How about a magic trick?

It was a few days before Christmas and I was about to finish the last of my holiday shopping and buy my dad his gift. It had been a particulalrly grueling day, and I was kicking myself for doing all of it in one day instead of a little bit at a time. So at that point, when people come up to me to ask me for things, I'll just give in. My phone number, some money, my social security number, I would have given it all away just to make it through. As I approached the final store, I was cornered by an amteur magician who said he could tear up my fifty and put it back together again. So he tore it in half, did some flourishing of his hands, and showed me my two halves again. He tried again, and in order for it to work, he had to cut it up again. Then he showed me four pieces of my fifty. Five minutes later my fifty was ironically in about fifty pieces, and he ended up resorting to paying me back in the quarters and half dollars he had saved to pull out of people's ears.  I then had to explain all this to the saleslady so she wouldn't look at me like I was the plague while I had to pay her in coins, which was all I had. As I walked out, I could see her looking at me and talking to one of her coworkers as they shook their head at me. It wasn't my fault, but I rushed out of the store with my head hung low, while half a block away I saw the magician enthrall a small crowd by pulling flowers from his sleeve.

The Morning Shift

I was scheduled to be at work from three in the morning until ten, so with plenty of time to spare I arrived at fifteen minutes until three. I thought that maybe I could warm up a little, grab a snack, and generally prepare myself. I was feeling pretty good about myself when I rang the bell. 

A few seconds passed before I rang the bell again. A few seconds isn't such a long time to wait, but I have to say that Converse are not the most appropriate choice for all-weather footwear. I pulled out my phone and began to call every number known to me from inside the office. As my buzzes and phone calls were being greeting by an increasingly intense silence, I decided to circle the building to see if they were using a different entrance due to the hour. On my way back to my original spot, I was spotted by the security guards. At this point, I was completely soaked in a brown hooded jacket wearing jeans and torn sneakers. I began to debate my outfit choices as I ran from the guards who assumed I was a vagrant trying to get in. When I turned the last corner someone from inside finally decided to pick up the phone, and by the time I reached the door I was let in. As I stood there dripping, the man who let me in asked me if I was supposed to be working. My mind immediatley froze and within the span of a second I did a lot of thinking, "Oh my god was I supposed to be where? Could I have slept in early? Should I stay because I already drove all the way out here? Did I just commit a misdemeanor?" All this was done in the millisecond before he said, "Just kidding! Come on in." 

It turns out that I spent half an hour in the rain simply because they were eating breakfast in the break room with the music on loud and they simply couldn't hear me. 

A good thing came out of this though, because now I know that if I decide to shoplift in the mall or anything I'd probably be able to outrun the security. Earlier I felt that I wouldn't be able to buy everyone Christmas gifts in time. Now though, I'm feeling much better about that. 

Taking the trash out

I have over the years become a true San Diegan. Despite having spent years on the Eastern Seaboard experiencing things like seasons and icy roads, as soon as it drops below 70 degrees, I put on boots, sweaters, and a parka, while I seriously contemplate moving to Valencia in Spain. Today while I planned my sojourn in the Starbucks downtown, a piercing sound crackled like a lightning bolt in my daydream and jolted me back to California. I peeked up from the top of my scarf to see what was going on, and I noticed that some woman was yelling at the poor bastard behind the counter. How dare he, the apparent lone worker at the establishment, serve the twenty other customers in front of him while she had to leave before her free parking expired. I kind of admired her passion, like she was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, railing against the atrocities committed against her, and everyone else in the world who had to wait over a minute for their non-fat lattes. She topped it off perfectly with her close, "FYI, your trash is full." Oh, snap. As she walked out, I thought of all the ways I could use that passion, to finally get back at people who cut me off in the freeway, who spilled their drinks on my shoe and got mad at ME, who just treated me as if whatever little mishap that just occurred was my fault. I gained confidence as I sat on the stool drinking my hot chocolate, until finally someone pushed by me and made me spill. As they turned in my direction, I automatically said to them, "sorry."

The Namesake

It's been almost a month since my latest oh so clever contribution to the literary world wide web, and I feel I have to explain: my neighbors in the apartment next door are getting a divorce, and since the walls of this particular complex have apparently been salvaged from a military bunker, I've spent the better part of the last few weeks with my ear firmly pressed against the tile wall of the bathroom, which by now has what appears to be an ice glaze on it since I left the window wide open for maximum listening ability. It's only been recently that one's moved out, so the fighting is over and I've gotten down to business. While I was massaging out what I initially assumed was a permanent honeycomb imprint on the right side of my face, I worked on putting a dent in my 400 message inbox and found that several people are interested in where the title comes from. Simply, it's something that I say to my sister all the time. The situation is never the same but the feeling is, and I'll elaborate with an example.

Today my sister and I decided on a trip to Guitar Center, and the traffic was absolutely monstrous. Understandably it's Christmas, and we are just passing a busy mall, but the freeway had been reduced to a stadium parking lot at maximum capacity. As we made our way inch by inch to the nearest exit, we proceeded to vent our frustrations on the only possible causes of traffic, at least in our minds. We decided on tourists from the Southwestern United States and drivers from Mexico, but mainly the former. Mexicans at least have been here often enough to go with the flow of traffic, but more often than not my poor car ends up plodding along the road as I watch both my fuel economy and gas levels fall nearly as far as my spirits, while Johnny Utah is holding up the traffic pointing at the sites and reciting everything he read about the University of San Diego while he was stuck in the airport security line. An hour and ten feet later, after my sister and I have sufficiently rallied our anger towards him, we finally see the cause of the hold-up: several severely mangled and twisted steel carcasses are lying on the side of the road, while emergency crews try to clean up the remains of the cars and clearing the road. We fell into an uncomfortable silence and as we exit off the road I turn to my sister and ask, "do you feel bad about yourself?"