Who do I have to bribe to get some service?
So I’m off work again, today, waiting for the
cable technician to come out. It’s been an awful, stressful day. I feel almost as if I have this “
fuck up” field radiating around me, making everything I attempt to do today … well, making it fuck up.
Getting off work wasn’t as easy as I thought. An instructor is coming in today to teach our students how to use Final Cut Pro. Of course, the Assistant Director tried to talk me into staying.
“I have got to be home,” I explained.
She then tried to guilt me into staying, saying that the instructor may need my assistance, such as if there’s a computer problem. The message, of course, was that I am some kind of computer-fixing magician whose prescence is direly required for all-things electronic to work properly.
”What kind of computer problem could she have?” I asked.
An hour later, I received a call at my home from the instructor. Apparently, she couldn’t get the Mac’s audio to work. I walked her through checking to see if the speakers were connected to the Mac or plugged into an electrical outlet. It was – both checked out. So angrily, I threw down the phone, screamed “Shit shit shit!” and headed back to work. I blasted into the office, pushed past the instructor, and checked the Mac. Sure enough, the audio worked just fine.
“Huh,” she said. “It wasn’t working a few minutes ago.”
I’m telling you, I’m cursed. Seriously, I must be. Either that or the Assistant Director conspired with the instructor to pull me out of my house and possibly miss the technician (no, I am not paranoid).
I headed back home and checked with the property manager to see if a cable technician had come in yet. Nope, of course not. He assured me that he would call the cable company manager and make sure someone came out to take a look at my problem.
“If they’re not there by four, then come back here, and I’ll make sure they come,” he said.
It’s now 2:30 – I have an hour and a half to go.
Heading to McDonalds for lunch, I was accosted by a homeless man: “Hey can you help me out with a quarter?” he demanded.
It’s never just a quarter. Give them a quarter, and they demand a dollar. Give them a dollar, and they demand whatever else you have. I’m a liberal, I believe in the welfare state. Some days I feel generous, other days I feel like I pay enough taxes as it is.
“Sorry,” I said, “I can’t help you.”
“I bet you’re sorry,” he sneered at me.
“Acutally, I’m very sorry,” I said as fake-sincere as I could. To which he referred to me as a “motherfucker.”
It wasn’t me that initiated the conversation. Why is it that if you turn these guys down, they feel the need to insult you? I gave a handful of quarters to a guy in a wheelchair parked in front of a liquor store yesterday. He swore that he needed the money to take the Metro home to Greenbelt. I just smiled and gave him the money, to which he assured me he was grateful. If I hadn’t given him the money, would he have also called me a “motherfucker?”
In any event, I can just feel the “fuck up” field billowing around me, just waiting to screw my day up even more. Computer works? Not for long. Inflammatory bowel disease in remission? Nope. Have a job for 20 more months? Not bloody likely.
I just want to find the asshole that put this curse on and strike them with a counter curse.
(Or, I might just bribe the cable technician – if he even bothers to show up – and maybe get my cable fixed)