Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Same Ol' Say Mole

A miserable day spent wrestling with a problem at work while the weather gradually turned foul.

A commute that went well for 20 minutes until Jamaica, at which point two Spanish ladies sat opposite to me and a computer consultant sat in the next bay. Thence began the cell phoning. Spanish #1 lady yapped until Bethpage (35 minutes) then passed the phone to lady #2 so she could have a turn until Farmingdale when they got off thank Azathoth, but the prize had to be the foghorn-leghorn consultant who sat down and began howling into his phone to someone about powering down the server and then powering it back up and didn't stop until Wyandanch (40 minutes or so). Indeed, he only hung up when he had to get off the train at my stop. What the hell did we do before cell phones were invented? How on earth did civilization endure? Well, I managed to read part of my book, in the pauses these two major subscribers drew breath probably since the stream of quickfire spanish and the yelled instructions regarding toggle switches were a tad distracting to the process. I reckon if you tell someone to turn a device off and they don't get it you should just give up, go back and do it yourself.

Got home in fog and rain, and walked the 1/4 mile to my car (now in the overflow car park since all the rich lawyers are back at work and filling up my regular spot with their osamamobiles), picked up the Stevieling engaged her in homework gear, dismantled the rest of the vanity, dumped it outside, drained the toilet tank, washed and did a bit of work on my home computer and then it was 12:30 am. Magic. Day well spent.

Or not. Mrs Stevie just called to ask if I had written "my letter". Apparently, one of the Stevielings teachers had this "cute" idea that each parent write their kid a letter covering four bullet points like What we felt like when she was born (and I bet her mother doesn't write "split from belly button to anus" for that), what our aspirations for her are and so forth. I pointed out that I didn't have the crib sheet and therefore couldn't be expected to get the assignment done. Mrs Stevie snarled that she thought that I was typing it last night. I told her that no, in fact I was doing other important stuff. There was a pause while she swigged from what was undoubtedly a Double-Double Espresso Muchas Grande and opined that I should have picked up the assignment sheet she left for me that morning (why would she leave it for me if she thought I'd already done the bloody thing? No man can say). I pointed out that if she wanted me to get the paper, she needed to give it to me since the process of crap siltage in our house is a constant one rather like that seen raining down on the Titanic 24x7 only worse. The paper was undoubtedly buried ten seconds after she put it down under other things before I left the shower. Stupid Japanese-American back-to-front comic books, text books, bits of paper moved to find any of same on the coffee table (which is actually an elevated crap support platform whose sole purpose seems to be to make sure there is plenty of room for about fifteen pairs of shoes under it without the need to put "shoes" on top of "crap" or "crap" on top of "shoes"). All these have a way of moving over stuff I have placed in clear view so I don't forget them when I leave the house (my car keys, wallet, train ticket and cell phone are usually lost within seconds if I put them on any surface that the others can see for example).What a way to start the day. Oh well.

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