![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
There are a billion things to do and naturally, I don't want to do any of them plus March has been a crap month sales-wise at the store. Then yesterday the phone rings – "Good morning, Slow Burn!" It's too late to disguise my voice when the party at the other end turns out to Mr. G. Reaper, the Cannery Row Company's Veep in charge of leasing. So now I have to meet with him next week, which will involve gussying up in business drag plus figuring out what the fuck I want to do with the next three years of my life.
The only thing I really know about the next three years of my life is that I don't want to figure out what to do with them.
I have one of those out of body experience as I slide the phone back into its receiver: I am looking down at myself from a height of about 15 feet. This is disconcerting because the store ceiling itself is only about 10 feet high.
A woman waddles up to the counter clutching a bottle of Weapons of Ass Destruction. And who among President Bush's declining support base doesn't love this bold, decisive hot sauce?
"Wait a minute," the woman says, glaring at the counter. "There is not enough room on this counter for me to put down my purse."
Well, it's more like an elephant testicle than a purse, I'm thinking, struggling to keep the smile firmly implanted upon my lips.
"I'm disabled!" The woman continues. "There are rules about making stores accessible for disabled people."
Now, my idea of light reading runs more along the lines of Silence of the Lambs than the Americans With Disability Act but I am fairly confident the ADA makes no stipulations about counter space.
Too, I am fighting off temptation. "Fuck you, douche bag!" I want to squawk. "Oh, are you disabled too? So am I! I have Tourettes! We're sisters in disability! Fuck you, douche bag," and reach across the counter with a merry smile to shake her hand.
But I'm cool. I complete the transaction.
Except as she walks out of the store – six dollars and fifty cents of her money burning a hole in my cash register – I think, Wait a minute – I'm not so cool. In fact, I'm burning up!
Take my temperature: 102 degrees. A viral pneumonia relapse! Well, yes, I have been pushing myself, Dr. Feelgood, though it's nothing a lifetime prescription of Vicodin wouldn't cure. I just put out 500 pitch cards for the circus, updated their media website, updated my store website, processed 10 new purchase orders and receiving vouchers, did the ISM gala PowerPoint (thirty-three slides), did all the cutesy gift basket enclosures for the ISM Gala class baskets and browbeat my child into redoing his Science Fair poster yet a third time.
I'd like a vacation.
But you know, I can't take a vacation.
Though I can get sick.
Which is almost as good as a vacation because it means I get to lie in bed in this floaty, hallucinogenic state, drink orange juice, gobble Ibuprofen, and watch Good Night & Good Luck, A History of Violence and The Forty Year Old Virgin back to back.
I don't get why The Forty Year Old Virgin didn't make it to the Oscars, by the way. It was a much better movie than either Brokeback Mountain or Crash.
The only thing I really know about the next three years of my life is that I don't want to figure out what to do with them.
I have one of those out of body experience as I slide the phone back into its receiver: I am looking down at myself from a height of about 15 feet. This is disconcerting because the store ceiling itself is only about 10 feet high.
A woman waddles up to the counter clutching a bottle of Weapons of Ass Destruction. And who among President Bush's declining support base doesn't love this bold, decisive hot sauce?"Wait a minute," the woman says, glaring at the counter. "There is not enough room on this counter for me to put down my purse."
Well, it's more like an elephant testicle than a purse, I'm thinking, struggling to keep the smile firmly implanted upon my lips.
"I'm disabled!" The woman continues. "There are rules about making stores accessible for disabled people."
Now, my idea of light reading runs more along the lines of Silence of the Lambs than the Americans With Disability Act but I am fairly confident the ADA makes no stipulations about counter space.
Too, I am fighting off temptation. "Fuck you, douche bag!" I want to squawk. "Oh, are you disabled too? So am I! I have Tourettes! We're sisters in disability! Fuck you, douche bag," and reach across the counter with a merry smile to shake her hand.
But I'm cool. I complete the transaction.
Except as she walks out of the store – six dollars and fifty cents of her money burning a hole in my cash register – I think, Wait a minute – I'm not so cool. In fact, I'm burning up!
Take my temperature: 102 degrees. A viral pneumonia relapse! Well, yes, I have been pushing myself, Dr. Feelgood, though it's nothing a lifetime prescription of Vicodin wouldn't cure. I just put out 500 pitch cards for the circus, updated their media website, updated my store website, processed 10 new purchase orders and receiving vouchers, did the ISM gala PowerPoint (thirty-three slides), did all the cutesy gift basket enclosures for the ISM Gala class baskets and browbeat my child into redoing his Science Fair poster yet a third time.
I'd like a vacation.
But you know, I can't take a vacation.
Though I can get sick.
Which is almost as good as a vacation because it means I get to lie in bed in this floaty, hallucinogenic state, drink orange juice, gobble Ibuprofen, and watch Good Night & Good Luck, A History of Violence and The Forty Year Old Virgin back to back.
I don't get why The Forty Year Old Virgin didn't make it to the Oscars, by the way. It was a much better movie than either Brokeback Mountain or Crash.
