I went up to big-box retail mecca in North Austin this afternoon to try to get a few things done before my shift started. It's really gross up there. All the men look cranky and befuddled, and all the women look expensive and starved. You get there, and you always get lost, so you have to drive and drive through the many connected parking lots to find all the different stores. And you drive. And drive.
And then you stop, because all traffic rules and acts of common decency are suspended when somebody has a really fast, really big car. I'd be fine with that if it were just my little Mazda versus one hugeantic truck; I would know my place in the pecking order and politely wait while the driver of the truck did whatever he or she, in his or her vehicular splendor, needed to do.
But I'm screwed when all the other cars are really big and fast, and they all seem to have an equal sense of entitlement allowing them do whatever the fuck they want to do. Especially when what the fuck they want to do is speed through a nearby stop sign to get around me as I'm trying to back out of a space. One after another, vroom, vroom, vroom, while I sit far below them, halfway out of the space, blocking traffic in the other direction, foot shaking on the clutch, reverse lights shining a reproachful but unacknowledged plea, and eventually screaming throw me a motherfucking bone, you horrible asshole people.
That's okay. No big deal. I got out eventually, and then I
cheerfully wished shingles upon them all. If only I were a smaller,
less kind person, I could fervently hope that the flatware they bought
at Cost Plus World Market contains unacceptable levels of lead. Maybe next year.
Also, while I'm busy disliking people, I've decided I don't really care for the Karen Hughes lookalike I saw today. It must not be easy to look like Karen Hughes, but that's no excuse for walking around Crate and Barrel spraying these big, wet, harsh coughs all over everything. I mean you could hear this woman all the way across the store; you could practically hear the microbes tittering and scampering over the escalator handrail.
I understand it's not feasible to always quarantine yourself when
you're sick. Sometimes when people are sick they can't stay home from
work because they'll get fired, or they have to go to the grocery store
so their kids won't starve. Ok. But a trip to Crate and Barrel is
entirely voluntary. There is not one single situation in the world that would make shopping at Crate and Barrel nonnegotiable. I don't care how
close to Christmas it is or when the wedding registry is due: you need
to keep that SARS shit at home.
Hooray! I feel much better now that I've said all that. And get this: I drive to work and pull into the parking garage, no problem. Inside, everyone looks well fed and friendly, and no one's coughing their lungs out all over the floor. Plus--and this part is like a beautiful dream--there's an announcement that our agency gets three additional days of holiday leave this year because Christmas falls on a Saturday, and a three-day weekend would have just been too pathetic. I was going to take extra time off anyway, so that frees me to take tomorrow night off, just for the hell of it.