The last week has been a truly lopsided mix of laughter and tears. Feeling stymied by the unappetizing mixture, I was driven to investigate the formula. According the the label, ingredients include: finicky, foreboding lights taunting me from the heavy-browed dash on the Saturn; pestering (concerned and well-intended but ultimately cumbersome) father nagging about said lights; threats to longest-term friend I have to terminate friendship after staggering (and quite possibly record-breaking) display of mania, narcissism, and selfishness; cavernous wind-tunnel style empty bank account; text vomit (close relative of word vomit, only worse, because clear evidence of badly planned, terribly timed, and poorly worded communication is readily available for review and critique); coinciding blow-offs by anyone who has recently been a recipient of either my emotional or physical affections (apparently both require entry to a very dark nether-region that is quite unappealing); and abysmal, botched bangs and the accompanying loathing and resentment for Becky at Floyd's.
Also contains insignificant amounts of fun with new roommate (friend who manages not to feed directly on my soul, therefore sucking it dry), flirting with cute (and occasionally too old for the established age range for love interest) bartenders, and purchase of incredibly hot new vest (because 5 vests is not enough).
Interesting concoction.
After sipping on this cocktail for a few days, I found myself, for the second time in the past seven days, in the honeymoon stage of the 4th hour at Pep Boys AutoCenter, where, ironically, I am finding it hard to maintain any pep and as far as I can tell, the boys ain't doing any better a job.
That morning I had gotten up in a pretty dismal cloud. Not loving life too much, not dying to go to work, I worried that had been promoted to the new, Denver chapter Eyore. So I decided to garnish myself with loveliness and wear an attractive, winsome, and borderline too-fashionable-for-work outfit to work that day. I was hoping that a boost on the outside might translate to a boost on the inside.
Thus I found myself bedecked in a red dress, a trendy, wide, black belt, smooth opaque tights that made me want to rub my OWN legs, and fun new black suede, cuffed, Chinese Laundry pirate boots. Looking good if you can get past the fact that my hair makes me look a shade too much like Punky Brewster (spunky, and inspiring to young girls as she may be, she is not my number one fashion icon). However, there is a slight, infinitesimal chance that this kind of apparel is wasted on a Pep Boys AutoCenter audience.
It is in this way, that I find myself sitting in the wretchedly cold waiting area (gusts of ice-fringed January Colorado air tackled my knees each time someone entered, not even a stale, stinking cup of coffee in the so-called reception area) that smells somewhat of bug spray, toasted car oil, and an old sardine can, reading a Tom Robbins book hilariously out of place in the Pep Boys, and listening to what is apparently the only sad, weepy ballad that JT has ever performed and that my iPod has cruelly bestowed on me at that moment (damn you, random!). And at that moment is when I think that maybe this is it. Maybe I have died and, given my lack of faith and goodwill at the moment I deceased, been sent to purgatory.
Things DO seem a little off. The only two men working who are both cute and speak English as a first language WILL NOT SMILE AT ME. Aside from the fact that this bruises my ego, it is also incredibly absurd. EVERYONE should smile at me (please read this as forced vanity in attempt to elevate my self esteem). Neither will the regular looking sorta-emo guy in the waiting area (doesn't he KNOW I, too, have ultra-hip musical taste, I AM listening to an iPod, for chrissake). This is madness. Especially because there is one person on the hard blue plastic chairs who WILL smile at me: a largely overweight woman (would we call her obese?) with a limp who has just blessed my sneeze. She proceeds to offer me gum (an antidote for sneezing unbeknownst to me?) and, after I politely decline (mama told me never take candy from strangers), she proceeds to pop, chew and smack her gum as if she had made some deal with the gum that the more she mangled it (to OH! the chagrin of people around her) the better it would taste, the longer it would last. Which, apparently, in this devilish deal means forever. Forever in limbo.
When she starts humming (Hymns! She is humming hymns! In limbo! What a brown-noser.) I turn my hate rays on full blast and try to burn a hole into the side of her face. (Chances for upward movement are looking less and less real for me.) It is in this ray-blasting stance that I realize that she is reading the bible. And not just any bible. This one is exceedingly slim, what could a bible that thin contain?! It is wee and bound in black faux-alligator embossed leather. This makes me rethink my gracious thanks for the blessing she gave after my sneeze. I am repulsed, I wish my life hadn't been touched by the likes of a bible like that! That's the kind of Bible and gum smacking that gets you trapped in purgatory, no matter how much hymn-humming you do.
Eventually I get to slither away, released, surprisingly undead, into the outside world. In this reality, after all that time, fear, and burdensome annoyance, those fucking lights are still blinking in my car. Those un-peppy and apparently unskilled auto mechanics got in line behind the many who had queued before, took a bite out of my morale, and left me flaccid, and them cackling away from me in their Dickies.
Thank goodness for the (albeit comparatively weak) revival of some spirit by the following: super sharp, waist slimming vests that cost more than they should but are SO worth it emotionally; invitations to Operation S.A.L.L.Y parties with a crew from the new Irish bar-restaurant down my street (an AWESOME Sunday take-a-bus-to-the-bowling-alley, Lebowski themed affair for you Philistines who mightn't have recognized); and, days later, a simple, and simply delightful, text from a complexly delightful Allison:
"I stubbed my vagina." (Those of you who understand this reference, kudos, you are one of the few who have reached comedic nirvana, please, join Allison and I for an evening of laughter, farts, and Troll cards.)
And, on that note, I conclude this ludicrously long post with a sentiment from wild, wonderful Tom Robbins:
"Suppose you are one of those persons who feels trapped, to some degree, trapped matrimonially, occupationally, educationally or geographically, or trapped in something larger than all those; trapped in a
system, or what you might describe as an 'increasingly deadening technocracy' or a 'theater of paranoia and desperation' or something like that. Now if you are one of those persons (and the author doesn't mean to imply that you are), wouldn't the very knowledge that there are clockworks ticking away behind the wallpaper of civilization, unbeknownst to leaders, organizers and managers (the President included), wouldn't that knowledge, suggesting as it does the possibility of unimaginable alternatives, wouldn't that knowledge be a bubble bath for your heart?"
-p. 52,
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
