I am running on red tonight. I hate everybody and everything.
It started when I came home for dinner. I thought I'd be home at around 5, maybe 5:30, but I needed to get Grandmother's meds. Plus I have all this shit I need to do -- write for my company, call this person, fill this out, fill that out -- that I was kind of overwhelmed. Having coffee and dinking around wasn't what I planned to do and not what I should have done, but it was nice nonetheless. But I use the excuse of waiting till my laptop completely recharged as the reason I leave the coffeehouse so late. That means I get to Target at 5:30 and, because of a mix-up at the pharmacy, I get home around 6:15.
Well, they're probably not home; my parents are just getting back, if they're back at all, and if they are, they're whipping up something that's ordinary, not special. That's what I thought -- and I was wrong. I come home and hear Mother say something to the effect of, "Well, now he comes home." And she sits down to eat noodles. Good, beautiful noodles, my favorite home-cooked meal. Goddamn, I'm late for this dinner?!
She offers to get up and make it for me, but I didn't want her to do that. Besides, assembling noodles, meatballs, beef and soup seems to be easy enough -- I need to learn how to do this, and I think I can, I think I can! Here is where I see the worst of both My Fucking Father and, sadly, My Fucking Grandmother.
First, my Grandmother volunteers to help. Then, with My Mother barking orders from her seat at the dining table, my Grandmother once again repeats everythiing she says, sometimes sprinkling in trite elaborations on Mother's instructions, such as putting more noodles in my bowl and shit. This is when Grandmother is at her repetitive worst; already kind of embarrassed I'm late to a "big" dinner, I was so annoyed by her nattering that I snapped at her. Then My Fucking Father, who may or may not have been done with his soup (depending on whether or not he felt like drinking the whole broth) went into our kitchen (which, after so many run-ins and blow-ups, I've come to conclude is way too small for modern demands) and pushes me away from the bowl; he made it for me. Fuck him -- he's a nanny who can't help himself. First he cleans my room, then he makes my soup, asking me neither time.
My Fucking Father was at his most preeningly juvenile tonight -- repeating himself in order to shush me away and do what he wanted, whining instead of speaking. He had a headache tonight, which he clearly communicated by the way he slouched on the chairs next to the dining room, bowed his head and closed his eyes. He didn't want to eat the birthday cake we planned on eating last night, but he did anyway. Oh, and he reminded me to clean my room. Sure I will -- why don't you do it for me instead?
---
Couldn't wait to go to the gym. Would've gone anywhere, but I need to make sure that I go, otherwise I'd be wasting my monthly pass. I bought it for $15 when a daily pass is $3, so I need to go at least five times in 30 days to make it worth it, though I should go more if I'm buying them in a block like that because then I'd save, and that's kind of the point of buying a monthly pass, right? Right??
What I've been afraid of is that there are other people there exercising. I like my peace, having the whole exercise room to myself, and the first few times I went no one was there to bother me. I thought it was only because the citizens of the city didn't want to take advantage of the tax dollars spent to create it.
But it was just the weather, because ever since, say, early last month there have been people there. And the further we escape the doldrums of winter, more and more people are there when I'm there. That bothers me because I'm losing my privacy, but at least most of them are civil, or at least not obnoxious. I didn't have that luck last night.
There were two people there, a man and a woman, not together. They were using two of the three treadmills available. The woman, who was wearing a stretch knit hat that had a lot of hair in it (it made her kind of look like Cleopatra), was on the treadmill I usually use; it's the one right in front of the right TV. I have a rule, something I might need to break because it could get completely ridiculous: If I see someone using "my" treadmill, "my" ellipitical, "my" bike or the single weight machine there, I won't use it that night. It's just too gross; what if there's MRSA on it, and what if the person doesn't wipe it down? I just don't want to deal with it, so I stay away. Yes, sweat and viruses and bacteria can stay on those machines for hours, even days. I ... I stay away for that night. Which means "my" treadmill is off-limits. Fuck.
But the elliptical is free -- yippee! I clean it off with a liberal dose of alcohol. This machine is in front of the left TV, so I want the remote ... which the woman has. I ask for it, per exercise room etiquette. She hands it to me without saying anything or giving me a smile. If I were in a worse frame of mind, I would think she was kind of perturbed that I borrowed the remote. Whatever.
Also because it's The Way It's Done, once I select a channel, I go and give it back to her. Every other time they say, "No, keep it!" or "Thank you!" But I intercept this woman as she was taking a break. When I give the remote back to her, she is stone-faced. No thanks, no nothing. Cunt.
