Things that bug me

The lunch room in our office has started to become more political than the 2004 presidential election. First, there were innocuous little signs about heart runs, March of Dimes walks and other volunteer type of activities.

Then signs about not drinking the emergency bottled water cropped up. As if they were bunnies, the signs multiplied overnight. Suddenly there were signs about making more coffee when you take the last cup, refilling the paper towels when you use the last one, and the usual "your mother doesn't work here, so clean up after yourself" type of signs.

Yesterday, there was a "please keep the lunchroom door closed because there is stinky stuff in the fridge" sign. The author of this note even took the time to add graphics. Of course, everyone had to go in and out of the lunchroom and complain about the stench then proceed to close the door. Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay... so, that's going to fix the stink?

I sit by the lunchroom and got tired of hearing all the door shutting and complaining, so I investigated the stink source. I found several possibilities in the fridge. I think the big offender was a very fuzzy, mushy black cantaloupe (or at least I think that's what it was.) It was kept company by yogurt that expired four months ago, milk that expired two months ago, and some grapes well on their way to becoming raisins. I did what a sane person would do and threw the damned stuff out. It took me about 10 minutes. I'll bet it took longer to make the sign.

People at work are weird....oh, and lazy.

My commute to work is a long one. If I drive, it's well over two hours each way. If I take the train, it's only about an hour and a half. Taking the train is the way to go because I can read, play games on my PDA , do some work, or even sleep. And of course, there's the benefit of not having road rage to and from work. Always a plus for everyone concerned.

The train is set up so that there are sets of four seats facing each other. Some have small tables in the middle so you can do paperwork and things. Not much in the way of leg room, but then again, I'm only 5'3" (on a tall hair day) so I don't require much.

Normally, I'm in a good mood when I get home after riding the train. I have time to decompress, and relax. That wasn't the case yesterday.

The train was crowded, but I found a spot with a table (generally not my seat of choice, in case you're wondering). I sat on the opposite corner from a guy seated next to the window. The train started filling up, so I scooted over to the window seat so now both seats toward the aisle were empty. In hindsight, I should have taken off my coat before doing this because once you're wedged in there, it's impossible to move much.

Two ladies sat down at the table. I'm guessing that they're in their early 50's and they worked together. The lady sitting diagonally had really thick black eyeliner on and it was all smeared. She also drew outside of the lines with her orange lipstick, and wore lots of really gaudy gold jewelry. I averted my eyes the best that I could.

Immediately, the painted lady started yacking. She started talking about things clear back to her high school days, still pissy about a grade that Mr. so and so gave her in her biology class 30 freaking years ago. She talked all sing-songy, drawing out and caressing her syllables in a way that drove me nearly insane. The other lady would try to say something when the painted lady went to take a breath, but then the painted lady would continue yapping right over the top of her. She'd even made a weird sound while breathing in, like she was saying "ummmmm" (I'm guessing so she makes a continual noise so her co-worker wouldn't interrupt.)

Then the guy across from me decides to lay back a bit and stretch out. His legs ended up over on my side. So now I had to bunch my legs over as close as I could to the wall and he was STILL touching me. I also started getting very hot because I didn't take off my coat.

Wouldn't you know it since it was the commute from hell, the train had to make a lot of stops for some reason (it ended up running about 45 minutes longer than usual). The whole time the painted lady is yacking, my space is being invaded, and I'm sweating like a pig.

Yacking, yacking yacking.

"... annnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddd, I think I'll put on red nailpolish tonight. Or, ummm, I dunno, maybe a frosted pink." "I need to go to the store and pick up some milk and butter, annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd.... maybe I'll pick up some bandaids, you never know when you'll need them." "Did I ever tell you about the time that I used a bandaid?".....

Her yacking kept going on and on, all sing songy and stupid-like. I'm surprised my ears weren't bleeding by the end of the commute.

It was hell.

I took a vacation day last Friday, and had two painful experiences. One caused my ears to bleed (slight exaggeration), the other my mouth (another slight exaggeration.) We'll start with the mouth incident, even though the bleeding ears happened first. That's a much longer and drawn out story.

My husband met me at Red Robin. It's where we go for lunch before our big Costco excursion. Even though I'm trying to eat healthy, I always have the onion rings while there. Frankly, it's for the sauce that comes with them. I suppose I could just order the sauce, but what fun is that? I was so excited for that taste treat that I had that onion ring in my mouth before I realized how hot it was. I ended up very ungracefully spitting the onion ring back out, but not before getting a huge burn, followed by an instant blister on the roof of my mouth. But there were still 5 onion rings to be had. I figured out a way to only eat on one side of my mouth, still causing pain, but enjoying the onion rings and sauce very much. I'm still paying for that even now as I write. I ended up with an abscess in the gum about three teeth wide next to that burn, have a swollen jaw and neck to go along with it, and can't eat anything that's not soft. Will that stop me from having onion rings again? Nope.

