Are you new here?

I consider myself a quiet person. I'm reserved around people I don't know or barely know, content, as the old adage says, to remain silent and be thought a fool (rather than to speak and remove all doubt). I'm shy, but I don't consider myself anti-social. I'm friendly if you talk to me first. If I know you, and think fondly of you, I love hugs and cuddles and most forms of affection. If not, stay the hell out of my personal space, thanks.

My tower is my personal space. I opened it, I'm closing it, and I'm sitting in it for eight hours. Me, no one else. All my stuff is spread around it, right where I like it. I have my chair in the spot I want it, I have the phone within reach. I have it organized. And I consider my tower like a desk in an office-- no one would expect another person to run amok in their cubicle, looking in drawers and reading files and all that. It's basic etiquette-- it just isn't done. When the person coming to break me out comes, they don't mess with the radio, they don't eat my food, they don't rifle through my stuff, and vice versa when I break someone out. It's just polite. The tower is part of my bubble. And I don't like people in my bubble.

So you, dear readers, can imagine my chagrin when a man approached my tower, climbed the stairs, offered me his hand, and said, "Hi, I'm Ned from Public Works. Are you new here?"

Am I new here? Me? You are in my tower! What are you doing in my tower! Get off my tower! I would be less offended if you had just grabbed my ass!

But he continued: "I don't think we've met."

"No, I don't think we have. I'm Sunburned Beachmonkey." We bloody well haven't met, you tower-infiltrator. I would remember some old guy getting all up in my shit. "I'm not new, this is my second summer here."

"That's nice. I'm surprised we haven't met before! Is Mike or Bill around?" Mike and Bill are well-known lifeguards that have been around for an eternity.

"I think Bill might be at headquarters today." Freaking out, freaking out. Weird old man too close for comfort, and he's on my TOWER. Oh God, just go away.

I don't know if Ned was actually from Public Works. I made smalltalk with him for a bit, him telling me about how he wanted to go back to work, but the doctor told him his muscles are still too atrophied to do anything. Then he left, with a stern, "you make sure none of these people get in trouble, now." Well that's what I was trying to do, Ned. You just make it difficult.