Pure Joy

Does anybody else get a surge of joy when they successfully manage to scare somebody? Whether it's simply startling somebody out of something they're involved with, or something more involved, like jumping around a corner at somebody, or breaking a long silence in a car ride with a bloodcurdling scream?

I do it unintentionally, sometimes. I'm pretty tall, and imposing, but I move kind of quietly (ninja training, don't ya know). Sometimes, I'll walk up on somebody with their back turned, and without intending to, I'll startle them when I move into their field of vision. Or if I speak.

Those times are nice, but the times I'm talking about, the times I really, really live for, are those that you catch a victim completely unawares. And you jar them completely out of their peaceful daydreams.

Last night at work, I managed to sneak up on a co-worker who was sitting and writing at a table. He was completely involved in whatever it was he was writing, and he hadn't heard me enter the room.

Slowly, ever so delicately, I moved into striking position. Without taking another step, I moved my body as close to his hunched frame as I could without violating that personal space radar that we all have. Taking care not to inhale so sharply as to be heard, I took a slow, deep breath.....

Ka Blam! I yelled, a scant 18 inches from his back, as loudly as I could.

Victory. Plain and Simple. Many of us have antagonistic relationships with people at work. This one is a friendly antagonism. An on-going test of wills to see who will break under the pressure of the other's thumb.

I won this round.

I think I almost caused my co-worker to have a heart attack. He jumped off the bench he was sitting on, and had he been in a chair, he'd have fallen to the ground.

He looked at me, bewildered at first, and maybe a little relieved. And then he got incredibly angry.

I got called several bad names, and was told that I'd scared the shit out of him.

And somehow, when I said that such a thing wasn't possible (for one thing, there was no 5'6" pile of feces and a skin lying on the ground like a discarded, deflated balloon), that seemed to make it okay for him to strike me with a cardboard mailing tube.

In a way, it's a double victory, as he resorted to violence, thus wiping out any karmic retribution I might have otherwise recieved.