Impulse Control

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I walk up to my 2 o'clock English Reformation class.  I walk the same way every day--out the back of the complex, across the parking lot, up the stairs, around another parking lot, and up the hill to campus.  Once on campus I walk past the Widtsoe  building, around the front of the MARB, up between the Eyering Science and the Kennedy Centres, and finally across the quad to the JFSB.  Somewhere, between the MARB and the JFSB, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I pass this one professor headed to class. He's a short man, I want to say not even five feet, but I'm probably not giving him enough credit.  But even more than his diminutive height, the one thing I notice about this man is his giant, bald head.  This huge, white, shining noggin attached seemingly directly to his shoulders.  There is little or no neck in evidence.

I see this man three times a week, sometimes more as he and I cross paths again returning from our respective classes.  And every time I see him, this great bald-headed man, I am overwhelmed with a desire to reach out and rub his head as I walk by, much as one might do to a statue or handrail one passes every day.  I can't tell you how very difficult it is, faced with this temptation so very often, to keep my hands resolutely in my pockets.  Every time we pass I imagine the expression I could so easily call into being on his face.  I imagine the enjoyment of an impulse, long deferred, at last fulfilled.  And I smile to myself, shove my hands deeper into my pockets, and continue walking.