Get Over It

While you subscribe to that brilliant 

truism that chance favours the prepared 

mind, clearly you were not adequately

prepared.  No, do not look again.  Yes,

you feel compelled to do just that. Compel

yourself not to.  Do, rather, as you see others

present; studiously looking elsewhere.

Ah, you succumbed to a surreptitious

sidelong glance.  Well, my dear, studied

indifference would have been far more

appropriate. Are you satisfied with

having verified your first fleeting

incredulity?  No, I thought not.  What's

the problem?  Certainly, he is tall, portly,

pallid and elderly and his appearance is,

to put it mildly, a visual challenge.  Get

over it.  You don't think much of that

long, grey-yellow-white hair irregularly

sweeping his shoulders, falling in a

fringe from his very bald crown?  Obviously,

he thinks highly of it as his prerogative.

Kindly, for the sake of polite courtesy,

do not glance again.  My dear, you are

quite plainly incorrigible.  No matter.

Though you're certain you were sufficiently

discreet, a critic's role does not become

you.  What's that yo say?  You think that

man, younger than you but in his mid-sixties

is a flamboyant exhibitionist?  Consider

this: he may merely be expressing an inner

compulsion.  I see - you think his bare,

hairy arms, shoulders, legs are not set

to full aesthetic advantage by the brief

strapless cotton summer frock with its

bright floral print, though the bosom is

amply filled?  My dear, that is your very

own, and one must comment, rigid opinion.