Well the last day of work at my old job came and went quietly and with little fanfare. I don't really know why when we finally quit a job, we expect there to be so much more drama or excitement surrounding it. I know everyone feels like they deserve their awesome quit story, but typically people don't all go out like this guy. (However he is definitely my hero.) Really, after the initial shock on the day you tell your boss and various people around the office, there is often not much else to it.
People are surprised (or not) when you tell them you quit, then they ask you about it, then they listen for a few minutes, then they wish you well, then they go back to the report or spreadsheet they were working on before you strolled by. Most likely your presence is filed away in the co-worker memory drawer in their brain, only to be called upon a few years from now when someone shares an anecdote about some joke you made about the fax machine once, and they spend a few minutes trying to remember if your hair was blond or brown. "What ever happened to her?" they will ask. "I don't know. She was a riot though, that one." (At least that is what I secretly hope they will remark about me when I am gone.)
So really, once you shout through the halls that you have officially quit, the rest of the process is often low key and uneventful. I had two weeks to try to leave my carefully disorganized mess of a cubicle as neat and as easy to navigate as possible for the next bright-eyed assistant coming in with high hopes and idealistic dreams. I also had to keep up with my current work load, and my boss decided to throw on a few last minute projects he thought would be helpful as well. Between all these obligations, I had my work cut out for me. While many quitters would have said "F this, I don't need to be responsible for my work anymore, let the next poor schmuck deal with it," I took the time to wrap up loose ends, clear up some issues, and clean up shop a bit. I stayed late a few days, and even on my last day, I was there right up until 5pm, my usual end-of-day time. I even took the time to give my boss the honest feedback he asked for. I was late leaving on my last day because I was trying to find the nicest way possible to define micromanagement while still being eloquent and constructive and not coming off like an asshole. (It was tough, but I think I did okay.)
I had post-work goodbye drinks with a few co-workers the Wednesday before I left at this fabulous river front restaurant and that made my leaving feel a little more real. I was sad that a lot of people I considered good work friends were not able to make it for one reason or another. I know it was nothing personal, just people being busy. But I think if there had been more time for goodbye festivities with some of them, maybe it all would have felt a little more poignant. Even tentative "let's have lunch your last week" ideas never came to fruition, mostly because I had too much to do during the day and never even took a lunch my last week. So the timing prevented a few goodbyes with some people I worked with and really enjoyed seeing every day. The good news is, in my new job I will be located right across the street from my old office. So really, I have no reason to be sad about not having goodbye lunches and drinks with some good folks--I mean I can pretty much have that any time with them even now. So that works.
At the end of the day on my last day at the office where I have set up shop for almost four years, I packed my Jansport backpack to it's fullest capacity with stuff I had kept there, like a pair of old dusty black heels and pictures of my fiance and a pair of purple striped socks and some instant lemonade packets and Halls cough drops and a shit-ton of magnets from all over the U.S. I gave a few hugs. I wrote a nice email and as honest an assessment of my boss as I could while still keeping his desire to be a future reference for me intact. I locked up my cabinets for the last time and I dropped off my ID pass to my buddy in HR. She walked with me out those doors as I left for the last time as an employee. It was a windy day and my backpack was heavy but I did not care. I felt so light, so free, that the wind could have picked me right up and twirled me around.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
All Aboard the Stress Express
I have been away from the blog world for longer than usual this last week and that is not very conducive to fulfilling my goal of actively blogging this year. My apologies--both to myself and to all the people kind enough to take a sec and read my stuff over here in the corner. It has been quite a busy week. Between scrambling to leave my old job in some semblance of order for the next poor schmuck and doing some intense over-analyzing of our wedding registry items, not to mention beginning our "wedding invitation creation" process, it has been a full week indeed.
I don't really know what is going to happen in the next six to eight months or so, and I am half happy and half terrified about it. I mean, I am finally leaving the job that has always sort of just been a gig I have to do for money, and going forth into unknown territory. What if I love the new job? Or hate it? Or feel overworked? Or can't keep up? Or what if it ends up being a great place for me? This could be a huge change to my daily life as I know it, and also my career (or lack thereof) as I know it.
And on another note entirely--I chose to have a destination wedding, come what may, because it really does not require a lot of detailed planning. I pretty much won't have a solid sense of what we will do until a few weeks before, possibly even a few days before. I did this for many reasons, one of which was to relieve myself of the stress of planning. But I find that there is a whole new beast clawing at my brain now--the stress of not planning! It's crazy, I know. But somehow, the unknown details are causing stress in their own weird way. Maybe brides-to-be are just programmed to have some sort of anxiety about the whole occasion no matter what they decide to do. Or maybe I am just a spaz. All perfectly good explanations for the stress I feel sometimes.
