The batteries have been dying on this keyboard for weeks, and every day my computer hysterically waves its arms at me and tries to grab me by the lapels so I'll listen. "Your keyboard battery is DYING. DO something about it, June!" [shake shake shake of my lapels]
Of course I ignored it till I got here today and my keyboard was Marcel Marceau. I typed a whole sentence, happily, before I looked up and my screen was as unblemished and untouched as The Hollywood Medium. By a girl, anyway. This is only funny if you're obsessed with The Hollywood Medium as I am. In fact, I could probably get him to communicate with my now-dead battery. "It says you let it go and die alone, but it's at peace now."
Do you know what else annoys me, other than histrionic messages from your computer like that along with, oh, everything? Is when stuff BOUNCES at the bottom of my screen. Like, I plug my phone into the computer, and the photo icon bounce-bounce-bounces at me at the bottom of the screen.
Leave me alone. God. I'm doing stuff.
Anyway, Friday was stupid.
I got up on time, but somehow with feeding Steely Dan separately and changing his litter, then feeding the regularly scheduled cats and changing their litter, then letting out Edsel and letting in Edsel and feeding Edsel, and then making my goddamn smoothie with flax seed in it for my headache diet, all of a sudden it was 8:30 and I'd not come over here to write a thing.
So I screamed to work and just as I was making the last left turn to the driveway of my office, said smoothie FELL out of the bad cupholders (Dear Mini Cooper: Work on those cupholders) and SPLAYED all over my car. My new car. My newish Jewish car.
(He just FEELS Jewish. I know from feeling Jews.)
So when I got to work I had to bring the car rug with me, splooping smoothie all down the parking lot, then I had to rinse it off and go back to my car and blot blot blot the spills and thank god we had carpet cleaner at work (long story) so I used that, and by the time I did all that and got inside and turned on my computer, I realized I was 4 minutes late for a meeting.
Goddammit.
I screamed over to said meeting and there's my boss's boss in said meeting.
Goddammit.
"Oh, good, June's here. Now we can start."
Goddammit.
It turned out to be a meeting about some work I'd done earlier, and now it was being reviewed and it needed some changes and the other person I worked with on it was out for the day and oh, you need to have it done way before end of day because an art person needs to work on it and then it gets reviewed again and goes to the client today no matter what.
Goddammit.
So I had to hide all day and think funny thoughts, trying to be clever under the gun and it was the kind of day where I never even peed or went to lunch or looked up. I got everything done before 4:00, then spent from 4:30 to 5:30 doing the fixes after the next review, and then I had to take my computer home to stay alert to all the other changes that might come my way.
As I was tensely driving home (after a very weird 15 minutes on the floor of my desk-al area, trying to figure out which of the labyrinth of cords was the laptop charger), my phone rang. My new car has this fabulous thing where my phone rings out my radio speakers, then I hit a button with a picture of a phone handle (a phone handle like the kind of handle we haven't spoken into since 1973, oddly) and I can just SIT THERE in my car and SPEAK ALOUD and the person on the other end hears me with my phone in my purse the whole time. Oh, it's like the future.
"Hello," I said, with the warmth of an ice sculpture.
"It's Ned," said Ned. "Dude, we have that play tonight, did you get my email?"
Goddammit.
Ned spent MORE THAN A HUNDRED DOLLARS on theater tickets 17 months ago or something for this play I said I'd go to, which sounded like a great idea 17 months ago when I hadn't had the world's tense-est day.
"Goddammit," I said, for a change, and I told him about my day. It was clear he wasn't going to say, oh, never mind. It's fine if you want to stay home, get in the bath, and open a wrist.
So I got home, ready to finish whatever needed finishing for work, then scream off to the damn play. But when I got to my house, the damn door wouldn't unlock.
GODDAMMIT.
Sometimes it jams, and I warned my tenants back when I had tenants, and once they called me and said, Yeah, we just can't get in the house. It hasn't happened to me in ages, but of course it had to happen then.
"@%%#%$&!!!" I screeched, at the top of my lungs, and have I ever mentioned I think the neighbors just make popcorn and wait?
Oh, I was mad. But just as I finished swearing, the door popped open--it just needed to be yelled at--and on the other side was Edsel, curled into a letter C that was so hard he was practically an O. Oh, he was curled over, and cowering, and I FELT LIKE A DICK.
"Oh, Edsel, I wasn't mad at you!" I said, walking over to him. He wagged his tail hysterically, which is what he does when he's afraid. I petted him and hugged him till he finally got dog-shaped again, then he got a treat, and then I checked the 100 emails from work I'd gotten during my six-minute commute home.
Finally I was done with work, so I showered and put on theater clothes (ill-fitting period pieces) and went to my vanity to put on theater makeup (kabuki), and as soon as I took something off the vanity? The glass in the middle crashed down, causing all my stuff to roll around the floor.
GOD
DAMMIT.
We got to the play on time, but Ned insisted we park in this parking structure because there's a little catwalk from the lot to the playhouse, and I think he just likes the idea of going on it.
"Can you drop me off at the door of the theater and then you park?" I asked. I've never asked Ned to do anything fussy like that before, not when it's raining, not ever, but my knees are KILLING me lately, and I know it's arthritis, but it was tolerable till recently. My heels that night, my theater heels, made them worse.
At least he fed me after. For dinner, I had wine.
Ned is usually extremely gentlemanly, and I have no idea why he refused, and not only refused, but acted like I was the world's biggest fusspot for asking. It was a weird reaction, and then of course we had to wait in line to pull into said lot, because Friday night, and then any spots near that walkway were of course gone, because everyone else going to play because Friday night.
So we had to park two stories up from that catwalk entry, and then Ned insisted we TAKE THE STAIRS down instead of the elevator, and I literally had to walk sideways the way my grandma used to do. Then we had to walk across another floor to get to the walkway, and once we were in the theater?
Two flights of stairs to the ticket counter. Alternatively, I could have been dropped off at the door ON THE SAME FLOOR as the ticket counter and the stage.
The play was okay, but then after? I said I really had to take the elevator to our parking spot, so we did, but then?
We couldn't find the car. We just couldn't. "I really think it's--" Ned kept saying, "Or maybe it's..."
We walked up and down every flight of stairs in that parking lot at least two times. At this point I wanted to cry, plus also I was getting a migraine because what tension?
"I am so sorry," said Ned, and that is when I pushed him off the parking structure, and I've already been acquitted because when I told this story everyone said, Well, yeah. You go, girl.
Finally I went home and went to bed, all the stuff from my vanity still splayed on the floor.
Steely Dan played with that stuff all night. Rolled it along the hardwood.
Goddammit.
The end.
