I am a trusting person and I hold a lot of faith in the good of mankind.  I trust that nobody wants to enslave or be enslaved, I trust that we all have it in us to resolve conflicts through compromise, I believe that there’s a surplus of kindness and love in the world that can be sourced to resolve all of our problems.  On the micro-level… I don’t trust anyone.  I was taught not to assume that help will come to me and the world is what I make of it.  Naturally, I have cultivated this into a careful blend of congeniality and sociophobia.

This afternoon, as I stood in front of the microwave waiting for my food, a woman walked in and retrieved her lunch from the refrigerator.  She produced a container of curried rice out of her lunch carrier then lined up the rest of her items on the table, I guessed to pass the time.  Visibly hurried she looked at me, looked at the countdown on the microwave, looked at her food, then back at the jicama salad I had in my hands.  She asked if I had to warm up the container that I was holding.  I shook my head, but before I could verbalize ‘no, this is just a salad’ she cut me off with both hands out like a mime feeling a wall.

Curtly, the woman said “Can you put this in the microwave for me?  Two minutes, I’ll be right back.” and hustled out of the room.

I wondered to myself, what is stopping me from messing with this woman’s food?  What is perfect revenge to being casually rude and assuming my benevolence?  Unfortunately, it’s not farting into the container or leaving any trace of vileness that could be submitted later for dna analysis. No the clear solution was blogging about the situation, learning to trust in people as much as they trust in me…  and putting bhut jolokia [link] extract on my shopping list.