It was only a dream...

Reposted from 5/11/07

Dude. Stay back. Whatever this is just may be contagious.

I'm boring, see? I really am a pathetic boob of a geeky human being, I swear. I'm a single parent with a conservative job who lives in an uptight suburb and doesn't go out very often. I wear dorky tee-shirts to the grocery store, spill diet coke down the front of myself before big meetings, and have a tendency to fall down the stairs for no apparent reason several times a month. That's the level of excitement that I'm used to. Very rarely does anything truly noteworthy happen in my world.

I blog about pine needles taking over my house at Christmas time (because that's as interesting as it gets around here), for the love of all that is holy. You can laugh at my expense if you really want to. I'll totally understand.

But yesterday, I was somehow sucked into a swirling vortex of freakish events. It started off as a completely normal day, spending five desperate minutes swearing and searching for my car keys before work. Then, somehow, I drove through a warp in the space-time continuum between my house and the office. I have no idea how it got there, or why it chose yesterday. I will admit, I am still a bit bewildered. All I wanted to do was get some work done. It sounded so simple. But one by one, the dominoes fell. It was like an entire season of Seinfeld, mashed into one bizarro day.

When I got to the office, there were a dozen stale donuts sitting on my desk. I stopped eating donuts 40 pounds ago, but there they were, and no one would claim to know how they got there. I put them out in the hall, where nobody touched them all day. I think maybe they were poisoned, and someone is trying to kill me. I can't prove it, but it's a distinct possibility.

A few minutes later, while I was on the phone with a client, the one guy on my floor that I don't like came into my office (we'll call him Bob, for the sake of illustration). He's one of those misogynistic, egotistical fucktards that think that women belong barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, and not out in the real world doing MAN'S WORK. While I was on the phone, he tried to bully me into doing some ridiculous thing he thought was a good idea, and I did something I never, ever do. Even at work. I politely excused myself from the client conversation, hung up the phone, and I told Bob, very loudly, that he was behaving like an ass, and needed to keep his nose in his own department's business, and out of mine. I asked him to leave my office, and think about how he treats women for a while before he decides to come back.

I did this in front of six women that work for him. He stormed off in a huff, and they all hugged me. I felt like some perverted Moses, with a throng of slaves waiting to be led through the dessert. They all fell silent every time I walked by for the rest of the day. It was creepy.

I also planned two more out-of-state trips today. I now have four in June. Cleveland, St. Louis, Seattle, and northern Michigan, and the only one promising to be a bust is Cleveland. The others are going to be absolute parties, with fun people, plenty of alcohol, debauchery, and lots of giggling. When did I end up with that many friends? Where did they COME from??

Are any of them responsible for donut-gate?

Oh, and somehow, when working out the details on the Seattle trip, tentative plans were made to roll around naked in a pile of Kurt Cobain's flannel shirts before his crack whore widow sells them all.

Or something.

Then I did something evil on my lunch break. No, I'm not going to tell you what it was. But it was wrong. The good news is that I ended up finding a new shade of lip gloss while I was out. The bad news is that my assistant told me it makes me look like a cheap hooker. Cheap? pfffffft.

On the way home, I was stopped at a light. I had the radio on, and the windows down. The cabbie next to me stuck his head out of his window, yelled, "Nice car!" and then spit a huge green glob out against my passenger-side door and drove away.

huh?

The strangest thing, though, happened while I was waiting for A to get out of his guitar lesson tonight. A very sweet older gentleman that I know called me up, and told me about a few things I need to do in order to make an upcoming project come together. While we were talking, he asked me, "Hey, you're not married, or engaged, or anything, right?" He's really helping me out with this project, so I feel it only proper to be honest and humor him a bit. "No, I'm not. You know that!" I chuckled.

"Good," he said. "I'm on the way home from the Cubs game right now with my friend, ****. I told him he should take you out some time. Here, talk to him. I'm handing him the phone."

Oh. My. God. Instant, total bewilderment. I was dumbfounded. I couldn't think fast enough. My jaw fell open. I stammered. I hemmed and hawed, and somehow...

I ended up being set up on a blind date with a guy who I think said he works in public relations. Older gentleman promised to give **** my phone number, so we can make plans at our convenience. I will admit it here, with only a little bit of shame. I have never, in all of my life, been set up on a blind date. How do these things work? What if he's a troll? What if I spill coffee on myself, trip down the stairs, and end up completely humiliated?

And at 10:30 pm, my phone buzzed with a text message. "Nice chatting with you today...even if both of us were put on the spot. Heading out of town tomorrow for Mother's day...maybe we can catch up some time next week?"

Is there a 72-hour malaria going around that I can catch? Is there some way to politely decline without jeopardizing this project (which is really one of the most important things that has come up for me in years)? Am I going to have to get naked to make it all work out?

I think I want my boring back. I'm not sure I can manage to juggle all of this without my brain leaking slowly out of my ear.

If you walk by and see a gray puddle on my shoulder, please just funnel it back in where it came from. Nobody will know the difference, really.

Now I've been up since 4am, wondering what kind of odd shit can happen today. I can't help but wonder if I'll have to drive all of the way to work in reverse today just to get out of this vortex. Whatever you do, don't watch Chicago news today...it may not be pretty.