Today's subject: How to avoid someone in the cafeteria!
More specifically, how to avoid obnoxious people in the cafeteria, so that your dinner isn't completely ruined.

Once upon a time (okay, I think it was last Monday), I was over at the cafeteria, waiting to meet Kelly for break. Upon entering the cafeteria, the first person I noticed was an extremely obnoxious person who I happened to run into very early on in the season.

Side note: I should set this on up first. Obnoxious person has a name, but I'm going to avoid mentioning it, just in case (plus, someone else could confuse this person with them, and there is a distinct difference!!!). So we'll go with calling obnoxious person George. George is what you might describe as a "pretty boy" who looks like he's approximately 17. George sat down at the table next to mine in the cafeteria at the beginning of June, and consequently I spent the rest of June trying to avoid him. It didn't work especially well, because of a string of bad luck, like wanting to get on one bus and ending up on the other one, having him show up outside my dorms one night, etc, etc. George could definitely be considered attractive, but once he opened his mouth...it was all over from there. I have never met such a self-centered, boring person in my entire life, and that's definitely saying a lot.

Okay, back to my story.
I was at one end of the cafeteria line, and George was at the other end. In order to keep George from seeing me, I kept close tabs on the exact movements of the person in front of me in order to stay behind them, so George wouldn't see me. Jumping around behind random people got me a lot of strange looks, and eventually the person behind the line (I think his name was Martin) asked me what I wanted. I told him I wasn't sure yet, and continued on with my dance steps to avoid George seeing me. About three minutes later, Martin and I had the following conversation.

Martin: Have you decided yet?
Me: Yes, but I'm not going to order yet, because see, I'm avoiding someone. He's down there, and I really really don't want him to see me, and it's really hard to hide wearing this uniform 'cause, see, it's bright red, and I kind of stick out, and I know that if I walk down there, that guy is going to see me, and I REALLY don't want to see him, because then he'll follow me and sit down with me, and consequently my dinner will be ruined, and that would be really bad, so I'm just going to stand here and avoid him, if that's okay.
Martin: Uh, yeah...
Me: Just smile and nod.
--Martin smiles and nods--

I then proceeded to outline how obnoxious sitting by George was to a random girl in line next to me, ordered my food (because George had pretty much sat down and I was now free to roam down the line), and attempted to hide behind one of the posts in the cafeteria. Luckily, George didn't see me, and a full 10 minutes after walking into the cafeteria, I was finally able to join Kelly for a decent break without the constant blabbering of George's social life, which basically included drinking, drinking, and oh yeah, more drinking, some complaining about the hangovers he's still stupid enough to get, then asking me if being 21 is any different than being 20 (a question he asked me like, every single time he saw me between my birthday and the end of the season, when the answer never changed, but he's just a dumbass like that), and the proceeding to tell me about another one of his drinking stories, which I probably have already heard.
I passed the break without being nabbed by George but once, and being in a conversation with Kelly, I was still able to pretty much avoid George.
So, the moral of the story is that if you want to avoid someone in the cafeteria, just do a dance behind someone else, tell the person behind the cafeteria line that you're avoiding someone, and then take your good sweet time to sit down! And you should be successful at avoiding people you don't like! :)
- posted by L. @ 1:24 AM