So anyway things are tense and busy and will be for the next six to eight months and I have no idea what will occur and what will be good and what will go wrong and here I go diving in head first. (But in an actual true- to-life metaphor, I never learned to dive as a child, so I typically end up doing a half belly-flop with my nose plugged. How about that for self-realization?)
So amidst all these changes and stresses and fun and terror, something really wacky happened two nights ago. I know talking about dreams is pointless and all, but here you go anyway:
At 3:30am, I was deep asleep. In my dream, a film crew was making a movie about my mother when she was 30 years old. They were filming my actual mother at her age now (which is somewhere in the realm of retirement age) and going in and photo-shopping her face so that she appeared as she was at 30. She was wandering around a Theatre lobby with a sweet, innocent look on her face, and I knew (like you do in dreams) that she was waiting for some man she liked who was in charge of said Theatre. There were also a few picture frames with shots of my mother set up all around the place with actual pictures I have seen in my home growing up. I was watching it all like a movie, but was somehow part of it too (as is common in dreams). At one point, I was so moved by the scene and my mother's youthful beauty that I started crying. Heaving, shuddering, convulsive sobs came over my body like a thunderstorm of emotion, and I suddenly became aware of myself, aware of my body lying in my very real bed, starting to quietly shake. The shaking turned into that sort of spasm that crying does to you--your stomach clenches and your head thrusts forward like a pigeon's. That was me. In bed. Now sort of awake and crying uncontrollably.
My fiance shook me until I was fully conscious and asked if I was okay. I could barely speak, I just continued to cry and cry the way dumped girls do once they have a bottle of wine to their dome. It was so strange. I mean, when you dream of peeing, your body (well, most people's bodies, anyway) does not actually pee. Or when you yell at someone in your dream, usually people don't yell out loud in the bedroom. That is the beauty of the body while dreaming. You think you are doing all these things but actually your body is on idle mode and nothing is usually happening but REM. So to have been woken up by my body reacting to the emotional response I had in my dream--well it was so unnatural and downright freaky! And I could not stop crying once I got going. I did not even know what I was crying about and all I could do was let it take its course until it passed, which took some time. Eventually I was able to sleep again. But I was definitely unnerved by the whole experience.
Thinking back about it, I realize that I have been playing it as cool as I can with all the things I have going on, and making efforts not to dwell on or think too much about any of it because of my tendency to fret and worry too much about things out of my control. I guess in doing that, I must have been shoving some emotional responses deep down in that gut of mine for safe keeping. Well people, turns out that shit will manifest itself somehow in another way. The energy will be released.
As a wise character named Dr. Ian Malcolm once said in what might be the greatest film of my generation, "I'm simply saying that life, uh...finds a way."
I don't really know what is going to happen in the next six to eight months or so, and I am half happy and half terrified about it. I mean, I am finally leaving the job that has always sort of just been a gig I have to do for money, and going forth into unknown territory. What if I love the new job? Or hate it? Or feel overworked? Or can't keep up? Or what if it ends up being a great place for me? This could be a huge change to my daily life as I know it, and also my career (or lack thereof) as I know it.
And on another note entirely--I chose to have a destination wedding, come what may, because it really does not require a lot of detailed planning. I pretty much won't have a solid sense of what we will do until a few weeks before, possibly even a few days before. I did this for many reasons, one of which was to relieve myself of the stress of planning. But I find that there is a whole new beast clawing at my brain now--the stress of not planning! It's crazy, I know. But somehow, the unknown details are causing stress in their own weird way. Maybe brides-to-be are just programmed to have some sort of anxiety about the whole occasion no matter what they decide to do. Or maybe I am just a spaz. All perfectly good explanations for the stress I feel sometimes.
So anyway things are tense and busy and will be for the next six to eight months and I have no idea what will occur and what will be good and what will go wrong and here I go diving in head first. (But in an actual true- to-life metaphor, I never learned to dive as a child, so I typically end up doing a half belly-flop with my nose plugged. How about that for self-realization?)
