What the World Needs Now

New things are exciting.  Take my life, for instance, new work place, new responsibilities, new face, and non-stop thrills.  Sometimes though, it's good to feel comfortable and know everyone's name.  Yesterday, I was walking down the hallway (outside of our division but inside of our building) with my supervisor.  My supervisor has worked in the division much longer than I have and is much higher up than I am so natch, she knows more people than I do.  I can name everyone in our division but step outside the confines of our office and I'm generally clueless about the ways of the greater Brigham world, but I'm learning.  And after six months, when you see a face enough times, it makes an impression.  We walked past a petite little lady who looked very excited to see me and exchanged greetings.

(Once the lady is out of earshot)

Supervisor: Do you know her?

Moi: No.

Supervisor: Does she work in the dental office?

Moi: I don't know.  Maybe. 

Supervisor: I've never seen her before in my life.

Moi: That's impossible.  I see her all the time-  I call her Unusually Friendly Lady.  Jen and I, we love Unusually Friendly Lady.  She's so- friendly.

We could really use more unusually friendly ladies in the world (not to be confused with easy ladies-- we don't need those).  Sometimes though, we also need more people to understand sarcasm.  I made the same stupid crack I always make this morning about how "once you've seen one tree, you've seen them all."  And instead of saying, "that's not funny, moron" the lady I was working with just looked really, really sad.  Then quietly said, with a resigned voice, that she tries to recycle.  Which made me feel sad, too.  And I wanted to cry with her.