It’s March, which means of course that all you on-top-of-it types are gearing up and finishing up taxes and no doubt getting your yearly dose of annoyance with the IRS.  I too am annoyed with the IRS, but I can promise you that we aren’t talking about the same thing.  The IRS that I am referring to is a personal condition I like to call Inappropriate Reaction Syndrome. 

A brief medical history of examples for you to understand what I am talking about!  I nearly fell to my death once spelunking and even though half of me was panicking and crying out to dad for help, the other half was thinking ridiculously, “Crap, I going to look like chowder at my funeral!”  When people do nice or really considerate things for me, my first instinct is to be annoyed, and when they do mean things I can’t help but smile.  I’ve laughed after breaking up with boyfriends and cried when people have told me they liked me.  What all this means, of course, is that I’m a complete mess.  However, even being aware of my condition isn’t enough to save the innocent victims it claims.

 IRS struck again today and outdid itself, even from my point of view.  I’d gone in to work and had three projects simultaneously tossed at my head the moment I sat down, but even so I had to work the front desk to handle the basic customer service questions of international law so I was a bit crazier than usual was trying to do a lot at once.  I was just about to move to the back of the office when a guy came in and asked some questions about England and the girls passed him on to me.  I answered as best I could and after he left Shell turned to me and said teasingly, “You totally could have worked that!”  “Right,” I laughed and leaned back in my chair fake-seductively and slipped into a heavy English accent, “Buy me dinner and I’ll tell you everything you need to know!”

…so imagine the collective look on the office’s face when twenty minutes he came back in and walked up to me with this half hopeful, half awkward look on his face that made my own instantly flush a disbelieving, unattractive red.  Oh no, I thought horrified, not possible! 
“Um, I was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner with me on Friday actually,” he said slowly while the other four girls watched with unholy glee, not even pretending to be working!

And then it happened.  I felt it, saw it happen from some weird third person omniscience.  IRS.

I laughed.  And not a cute, “please talk me into it” kind of girl laughter, I mean huge, rolling bursts of laughter that made his hopeful look drop off his face and crash on the floor.  I was mortified but I couldn’t stop!
“I’m…so sorry!  It’s not…that,” I gasped, trying to get it together, “it’s…an inside…joke.  That’d be…lovely…thanks…”.

So this guy left with my number and probably several years of therapy ahead of him andI feel like a total wench.  The best part is that the office has kept a running list of questions that we didn’t know the answer to for about a week now.  “C., will you go to dinner with me?” is the latest addition.