June 15, 2010
So Friday sucked balls.It all started with a little stick of neglected lip balm....
In an extreme rush out of the door to get to work on time, I somehow forgot to grab my Chap-stick. *PANIC* My entire world revolves around said balm as I can't seem to exist without it for an entire hour in a given day. It is my crack. My baby. More important than my cell phone and more highly revered than chocolate. Or freshly cut turkey at the PDQ deli. And I LOVE freshly shaved PDQ deli turkey. And those little rice peanut butter krispie treats with chocolate on top. Mmmmm. It's funny how they've decreased in size and yet the price has only crept up slowly since I've been working less than a quarter mile from that gas station.
So, whatever. Chap-stick. It's detrimental to my overall happiness.
I didn't have time to hit said gas station because of my apparent disregard for time that morning and, besides, by the time I realized that this little necessary piece of my existence was missing, the UPS man was already pulling into the shop to deliver 27 boxes of parts and accessories. 27 boxes which remain scattered throughout my back receiving room because some JACK ASS decided to unload all of his garbage into our dumpster last week and our garbage dude still hasn't found the time to make a stop at our lowly little place of employment. RAWR!
My panic turned to obvious frustration.
Then I realized that I had completely neglected the supermoto/vintage races going on at Road America for the weekend. Quite a few people I know were racing but I already had plans to go with my mother to my cousin's place in Johnson's Creek to see her new baby. So I decided to call my mother and see if there was any glimmer of hope of me begging out of the baby obligation.
"I know you'll do what's right," my mother responded after I asked if she thought it was okay for me to trade baby gawking for beer and race gas.
Really? Nice ambiguous use of motherly guilt, woman. Yeesh.
But, Mooooooooom! I wanted to say. The baby won't know and isn't likely to remember, at three months of age, that I was there or not there. Two hours of 'visiting' can't compare to two whole days of buzzing about with my scooter while balancing a camera and a beer and talking shit with the boys, can it? And no one told me until the day before that this was strictly a gathering of the female influence -- no males at all. And I know how the women in our family get after a couple of glasses of wine when the boys are gone bye bye. They speak baby for five minutes, pass the poop factory around and then get down to business. Business being how babies come about. How they come about meaning sex. Which is completely unacceptable when you're related. I do NOT deserve to be subjected to my uncle's inadequacies in this way and that alone should be a Free Pass to do damn near anything else. Why do you think I usually disappear into whoever's dark basement when we all get together? I tiptoe wide eyed to where I know the boys will be because football, throttle cables and cigars are much safer in my esteem than the subject of sex amongst women.
sigh
I had no case.
And I certainly couldn't tell her that I had this feeling that Shane would be at the race track and that I've been waiting. Waiting to see him or run into him or casually get a glance that cannot be anything more than exactly that but would be utterly exhilarating just the same. Waiting for it because I've had these preoccupations ebbing through my head almost nonstop lately that something has been building up beyond my comprehension and is bound to burst out onto my side of the globe. (Which is likely just a result of last week's superbike races but still entirely present just the same and I've been so ready for it.)
So there I was. Without Chap-stick and completely shut down by my mother. Destined to be That Girl who follows through with her original plans despite the original plans having been much less enticing than the newly, last minute-like, devised ones. There I was wishing I could just turn selfish and do whatever the hell I wanted since I was gypped out of my previous weekend opportunities at Road America. There I was, in the women's room at work, standing in the handicap stall and trying to decide what to do. My cell phone at the ready to call who I had to call to make what *I* wanted happen. There I was, wanting to give some assistance to the Big Thing, the Big Fire, I was hoping would happen, distraught by the lack of luster I've not been able to procure in past weeks and only wishing I could make something happen with this one small wish when, PLOOP!
My cell phone jumps out of my disturbed hands and falls directly into the damned toilet.
Sons of...
That was it. The end of it. Done.
I just let it go.
I left work early as I was useless in all my dismay (that and I had a half day so I wasn't supposed to be there anyway). I tried to fix my phone by throwing it in a bucket of rice but it was doomed not to live. It has expired. It is an ex-cell. It has ceased to be. It is no more. So the money I would have spent on booze and whatever else I would have needed for a nice long weekend away doing what I wanted to do, had to be saved for a new phone. It was a tragic day which resulted in my mother having a slightly sulky chauffeur to my cousin's place to see the new baby.
Such is life.
When you forget your Chap-stick.