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Well the weather outside is frightful
by ezy at 04:24 PM on December 03, 2003
Damn it’s cold. I hate this time of year when your body hasn’t yet become acclimated to the frigid winds blowing in from the north. At least we’re not getting slammed with blizzard like conditions as they are in Boston. My place of employment has a serious problem conditioning the air to an acceptable temperature. I remember a couple of months ago when fall was starting to bring the temperature down they had the heat on bake in my office. I felt like a slow roasted piece of meat every day by lunch time. After lunch it was a terrific battle to keep my eyes open and get anything done. I actually fell asleep at my desk a couple of times due to a full stomach and an oven like office. Now, with the wind whipping freezing air all about outside, you could hang meat in my office. My fingers are cold to the touch and I can’t feel my toes. This phenomenon seems to only be taking place in the new engineering section of our office building. The sales, installation, programming and project management sections are perfectly comfortable. I know because I have visited them all during my research into this dilemma. It makes me wonder if they aren’t trying to tell us something. Is this some half assed ploy to do away with the engineering department? I’ll need to do more research.
Last night my buddy came by to visit. He was up from South Carolina for Thanksgiving and had a few hours to drop in. He loves a macaroni salad dish that has been in my family for generations. To me it’s just macaroni salad but it takes on a talismanic quality to hear him talk about it. Well, he was very upset with me for not bringing any back from my sister’s Thanksgiving feast so I called my sissy and got the recipe. I decided to surprise him with a bowl and a bowl of macaroni salad too. We toked the former and grubbed like starving men on the latter. He was very happy and sufficiently surprised. I didn’t tell him what a pain in my ass it was to get the ingredients. I started off to the store and half way there I felt my car pulling a little hard to the left. I stopped at a stoplight and took a look. Guess what? Flat tire. Great. Luckily I was only about fifty yards from the Mobile station. I went in and inquired about getting it fixed. The guy behind the counter spoke no English. No, you don’t understand. NO English. I rang the bell to get the mechanic’s attention but, after standing there for five minutes or so, I walked outside to peer in the glass bay doors. Nope, no one home. That’s when I tried to communicate with the cashier. I asked if the mechanics were coming back and he stared me right in the eye and said nothing. I was like “What the hell?” and repeated the question. I got the same result and was getting ready to lose my patience when he blurted out “No English!” I guess he did know some English but not enough to be of help. We had this surrealistic hand gesture conversation and the funny thing is that he understood me, went in back and retrieved the missing mechanic. Holy shit. I know deaf people communicate with their hands all the time but they practice it every day. My series of finger jabs and broad sweeping gestures didn’t so much resemble any language, to me, but was probably more closely akin to a dance you would see at a Phish show. He understood though and that was all that counts. The mechanic checked my tire and nothing was wrong that he could find. He put the soapy water, to check for holes, on the tire and everything. The mechanic put air in it, slapped it back on the car, and didn’t charge me a dime which I thought was nice. For some inexplicable reason my tire just decided to flatten itself. I check my pressure often so I know it had the right amount of air in it or close enough to keep a seal.
Anyway, I proceeded to the grocery store to get the items on my list. My supermarket just remodeled and I can’t find shit anymore. It took me probably twice the amount of time it should’ve to collect my things. Are Great Northern and Garbanzo beans not classified as vegetables anymore? Well, whether they are nationally recognized as vegetables or not is irrelevant; Safeway doesn’t put them with the canned veggies. They are found in the rice section. Hmmm. I can see the rice and beans connection but why wouldn’t you put them in the vegetable section? I’ll have to ask them next time I’m there because I’d really like to know. I then proceeded to the checkout lanes and was almost in a short line when this lady comes hauling ass at breakneck speed and jams her cart with 15,000 items in front of me. The store is packed and I’m in an express lane with my, under fifteen, items and she pulls that crap. I just stood looking at her and she ignored me like I didn’t exist. She starts piling her stuff up on the conveyor and has half of her cart unpacked when another lady, who just walked up behind me, mutters under breath about people with no courtesy who bring more than fifteen items to the express checkout. The lady in front heard her and turned around and said “Why don’t you shut the hell up you bitch?” Whoa!! These two soccer Moms start going at it verbally while I have to stand between them looking for an escape route. The manager finally came over and told the 15,000 item lady that she would have to re-pack her cart and move to another lane. I thought the woman’s head was going to explode. She turned a few shades of red and started to visibly shake. She screamed at the manager that the customer was always right, told him to fuck off, and, as she was walking out, yelled back that she was going to shop at a competitor where the people were nice. What? I couldn’t help myself and busted out laughing at how ridiculous the situation was. She gave me the evil eye and was out the door in a flourish. Justice was served in my opinion. I hope my boy enjoyed that damn salad.
