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Alex McRae Columnist

Published Friday, November 06, 2009

Tapped out

I never thought I'd be noticed for my dancing, but these days, my tapping is drawing comments from far and wide. Or at least as far away as the back corner of the newsroom.

Unfortunately, none of the comments are good. And they all say basically the same thing ... STOP!

Apparently I'm bad to tap my toes when typing, which is about all I do at work. And apparently that's not the only place I practice this annoying habit.

Several times, my wife has sweetly chided me for banging out some bossa nova rhythms on the living room floor while watching TV or reading. Then, like swine flu, the condition spread, and the other day while I was hacking my way toward another Pulitzer Prize rejection, my wife told me the tapping was traumatizing the entire office.

She asked me to stop and my coworkers brightened considerably.

Apparently, I don't tap gently like Poe's raven at the chamber door. My colleagues say it's more like Satan doing a line dance.

I'm appalled but not surprised. This kind of behavior isn't new. I can still remember the first time I got fussed at for fidgeting.

I was probably 7. It was a Sunday night, and after months of hearing my pleading, my mother finally agreed to let me sit by myself during church. I marched proudly to the front and plopped down on the "Amen" pew, anxious for my first taste of religious freedom at New Orleans' Lakeview Baptist.

At the time, I was a major collector of worthless trinkets. One of my recent acquisitions was a piece of light blue glass about the size of a bird's egg and beveled like a fine jewel.

I had it with me that night. Shortly after the offering was collected, the stone found its way into my hand, and as the preacher cranked up, I hung on his every word.

I was so swept away by the sermon's power I didn't realize I was dropping that glass stone over and over onto the uncushioned pew, creating a constant, annoying click ... click ... click of glass on wood.

The preacher lost it somewhere around "Blessed are the meek," and in front of a packed house, he wheezed to a halt, looked straight at me and said, "Alex, could you please stop."

Stop? Did I. My heart and everything else. I've never been so humiliated. Not to mention scared. I knew my mother --who was also the church secretary -- wasn't going to be happy.

She wasn't. After the service she whisked me directly to the preacher's office, where I stood crying and trembling, expecting the worst.

The preacher graciously accepted my mumbled "I'm sorry," but still it hurt, that apology, hurt bad. Hurt worse than any spanking before or since. Thinking back, though, that's how it should be. A good apology out to sting, have some bite to it, mean something. If my mother had apologized for me, or my father, it wouldn't have been the same.

Now my foot tapping has caused major consternation to my coworkers. To all of them, let me say, "I'm really sorry, y'all."

But what do I do now? I can't change a behavior I'm not even aware of. Drugs might work, but what if the medication makes my brain work even slower than it does now?

Installing a pair of stirrups under the desk might be effective, but what if visitors mistake my work space for a porn movie set? That won't do.

Looks like the only way to solve this problem is to start working at home. It will be lonely, but I'll survive somehow. If my co-workers miss me, they can always check me out on "So You Think You Can Dance?"

(send your e-mail comments to: alex@newnan.com )

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