Very large spitter

The audience was bored by the speaker. He was an old Texas man who drew out every word of his speech, an unbearable habit for the audience. Unfortunately, everyone had to be in attendance.

“And…so…life…cycle…is…the…paradigm…” The old man wore a thin, beige short-sleeve button down and neck-tie and his sweat-stained white tank-top showed clean through. His top lip was always pulled up toward his nose, and when he talked, his teeth would snap together like a horse chewing hay.

Tom, one of the other engineers in the auditorium, leaned over to Alex and whispered, “I’m gonna go.” Tom was sweating pretty heavily. He had told Alex before that he didn’t handle groups well, that being with them made him anxious. Tom usually left early at the meetings.

When Tom stood up to make his exit, the five people between Tom and his target aisle had to stand up to let him through: he was a heavy guy. When he finally made it out of the auditorium, the man sitting to the left of Alex said to no one in particular, “If he’s gonna leave early every time, why doesn’t he sit on the end?” Someone behind shushed the man. “I was just saying,” he whispered before getting shushed again. The first shhh didn’t bother Alex, because the guy next to him always made stupid comments, but the second shhh had some spit attached to it, and it landed on the back of Alex’s neck.

Alex turned around. “Dickhead, you spit on my neck.” Alex immediately regretted his outburst when he saw just how big the shusher was. The seats on each side of the man were unoccupied, because no one would have been able fit in the two-inch space available. The man wasn’t fat, just big. When Alex noticed his brown-rimmed glasses, though, he began grinning uncontrollably at thought of anyone being fooled into thinking this man was a geek.

The very large spitter did the most unlikely thing possible. He apologized to Alex and offered him his handkerchief. Alex felt embarrassed and turned back around.