That’s never fun.
That pretty much set the tone for my day. I got up, deciding once again not to go for a walk, did my usual morning crap and put together a grocery list.
My journey out into the world took me past HQ, so I had opted to meet Kathleen for lunch.
We ate outside in a little patio area. At first it was nice, as the sun had gone behind some clouds, but then it came back out and was beating down on us, while simultaneously we were battered by wind that popped up out of nowhere.
Still, the scenery was nice, particularly in the form of the woman getting ready to go for a run on her lunch break. I especially liked watching her stretch.
Once we finished up with lunch I headed out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. From there I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to look for these cool little power strip I’ve seen in their fliers, but I wasn’t able to find it.
BB&B is in the same plaza as the Best Buy, so when I got there I reflexively parked by Best Buy, even though I hadn’t intended to go there, and it made me have to walk a fair distance to get to where I was actually going.
While I was at it, though, I figured I’d go into Best Buy anyway.
While I was there I found a bargain on an HDTV that I almost went for, but ultimately decided against it, as it’s my intention to hold off and buy some kind of flat-panel TV (this one was a CRT), though that’s going to take a lot of saving.
Once I was on my way home I realized that I was tired of being out in the world and that I didn’t really need most of the stuff on my grocery list.
Still, I figured I should pick up a few things, and because it was on the way of the route I was taking home, I decided to check out this relatively new shopping plaza that has at its center one of those pretentious, Yuppie grocery stores.
Before going in I wandered around outside to see what kind of useless, yuppie shops and restaurants they had in the plaza. There was a whole lot of nothing there, the kind of nothing designed for people with more money than sense.
As I walked to the end of the large strip I went around the corner to see if there was anything more, only to nearly collide with two people, a young black guy and an old white lady, who was licking her lips, and found that there wasn’t anything around the corner but the back of the building, replete with various loading docks.
Now it seemed to me, based on the fact that I saw other people smoking back there, that the two people I nearly bumped into, who worked for the Yuppie grocery store, were probably on their way back from a smoke break, but the fact that the old lady was licking her lips just conjured up all sorts of images, pretty much all of which were disgusting.
In any case, I finally went into the Yuppie grocery store, grabbed the few “must-haves” on my list, and walked up to the registers.
Apparently in some sort of effort to distinguish themselves from other grocery stores the people in charge of the stores opted to have the register lanes designed by total idiot.
The setup of the lanes, in part due to the fact that there are no conveyor belts, is such that you can’t really tell what line you’re standing in.
Basically, you have to push a cart up to the register, then move it around to the cashier’s side and then get back over onto your side.
I’ve created a diagram that illustrates how it works:
I can’t see how this offers any kind of advantage over a more conventional setup.
Once that was finally finished I made my way home and ended up taking a nap for a couple of hours.
And that was pretty much my day.
At work on Friday, as she often does, Jamie, who used to work with us before moving on to a job in a different department, stopped in to visit for a bit.
She was talking to Chris about some girl she knew. It was her intention to set Chris up with this girl, as she was single, even though Chris, to however ambiguous an extent, already has a girlfriend, because apparently Jamie doesn’t know any guy who is completely, desperately, and pathetically single and who doesn’t have a social or work life that is conducive to meeting people, and could therefore benefit from having friends set him up with someone.
I mean, who could she possibly know like that?
Okay, in fairness to Jamie it only makes sense that she would look to get Chris hooked up as her first priority in that regard, as she’s known him longer and is closer to him, as he does live in her basement, so it would only make sense that she would feel more in the way of an obligation to him.
Besides, from what Chris said after meeting her for drinks Friday night, it seems unlikely that the girl and I would have been a good match, though that I’m not a good match with anyone would pretty much seem to be a given. After all, it’s been scientifically proven that I’m totally incompatible with other human beings.
Still, it is just another example of how I’ve never been able to rely on friends to help me fill the romantic void in my life. No one ever seems to know any single women, and when they do it usually never occurs to them to try to hook me up, as they invariably have a long list of other single male friends to attend to first.
Either that or it just plain doesn’t occur to them.
While having lunch with Brian and Kathleen on Monday I asked Kathleen, “Why don’t you have any friends you can hook me up with? You’re surrounded by attractive women where you work. Just start networking a little, and when you make friends with single women who ask if you know any decent guys, you can lie and say that you do, then set them up with me.”
Years ago I used to launch into similar diatribes at my niece Jourdan. After all, she was generally involved in every conceivable activity: baseball, figure skating, and all kinds of other extracurricular activities. Yet despite that, none of her coaches or teachers were ever hot, single chicks. Ever.
Damn brat never did anything to help hook me up. Always too busy having fun to think about her uncle.
Of course, even when people did think about me, it never led to anything, and sometimes came as a blow to the ego.
Like my friend Rachel who used to say, “Too bad none of my friends from New York are here. They’ll sleep with anyone.”
Gee, thanks for thinking of me Rache.
The best example of not thinking of me and assaulting my ego happened years ago when I was living with my friend Eric and his then-wife Sally.
After getting off the phone with a single, female friend of hers, Sally turned to Eric, and in a spirit similar to the one in which I castigated Kathleen during lunch on Monday, said, “You need to get some good-looking friends!”
It took a while for her to figure out why I said, “Thanks Sally,” gave her the finger, and walked out of the room.
She apologized and said that she’d meant no offense, and that it never even occurred to her that I could be a potential date for her friend because she knew we wouldn’t be a match.
It was a nice save; in point of fact, I wouldn’t have been interested in being hooked up with an overweight, Crank-dealing single mother who just got out of jail.
Still, it was the sheer thoughtlessness that stung, as if she were completely oblivious not only to my presence in the room, but to my very existence.
These days my ego doesn’t really take any blows; they all pass over it as my ego dropped to the mat a long time ago.
Nor do I really get upset over “the principle of the thing.” Like most things in my life any perceived slight just ends up being material for Threshold.
Still, it would be nice to have people think of me, and maybe put forth a little effort on my behalf, every once in a while…
Ah well.
Thanks to my posters for the informative comments on zombies and the zombie lifestyle. It just goes to show that, as my mother often says, you won’t find things out if you don’t ask questions.
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