A Gross Injustice

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Wednesday - April 21, 2010

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Ron Nagasawa is on leave. This column was originally published May 23, 2001.

Why is it that no matter how innocent something really is, people will gravitate to the “grossest” interpretation of a situation? I guess it’s just human nature, but in my case usually no amount of explanation will clear me from circumstantial evidence.

For instance, I’ll go to the restroom at work to wash my hands. As I lean up against the sink, the entire lap of my pants gets all wet from the sitting water on the sink counter. I know that if I walk out of there and someone sees me, the first thing they’ll think is that I have a continence problem.

I’ve learned to accept that people are going to believe what they want to believe.

Last week I was in my office putting together a presentation chart and mounting it to a board using rubber cement. For those of you who were born after the time when our current president’s father was president, rubber cement was what we used prior to the invention of glue sticks.

Anyway, I managed to get rubber cement all over my fingers, when I realized I had to get to a meeting in our conference room. I rushed in there and was the first one, so I took a prime seat on a couch next to the conference table.

Since no one was around, I started to peal off the dried rubber cement from my hands and rolled it into a small ball. Just then others entered the room and the next thing I knew there was someone seated on each side of me on the couch.

With no time to dispose of the glue, I just kept rolling the ball around between my thumb and fingers. I looked at that and, as disgusting as this sounds, realized that dried rubber cement looks remarkably like the stuff that people pick from their noses.

I tried to discreetly flick it down to the floor, but it just kept sticking to my finger. Finally, I gave it a really good launch but it flew straight onto the back of the chair in front of me. Needless to say, by the start of the meeting, I had the couch all to myself.

Ron’s WEBSITE of the week www.icanhascheezburger.com