The Evil Twin

We’re creatures of habit. Do you remember in grade school, the first time the teacher didn’t have assigned seating. You felt liberated. This must’ve been what it was like when we declared freedom from the British. Fireworks went off, anthems were sang, and the stars and stripes flew high.

And then you picked your seat and stayed in that seat the rest of the year.

If any new kid came in, and you found him in your seat, something boiled inside you. You started sweating. You’ll take another seat for now, but you won’t feel comfortable the rest of the day, and mentally note that you need to get to school earlier tomorrow, so you can reclaim what is yours.

There’s a spot that the guards let me park that is near the entrance to the garage. I’m supposed to be able to park in bike racks according to the rules set for motorized scooters, but their bike racks are in bad places. So we have an understanding that I can park in this special spot off to the side.

Recently someone started riding their motorcycle to work. Not only did some jerk start riding his motorcycle at the end of November, but he started parking in my spot so that I have to park 3 levels up in the garage. I just want to kick his motorcycle down.

I’ve been dealing with that over the past two weeks. I was coping pretty well actually, until today.

There’s one particular shower that I like to use at the gym. It has the best temperature control and seems to get the best water stream from it. It’s also off to the side, so not a lot of people use it. (Plus I go to the gym before the lunch rush usually starts.) So I don’t have disgusting body hair all over the shower or that bandaid that always is on the ground.

Today someone was in there.

My brain stopped thinking about motor functions and my present surroundings. Instead, I thought, it’s the same guy. I have an evil twin trying to inconvience me in life. Soon I’m going to come home from work and he’ll be sleeping on my side of the bed. Or he’s going to finish off the milk and leave the carton in the fridge.

Then I went into another fantasy where I jump kick him through the shower curtain. I grab his head and bash it into the tiles of the wall.

Then I came back to reality. Scared that I had wandered into my fantasy so long. Scared because for 5-10 seconds my brain had its own thought processes. I almost expected to come to with blood on my body and an unconscious man laying at my feet.

So I went to another shower and felt the at first too cold and soon too hot sting of an awful shower.

Well played evil twin… well played