Month: July 2004

A random Deep Thought for the day:

Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someones neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh, because WHAT IS THAT THING?

Argh. Had a rough night last night. I was at a friend’s birthday party and I could tell I was tired because the party kept going out of focus for me. I’d come to and realize that people were directly addressing me. I was so out of it. Can’t tell what it was; combination of a hangover, the heat and failing my run? I only had two beers which normally wouldn’t be enough to knock me out but, then, since losing all that weight I’m a pushover. Honestly, though, I felt spacy even before I started drinking.

At any rate, when I went home I came through downtown and stopped at my office. The building is secure but I have a keycode to get in. I signed in at the security desk even though there wasn’t a security guard present. I wanted to use some software I have at work to map out some routes for running. I was there for less than a half-hour. Swapped some text messages with a friend who was bored and actually working late that Saturday night. Finished up what I needed to do and went back down to the lobby.

And nearly broke the glass doors trying to get out. There’s a sensor that is supposed to unlock the door for people leaving. I tried the door several times but all the door would do is clank menacingly. It felt physically locked, which was more than annoying. I couldn’t fathom it. Why was it locked? Was it just stuck? If it was, I still couldn’t unstick it. I tried the big red “Open Door” button in the vestibule but the door still wouldn’t open. No alarm went off, though.

I considered looking for the security guard but wasn’t sure there even was one. It was nearly 11:30 PM on a Saturday night. I’d stopped by my office on a weekend before but never this late, so I didn’t know if this was normal. Tired as I was, all I could think about was sleep now. I decided to go upstairs and wait a bit, then come down again and see if a guard showed up. Maybe he was on a break?

When I got back to my desk I must have nodded off. I woke up around 3:40 AM, my contacts dried into little plastic slivers in my eyes, back cramped from slumping over in my chair, mouth tasting like something scraped off my sandals, legs and arms cold from the air conditioning.

Once I got downstairs, I looked at the sign-in sheet. There were at least two other people in the building other than me. Maybe I could find them if I can’t get out? I tried the door and it still felt locked. Fuck! I was so mad. I considered calling someone to come down and trying to enter my keycode in the door, but I couldn’t think of anyone who would answer the phone at 4 AM in the morning. I got so pissed I pushed the door again, hard, my discomfort and pain turning to anger. Voila! The door unstuck and opened. Dammit! Was it just stuck this whole time? Or had someone unlocked it since I was last down here?

I’ll never know.

One more choice to make: expensive taxi ride home? waiting three-plus hours for bus service to resume? or a two hour walk? Being in good physical shape and cheap, I opted for the walk. Dawn was breaking before I reached my neighborhood. I wandered past an encampment of homeless folk, startled at least two huge raccoons and was passed by a cheery morning bicyclist. Heard probably every crow in the inner south east cawing at the sunrise. Wandered in and out of consciousness as I zone out on the walk home. Did a lot of thinking and made notes that I can’t decipher now… all in all an interesting morning.

When I got home I fell in the general direction of my bed and didn’t wake up until after 11 AM. Which means I missed a late-morning date for coffee This posting is my public apology to her. I hate flaking out, even when it’s me that’s doing it.

I walked into one of the county offices where I work, and the receptionist, a lady I’ll call “C”, was slumped at her desk behind the bullet-proof window where she works with the fine clientele she deals with every day. She looked like she’d had a long day already, and it was only 10 AM or thereabouts.

I asked her what was up, and she laughed tiredly and said, “A client came in and claimed to be Jesus Christ.”

I started laughing. “That’s pretty funny,” I said.

She smiled a bit and said, “I just kept asking him to tell me his real name, and he just kept insisting it was ‘Jesus Christ.'”

“Maybe it’s pronounced ‘HAY-soos!‘” I suggested, and laughed harder.

She laughed with me, but after a minute she drew in enough breath to continue the story. “So I had to look him up in the computer. Guess what I found? There were two ‘Jesus Christs” in there!”

Tears came to my eyes. “Two of them!”

I couldn’t stop laughing now. I had to sit down in a vacant chair. “You should have asked him what his middle initial was! My dad always insisted it was ‘Jesus H. Christ!'”

C turned to the computer, the search screen still up. “No middle initial listed.” She continued, “Yeah, so I had to figure out which one he was…” I knew where she was going.

When there’s multiple names in the database, the next question the fine county folk ask is the person’s birthday. To narrow down which one is which.

“So…” I prompted her.

‘C’ smiled even wider. “So I asked him. And, of course, it was December 25th.”

There’s a weird security lady in the building where I work. I used to think of her as just bitchy; the first interaction I ever had with her, I was bringing a computer and monitor into the building, and she lectured me about using the “normal” elevators instead of the freight elevators. She’s usually very deadpan. Remember Cloris Leachman from “Young Frankenstein”? Like her but on Xanax.

Anyway, my buddy Ken thinks she’s crazy… and creepy. And he interprets everything she says in that light now. He takes every opportunity to point out how crazy she is. Yesterday, Ken and I were both coming in at the same time as these two guys in coveralls. We must have looked curious, because Creepy Security Lady (CSL) mentioned to us that those two worked in the building. As we get on the elevator, I say something smartass like “Yeah, I try to do that sometimes, too.” And she starts laughing.

She continues to laugh, while standing in front of the doors, as the elevator closes. It’s hard to describe in print, but it was creepy the way she continued to laugh. It gave the impression that she would still be laughing if we went down there again.

This is all setup. Today Ken goes down to get his breakfast (they make yummy and cheap breakfast burritos across the street at Cafe 400) and when he came back, he said CSL stopped him and pointed to his bag. “Getting some breakfast?”

“Uh, yeah.” Ken said he scooted around her to get into the elevator. “I try to eat it every morning.”

Deadpan, she replied, “It’s the most important meal of the day” as the elevator doors closed on Ken.

When Ken told me the story, I cracked up. There was more, but I made him go back and say that line multiple times, and it took him quite a while before he could repeat it with the poker face of CSL again without laughing himself.

Hoo-boy. Still gets me. It’s especially funny out of context.

Mmm… Honey Dijon Kettle Chips.

Today’s catchphrase (delivered deadpan, with a poker face):

“It’s the most important meal of the day.”