Watch Where You Poke

So, today I had an interesting (and awkward) experience. If you've ever seen me play air hockey, you know I'm pretty good, despite the fact that I play maybe once a year. I think one of the main reasons for that is that I'm pretty good with my peripheral vision. This shows up in my daily life, as I'll often not look directly at what I'm "looking at" unless there's a particular reason to do so (i.e. being able to see it very clearly).

Well, this can be taken too far, it appears. So, my social psychology class just ended (my last class for the day, and I wanted to get out of there as much as everyone else did), and I was picking up my backpack to go (I was sitting in the front row). So, I pick up the backpack, sling it over my right shoulder, and insert left arm through the strap. In my usual manner, I was spotting the location of the strap with my peripheral vision - I only needed to see the location of the strap, I didn't need to focus on it.

So, insert the left arm and... *squish* Uh oh, that can't be a good thing. Now aware that there was somebody much closer to me than I was aware of (less than 18 inches), I looked to see who this was. Given the 50:50 chance, it was only a surprise in these particular circumstances that it was a girl. That's right, I'd just felt some girl up. Fortunately, she either comprehended exactly what had happened, or was too polite to say anything while I quickly apologized and slinked out of the building.

So, the moral of the story: watch where you're sticking your hands when there are other people present.