I know someone who is fond of making a joke about "Mercury is in retrograde" when there's a lot of dissention and misunderstanding going around.

Now, I don't believe in astrology, but I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something in the human psyche that makes us periodically tend to behave like we want to misunderstand each other, and want to act all hurt.

I mean, after all, cellular slime molds exist mainly as single-celled critters until a wave of cAMP passes through the population, and then they are triggered to all come together and work together. Couldn't there be something else - perhaps on some kind of spiritual level, not measurable by the tools we have - that affects the human population, and causes normally sane and reasonable people to behave like five-year-olds who have just had a toy snatched from their hands?

I don't know. I've seen several cases this week of what I almost suspect was willful misunderstanding (so the party doing the "misunderstanding" had the opportunity to get all hurt and huffy). I've had to smooth lots of feathers this week. Last night, I had the weird situation of being ganged up on by people in a service industry, and being aggressively asked "Aren't we doing a good enough job? We think we heard someone in your group complain!" And I have been told I will have to deal with the district supervisor on this issue because some manager went ahead and called in that there had been a complaint. Oy. (You must understand that I am the kind of person who only ever sends food back in a restaurant if it is either so uncooked it is unsafe to eat, or if it is actually spoiled.) It was very strange, believe me, being confronted by a manager and two employees and having them grill me about that. I almost felt at one point that they thought I was lying about things being fine.

And all because one member of the party acted surprised to see the set-up done as it was (or that's my assumption, by the time I walked in the door after having had to park a half-mile away and walk with a box of mums under my arm - which, incidentally, have set off my allergies, I have a wicked sore throat this morning - the manager was already bustling about asking what needed to be changed).

No, I didn't confront the supposed complainer; by that point I realized that Mercury was in retrograde, or bad-feeling waves are passing throughout the human population, or everyone's got Hyperbole Poisoning already from all the campaign ads, or something.

I just hope today is better. Thank goodness I have only two classes, and then I can go home, fix a cup of tea, and read the journal article I agreed to review.