On having lost the capacity for embarrassment

Today, I insisted that I could totally feed and walk Bisou before leaving in the middle of the night (or so it feels like) to go on the bike-train-train (or train-train-train, depending) trip into the city. It's possible that this will be better when I'm more on this schedule, and today, all went smoothly until, promptly after buying an almond croissant, I grabbed it from the wrong part of the (incredibly symmetrical!) bag, and dropped it right on the floor of the coffee shop, in front of a long line of super-posh morning-rush workers. I made a mental note of what part of it had touched the floor, considered that the floor of this particular coffee shop is probably cleaner than the kitchen of the place I'd gotten lunch at the previous day, picked up the thing, and went on my way. OK, I briefly scanned the line for any of my students, to see if I'd need to refer to this incident in class, but that was it.

It was only after all this that it occurred to me that I'd just been in an embarrassing situation. The stuff of teen-mag letters. I'd not only dropped the thing, but picked it up again (it was $3! the floor at this place in the early morning is spotless! and who knows where anything you buy outside has been!), which, yeah, might be interpreted as a George Costanza move. (Getting a dog has cured me of all germophobia. What use is hand sanitizer when a creature that licks everything surprises you with kisses?)

In any case, that café is by far the most expensive of the three possible morning pit-stops, so maybe it's just that I already had in the back of my mind that I wouldn't be back any time soon. The (middle of the) almond croissant wasn't anything special. Maybe I do still have a capacity for turning beet-red, not just while jogging, but in these moments as well. Or maybe not.