You thought I was going to write about the Israeli/Palestinian standoff – murderers in suicide mode and aggressive invaders looking for murderers in suicide mode. Actually, I am thinking about an enemy that invaded my space just as I was about to enjoy a movie. Now, in preface to explaining what happened last week, I must add that I have difficulty in paying attention to what is in front of me if there is some disturbance behind me.  Let me explain.

At the movies Carol and I settled amidst chompers of popcorn, rustlers of wrapped junk food, sigh-ers, sneezers and coughers; not to avoid mention of the explainers of what is going on to hearers even less sensitive than I. A woman entered the row behind us.  She carried a bunch of “things”, tried to settle another person in a seat and then made a production about getting to the seat next to his. She loudly complained about people’s legs and their indifference to her need to enter the row.  She left for somewhere else and then returned to take that seat, again making a big production about it and this happened to be right behind me.

Now, what I am talking about is a disturbed person. She is not seriously disturbed and dangerous – but she has a clearly defined mental problem.  She was extremely sensitive to my turning around to see who it was who was crinkling paper, sighing and expressing her opinions about my discomfit with each of her declarations, inappropriate laughter and enlarging her space while diminishing mine. At one point, when her talking and comments were too much and I could not shut them out by turning off my hearing aids to the detriment of not being able to follow the dialogue of the movie, I turned around to tell her she was disturbing my enjoyment of the movie and to stop the noise. Her response was to tell me that I was “delusional” and for me to “shut up”. She most probably had elicited negative responses to her outsized and loud presence before.

I could tell that this was a person who had had problems and was either on medicines or whose medicines no longer dampened her take on life.  At this point, she was an enemy and I had a choice to make.  I could turn around each time she became too loud and yell at her (which seemed to gain the approval of others near her) or leave – but there were no available seats left. She continued to audibly note that I quivered each time she assaulted my attention to the movie. She never quieted down completely but left noisily before the end of the show taking the silent companion with her.  It looked like she was HIS caretaker.

Such enemies we could do without.  Could it be that I am perceived like that by those who read my incessant e-mails?