come on!

I stopped an old man dead in his tracks this afternoon.

It sounds so flattering, right? It's not.

I'm sitting at my desk in the reception area, which is slightly around the corner from the entrance, so that I'm not immediately visible to the people who come in. (That's the way it floats in an old Victorian home converted to office space. We have signs. And don't even get me started on how nobody can read the large, clearly posted, obvious signs directing them to the reception area.) I hear the door open, so I remove the dictation headphones and put on my polite expectant welcoming face (blech) and wait.

He comes around the corner, his white hair commanding the eye. He looks a little grumpy, a little bored, in the way of old men, but I see it happen. His eyes swivel in my direction, focus on me, and...he stops. He not only stops, he jolts, and stares at me speechless for about two entire seconds before he manages, "You're the doll I've been talking to on the phone."

Doll? I smile and say, "That's right." He hands me the papers he's come to deliver, asks me a few questions about them which I'm not allowed to answer, so I widen my eyes and tell him earnestly, "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that, but the attorney certainly will," and he puts his hand over his heart and starts laughing and says, "That look is good enough for me," and I start to gather up the papers when he asks me, "Are you single?"

In the split second before I answer I'm weighing my responses, but I'm always caught off guard by these kinds of questions, and this one seems on the whole harmless, so I say, simply and with a matter-of-fact tone, "Yes."

He shakes his head as if he can't believe it and wonders what this world is coming to, and then he proceeds to ask me if I'm celibate, to which I say, "Well, now, that's a little personal," while thinking EW EW WTF and by now I'm holding the folder of papers at a fan-type angle that hides my chest and my smile has gone pinned at the corners.

He shakes his head again and says, "You should streak your hair, shorten it up a little."

Oh, this just gets better and better. When I tell him, still smiling insanely, rather like Sookie Stackhouse in awkward situations, that I like myself just the way I am, he says, "Well, it wouldn't hurt to look a little more expensive."

You have GOT to be kidding. What's he saying? Am I supposed to be a princess, or a call girl? I have absolutely no idea what to say to this, so I just laugh, still hiding my chest with the folder, though, to give him what credit he deserves, he hadn't been looking at my chest (and he didn't tell me I should lose a few pounds. I'm almost willing to forgive him for that). But one doesn't want to, you know, invite any further scrutiny.

Finally he leaves, telling me to take care. I can't decide whether to laugh a little wildly, indulge in a primal scream or bang my head down on the desk and cry. I hate these kinds of situations in an office setting; they're so uncomfortable. If this were to happen in a bar, well, then, the terms would be totally different. But one can't exactly say, "F*** off," to a client. And I think he only meant to be courtly and sympathetic, in the rough way of old widowers who don't give a damn about societal rules and are a little mad on behalf of pretty women with no husbands or babies. He's also a little nuts.

But...crikey.

I am so glad that I was sitting down throughout this entire encounter. I can still be imposing, sitting down. And this way he didn't have any way of ogling anything below my ribs.

Oh well. What can you do. I suppose I should dig the little nuggets of flattery and funny stories out of this one and call it a day.