A Stream Of Consciousness Fishing Pole Caught this Awesome Salmon!

I was peeing just now and I thought I should post something and in my head it was all listy and clever 10 things I learned about myself this week or a collection of blue items I own but now that I’m sitting back down on the couch I’m thinking maybe not.

We went to four (4) stores today to look at hardwood flooring. Five (5) if you include The Home Depot where mostly we ate our weight in burgers and poutine – not as bad as A&W’s poutine but not as good as the Elgin St. Diner’s. And drank Pepsicola. And marveled at the Bugaboo strollers. We were at the Home Depot in Vancouver, you see. The thing about big box stores is once you’re inside, you could be in Markham for all you know. So we assumed we were still in The Mizzle. I could not understand why there was so much fleh (meaning: hipstertrendo) at The Home Depot and then SA reminded me we were in Vancouver and very close to Yaletown and at the only Home Depot inside city limits thus people would make a point of going there so as not to have to go to the suburbs.

One time, a long time ago, I applied for a job at that very Home Depot, before it had opened. I had to walk there from the Main Street skytrain station, along Terminal Ave: a long, dusty walk. It was a hot summer day and I was wearing my only clean job-hunting pants. They were beige. And I was walking along, sweating and I tripped over something and fell on my ass. The pants got dirty. Then when I got inside I filled out an application and they made me write a surprise math test. Dirty fuckers.

That was the summer I instead got the job at The Mediterranean Grill down at Canada Place. I worked with several men named Mo and at least got free coffee. That job lasted one month. The music in the food fair at Canada Place was “St Elmo’s Fire” (the love theme) all day every day. All day every day. All day. Every day.

We laughed
until we had to cry
and we loved
until our last goodbye

Shopping for flooring is exhausting because you can’t do it online. You have to go and touch the wood and talk to people about it. And you have to pick from 3 pieces of wood after you’ve narrowed down that you want engineered, floating, ethical wood harvested by blue pixies for less then $10 a square foot including underlay. Oh here. We have a few splintery planks for you. Why don’t you just take them and get out of my store.

SA went to a store last week called Golden Trim.

Thankfully I did not have to go to that one because I would have dribbled my tears of laughter on the precious wood.

I realized this week – this was the start of the 10 things I learned about myself except I only really learned one – that I absolutely hate being told things in an imperative style.

Example conversation.

Me: Hello?
Girl on telephone: Yes I work in the office near you and you sent me back a package of paperwork the other day?
Me: Yes
Girl: There was an x-ray in the package
Me: OK
Girl: It’s not there now
Me: OK
Girl: You HAVE to find it!
Me: I didn’t take anything out of the package. I just got the document on top signed, put it back in the envelope and sent it back to you
Girl: It was here. Now it’s gone. YOU HAVE TO FIND IT.

No one likes being told what to do, I know that. I am not unique. But it actually makes my blood boil and my skin flush to be faced with a statement so absurd as “You lost X. You have to find it.” If I knew where it was, I would give it to you. If I don’t know where it is, I don’t have it. Thus: commanding me to give it back to you makes me not even want to call you back in half an hour and pretend I looked.

The implication that bothers me most about this sort of insistence, I think, is that I am either lying or incompetent.

My fuming (internal and ex) went like this: Do you think I am lying because I stole the x-ray? Why would I do that? Am I insane? Alternately, why are you assuming that I am lying? You don’t even know me. (if you knew me, you’d know that I only lie for very good reasons.) Or if you don’t think I am a liar you must think I am an idiot. Why are you assuming that I am an idiot? Don’t you think I would notice an x-ray sitting on my desk? I don’t work in a dentist’s or doctor’s office. I’m a goddamn admin assistant. I have no need for x-rays.

The next clue came in the form of another work phone call.

Me: Hello
Her: I need to talk to so-n-so. I am very Important.
Me: Oh dear, you just missed him. He started his vacation yesterday.
Her: I need to talk to him.
Me: Well, you can talk to X. Or Y. Or Z.
Her: I am Very Important? And I NEED to talk to so-n-so.
Me: …
Her: Hello?
Me: How can I help you?
Her: I NEED TO TALK TO

…you get the idea.

Yes, I felt like saying. Since you are obviously really truly in need of talking to him, let me get him out from under my desk where I hide him on Wednesdays. No, it’s not convenient for anyone but it’s what we do.

By the time I talked to number 3 fuckwit yesterday afternoon (three phone messages in one hour, the last one saying “You HAVE TO CALL ME BACK. It’s CRUCIAL.” followed by me calling her and getting a busy signal for 45 minutes) I had developed an emotional management technique that I have just named “singing myself down.” Much preferable to my old technique of shouting “motherfucking bitch what the hell do you want?” across the silent, office prairie.

“I am calling you back,” I sang jauntily as I dialed, “and you’re not there/I don’t know why / you said it was so crucial / I am calling you back / I want to care / but you are awful cru-el.”

“You’re still not there / mrs crucial-pants,” I continued a few minutes later, “I just don’t know what your problem is / if I was in such an all-fired hurry / I wouldn’t even take that urgent whizzzzzz.” (tremolo on whiz, natch)

“Well this is three / how can it be / I’ve dialed your number thricely / and if I get you / on the line / you’d best be behaving / nicely.”

See, by the end, I was really getting into it. The tune was great, too. I don’t know how to explain it to you. It was great. I am a musical improv genius.

Plus, it perfectly compliments my “be the craziest one around” strategy. Lesson: the woman in the corner who is currently performing “My Day: The Musical!” is best avoided.

Go watch some Christopher Guest-directed commercials. One and two. (that’s not an order, mind, just a suggestion). I think I am going to ask him to direct my life.