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day, to his office where he fits right in. Let's say he's been in this job for
years; he's got his place, his own office, his name on the desk. It is a
separate role, and so completely distinct from that of husband and lover that if
by chance the two should overlap, it throws him into a momentary shock. At the
office, he has an established routine; the same people have been working there
for ten years, and he travels the same routes every day: back and forth to the
coffee machine, stopping to talk to someone about football, stopping to talk to
a secretary, kidding her about wearing see-through blouses. It is the same
routine each day, and it always happens in the same way. It is his role, here at
the office.
Let's say that one day, for the first time in the ten years he's been working
there, his wife pops in the door. And there he is, deep in his office role,
leaning on the desk, kidding the secretary about the blouse. Right in the middle
of a sentence: "There's a new motel down the street showing X-rated..." he turns
and there stands his wife. This has happened to all of you. You may not have
much memory of it, but it has happened. You turn ordinary sense -- you turn
around and it's as if you've been dropped in a strange city. You suddenly don't
know where you are. Everything seemed normal; then you look at the person -- our
man here looks at his wife -- and it's as if the whole machine grinds to a halt.