I am not always

I am not always the type of person who likes other people around me much, they are often the source of various loud noises and they make me want to go away. Today is just a smidgen worse. I might be getting a cold and perhaps my ears are hurting, or maybe, just maybe, everybody needs to shut the hell up. If people can hear your shrill, cawing cackle from across the office, maybe you should tone it down to a dull squeal. But I'm not fooled. I know you are doing it on purpose.

Maybe you don't know that it makes me, specifically me, nauseous and twitchy, but you know this is an unreasonable laugh, and any discerning listener can tell it is not born of joy or merriment but of something darker and more menacing. These are the people who chew, enthusiastically, on stinky food while talking, inches away from one's face.

The worst people in my daily life are just really annoying or a bit toxic, and my strategy is to avoid them or keep my distance if interaction is required. I wonder if I find today's braying more repellant than usual, because the Cubicle Neighbor from Heck isn't around this week, and my defenses are weak from lack of use.

I'll be at my desk, counting toothpicks and writing all the prime numbers up to 1,000,001. (That is prime, yes? I want to do this right. I suppose I could Google it, but that's not really in the spirit of the thing.)