comments (13)
Damn, I screwed the pooch on the first try to post this but it's a bit more complete now for those who read the first jacked up version. My bad. I feel like a novice.
by Ezy at December 3, 2003 4:27 PM
I don't know about the macaroni salad. It always seems like one of those ornamental foods they put on salad bars to fill up space. But I loved the post because all that shit happens to me every day.
by anna at December 3, 2003 6:18 PM
i wish i got to see stuff like that.
but tell me this...if they had started punching each other... i mean closed digit, facial blows...claws, hair pulling, the works....would you have stepped in, or watched the carnage?
by lajo at December 3, 2003 7:50 PM
Funny story. I know how you feel about your over/underheated office. Invariably when I start back teaching each year the AC doesn't work for the first week. Southerners actually believe that it is a good idea to start their school year in mid-August, the hottest time of the year when it is practically guaranteed that every AC unit in every school will be on the fritz. And if you have ever tried to control a classroom of 34 16 year olds when you don't have enough desks (it's the 1st week) and your room is 90+ degrees, you would know that it is one of those did-I-really-think-this would-be-the-best-career-option moments. The week back after Christmas break when the heaters have not been turned on for two weeks and aren't working is not nearly as bad. The students are definitely much less cranky for some reason-but all you hear is, "Man, can you turn on the HEAT in here? It's COLD," enough times to make you want to drive your head through your overhead projector.
by Shannon at December 3, 2003 9:41 PM
You are one hell of a friend, Ezy!
If I had been in that line, and Evil Soccer Mom started duking it out with Outspoken Soccer Mom, I think I would have snuck out to key the former's BMW X5. Because of course she would have one.
by jean at December 4, 2003 2:34 AM
Don't even tell me they still have overhead projectors. Hasn't the school board heard of Power Point? Next thing you know we'll hear there's still that audio-visual geek.
by anna at December 4, 2003 7:48 AM
I hear you Anna. Macaroni salad never seemed like a huge deal to me either until I had to make this voo-doo concoction that my family calls macaroni salad. The veggies have to be chopped just so and any deviation from the base ingredients spells disaster. It must be this area because things like this happen to me daily also. It could be this high stress environment. Rush hour maybe?
Lajo, I definitely would've stood back and watched the ruckus. A cat fight between soccer Moms isn't to be missed. I'm sure there would've been much hair pulling and probably a couple of broken manicured fingernails. Priceless.
Shannon, you must have balls of steel. I couldn't teach a bunch of 16 year olds if you promised me Paris Hilton for it. That is the most thankless job out there. My friend teaches high school and she tells me horror stories of what the kiddies are up to these days and I would freakin kill one of them. You guys should be making $150,000 a year minimum to put up with the crap you have to. I'm sure it's very self rewarding when you get a kid that really wants to learn but wading through the others to get to that kid must suck. Oh yea, you do need to upgrade from the overhead to an interactive whiteboard. Hook up a computer to it with all of your lessons on it and control everything from the board. My company put in about thirty of them for the University of Maryland and they love them.
Jean, I didn't see an X5 but did spy an Excursion on the way in with a soccer Mom sticker on the back. I just assumed it belonger to one of them. That is one woman that needed her ride keyed. Hell, she probably just needed to get laid.
by Ezy at December 4, 2003 10:23 AM
my most recent teaching experience was a summer shop course i taught at a local middle school for the arts. only half the students spoke any english fluently, and my spanish is spotty what with all the new vocabulary for screws, saws, sanders and drills. they were all 12-13.
powertools and multi-lingual, pubescent ADD are a combustible mix, let me tell you. i'm happy to report, that no one lost a finger in the summer under my reign.
i gained a lot of respect for what teachers do, that summer.
by lajo at December 4, 2003 1:33 PM
Damn, it's COLD in my office. Shannon? Why is it so COLD in here?
by Linz at December 4, 2003 4:46 PM
Lajo, let me get this straight. You taught spanish speaking kids how to safely operate power tools with a language barrier in place? Did you get a plaque or something? That's completely amazing bro. Hell, my shop class in high school was all English speaking rednecks and one guy managed to lop off a minor appendage.
I know why Linz.
by Ezy at December 4, 2003 5:13 PM
you got it ezy.
it turns out that i can pantomime the grisslier acts of power tools, like cutting off all your fingers on one hand with a chop saw for instance...or slipping with the drill and piercing your thigh, well enough to trancend what you and i call "language".
by lajo at December 4, 2003 6:57 PM
ignore my spelling errors. i smell like booze.
by lajo at December 4, 2003 6:59 PM
It's no problem. I always smell like booze on Thursdays.
by Ezy at December 5, 2003 9:45 AM