--If you were to ask Toney which of my traits irritate her the
most, you'd probably get a long list.I
mean, living with me isn't something
I'd ever want to do…But near the top of the page would surely be impatience.
Waiting
makes me crazy.In fact, I'm
waiting on an important phone call right now, and am full-on obsessed
with it.Every minute that goes
by, without relief, cranks me up even tighter.
Last night at work I went out to my car on a break, and checked my
cell phone.It said I had a new
voicemail, and I just KNEW it was the one I was waiting for.Exhaling with relief I plugged in my password – and it was a
recording of a woman from the Obama Campaign.
At the top of my lungs I yelled, "BITCH!" and caused all the
smokers outside the break room to look over with alarm.
Traffic makes me insane, as well.I
mentioned my problems on I-81 last week.There was construction, which is bad enough, but I also keep
getting caught behind wide loads.
And what's the story with that?Why
are there so many log cabins on the road?That's right, log cabins.And
disassembled Scrambler rides, and yachts, and massive rolls of hay.Isn't the interstate for cars and trucks?I thought so, but I'm all the time getting trapped behind gas
stations and whatnot, moving at 25 mph.
Monday
night I was driving home from work at 3 a.m., and got stuck in even more
traffic.I couldn't believe it.I was practically stopped on 81, with a bunch of wheezing and
shuddering tractor trailers.
Night construction!
My
blood pressure spiked, and I was spewing profanity in the darkness.Now I'm going to have to start dealing with this crap in the
middle of the night, as well??What
in the open-air, twist-top hell is going on here?!
But it wasn't construction, it was a wreck.When I got to the scene there was what used to be a car, all
mangled and gnarled and smoking.A
police cruiser was there, with its lights flashing, and the cop was
standing over a body on the pavement, talking into a walkie-talkie.
Apparently it had just happened, because there was no ambulance, or
anything.Freaky, man.
For a second I felt guilty for being irritated, but then I realized it
was a one-car accident.The
dude was probably flying up the interstate, loaded or funky on the
junk, and delayed my arrival at the hometown McDonald's drive-through,
and my appointment with a one-pound cannonball of fat.Grrr...
I was in a constant state of agitation during my job-search last
summer.I'd go on interviews,
they'd tell me they'd let me know something by a certain date, and
that date would come and go.It
made me insane.Every time I'd
walk past a telephone I'd holler, "RING!" like a madman.
Also, I have a back-up program on my computer, called Carbonite.It's a good service, as far as I can tell (I haven't had to
recover anything yet), but the automatic back-ups run continuously.Or so it seems.And when
they're running, it slows my machine waydown…
This causes me to lose my shit, and the kids go scrambling from the
room.When you click on
something, there's supposed to be action within, say, one second (at
the most).But when Carbonite
is doing its thing, there's a giant lag, and I turn into Linda Blair.
And TV commercials!We use our
DVR most of the time, to avoid them, but occasionally we'll watch
something as it's actually being broadcast.And there's an acceptable
number of commercials; I have some kind of sixth-sense for it.
When
they wedge in one extra, I can feel the irritation building.But when they tack on TWO full commercials, after the point of
acceptability (and sometimes a station ID disguised as a weather
update on top of it), I find myself sitting on a couch, yelling at
electronics.
Yeah, impatience would be at the top of Toney's list.And I try to control it, I really do.I know nobody wants to be around a person who's in a continuous
state of agitation.
But, at the same time, I'm not a complete
maniac.Like, for instance, the
father of a kid who goes to school with one of the Secrets…He's known around our house as Stinky Ukraine (a long story),
and the man makes me seem like Ghandi.
We see him at soccer games, just fully enraged, screaming and
hollering through a blood-red mask of terror.He's nuts.In fact, I
heard he was demoted at his job because of "anger issues."And based on field studies, I have no reason to doubt those
reports.
So, I'm not that bad.I
just want things to run semi-smoothly, and apparently used up my
allotment of tolerance and good cheer sometime during the mid-1980s.
What of it?
--And now we’ll finish up with a few quickies…
A woman I work with won $40,000 in the Powerball Lottery last week.She had four numbers, and the Powerball.She won’t have a check for several more weeks, but after
taxes she’ll receive $26,000.And
the irritating thing about it all?I
like this person, she’s friendly and nice, so I can’t even work up
a good resentment.Wotta ripoff.
I went to library book sale last weekend, with low expectations.I thought it was going to be a bunch of banged-up text books
from the 1980s, and crap like that.But
I found a cache of Bill Bryson paperbacks, in absolutely perfect
condition – for $1 each.Oh
yeah.
Surf Reporter Matt sends along this scan from a 1981 issue of Rolling
Stone, in response to my
update on Tuesday.It’s a
little blurry, but good enough to prove I wasn’t making any of it
up.
Here’s a photo of Mudpup sporting the Surf Report colors, in
Mexico.Maybe we’ll do some more shirts this summer?You know, after the caps are all gone…
And I’m going to link to a picture now, that’s probably Not Safe
For Work.So be forewarned…I call it “Has Anyone Seen My Wine?” and here it is.Heh.
One of Steve’s co-workers (or was it a student aide?…I can’t remember) was getting ready to go home a few
nights ago, and this is the way she found her car.Now, that
took some dedication.
Today’s Further Evidence is a short
video, and at the end of it a
woman falls out of vat of grapes (presumably).When she hits the ground she starts making an interesting
noise, and I was wondering how difficult it would be to turn it into a
ringtone?Any suggestions on
that one?
And finally, I’ll tie it all together with a Question of the Day.What would your significant other list as your most irritating
trait?No fair asking, just
give us your opinion.Use the
comments link to discuss it.
