Feeling Old

Today I am feeling especially old. I blame this on the especially young girl who is fulfilling her court-mandated community service in my office. While she is nice enough, she is insanely lazy and seemingly unable to complete any one task. In order to avoid some stiffer penalty, this girl had to complete a grueling 15 hours of community service with a non-profit organization within one week. She was forced to file, copy, collate and staple. It was hard time. In four days she managed to knock out 9 of the hours, leaving the balance to be done today. Although I would not presume that she could subtract nine from fifteen, or that she would be able to subtract 6 hours from 5:00 pm to determine her necessary arrival time, I did expect that she would arrive before 2:00 pm, when she sauntered in.

Immediately irritated I looked obviously sideways, the direction of the computer clock, and emitted an audible sigh. She was unsurprisingly oblivious. Approaching my desk she looked pained and said, in a tone of voice which can only be described as pathetic, "My stomach hurts."

I looked around as if perhaps a physician had somehow stationed herself over my shoulder. Not finding one I said with obvious bewilderment, "I'm sorry."

Assuming that the conversation had come to its natural conclusion, I turned my attention back to my work, but the awkwardness lingered. I could feel her getting closer. Unable to stand it any longer, I gave in and asked "Was there something else."

Evidently unable to string letters together to form words, she reached for my hand. As if it were out of my control, and in seeming slow motion, I allowed her to move my hand up to her stomach and press it into her abdomen. "Does it feel different?" she asked. Different than what? I wondered aloud. "Different than the other side," she replied.

So, naturally, I had to press my hand against the other side. "It feels the same to me," I said awkwardly. Truth be told there could have been a large orange cone protruding from her stomach and I would not have noticed. All that I could think was that I really wish I had left early as I had intended to do.

The conversation continued as she asked me what she should do if she thought she had a stomach issue, what I thought it could be, and how much it would cost her to get treatment.

As I reflect on the situation, I find the most uncomfortable part of it that I am old enough that this girl came to me for "maternal" advice. I mean really, we had to be about the same age, right?