Picking teeth

I don't know whether I am losing my brilliant social / people skills, so perfectly mastered over the last 25 years, because I am an outcast in this job - sitting here on my own with no other living sole to talk to, or whether I perhaps didn't have any before I started this job and just managed to blag it somehow... But this just happened:

I was sitting at my desk, reading about Charlotte Church's new hair don't on the Sky News website when a guy came up to my desk from around the corner. We'll call him Damon*, for legal purposes. He was looking to book a meeting room. I'm the 'meeting room booker', among my many other fascinating roles here, but I've gotten so used to doing absolutely nothing I just leave the book on my desk and let people fill it in themselves! I'm not too sure what was puzzling him, perhaps he'd forgotten the time of the meeting, but an irritating bit of lunch was certainly annoying him because he couldn't keep the long nail of his little finger out from between his molars.

I'm a bit sensitive when it comes to things like that (most things make me feel sick infact - wee, hair, pigeons, coppers - pennies I mean...) so I stopped what I was doing (surfing the net, naturally) and looked at him. Didn't say anything, just looked.

I didn't blink, because I thought staring might be enough to make him stop.

Nothing.

He just happily continued scavaging inbetween his teeth, searching for that tasty morsel, while perusing the meeting room book.

"Do you mind" I said, speaking in my softest 'cute' voice, "picking your teeth over there and coming back when you're finished?"

He looked at me.

The picking got less intense.

He removed his finger and examined the treasure. I was grimacing by this point. He turned straight around "I'm sorry, I know, it's really disgusting..." he said. And with that he walked off. Didn't bother sticking around to book a room. Just went.

It was a joke!

Although I was truly disgusted, I was joking. I called after him "he he, it was a joke" but I don't think he was listening.

I was mucking about.

Looking for a bit of interaction... I must either try harder to be funny or give up on the attempts to talk to anyone, other than the man that calls me 'Kim', between the hours of 8am and 6pm...


*The tooth-picker's real name is Damon, I couldn't think of any other name that suits him. He looks like a Damon!