Labor Day Talk

It's Labor Day weekend in Savannah and the crush is already on, it seems, of incoming students to SCAD for the fall, even though the quarter doesn't start for another week. Students have most likely already come back to the other schools in the area (Armstrong, Savannah State, Savannah Law), but SCAD is the largest and best known outside of Savannah and has the added, local presence of being spread out over downtown.

One of the many perks that I enjoy being a liberal arts professor there is a parking pass at lots around the city's crowded tourist spots. My favorite is on the south side of Liberty, one of the east - west corridors that marks off the historic area. I can park there, then pick my way across traffic and cut through the squares and clumps of students and tourists (feeling smugly local all the way). Today I headed to J.Crew to exchange a pair of pants. "I think I waited on you last time," the manager said. "Going up a size," she observed, flatly. I didn't say anything. Saying nothing is powerful. Most of all, it violates expectations to respond, and thus it takes some discipline on the part of the (non) speaker. I find it a challenge because I don't like making people feel uncomfortable, and thus sometimes use a non-verbal gesture instead -- a wave or a nod. That can defeat the purpose of a non-response but in some situations you want to respond, just not with what's expected. A non-response can say volumes, in this case probably more than I intended. I thought that her comment was a poor choice, though it could have been some type of compliment; I was just too hungry at the time to take part in small talk, especially something a little tricky like this. Mainly, I was sick of tight fitting pants around my thighs (I like to think of them as 'athletic'). As I sat down to lunch across the street, I felt a little regret for making the manager (and her trainee) uncomfortable (would I be embarrassed going in there again?), but sometimes it's worth the experiment.