So amidst all these changes and stresses and fun and terror, something really wacky happened two nights ago. I know talking about dreams is pointless and all, but here you go anyway:
At 3:30am, I was deep asleep. In my dream, a film crew was making a movie about my mother when she was 30 years old. They were filming my actual mother at her age now (which is somewhere in the realm of retirement age) and going in and photo-shopping her face so that she appeared as she was at 30. She was wandering around a Theatre lobby with a sweet, innocent look on her face, and I knew (like you do in dreams) that she was waiting for some man she liked who was in charge of said Theatre. There were also a few picture frames with shots of my mother set up all around the place with actual pictures I have seen in my home growing up. I was watching it all like a movie, but was somehow part of it too (as is common in dreams). At one point, I was so moved by the scene and my mother's youthful beauty that I started crying. Heaving, shuddering, convulsive sobs came over my body like a thunderstorm of emotion, and I suddenly became aware of myself, aware of my body lying in my very real bed, starting to quietly shake. The shaking turned into that sort of spasm that crying does to you--your stomach clenches and your head thrusts forward like a pigeon's. That was me. In bed. Now sort of awake and crying uncontrollably.
My fiance shook me until I was fully conscious and asked if I was okay. I could barely speak, I just continued to cry and cry the way dumped girls do once they have a bottle of wine to their dome. It was so strange. I mean, when you dream of peeing, your body (well, most people's bodies, anyway) does not actually pee. Or when you yell at someone in your dream, usually people don't yell out loud in the bedroom. That is the beauty of the body while dreaming. You think you are doing all these things but actually your body is on idle mode and nothing is usually happening but REM. So to have been woken up by my body reacting to the emotional response I had in my dream--well it was so unnatural and downright freaky! And I could not stop crying once I got going. I did not even know what I was crying about and all I could do was let it take its course until it passed, which took some time. Eventually I was able to sleep again. But I was definitely unnerved by the whole experience.
Thinking back about it, I realize that I have been playing it as cool as I can with all the things I have going on, and making efforts not to dwell on or think too much about any of it because of my tendency to fret and worry too much about things out of my control. I guess in doing that, I must have been shoving some emotional responses deep down in that gut of mine for safe keeping. Well people, turns out that shit will manifest itself somehow in another way. The energy will be released.
As a wise character named Dr. Ian Malcolm once said in what might be the greatest film of my generation, "I'm simply saying that life, uh...finds a way."
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunny Side Up!
Guys...it worked.
All my efforts to stay positive finally paid off.
It could also have something to do with the fact that I have been working really hard for seven months now. But that is beside the point. The point is, I stayed positive in the face of adversity and the universe was good to me. It finally gave me the job opportunity I have been waiting for. I have alluded in past posts to the changes coming soon, and I have kept my mouth shut about my hardcore search for a new job. I did (do) not want to blast the infinite depths of the internet with my job search details, because that would just be silly. But I will say that it has been happening for a long while (this whole recession-unemployment business is fact. Securing a job is tough right now!) and I am relieved to report the search is finally over. Yours truly will be done at the current mindless office gig in a little over a week, and will be starting up at a great company in a great role with the potential to be a strategic move, career-wise. (I never thought I would be capable of making those sorts of moves--strategic, career-oriented ones. Go me! Progress!)
Obviously I won't go into detail here about either situation, but maybe when I find myself at a loss for ideas to write about in the future, I will touch on some of the frustrations of job-seeking in this economy (like the fact that I kept getting on the "top three candidates" lists at the places I interviewed, only to ultimately lose out to someone I presume is a cuter, smarter, younger version of myself. Ugh!). The competition is fierce out there, people. You will get the interviews, but ultimately landing the position is tricky nowadays. But my advice is to keep at it! Something will come along. You may have to apply for ten more jobs than you thought you would, but it will be worth it! Promise.
Anyway, I am so relieved to be leaving my old job. I have been disenchanted practically since day one, but it provided a solid place for me to make money while attending massage therapy school at night for a year, while beefing up my admin skills so that I could move on to bigger and better things eventually.
It was supposed to be a means to an end kind of thing originally, and somehow I ended up there almost four years. That happens sometimes, I suppose. Time flies when you are having a fulfilling life outside of a job, and suddenly you realize you are complacent but spinning your wheels. Time to change.
I have experienced this before and I am sure I will again. But the winds of change called to me this year. Or maybe it was the breeze of broke. Either way, I knew it was time to mosey.
So back to the original idea I wanted to express in this post today--I stayed positive despite my hardships while seeking new employment, and literally a few hours after my last, frustrated post, when I was trying desperately to fake the positive, I got the offer for my new gig. How about that? I think maybe I was right--that I needed to counter my usual pessimistic (closeted optimistic) attitude and show a little sunny-side-of-life kind of thinking. It must have helped. I mean it certainly didn't hurt. I will try to remember what happened to me in the last week every time I feel like I am hitting walls while working hard. And then, just when I feel as hopeless as can be, I will take a break to look at myself in the mirror and smile insanely again, maybe run around the house yelling about how positive I am.