That brings me to the next topic on the same theme. I'll let you figure out the theme. :wink:

My hairdresser. She does a fine job. My hair is very important to me, so much so that I used to drive almost two hours each way to see my last hairdresser. When she ended up M.I.A. (later she resurfaced, so you can call off the APB), I had to find a new one. The first visit wasn't too bad. I did find the fact that she mumbles really softly to be rather annoying, and the fact that she talked about all of the loser men that she's given un-repaid loans to even more annoying, I was willing to overlook all of that because she did a good job on my hair.

The second visit was a bit unnerving. I think she started feeling like I was someone she could trust with some of her "theories". She shared with me the fact that she believes that spiders are really aliens from another planet. Between this and the last appointment, I'd spent a good three hours with her. She doesn't have a sense of humor, so I knew she wasn't joking. She went on to tell me why she thought they were from another planet, but then started the mumbling thing again and I missed most of the explanation. The irony of having foil all over my head while she was telling her alien stories was not lost on me, however.

Visit three. This was last Friday, prior to the onion ring incident. I spent 3.5 hours, captive in her chair listening to more theories. This time they were more along the lines of government conspiracy. She shared with me the following:

Newspaper editors write headlines that have nothing to do with the story. This way, they can tell what they want people to think because most don't read the story; just the headline.

The "flu shots" (and she did the little finger quote thing) are really antidotes to biological warfare. She went on to remind me that the government recommended everyone get a flu shot after 9/11. What she fails to recognize is that the government always recommends flu shots around October.

The government experiments on military families (this one I believe, after she told me she grew up in a military family. Now THAT makes perfect sense.)

Then the mumbling thing started again and I had a hard time hearing her. I think there were at least five more theories that day; one having to do with Nazi concentration camps, if I recall. All I kept thinking was that she must be really tired by the end of the day with all those thoughts running around in her head.

3.5 hours of crazy-talk every 6-8 weeks. You'd think that this would dissuade me from coming back. You'd think. You'd also think that having a week of having a swollen and painful mouth would make me think twice about having onion rings anytime soon. Nope. I'll be back for both.

Have you figured out the theme yet?

I was really concentrating on a project at work today and wasn't paying attention to the time. This is a dangerous thing to do because I am tied to a train schedule. Doesn't make a bit of difference if you're one minute late for the train or two hours late. When it's gone, it's gone.

I looked at the time on my computer and panicked a bit. I know that I need to leave my office at least 15 minutes before the train departs. I could get very lucky and do it in 11 minutes, but that's cutting it a little close and is exactly what happened. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was cutting it close.

I have to catch a bus to get to the train. There is one stop between where I get on the bus and the train. The bus seemed to stop an extraordinary amount of time at this stop. That's when I noticed the man sitting across from me. He was getting very irritable. He was muttering under his breath about how he's going to miss the train and how it's all his wife's fault because she didn't get off the phone so he could leave the office. I worried about his anger management skills. Then he said the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

Apparently the bus was stopped for so long because there was a wheelchaired person getting on the bus. That requires a lift to go down, the wheelchair to get on the lift, lift goes back up and then the wheelchair has to be strapped down before the bus can proceed.

This man actually said OUT LOUD, "Great, it's a G--damned wheelchair". I'm sure the look on my face showed exactly what I was thinking. What an idiot. Too bad that my thought bubble didn't pop.

My sister and I were having an email exchange this morning regarding a blog I sent her. In it, the blogger mentions not liking peaches. As an aside, my sister likes them. I don't. I'm sure you were wondering. My sister and I happen to think we are brilliant and everyone is surely interested in our thoughts.

It reminded me of something I saw in the women's restroom at work. Someone at work (I have my suspicions) has ensured that there is a can of air freshener for each stall. My stall had peach scent. That disturbed me. I just don't believe peach scent should be used to cover up "that smell", and mentioned that to my sis. She also found it to be disturbing and said that it was like "Peach cobbler gone horribly wrong". <- hey look! I used peach colored font. Now, that's acceptable. Peach smell in a bathroom isn't.

Bleck.

I think I might have to toss that can of fake peach smell.