Unexpected

Yesterday morning, as I was walking from the living room to the kitchen, I paused in the doorway to the dining room because something was off. The dining room was dim, as it always is, but something caught my attention -- a slight movement, perhaps. I stood there, perfectly still, for a couple of seconds before I understood what I was seeing.

"There's a bird in here!" I called to Sean. As I watched it, this medium-sized brown bird with a rosy breast hopped from the dining room table to the back of one of the chairs. Sean walked up beside me and the bird flew into our bedroom, and Sean followed it. For some reason, I stayed rooted to the spot, my heart pounding. Sean followed the bird around the bedroom for a few seconds; then it made its way into the bathroom and out the open window that no doubt had provided its entrance into our house.

It took a few minutes for my heart to stop racing. I don't know why I reacted this way. I wasn't afraid; if anything, all I felt was mild annoyance at the potential hassle of trying to shoo the bird outside. Sometimes, however, I react slowly and unexpectedly to things that catch me off-guard.

Public nudity is something that always surprises me unpleasantly. I don't mean nudity at a nude beach variety; that might make me feel uncomfortable, but at least the lack of clothes is in context with the surroundings. I mean looking out a college library window one sunny Sunday morning and realizing, after staring blankly for half a minute, that the young woman sunbathing a floor below me in the courtyard was topless. I mean walking across a quad, dodging hackysack games and Frisbees, and almost being bowled over by a naked young guy tossing a boomerang; when he apologized for running into me, my reponse was something like, "Unhhhh..." as I stood there uncomprehendingly. It wasn't just that I was embarrassed (although in the latter case I was). In both instances, my brain wouldn't process what I was looking at so I could glance and think, "Naked guy in the quad. Huh," and get back to whatever I was doing.

Other times I become incredibly thick when on the receiving end of unexpected news. Sean called me at work one day to tell me that a favorite singer of mine, Kirsty MacColl, had died in a boating accident. I'd been a fan of hers for years and had all her albums, but my brain refused to grasp what Sean was saying. "Why is he telling me this?" I thought. "Who is this person?" It probably took a full minute before my brain caught up with my ears, and then I felt terrible.

I'm trying to decide if this is just lameness or a particularly unhelpful survival mechanism.