This time, I won't go for the tequila shot though. I learned that lesson well.
All my efforts to stay positive finally paid off.
It could also have something to do with the fact that I have been working really hard for seven months now. But that is beside the point. The point is, I stayed positive in the face of adversity and the universe was good to me. It finally gave me the job opportunity I have been waiting for. I have alluded in past posts to the changes coming soon, and I have kept my mouth shut about my hardcore search for a new job. I did (do) not want to blast the infinite depths of the internet with my job search details, because that would just be silly. But I will say that it has been happening for a long while (this whole recession-unemployment business is fact. Securing a job is tough right now!) and I am relieved to report the search is finally over. Yours truly will be done at the current mindless office gig in a little over a week, and will be starting up at a great company in a great role with the potential to be a strategic move, career-wise. (I never thought I would be capable of making those sorts of moves--strategic, career-oriented ones. Go me! Progress!)
Obviously I won't go into detail here about either situation, but maybe when I find myself at a loss for ideas to write about in the future, I will touch on some of the frustrations of job-seeking in this economy (like the fact that I kept getting on the "top three candidates" lists at the places I interviewed, only to ultimately lose out to someone I presume is a cuter, smarter, younger version of myself. Ugh!). The competition is fierce out there, people. You will get the interviews, but ultimately landing the position is tricky nowadays. But my advice is to keep at it! Something will come along. You may have to apply for ten more jobs than you thought you would, but it will be worth it! Promise.
Anyway, I am so relieved to be leaving my old job. I have been disenchanted practically since day one, but it provided a solid place for me to make money while attending massage therapy school at night for a year, while beefing up my admin skills so that I could move on to bigger and better things eventually.
It was supposed to be a means to an end kind of thing originally, and somehow I ended up there almost four years. That happens sometimes, I suppose. Time flies when you are having a fulfilling life outside of a job, and suddenly you realize you are complacent but spinning your wheels. Time to change.
I have experienced this before and I am sure I will again. But the winds of change called to me this year. Or maybe it was the breeze of broke. Either way, I knew it was time to mosey.
So back to the original idea I wanted to express in this post today--I stayed positive despite my hardships while seeking new employment, and literally a few hours after my last, frustrated post, when I was trying desperately to fake the positive, I got the offer for my new gig. How about that? I think maybe I was right--that I needed to counter my usual pessimistic (closeted optimistic) attitude and show a little sunny-side-of-life kind of thinking. It must have helped. I mean it certainly didn't hurt. I will try to remember what happened to me in the last week every time I feel like I am hitting walls while working hard. And then, just when I feel as hopeless as can be, I will take a break to look at myself in the mirror and smile insanely again, maybe run around the house yelling about how positive I am.
This time, I won't go for the tequila shot though. I learned that lesson well.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Keeping on the sunny side
So I just had a bad few hours at the end of work today for reasons too long and unimportant to your life for me to explain to you. Don't ask, don't tell is a good policy for when someone had a long stupid day at a job that is not their passion. Who actually wants to hear about what set you off in a corporate office? No one. No one will really understand because they don't do your job. It is kind of like telling someone about your dreams. It never makes sense and eventually the listener doesn't care anymore and then after telling them all about it, you just feel like a jackass. So that is my long-winded way of not telling you why my day was crappy.
But I will say this--I started this day off thinking about how down in the dumps I have been for quite some time due to unmentionable forces in the universe at work against me lately. And I decided that perhaps the challenge I am facing is actually the universe telling me to change my old ways and respond to crises in a more positive, optimistic, "nothin' gets the best of me and everything just rolls right off my back" kind of way. So today I thought about how frickin' positive I was going to be. I was going to laugh off anything my boss said that was condescending. I was going to grin and bear it when the workload piled up on my desk. I was going to not cuss out the drivers who cut me off on my bike ride to and from work. All this I vowed at 7am this morning.
And you know what? I got through about half my day doing okay at it. Every time I felt the irritation rise up in me (because it does sometimes--like a slow, white-hot heat overcoming my entire core and up into my neck and shoulders), I would stop, think about how not worth it being annoyed was, then break out into a smile or look at something funny on the internet real quick to make me laugh. Then back to work I went. It was great. I was really doing it!
