Thursday, March 19, 2009

Harder than it looks

I woke up too early. That's my excuse. See, I woke up on the sofa with my knitting in my lap, which happens far too often, truth be told. The living room clock--an atomic clock that is supposed to be accurate within 1/36 billionth of a second or some ridiculous shit like that--read 5:30am. Since my alarm goes off at 5:30 anyway, I decided to stay awake. My computer was still on, so I thought," I'll give my emails a cursory glance." I also glanced at the clock in the lower right corner--which read 4:50am. Huh? I looked at the atomic clock (5:30) and back to the computer (4:50). How did the "Oh My God, I'm so accurate I could cry" clock gain 40 minutes? I checked my cell phone (4:50) and the atomic clock in my bedroom* (4:51 now), and scratched my head. It probably needs new batteries. I reset it and it seems to be fine now. Anywho, since it was a full 40 minutes before I had to be awake, I crawled into my actual bed and fell asleep. Then I woke up at 8:00. (sigh)

It's this waking and the time confusion that I'm blaming for my decision to "be nice" all day today. I was feeling good this morning and decided that I could keep this good feeling going all day if I just make an effort to stay positive, practice gratitude and be kind to people. This lasted until about 10:00am when some car climbed up my ass on 9th Street and had the nerve to beep at me for not going when there was a woman with a stroller in the crosswalk. I prompted called the gentleman driving "DOUCHE," which is my stock insult for all drivers. Oops. First offense. Try again.

Pulling into the parking garage an SUV was having a hard time turning the corner, which is not a tight corner by any means, and had to back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward, etc about four times. All the while, I'm sitting on a very steep hill with a manual transmission, and one with no pick up either. When the remedial student finally got around the corner, I had a line behind me. "No time to drift or act up now, Jamie. You just punch it like a good little car." And she did, because for all the complaining I do, Jamie is a trooper. However, the SUV? Well, he had no business driving let alone trying to park in the garage. I followed him all the up to P4 and it was painful. He was bestowed with the Roy-coined "Lord Douchington," which I reserve for really special cases. Oh, strike too. This being nice is hard. All is not lost. I still have a full day of work.

No, I guess not. I got to my desk, a co-worker came in and we immediately started gossiping about someone else. Damn it. That's not nice, no matter how true it was or how much she deserved it. I wish I could tell you it got better but it didn't. When I thought about it and remained focused, I was nice, kind, considerate. But more often than not, I found myself being flippant, sarcastic, bordering on rude, and impatient. Lord, how impatient I can be. How do the nice people do it?

By the time I got to SnB for some knitting, I had all but given up. The one-square-at-a-time toilet paper was the last straw. But wait, there's more...

I came home to the street, for which I pay a yearly fee of $35 for the privilege of parking, only to find every available spot taken. There was some celebrity-filled shindig at the Social club on Sunset and all the hipsters were parking on my street. Balls!! Get off my street, you losers. Where's parking enforcement when you need it? I let loose a string of f-bombs a mile long before I drove around the block three times and ended up parking in the lonely spot on the corner by the cop station. I hate this spot because people whip around the corner and I'm afraid I'll be hit and because I can't see it from my front window should someone try to break it or steal it**. I sat in the car for 30 minutes and watched for a bit to see if anyone pulled out of a spot near my house, but no. After I came in and changed from work clothes, I checked out the front window. SQUEE! The spot in front is open!!! I ran downstairs and pulled Jamie around the corner just in time to watch a silver Mazda take the spot. I flipped them off vigorously and called "Fuck you, you fucking douche." Wow! So much for nice. Fortunately, no one took the bad spot while I was gone.

Will I try again tomorrow? Maybe. All I can say is being kind and sweet takes a lot of effort. It's so much easier to be a dick. I guess that's why there are so many of them on the streets these days.

*Lest you think me a time-obsessed fool, let me explain. When I moved into Chez Gingham there was electrical problems--the circuit was arcing and tripping the breaker. This often happened while I was gone for the day or in the middle of the night. The atomic alarm clock kept me from oversleeping.

**Who am I kidding? No one is going to steal Jamie.

1 comment:

MonkeyGurrrrrl said...

:) Punkin. It's when you try to be nice that it's hard. When it just happens naturally (and I *know* it does!), you're wonderful at it. And it doesn't even seem like it hurts.

"Lord Douchington". :) HAH. Lord Douchington of Doucheberg, no doubt.