My Posture Is Better, Though

A lot of people may have guessed this about me by now, but I have a bit of a tendency to overthink things. But I think I know why I do it. My older brother is a person with no discernable amount of self-awareness. He has no idea if he's offending people, hurting someone's feelings, grossing somebody out, or making himself look like a weirdo. And in my ever-increasing desire not to be that way, I've found myself thinking about some pretty lame things. I've analyzed my walk to make sure I don't hold my hands in a weird way. I've perfected the ability to eat an entire meal without the need of a napkin. And I've even relearned how to drink soda from a can so I can avoid any possible slurping noises.

But every once in a while, I'm completely stumped about what to do, even after analyzing it. And I know I'm being stupid about it, but I still do it. For example, last week an acquaintance of mine gave me a ride home. We're not buddies or anything, but we're friendly. And I needed a ride when my car wouldn't start. So he picked me up in his Honda Civic. But when I got in, I noticed that the passenger seat was in a very rigidly straight position and scooted up towards the dashboard quite a ways. Also, the passenger-side sun visor was halfway down. And if this had been someone I knew really well, I would have simply flipped the visor up and moved my seat to a comfortable position. But people are weird about their cars sometimes. I know I hate it when people turn my air conditioning down or my radio up, so I don't think it's a stretch to imagine taking offense to seat moving and visor readjustment. Maybe he had a really good reason for that particular configuration. Maybe there was a delicate piece of furniture in the backseat (perhaps constructed entirely out of balsa wood), and I'd crush it if I moved back an inch. And maybe the only way his car would run is if the visor was halfway down.

So I just sat there. With my face about three inches from the downed visor and my back as straight as it's ever been in my entire life. But I was too afraid to even ask if I could mess with his car. And I figured it was just a 10-minute drive, so I could deal with that. But have you ever spent 10 minutes sitting bolt upright with your view of the road obscured? It's quite off-putting to say the least. You never realize how much you look at the road when passenging until you can't see it anymore. So long story short, I was uncomfortable and felt weird. But he never even realized there was a problem. And that's all that matters.