And the guy? God, what a motherfucking slob. I've seen him a couple times, and he's one of, like, two men I've seen use the weight machine. And sadly, he used it while I was on the elliptical. Toning my arm muscles is out. But the thing that grossed me out was something I've seen him do before. He has his own small towel he takes around with him, and when used the weight machine he throws that fucking towel on the back of the bike I use! Aargh!!! You fucking contaminated two of my machines with your own goddamn sweat!!
That's it -- I can't use the treadmill, nor the weight machine, nor the bike. I thought about trying some of the other machines ... ah, but I couldn't. This is a sign that I should do something new. If I'm not staying in the exercise room for more than an hour now, I might as well fill up my gas tank, get the paper so I can fill out my bracket, and get some coffee to work on my article. Meanwhile, this fucking asshole gets on a mat on the floor and stretches -- showing off his fat belly!! Goddamn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The kicker: After he gets on the treadmill and read his book a second fucking time and then do some light stretching, this son-of-a-bitch has the audacity to leave just before I plan to. Oh great, leave all this slimy destruction in your wake and then leave me all alone in the room, you piece of shit. And by the way, I saw you didn't wipe down any of the machines you used, you gross fat fuck!!! Really, goddamn him to hell. ...
---
Coffeeshop was just as bad. I didn't want to drive all the way down Uptown, so I went to the other place -- the one with the waxy counters that confuse my optical mouse so the cursor doesn't move, the one with the awful esoteric music, the one with too many people and too few seats, the one with the bitter mochas, and the one with the sometimes-indifferent customer service. This hadn't happened here yet, however.
So I was standing behind this guy who just gave his order. This disheveled chick with the confused look on her face -- she'd be a female version of me, I guess -- saunters up to the other side of the cash register. After the coffee chick gives the guy in front of me his drink, the stupid fuck goes and grabs this girl's order!! Hello, I'm right here, waiting in line like you're supposed to! This bitch cuts in line and she gets to get her order in before me?! Fuck that. I'm starting to hate this coffeehouse more than I did before.
Yeah, another girl took my order, but so what? I should've been in front of her. And look, she's pulling change out of a plastic bag. A plastic bag!! For a plastic fucking bag she gets to cut in front of me?
---
There are still potholes on the roads, Minnesota. Oh, and I don't appreciate that thing I ran over just before I got home, either.
---
What do I see coming across the dining room? Ants!!! I saw this black circle on the ground and knew exactly what it was -- damn insects coming out from underground, searching for any piece of food. Well, we ... no, I can't assemble my own bowl of noodles so they keep making a mess and dropping the oily pieces of food that the ants want. Goddamn, I didn't need these fucking things in the house.
So I break out the bug spray that was placed under the piano and I spray the hell out of the whole area, both the mass of ants devouring the piece of whatever-that-was and the stray ants going towards or away from it. I made a hell of a mess, but I had to make damn sure I got every single fucking insect in my Raid.
The bug spray smells noxious, plus there's this oil on the floor now. And, of course, there are all these dead (and drowning) ants. So I decide to sweep them all up and then Swiffer the whole fucking area. While I was doing the cleaning My Fucking Father wants me to do (why don't you do it yourself? You know you're just going to do it yourself, right?), my Grandmother comes out to see what's going on. Hoo boy, she was at her most infuriatingly subservient here. She talked about, "Why are you so loud? Father's going to get mad! He yelled at me for walking out here past midnight? I'll just do it tomorrow!" I wanted to say something to the effect of it's fine, there were ants here and I need to clean it up, but again -- language barrier. So after I tried to spit out the words "ants" and "don't worry about it," I shooed her away. Just like My Fucking Father does. My God, I am him.
Oh, and speaking of that hovering black hole ... he comes up, probably to see what the commotion is all about. For once he didn't lose his mind over what I was doing; instead, he was back to beating around Grandmother again by lecturing her on not dropping food, even though tonight she deserved it for being an all-around ditz.
Oh, and I'm supposed to buy a new mat for the dining room table. Huh?
---
Finally, I try and work on my laptop again in my sister's room. I'm tooling away, not bothering anybody or the pace of the world ... and then something buzzes by my right ear very closely. I see a box elder beetle land on my screen. Fuck, you've got to be kidding me!!!
I fucking take all my shit and just move it into my room. My desk isn't long enough for my laptop, and I had a hell of a hard time just making sure I had everything I wanted and was within reach of everything I needed while I was working in bedroom, but it worked, somehow. Maybe this is what I'll have to do from now on. It means I won't have to miss late-night news, for one thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment