Monday, September 18, 2006

Intense Frustration

Yesterday Joel was hanging out with friends, including the adorable Melanie, who is seen here sporting the wholly unfeminist birthday gift I gave her a few weeks, including sparkly eye shadow, a pink feather boa and a Happy Birthday wand. (Sadly, our decidedly wholesome and empowering storybook of Navajo legends, complete with cover photo of indigenous child who looks just like her, was left for dead in the wake of a Disney Princess frenzy.)



Yesterday, Melanie was throwing the hissy fit of a lifetime. She allegedly screamed "I hate this day! I hate everyone except Grandma!"

After today? All I can say is "Word." Wordy McFucking Word.

Today was a day of intense frustration, the kind that only seems to strike me. Remember that time with the cell phone and the lost credit card that was in the car I couldn't find in the parking lot and the keys that had fallen down into the Verizon display and then I got hit in the head with the pointy, point edge of the car and I threatened to commit suicide with a stapler in Circuit City?
It was almost exactly like that.

Where to begin? Let's Spin the Wheel of Crap-o-La and see!

1. Incompetent Pharmacist at CVS... Erg. This story starts three days ago at a DIFFERENT branch, trying to refill my birth control. They swore up and up seventeen ways until Sunday that they didn't have my transfer. I went to the original CVS, asked for a refill, was told they have to call the clinic and come back by the weekend. With just 15 hours left until my fallopian tubes enter the Danger Zone of Potential Egg-Releasing Hormone Production, the pharmacy tells me they don't have my prescription, they DO have my prescription, they never called the clinic, maybe they DID call the clinic, the refills are at the other branch, they can't find the other branch's phone number, calling 411 is apparently not an option, then it IS an option, and by the way, the branch I was at four days ago must have LIED because they have seven refills for me. Great! Whatever! Finally, I kind of hopped up on the corner and all but shouted "I CAN NOT AFFORD A BABY RIGHT NOW!"

This day gets so much shittier that I must leave this story here. Basically, forty-five minutes later, I left with my birth control. But when I got out to my car where Bella was waiting patiently with all windows open on a breezy 65-degree day...

2. I found that someone kindly scrawled "HOW CRUEL" on a Carvel napkin and stuck it under my windshield wipers. Cruel, INDEED, thank you and fuck off. I tried to get her to drink all the water out of my water bottle with her dirty canine mouth out of guilt. (Obviously I threw it away afterwards). She was totally psyched to eat all the McDonald's crumbs off the front seat and could not have cared less about my Guilt Water.

3. Joel and I were 5 minutes late leaving for his cousin's wedding. We left with double the amount of time it should have taken to get to the Chelsea loft where the blessed event was held. It took us TWO FREAKING HOURS to get there. We passed every imaginable obstacle- accident on the parkway, traffic jam in a different highway, and indescribably SLOW traffic on FDR Drive due to rubbernecking.... Everyone was watching (and I wish I were making this up) a homeless man standing statue still, balancing a watermelon rind on his head, holding another one, and making the "Okay" sign with the other. WTF?!?! Add in a construction detour, a street fair and lots of fire trucks, and we totally missed the ceremony.

4. We missed the ceremony! It just... sucked.

5. We got there for cocktail hour. Everything was beautiful. I got to meet all of Joel's relatives, who were extremely nice and understanding about the traffic. And Joel's mom who really likes me, I mean, I think so.. says, "Where's your camera?" Not "Hi." Not "Glad you finally made it." Just "I thought you'd bring your camera." Which... okay... I almost always have my camera. Fair enough. But I've been in WEDDING! mode (including a tiny last minute wedding-at-home for a friend of a friend whose mom is dying... so poignant and beautiful and really sort of sad) for the last month. I've never met any of these relatives, and frankly, I didn't want to be mistaken for a vendor by people whom I want to like me. Later, she greeted me at the bar by coming up behind me and smacking me upside the head with her purse... which... okay... "Yes, I'll have a red wine and OW! Oh, you surprised me! Ha ha! Ha?" And then rather inexplicably she kind of liberated a bottle of wine as we were leaving, which was spontaneous and funny and not as inappropriate as it sounds, but Joel and I were still puzzling over it when we went out to the pay lot where he parked and found...

6. That the entire front end of his car was bashed in by a truck driver who took off! Yes! Who is this man that I love WHO IS EXACTLY LIKE ME and OH MY GOD what did we do in a previous life that this kind of shit happens to us all the goddamn time?!?!? Hate. HATE!! So the little Russian guy who was working in the lot had thoughtfully written down an approximate license plate number on his pack of cigarettes and told us it was the delivery truck driver.. Long story short, the police were called, paramedics came, no one is injured, and the boss of the truck's company came from a funeral and promised to pay for absolutely everything. Sigh...

7. We came home and found that the dog had gotten into the trash- HOW CRUEL- Joel forgot to turn off the iron, which thankfully didn't burn anything down and I had a bunch of messages from work looking for photos that weren't supposed to run until Tuesday. Fuck.

In the words of a certain 4-year-old: "I hate this day. I hate everyone except Grandma."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh man, that is insane, I'm so sorry.

I must say, though, thank God for the parking lot attendant who noted the delivery truck's license plate. If it had just been a hit & run and you had no idea who did it (and no way of getting compensated for it), that would be infinitely worse.

Joel's mom sounds like someone I'd like. I often smack people with my purse after I've had a few drinks. (And I'm pretty sure that *many* bottles of wine were liberated from our reception, not that we paid that much attention to the total bar tab.)

Unknown said...

Sweet baby Jeebus, that sounds like an awful, awful day.
Here's hoping the rest of the week goes much better.
(and Melanie? Absolutely adorable. And rocking that pink boa.)

Anonymous said...

That sucks.

Yesterday I went to the wedding of the brother of the guy you kinda work with (do comments get trolled by google?), who is the person I used to work with and we went to school with both of them. The guy you kinda work with I finally met after 5 years of knowing about him from both you and his brother.

I've reread the above paragraph and it actually makes sense. I could rewrite it to be more coherent but I like it how it is.

It was awesome then I went wine tasting and bought some wine. My car survived.

Do you hate me?

Anonymous said...

I get a little smacky after a few glasses of wine, too, and it's a sign of affection, I promise. I've never smacked anyone I don't really like. So that, at least, you can take off the list of worries.

The car on the other hand -- gah. Seriously, what DID you guys do in your previous lives? Were you the little degenerates who smashed the windows of half the cars on my street at 3 a.m. last Saturday? (Mine was parked in another state, don't worry.)