Then the thing that will go unnamed happened. Nothing big. Just something awkward in which perhaps I addressed something innocently and possibly accidentally dug myself into a wee hole. Reactions to this something by other somebodies were not the greatest and kind of made me feel bad. Then I just got angry. And scared. And generally upset that it even happened. And POOF! Positivity out the window.
I realized I had let myself get annoyed again. Drat! Quick, I thought, go back to your breath. That will help! (thanks acting classes. Thanks yoga. Thanks massage) I put my head between my legs at my cubicle and took some big deep inhales. That helped a little. I got through the rest of the day struggling between mildly upset and shaking it all off. I felt like Jekyll and Hyde. It was a little hairy for a while.
Finally, I jumped on my bike at last after a distracted departure from the office. I think I got all my work done I needed to? I will find out Monday I guess. I just needed out. I sped down the Chicago streets until my ears were numb and aching from the crisp autumn winds. All I wanted was home. I repeated to myself that I need to be positive and optimistic in the face of adversity, that that was my problem and why things had been so tough for me lately. I need to be a better person, I thought. No coming home and being a grouch. I would smile through it all! Yesssss! Of course! This is my lesson from the universe!
I got home. I threw open the door. I yelled out loud "I am positive! I am! SMILE!" and I made my face go into a big huge grin and ran around the house like a crazy person, telling myself more stuff in that same vein. I was mad with positivity.
Until I crashed and gave in and decided I needed a little more than positivity to get me through this day. I needed a shot of tequila for some reason. Even though I hate shots. I just figured that something warm and numbing would help the stress I was feeling, both from the day and from my forced happy reaction to it.
So I poured myself a shot, and I got a lime and salt ready, and I licked the salt, and I took the shot-----
and promptly my throat closed in agony at the taste of horrible cheap tequila, and I gagged and spit the entire shot into the sink. I got all the terrible parts of taking a shot without any of the benefits. Awesome. I sucked the lime like I was licking my wounds, disappointed in myself.
I am such a mess that I can't even take a stupid shot correctly?
No wonder the universe is mocking me.
**Might as well post a picture of something that helped me get through today.
But I will say this--I started this day off thinking about how down in the dumps I have been for quite some time due to unmentionable forces in the universe at work against me lately. And I decided that perhaps the challenge I am facing is actually the universe telling me to change my old ways and respond to crises in a more positive, optimistic, "nothin' gets the best of me and everything just rolls right off my back" kind of way. So today I thought about how frickin' positive I was going to be. I was going to laugh off anything my boss said that was condescending. I was going to grin and bear it when the workload piled up on my desk. I was going to not cuss out the drivers who cut me off on my bike ride to and from work. All this I vowed at 7am this morning.
And you know what? I got through about half my day doing okay at it. Every time I felt the irritation rise up in me (because it does sometimes--like a slow, white-hot heat overcoming my entire core and up into my neck and shoulders), I would stop, think about how not worth it being annoyed was, then break out into a smile or look at something funny on the internet real quick to make me laugh. Then back to work I went. It was great. I was really doing it!
Then the thing that will go unnamed happened. Nothing big. Just something awkward in which perhaps I addressed something innocently and possibly accidentally dug myself into a wee hole. Reactions to this something by other somebodies were not the greatest and kind of made me feel bad. Then I just got angry. And scared. And generally upset that it even happened. And POOF! Positivity out the window.
I realized I had let myself get annoyed again. Drat! Quick, I thought, go back to your breath. That will help! (thanks acting classes. Thanks yoga. Thanks massage) I put my head between my legs at my cubicle and took some big deep inhales. That helped a little. I got through the rest of the day struggling between mildly upset and shaking it all off. I felt like Jekyll and Hyde. It was a little hairy for a while.
Finally, I jumped on my bike at last after a distracted departure from the office. I think I got all my work done I needed to? I will find out Monday I guess. I just needed out. I sped down the Chicago streets until my ears were numb and aching from the crisp autumn winds. All I wanted was home. I repeated to myself that I need to be positive and optimistic in the face of adversity, that that was my problem and why things had been so tough for me lately. I need to be a better person, I thought. No coming home and being a grouch. I would smile through it all! Yesssss! Of course! This is my lesson from the universe!
I got home. I threw open the door. I yelled out loud "I am positive! I am! SMILE!" and I made my face go into a big huge grin and ran around the house like a crazy person, telling myself more stuff in that same vein. I was mad with positivity.
