Pumped Up

A couple weeks ago, I stopped at a gas station to fill my car. As I stood at the pump watching my money slip away, I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the right and saw a large, muscular man barreling toward me. Just running full steam in my direction. 

I was about a second from crouching down defensively when he pulled up short at the trash can next to me. And that's when I realized: He wasn't running at me. He decided he needed to throw something away so desperately that he was willing to brave 5-degree Fahrenheit temperatures wearing nothing but a teeny tiny tank top and shorts. He slammed his garbage into the bin, whirled around, and dashed madly back to his car. 

Turns out enormous biceps and numerous tattoos (no matter how badass) do not protect against Mother Nature's icy wrath. Only coats do that. And common sense. 

Titanic Shoutdown

A movie theater is not your living room.

I'll never understand why this concept is so hard to grasp, but it seems incomprehensible to many moviegoers that 100 other people did not pay good money to hear a stranger's running commentary on whatever they're watching.

Now, if I'm at a theatre seeing a live play, I will not hesitate to shush a bitch. Because that's a costly, one-time experience where the actors on stage are also affected by rude patrons. And if you're sitting close to a talker, other people are counting on you to save their night from ruin.

A friend of mine takes this responsibility seriously, even at the movies. "You WILL NOT talk during this show!" she once preemptively commanded a group of rowdy teenage boys during the previews.

And she does it with flair. She once shut down a guy who was chronically thinking aloud by calling him a "gaping windbag."

But one of the funniest movie exchanges I can remember (aside from the time I heard a theater employee kick the broken projector and call it a "fucking slut"), was when I saw Titanic with my sister and her friend in high school.

This may or may not have been the time someone snuck a pizza-sized dessert cookie into the theater in the waistband of their pants. Who can say.

There had been several outbursts from a woman behind us during this film. But when the epic scene arrived where Kate Winslet is lying, cold and blueish, on the board in the ocean, the commentary kicked up a notch.

"Oh my god, do you think she's dead? She looks dead. Is Rose dead? Did she die?"

My sister's friend just snapped. She whirled around and yelled, "Of COURSE she's not dead, she's TELLING THE STORY! Now SHUT UP!"

It pays to follow the narrative. Sometimes it will even answer your questions before you need to ask them.

Delight in Delay

In honor of the many (possibly frustrated) Thanksgiving travelers, I share this story. 

Last spring, I took a trip to the Grand Canyon with my sister. We flew into Phoenix and then rented a car for the drive to the rim. 

After grabbing a shuttle from the airport, we found the lobby of our rental company absolutely overflowing with people. There was a "take a number" station at the entrance, and my small slip of paper said 52.

The number displayed on the digital sign above the clerk's counter was 11.

It was a disheartening gap, but luckily my sister and I share the same roll-with-it attitude about travel. We nabbed a couple seats and pulled out books and phones for the wait.

However, I soon found a much more entertaining way to pass the time. I started watching newcomers pull their own terrible numbers from the machine.

I honestly wish I had a video of all the reactions to those little tickets. They ranged from shock and disbelief to utter dismay and defeat to outright anger. One guy simply glanced up at the service counter sign, threw his number to the ground, and walked away.

Is it schadenfreude if you're in the same predicament? I don't know. But it was great. If I learned one thing, it's that it's physically impossible to hurl a 2-inch piece of paper downward with a force equal to the amount of anger a person is feeling.

An hour later we had our vehicle, and I had run the full gamut of human emotion with my fellow grumbling customers. And although none of them seemed to realize that we'd shared something special, I was truly thankful that everyone takes low-stakes bad news differently.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Apologies for the recent lack of posts. My mom has been hospitalized since the end of September.  But I'm jumping back online to share one of the few moments of levity I've experienced during the last two months.

I decided to stop for fast food on my way to the hospital one afternoon. I ordered a sandwich for me, a sandwich for my sister, and a chocolate shake for us to share.

When I pulled ahead to the window, the guy working the drive-thru took my money.

"Here's your food," he said, handing me a bag.

"And your chocolate shake," but he was holding nothing. He simply had his hand extended.

I just looked at him, confused. 

