Peenie Wallie: Just Another Monday

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April 18, 2011

Just Another Monday

The alarm goes off at 4:00 a.m. and I'm moving. Tossing some things into a backpack and out the door. My neighbor is walking the dog. It is 4:20 a.m.

I drive to the airport and fly to San Diego. Not because I planned this. More because I missed my flight last night because, well, what is there to say? I forgot it. Didn't realize I was supposed to fly out Sunday night. So I rebooked it for a 6:20 a.m. flight through San Diego. You do what you can, right?

So I'm flying to San Diego for the same reasons I've flown through Phoenix three times this year. Just by accident, really.

So we land in San Diego and it's all May Grey and June Gloom. Beautiful, but cloudy of course. Always cloudy.

And I'm sitting waiting to board the flight to San Francisco and I realize I don't have a boarding pass. So I get them to print me another boarding pass, and we board.

The two behind me, a young woman and a young man...they board and get up in the last row of the plane. They're one row behind me. And she wants to put her laptop in the overhead bin. But he tells her that the overhead bin is for larger luggage and she should put it under the seat in front of her. The two of them must have been a couple, judging by her reaction.

She starts dog-cussing him for telling her where she can put her things. He calls her a high-maintenance bitch, saying she shouldn't be so overly concerned about her silly laptop.

She points out that he doesn't even own a laptop. He retorts that he owns one, only it's broken. And then, later, he thinks the better of it all and starts trying to smooth things over. He calls her "baby" and she's all like "I'm not your baby. Don't call me that. Who in the fvck are you to tell me where I can put my luggage anyway? How did you become the luggage police? How dare you?"

And he's trying to de-escalate the situation. So, he starts making observations. Trying to steer the conversation in a different direction. But he's speaking in a soft, almost feminine voice at this point. She's dominant at this point. It's all her. And she calls him out at every turn. At every opportunity. Establishing the pecking order over and over again and of course, I'm just in the row in front of them thinking how glad I am to be alone. Unfettered. I'll go to an early grave, clicking my heels that I'm single and don't have to tolerate a nagging bitch like the one behind me. I mean, I've got my headphones on and I'm getting her vitriol in spades. Nothing can impede this woman's tongue, apparently.

We're a little late because San Francisco is socked in with that grey-rain-drizzle that is the Pacific Northwest. Or the Pacific Coast, for that matter. And when it socks in San Francisco, the air traffic controllers want more space between the planes, so we fly these crazy circles over the Cargill Salt Flats at the south end of the bay and, well, if you've never seen the Cargill Salt Flats, they're just ponds of all crazy colors from red to green and yellow and blue. You name it. Insane.

So, where were we? Oh yes...flying to San Francisco via San Diego, looping crazy eight's across the San Francisco Bay, the San Mateo Bridge, etc. And now we touch down and it seems ok when we land. Looks dry, but I catch the shuttle to my bike, which I keep in covered parking at the FastTrack shuttle parking at SFO. Right? So I've always got one vehicle at the airport. A truck in Denver or a bike at SFO. And when we go on vacation, I have a bike at SFO and a truck at DEN and then we go somewhere else and rent a car. So this is where we are. It's an expensive game we play.

But I get on my bike and now it's raining, of course. I think I'll trade in the bike for a freaking submarine. So, I put on my "Dry Ducks", because I've figured that much out. I have raingear, anyway. So I put on my Dry Ducks and head into work. Nothing gets wet but my Walmart shoes and they're in bad shape anyway. They smell like a possum rotting in the sun. The top is worn off the left one from shifting. And they leak. Bad.

And I have an extra helmet because I borrowed Carol's helmet last week because I left my helmet in Colorado, so now I have two helmets, mine and her's. And I'm heading north on the US101 with a camera hanging around my neck but under my Dry Ducks and I just can't tell you how dangerous this road feels, but it feels bad. And it's raining. And I'm driving in the rain with a backpack and a 2nd helmet balanced precariously on the gas tank and a camera twisted around my neck and my helmet visor is all fogged up.

