~Monday~ Today’s buscapade involved—what appeared to me as—unprovoked vitriol.
It was cold when I got on the bus, which to me is never a problem. I always prefer it to be too cold over being too hot. After several stops, the bus driver finally turned off the AC, not by any suggestion of anyone that I heard. To me, it appeared that she’d just realized how cold it was on the bus, and turned it off.
All of a sudden she was looking in her mirror and yelling, “I have to go by how most people are feeling. It’s cold in here. Aren’t y’all cold?” she seemed to ask the general ridership.
Then, just as suddenly as her outburst, the man one row behind me and on the other side of the bus (who was the young, thinner Marlon Brando guy with the canvass luggage piece that takes up two seats), yelled at her, “I didn’t say nothin'” as if her comment about having to do what pleased most people had been directed to him.
She yelled back something to the effect of, “I’m tired of you. Every week. You always have something to say or complain about.” At this point, I was still confused—and, honestly, I stayed that way—at why he responded with, “I didn’t say nothin’.”
He kept on, “You’re turning off the AC because you’re cold. Why don’t you just admit it? You should wear a jacket to work if your work environment is gonna be too cold for you.”
This nonsensical back-and-forth went, well, back-and-forth, for much longer than it needed to. I just kept my head down, reading my Kindle, although it was hard to concentrate on The Audacity of Hope with The Asininity of Hopelessness going on around me.
At work, I walked out into the hall at one point, and two of my co-workers (Jason and Nick) were there wearing the “same outfit” as me. I immediately made up this mylifeisaverage.com entry:
“I walked out into the hallway at work and came face-to-face with two co-workers who, like me, had both arbitrarily chose khaki shorts and a blue t-shirt to wear to work today. I felt like it was our first day at parochial school, and we were all wearing our uniforms.”
I had no meetings on my calendar today, but during lunchtime, a 1:30-2:30 department meeting was added by my manager, as she’s going to have to be out tomorrow morning, so we don’t be able to have our department meeting then.
Thanks to my friend, Joe, for pointing this one out. I have a google search field embedded in my toolbar, so I never go to their home page any more, which changes graphics on special occasions. Today’s looked like this—notice “Google” spelled out in the craters:
I clicked on the “Land on the Moon” link, and then watched the video that’s there. It was pretty interesting.
I had no idea that from Google Earth, you could select the “Moon” to see various mappings of it. Very cool. And I suppose I must have heard over the years that we’ve left artifacts on the moon, but I didn’t remember it, if I had. I think the notion of some other extraterrestrial visitors arriving to find our shit is very interesting.
I took care of a bunch of calendaring items today:
- Moved my July “Change air filter” entry from a day with another entry on it to a day without an entry on it, because it really is rather arbitrary when I change it, and truth be told, I don’t always change it on the scheduled day (“No one cares about your air filter.”)
- Added my Kindle due date (checked out from the NCSU library)
- Added my dinner with the Myers from yesterday (for posterity)
- Added my exterminator appointment, which I made today for this coming Friday
- Added drop-off and pick-up times for Joe’s rides to/from the airport over the next two weeks
- Added Drag Bingo on July 31st, as Robert got tickets for us today
- Added recurring monthly entries for our Manbites Dog (MBD) board of directors (BOD) meetings on the third Monday of the month
- Added recurring monthly entries for STC-Carolina chapter meetings on the third Thursday of the month
- Changed the Aug 17th MBD BOD meeting to Tuesday, Aug 18th, due to a conflict already
I am very calendar driven—mostly because I stay busy. As you can see here, July and August are pretty hooked up.