look.

It's the look that says, "Oh, yeah. You're a woman. This irrational-at-great-length feature comes with the standard equipment. Dammit."