Until I crashed and gave in and decided I needed a little more than positivity to get me through this day. I needed a shot of tequila for some reason. Even though I hate shots. I just figured that something warm and numbing would help the stress I was feeling, both from the day and from my forced happy reaction to it.
So I poured myself a shot, and I got a lime and salt ready, and I licked the salt, and I took the shot-----
and promptly my throat closed in agony at the taste of horrible cheap tequila, and I gagged and spit the entire shot into the sink. I got all the terrible parts of taking a shot without any of the benefits. Awesome. I sucked the lime like I was licking my wounds, disappointed in myself.
I am such a mess that I can't even take a stupid shot correctly?
No wonder the universe is mocking me.
**Might as well post a picture of something that helped me get through today.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Ode to Cribbage
Oh happy card game!
Providing a challenge to my brain
And a test to my math skills!
Always the easy time-passer
Always the relaxing compliment
to any beer
and any conversation;
any sunny afternoon on a porch.
You are the secret strategy I finally get
after years of failures and lucky breaks.
There is nothing like the satisfaction
of a good peg
or a good skunk.
Old friend,
you treat us well, always...
even when the cards don't giveth
but instead taketh away.
Fifteen for two
and the rest can screw.
*If you don't know what Cribbage is, you can discover the wonder here and here. Get on it!
Providing a challenge to my brain
And a test to my math skills!
Always the easy time-passer
Always the relaxing compliment
to any beer
and any conversation;
any sunny afternoon on a porch.
You are the secret strategy I finally get
after years of failures and lucky breaks.
There is nothing like the satisfaction
of a good peg
or a good skunk.
Old friend,
you treat us well, always...
even when the cards don't giveth
but instead taketh away.
Fifteen for two
and the rest can screw.
*If you don't know what Cribbage is, you can discover the wonder here and here. Get on it!
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Open Letter to the Guy Scratching Himself Incessantly on the Train This Morning
Listen man. When you are stuck in the tiny compartment section at the front of the train car with three other people in close range of you, it is not cool to start sighing loudly and scratching your arms, head and balls rigorously. It actually makes us really uncomfortable, especially those of us who have been told in the past that "you can get scabies (or bedbugs, lice, crabs, etc) from anywhere, even from just sitting next to someone on the train who has it. It will jump from them to you and then you are stuck with it."
The guy sitting next to you was pretty grossed out, I think. I base this assumption on the looks he gave you every time you started squirming again in your seat and scratching at yourself. It sort of looked like he was smelling something awful and looking at something rotten at the same time. I think he was thinking the same thing I was--that suddenly I was very itchy too.
Based on your behavior--the sighing, the reaching into your pocket for your broken smartphone and putting the loose battery back in and tapping the screen with your thumb as if you had a nervous tic--I hoped perhaps you were just jonesing for a fix or something. Maybe the itching on your arms was in response to the drugs in your blood stream wearing off or something. But trust me, I scoured your body with my eyes for track marks to confirm this and saw nothing. A little dry skin problem, maybe. But no tracks. Thankfully no tiny red marks that are the telltale sign of scabies or bedbugs either. But that still leaves crabs and lice as a possible culprit. So no relief on that front for us stuck in the tiny compartment with you.
I guess we will never know what had you so spastic and itchy today. Unless of course we start feeling the same way in about 24 hours when the bugs have invaded our bodies and lives. Thanks in advance for the special gift you may or may not have given us all today. We're thrilled. Truly.
The guy sitting next to you was pretty grossed out, I think. I base this assumption on the looks he gave you every time you started squirming again in your seat and scratching at yourself. It sort of looked like he was smelling something awful and looking at something rotten at the same time. I think he was thinking the same thing I was--that suddenly I was very itchy too.
Based on your behavior--the sighing, the reaching into your pocket for your broken smartphone and putting the loose battery back in and tapping the screen with your thumb as if you had a nervous tic--I hoped perhaps you were just jonesing for a fix or something. Maybe the itching on your arms was in response to the drugs in your blood stream wearing off or something. But trust me, I scoured your body with my eyes for track marks to confirm this and saw nothing. A little dry skin problem, maybe. But no tracks. Thankfully no tiny red marks that are the telltale sign of scabies or bedbugs either. But that still leaves crabs and lice as a possible culprit. So no relief on that front for us stuck in the tiny compartment with you.
I guess we will never know what had you so spastic and itchy today. Unless of course we start feeling the same way in about 24 hours when the bugs have invaded our bodies and lives. Thanks in advance for the special gift you may or may not have given us all today. We're thrilled. Truly.
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