Iterations of Irritation

The voice of the female sitting right behind me had the qualities of a well-honed taser. And yes, the pitch, intensity and power were disabling my volunteer faculties. And it went on and on. Spewing stuff I had no business or interest in hearing.

But it was now 20 minutes after the scheduled 7:30 pm start of the Saturday night performance of "Sleeping Beauty." The conductor was positioned at his podium, repeatedly looking over his shoulder for some magical signal. And wait. And wait some more. I wondered later if there had been a scheduling screw up of ecclesiastical proportions. Daylight Savings time now starts early. There were Seventh-day Adventist musicians in the orchestra. The sun was just now setting.

Mercifully, the lights dimmed. The "A" note sounded. Harmonics of intervals, fifths and fourths were adjusted in the cacophony of bedlam. And then the overture commenced.

I did forget the taser experience.

The "Sleeping Beauty" set was dramatic. The supporting characters made their nuanced entrances. King and Queen and baby princess Aurora wrapped in lace. Dancing fairies. Dotting cavaliers. Matronly court ladies. Pages to the fairies. The stage awash in brilliant color and flashing motion.

And then that woman.

The woman sitting in the row in front of me just to my left. The woman with the camera. One of those new-fangled digital things with the big bright screen on the backside which means you have to hold it out in front of you to be able to see what the camera sees. Of course Mrs. Canon Nikon Kodak had to hold it high enough to clear the heads in front of her. And fiddle with it. And the poor camera went berserk with confusion in its auto-focus and color compensation frantic attempts. So the annoying bright spectacle simply had to capture my eye. And this went on. And on. And on. And I wanted to break her arm. And I bit the inside of my cheek. And decided I would be a pacifist about this and in the mercy of whatever gods there are, it would come to an end.

The middle acts weren't photographed as much. But in the last scene, where Princess Aurora and Prince Desire are entangled in the web of matrimony, Mrs. C.N. Kodak held her camera steady on one stoutly court attendant regaled in flowing blue. And the more frustrated I got with not only on what she was doing, but how she was doing it. She aimed the camera at only one spot. Some motionless matronly court attendant in that blue floor-length frock. She made no attempt at all of trying to capture the motion and athleticism of the dancers. What was possessing her mind? Especially with the camera being constantly confused, cycling back and forth trying to get a fix on something for auto focusing, and the color bleaching out and going black in trying to compensate for the theatrical intensities in the lighting.

Finally the curtain call. People stand up. Mrs. Kodak photo woman stands up. A women behind me leans over and shouts at her "Madam! Madam!" until photo woman turns around. "Do you have any idea how distracting that camera was to the people behind you?!" And now I could see the profile of Mrs. C. N. K. She looked like a fifty year old teenager. The hair. The glasses. Something out of "Under the Yum Yum Tree. " She really needed the original of the Kodak Brownie instead of the high faluttin' thing she was fighting with. And she sweetly smiled and said, "I'm sorry." And I rechanneled a previous taser and fired at her "It was terrible."

This morning The Friends gathered in silence in the Faculty Lounge of Olin Hall on the Whitman College campus. The usual sign was on the door to notify passersby and any that are entering that The Friends meeting was in session and to enter in silence.

The silence is sacred.

After about 15 minutes, we heard the door open. And then some clanging. A lot of clanging. And banging. And water running. And the silence was shattered. My frustration level was on simmering irritation.

The "intruder" left. But returned again in a few minutes.

The worship leader got up. I looked around. I assume it was female by the length of the hair. The face was so very Mongolian/Asian. I looked back down. Closed my eyes. The leader escorted the woman to the door.

The silence was re-assembled.

In that silence I had to think about irritation . . . pacifism . . . tolerance . . . when enough is enough.

Later, in the post silence discussion, the leader told us that she was a visiting professor from Asia. She had come in to make some coffee. She had never heard of Quakers. Entering in silence, to her, meant she was not to talk. She learned something. I could understand.

We talked of Christopher Hitchens' appearance on Bill Maher's Show the previous Friday night. How the Quakers made it into a one-liner about being the "non-violent one" of the world's religions.

When it came my turn to share something of interest from my week, I couldn't help but express my irritation with irritation. The talking woman. The photo woman. The coffee woman. It was not that they were all woman. It was the irritation of invaded space.

Then Nancy, the statesman lady of this fellowship of The Friends, suggested that that photo lady might have been photographing one of the local dancers. I objected, as I had earlier read in the newspaper that this was a professional ballet company from Eugene, OR. But Nancy told me yes and no, there were a number of locals in supportive roles. You could tell them from the lean and lithe professional dancers, like Prince Desire with his micro-thin spray-on spandex flesh-colored leotards that separated the cleavage of his buns of steel and revealed revealing bulges on bulges in the protrusion of his basket. Nancy didn't say that! But she did say that the locals were the big plump ones! The ones that didn't/couldn't move around with all that agility.

And then it hit me.

Photo woman Mrs. Canon Nikon Kodak. Motionless Court Lady in big blue dress. Anthropometrics of similarity between the two. Pictures of a once-in-a-life-time experience.

And now.

I am irritated with myself.

The Refectory Manager