I’m not usually one to speak up during Zoom calls; I prefer to internally absorb the information being presented to me.
(You know I’m still going to unmute myself and say, “Thanks everybody!” at the end of an hour-long meeting in which I say nothing, though.)
But today, I had something on my mind and I felt it would be a worthy contribution to the end of our department’s weekly Zoom meeting. When my boss Nathan asked if anyone else had anything to share, I unmuted my mic and posited my question to the group:
“Do any of you ever think about how lucky celebrity dogs are to be able to watch some of the most attractive people in the world have sex with each other? Do you think these dogs are at all aware of the situation they’ve fallen into and do they have any ability to consider themselves lucky? Do they have any concept that the people they’re watching have sex near them are considered so utterly and objectively beautiful that other humans make themselves go crazy thinking about it?”
Total silence. I thought maybe my computer froze because no one moved for a solid ten seconds or so, but then my coworker Alicia muttered something and I knew people were unsure what to say.
“I… that will, uh… do it for today, guys,” Nathan said, as the meeting abruptly ended.
This was the first time I ever really contributed something of substance to the department’s weekly Zoom call, and now here I was, wondering if I did something wrong. I suppose it could have been an accident; maybe Nathan was having connectivity issues and just didn’t hear me, opting to end the call instead of trying to explain the problems he was having on his end.
But… nobody else said anything. Could they all have been having connectivity issues as well? There were 150 people on this call; that seems rather unlikely.
Were they stumped by my question, needing more time to ponder the question? It does make you think, after all. What do celebrity dogs think about when they watch their owners have intercourse? They might have a sense of what’s going on there; dogs certainly seem smart enough to understand beauty in this world. And what’s more beautiful than a couple of beautiful people just going at it?
I work remote, so it’s been hard to gauge the reaction from the rest of the team. Nobody has followed up with me over IM since the meeting, either. I’ve just been staring at the wall of my office for hours now, unable to pry myself away from the spiraling thoughts – what do they think about the question? I simply must know how my coworkers feel about celebrity dogs and their ability to see their owners buck naked nearly every day.
Oh look, a meeting with Nathan has been put on my calendar for this afternoon, right at 4:30. Looks like my manager wants to end the day with a deeper discussion that the topic requires.