1) I had Zinema popcorn for lunch. NOW THAT’S A HARDCORE SPRING BREAK MOVE.
2) I called to check on my stupid broken phone and was greeted by a bewildering “NOOO” shouted into the receiver when Ponytail Guy answered. After the shout, he hung up. So I called back, and he answered again, but this time he yelled with angry and clipped snottiness that he was on his way into an appointment for the MS that makes it difficult for him to walk, and he’s only 19, and he was walking through the parking lot, and so if it wasn’t too much of a hardship for me since he is 19 and has MS, he would check into the status of my phone later and get back to me.
3) I was using the company phone number listed on the web.
4) To be 19 is to be young.
5) The movie, I Am Not Your Negro, was great. So was the popcorn. Less impressive were the dumbass old white women a few rows behind me who had no sense that other people were in the theater with them. If they had said two more words, I was going to get up, walk back to them, and hiss, “Could you maybe go out for coffee after the movie and use that time together to discuss immigration issues and how Janice at the office is so hard to get along with?“
6) There was a message from 19-year-old Ponytail Guy when I got home. Bravely, I called him back. His voicemail is still full. Just when I despaired I might have to haul my cookies to the shop to speak to him in person, he called back. Turns out he had no way of knowing what work my phone needed because there was no sheet written up about it, and it’s impossible to know what to do without a sheet written up, so my phone has been sitting in a drawer since I dropped it off seven days ago.
7) 99% sure Ponytail Guy is the person who took my phone last week and filled out a form on the computer about it and ran my credit card for a deposit.
8 ) Age 19 is very young.
9) So Ponytail Guy told me I could come get my phone and get my money back and take it somewhere else, no hard feelings.
10) When you’re 19, you don’t realize the hard feelings might actually run towards you, not just from you.
11) Because I’m lazy and his shop is the only one in town that doesn’t require 25 minutes of driving each way, I told him to keep the deposit, ORDER THE PART he said he’d order seven days ago, and give me a call when it was ready.
12) Ponytail Guy responded well to his having been an ass and my being willing to move past the unwarranted transference of his emotion onto a paying customer.
13) He’s lucky I teach 19-year-olds.
14) Side question: how come I know for a fact our 14-year-old would NEVER speak to anyone the way Ponytail Guy did to me this morning, even if he were pinned under a car tire?
15) At the end of our conversation, Ponytail Guy apologized for his ill humor earlier today. He did not use the words “ill humor.” Our 14-year-old would have.
16) Ponytail Guy also told me he’s having a hard time lately and that it’s really difficult to be 19 with MS, trying to run a business three days a week.
17) Four times, I told Ponytail Guy I was sorry for everything he was dealing with. Simultaneously, I wondered if it’s 90% or 92% of the conversations in my life that end with me telling the other participant I’m sorry for the hard time he/she is having.
18) Between seeing an amazing movie about racial injustice and being the recipient of Ponytail Guy’s misplaced anger, I’m now having a quick moment of remembering that I HAVE A GREAT LIFE.
19) Even though it’s so windy outside that I’m pretty sure you’ll either never get home on your bike tonight, or else you’ll get home in two minutes, depending if the wind is fer you or agin’ you, I am now readying for a run.
20) The first part of my run will involve stretching and warming up as I deal with the recycling and garbage bins, which have been blown over by the gustiness.
21) The second part of my run will involve me walking all of it.
22) If the online check-in tells me there isn’t a long wait, I may get my hair trimmed before picking up the 14-year-old who would never present a stranger with ill humor, even if he was pinned down by a car tire.
23) You know what’s next door to a hair cutting place? Smoked butterscotch lattes.
24) I hope your meeting tonight is painless and fruitful.
25) As though meetings are ever painless and fruitful.
26) You poor sucker.
27) I love you.
28) See you for lentils and sausages and yeasty products.
29) That last does not include me. ME NO YEASTY.
30) I think I might have just written a blog post.
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