"Here's your chocolate shake," he said slyly, moving his hand up and down. And then the joke clicked. He was black, and he was offering me a shake.

Laughing together, we clasped hands in a hearty hello.  I didn't get a chance to tell him what it meant to have such a cheerful exchange right at that moment, or how many giggles the story brought to worried, exhausted friends and family. But kudos to the dude in Sioux Falls who served me ice cream in the cleverest way possible and brightened a small corner of my day.

A Streetcar Named Revenge

On my drive to work a couple weeks ago, I was stopped at a light. I watched a huge group of pedestrians amble across the street in front of me. When the signal turned green, there were still a few stragglers making their way through the crosswalk, so naturally I just waited.

The guy in the car next to me, however, jerked forward and literally gunned his engine, seemingly as a warning to the people blocking the street ahead.

The question I would have loved to ask him is this: What were you threatening to do, exactly? Run them down in cold blood? Because you realize that, even if they happened to be crossing against a light, it's still MURDER, right? Like, there are general traffic laws, and then there's deliberate vehicular homicide.

A friend of mine touched on this topic recently, albeit much less seriously. We were talking about his daughter's ne'er-do-well ex-husband, and I asked if he really hated the guy.

"Well, no. I don't hate him. I mean, he's a person."

I thought this a very considerate, measured, even magnanimous response. Then he added,

"But I could easily hit him with my car."

The Perks of Positivity

I went to the drive-thru window at a coffee shop a few days ago.

Guy on intercom: "Hi, can I start you off with [whatever they're currently promoting]?"

Me: "No, thank you."

Him: "Awesome. What can I get you?"

Me: "Just a medium mocha, please."

Him: "Awesome. Would you like any of our breakfast sandwiches?"

Me: "No, thank you."

Him: "Awesome. Do you have a rewards number?"

Me: "Nope."

Him: "Awesome. Please pull forward."

Like the song says, everything truly was awesome for this guy. I told him no three times, and he seemed thrilled. So I couldn't help wondering if that was his standard response in life, regardless of the news.

"You're being evicted."

"Awesome."

"Your girlfriend ran off with your brother."

"Awesome."

"Aliens just invaded and they're only enslaving baristas."

"Awesome."

I think I'll try to adjust my attitude in kind this week. It seems to be working out awesome for him.

The Finnish Line

The Olympics are finally over, which brings to mind a story of athleticism and glory from my high school days.

This naturally means that the story does not involve me.

A friend of mine went to the first day of cross-country practice, and he found himself jogging along next to the foreign exchange student from our class that year. He was on loan from a Nordic country and was a bit of an odd duck. I don't think it was just the language barrier, either. I think maybe his home country just wanted him off their hands for awhile.

Anyway, they were about halfway through that day's exercise, when the exchange student turned to my friend and said, "Is this all we do, is run?"

My friend replied, "Well, yeah. It's cross-country."

And without breaking his stride, the exchange student simply veered away and ran off the course, straight back to his host family's house and into cross-country quitters lore forever.

But I have to admire him. It wasn't what he thought it was, it wasn't what he wanted, so he made the immediate decision not to waste his time on it. 

So to the weird, decisive, and therefore kind of wonderful student who shall remain anonymous -- I salute you. You've inspired me to go swifter, higher, stronger in my delivery of straight-up "nope"s.

Cracking Up

A while back, I was on a real graham cracker kick. They just make such a great nighttime snack -- sweet and crunchy and oh so comforting. They're essentially cookies, which is why they go so great with milk, and for several weeks I indulged like a greedy child before bed.

One morning, I came out of my bedroom to find my plate and glass on the living room floor, which was covered with crumbs, as was my sofa. And I said out loud, "That's IT! No more graham crackers!"

But I said it with the same vehemence and disgust one would expect from someone finding heroin needles, or lines of coke, or empty bottles of gin, or sleepy hookers scattered about after a bender. The level of disappointment and newfound resolve was the same.

All I'm saying is this: Maybe just this week, we could try not to be so hard on ourselves. I know it's all relative, and everyone is fighting their own private battles, but let's try to keep our vices in perspective, shall we?

(A Pinterest intervention is probably inevitable, though.)