Embarrass-what?

Someone recently mentioned to me in passing that they were really impressed with my lack of clumsiness lately. I was sort of thrown for a second, because I couldn't think of any reason why they would draw that assumption, since I'm just as clumsy as always lately, if not crazily moreso, to the degree that I've been managing to make a public spectacle of myself pretty much on a daily basis.

A quick follow up revealed that I hadn't blogged about any hideous injuries/embarrassments recently, so they just assumed that I had gotten over my inherent qualities of ineptness. (Note: I have not.) I checked and they're right, I haven't written an entry about such ridiculousness in a long time. And then it hit me: the reason I haven't written about being horribly embarrassed lately is because I haven't been embarrassed. I mean, my behavior/mannerisms/tendency to make a fool of myself have not gone down at all, I just don't care anymore.

For instance: At McDonalds on Tuesday, I finish my lunch while reading a book and go to throw away the remains. I pick up my tray one handed, so as to be able to carry my drink at the same time so's I can fulfill my God-given right of as many free refills as I can drink. Unfortunately, the tray is completely unbalanced because half of it is covered by mostly-empty wrappers, french fries, and ketchup and the other half is covered in a 600 page book. This results in me basically flipping the entire tray of crap across the room catapult-style, including the ketchup (which splatters across every available surface in the place in crazy Rorschach designs), and the huge book which sails all the way to the feet of a small family eating a late lunch in the far corner, before slamming to the ground with a noise like a gunshot.

Everyone in the entire place turned to look at me, holding an empty tray, looking very much like I just flung my trash across the restaurant on purpose, like an errant monkey escaped from the zoo.

Normally this would cause me to go into a fit of embarrassment so intense that I would have had to curl up into a ball underneath one of those ugly Formica tables until every single person had left the building, and even then, I would have blushed every time I passed by the McDonalds for at least a week.

Instead, I didn't care at all. I sort of just shrugged and walked over to get the book. Then, when I managed to immediately drop the book again and spill my drink down the front of my shirt when I overcompensated trying to grab it mid-air during the fall, I didn't even pay attention to see if anyone noticed or cared, or was calling the police to deal with the nutbar by the napkin dispenser who was destroying the place. I went and got a napkin, dried myself off, got my goddamn free refill, put on my gigantic aviator sunglasses, and strode confidently out to bake in my non-air conditioned TOM.

As such, I didn't even think to write about it, even though it was pretty much the equivalent of an improbably lame slapstick routine from a bad movie.

I can't tell if this means I'm suddenly desensitized to all forms of embarrassment relating to my super-clumsy powers, or if I'm just too exhausted from all this work lately to properly focus on my basic Jason responses to most stimuli (read: intense overreactions and detailed examination of the tiniest disruption in my everyday life to the point of obsession and madness.)

I will go with a little from Column A, and a little from Column B.