But somehow, I make it into work. I always do, don't I? Somehow?

So I get into work and walk across the street for lunch and there's a pair of socks hanging in a tree. A pair of socks. Folded together. In a tree. In the rain. San Francisco is a weird city, but this is weird, even for San Francisco.

So I get some food and haul it back across the street to this odd little brick building where I come and sit and wonder what it is that they want me for. This baffles me to no end. That people want me to be in the room with them. Only I sit and open my laptop and just I don't know what to do. I pretend to take notes, but of course I have no idea what's going on. So mostly I just nod a lot. I furrow my brown and make my eyes dart back and forth. That makes them think your're deep in thought, when really you're just wondering if it would be rude to leave and get another diet coke.

So, I'm sitting there at my desk, trying to imagine what it is that I'm supposed to be doing when suddenly there's a loud pop. Sounds like a fat person on the floor above us is about to fall through the ceiling and someone says "earthquake?" and there it is.

Like, great. I flew all this way. Survived the US101 in the rain, only to get killed by an earthquake. The problem with an earthquake is that now, we can look back and say "Oh, it was only a 3.8 and this is nothing to talk about." And this is true. I don't dispute that it was a small earthquake. I've been through a 5.0 and a 3.8 was trivial, by comparison. But, at the time, you don't know if this is the beginning or the end. You don't know if it's going to be a Japanese-style 9.0 or not. And, of course, that thought is out there. When someone says "Earthquake", no one knows if it's about to get better or worse.

So, I survive my 2nd earthquake and now, somehow, it's tax time. So this time, I decide that I'll do my taxes myself instead of paying some nimrod thousands of dollars to figure it out. So, I just sit down and start filling out the forms as best I can. The 1040 and the Schedule A and all of this stuff. I file tax returns in 3 different states. I'm just swinging for the fences and finally, about 8:00 p.m. I decide that I'll go drop them into the mail. They're probably not perfect, but they're close enough and I'm proud of them, the way a child is proud of their little stick-figure-drawings. And I get on my bike and drive down to the post office in the rain. The one that's open till midnight, of course.

And it's raining and I pull up to the place and they're standing out by the road, taking tax returns from people as they drive by in the street. Crazy. And only then does it dawn on me that I don't have any stamps. No stamps. And the post office closes at 8:30 p.m. They'll accept mail all night, but they quit selling stamps at 8:30 p.m. And I don't have any stamps, as I believe I've mentioned before.

So, I pull up in the rain and offer them...these people standing on the sidewalks in the rain...i offer them my mail and they're like...no...you have to have stamps. Go into the post office before they close.

So I pull my bike up on the sidewalk in the rain to buy stamps but there are 2 uniformed police turning people away. Close to a riot here. LIke...wtf? Sell my some stamps you commie?!!!

But these two jewish guys come up and their letters are stamped and I ask them...dude...do y'all have stamps? Will you sell me some?

Yeah. Sure. NO problem. So I follow them in the rain to their car. Standing in the rain. Bike back at the P.O. I don't know how much stamps are. I offer them 3 dollars for three stamps, but they just wave me off. I figure they were jewish because the stamps were menorah stamps. But these guys were as cool as anyone you'd ever meet and they wouldn't even take my money.

So now, I drive my bike back down the sidewalk in the rain, the wrong way, against traffic, if that makes any sense...I'm on the sidewalk after all. No plates, of course. And now come the news crews. Suddenly, I'm being filmed...this lunatic driving an enduro down the sidewalk in the rain at 8:40 p.m. at night on April 18th. I hand the sidewalk mail collectors several soggy envelopes with my state and federal returns in them. Addresses fading in the rain. News crew filming the whole miserable scene.

Will I be on TV? I ask.

"Channel 14 at 11" he says, and I wonder. Why is my life like this. Where did I go wrong?