I Might Be Socially Retarded or Have No Emotions
Currently I rent a pretty large apartment that is owned by the elderly couple that lives below me. They are old, Italian, and don’t speak English super well. For the most part they leave me alone unless they need to nitpick about how my car is parked or something of that nature. Over the year I have lived here we might have had 8-10 conversations of which I could understand what they were saying a whopping total of four times.
Last week there was an ambulance out front and some commotion down stairs. I was getting ready to leave for the gym and headed out to my car. While downstairs I noticed the paramedics were in the apartment below me.This presented an interesting situation:
Do I poke my head in and see what is going on? Or do I go about my business and check in later to see if everything is ok?
I stood by my car for a few seconds debating it. Here is how I broke it down:
Do I poke my head in and see what is going on?
Positive: Shows that I give a shit about the well being of other human beings. (I know you are all thinking that is totally disingenuous.)
Negative: I get in the way of the paramedics leading to one of my landlords dying because I was busy poking my head in and asking questions. Additionally I may see something that I don’t want to see like old man balls or elderly breasts.
Go about my business and check in later.
Positive: I stay out of the way and avoid seeing something that I don’t want to see. Also I show some respect by not barging in on what most would consider “a bad time”.
Negative: Makes me look like I don’t care when they notice that I have left while an ambulance was present. Also I have to engage someone in conversation about a trip to the hospital, which could be massively uncomfortable and might involve me consoling someone.
So what do you think I did? What would you do?
Wait, you went to the gym?
I’m betting you poked your head in for a second, caught someone’s eye, gave the sympathy face, and then ducked out.
Close?
Yes after being like all thin and stuff then gaining like 25 pounds in a year I decided to get my ass into the gym.
I can’t give away what I did right off the bat. But I don’t know if I have a “sympathy face”
Sympathy face = a slight tilt of the head, raising of the eyebrows and no other facial expression. It says “I care” without necessarily backing it up with thought.
I use it all the time when a coworker tells me of their dead rabbit or sick uncle twice removed.
And you think about mud wrestling hot chicks when they do it… don’t you
My sympathy face is a slight dip of the head into my shoulders, and straightening my lips into a very slight grimace.
For more reference, GIS Bill Clinton’s hangdog expression. They’re closely related.
My grimace is my default face.
Don’t look in, but stick a thumbs up through the doorway and ask, “We good?”
If it is, indeed, good, then someone will say, “Si,” or, “Yeah.”
If it is bad, the paramedics will say, “Oh, yeah, totally, man. We pick up dying people everyday.”
I think the entire thumbs up move is underused on a day to day basis.
I’m guessing they are so overwhelmed with the emergency that they wouldn’t even notice you left so you could easily check in with them when you return.
I vote that you headed for the gym hoping they wouldn’t be around to cash your rent check for a while.
I’m a heartless bastard some days
Honestly… I totally handed in my rent check late because I knew they weren’t around. It was more about not leaving it in their mailbox for security purposes but I totally felt like I was getting away with something.
There are very few things in this world worth the risk of seeing old man balls.
I think you meandered around outside your car for a while until you decided…making you look like their retarded Italian son who they let live upstairs.
I can’t be worse than the one that comes over with his massive Italian flag on the back of his truck.
that was the greatest opening line.
I’m thinking that you checked in later.
I however would have left and completely forgotten about it but that is probably because I live in a large apartment building and don’t know any of my neighbors.
I kind of avoided them for a few days before I asked them what happened.
I’m going to guess that you went ahead and left, judging by the title of the post.
I would have stuck my head in to assess the situation and offer support, and then left.
Yes I totally left.
I would just leave. the paramedics were already there which means that everything was in control. theres nothing you could have done. and they werent your friends or anything. if your landlords were screaming like they were dying and there was no one around to help, yah then definitely check in. OR, if these were people you liked and were friends with, then see what’s going on. Otherwise, do the proper east coast thing and stay outve it.
Then again, i am definitely socially retarded and have been often told i have no emotions. so..
So you mean like the other day when their fire alarm kept going off I should have checked in on that?
My therapist told me that men do indeed have emotions. They are just not trained to recognize them. I feel hungry.
I am hungry as well… Are we sharing an emotion right now… Wait hunger isn’t emotion?
Hunger is an emotion when it comes with a hard-on.
You handed the paramedics your business card and said that you were the owner of the building and to let you know if they’d passed on so you could take care of their stuff.
That’s what I’d do.
why dident you act concerned and rush in there. and tell them that you would be more than willing to take legal guardianship of thier affairs in thier time of need….
if they ask why just tell them “that what we do in america”
Because I live in a country where people are a little introvert and avoid too close encounters with people not belonging to your own personal flock of friends and family (ie everyone else), I’d just shimmy on past and don’t ask questions because it’s kinda nosey here, and just go about my own buisness. Later on, when you see the neighbours and talk to them a little, and they kinda touch on the subject, it’s okay to ask if everything was alright, getting the whole story without butting in anything yourself.
that first guy stole my initial reaction when i read this. YOU go to a gym? I can’t top the seeing an old mans balls comment from Meghan.
I THINK THAT IS WHAT MAKES YOU HOT AND FUCKABLE.
SERIOUSLY.
I would have dipped back to my house till the ambulance left then eased on out like I didn’t know what was happening