~Tuesday~ While I waited for the bus this morning, a college student walked by walking his dachshund, which had the most interesting coloring. It looked like this little guy, except all gray and black even on the paws.
What made it even more interesting to me, and made me audibly chuckle actually, was that the owner had on a pullover sweater in the exact same colors. It was like they’d coordinated their outfits to go out for a walk.
As I watched him walk toward the Frisbee park, there was someone walking towards us pulling a suitcase. “How odd,” I thought. “I guess he’s coming to the bus stop to go somewhere, since he’s all packed.” As he passed by the dog and its owner, the dachshund started barking at the suitcase as if it were another dog on a leash. That made me laugh again.
As the morning vagabond got closer to me, I noted that it was a very young kid, looking no more than sixteen, and it wasn’t a suitcase he was pulling behind him, but one of those backpacks on wheels. He passed me, and I assumed that he was walking farther down the street to the Wolfline bus, and I thought as he disappeared over an incline, “These kids look so young to me now; he’s probably 18.”
But, just as the bus pulled up to the intersection before turning toward my stop, I saw the backpack-rolling boy—on the other side of the road now—but coming back in my direction. Very Odd.
I entered the bus to the grating sounds of Diarrhea-of-the-Mouth: “I THOUGHT I HAD TO BE IN COURT ON THE 30TH. I COULD’VE GIVE HIM $800 MORE ON THE 1ST. $800 FOR A EFFICIENCY IS CRAZY ANYWAY. SCROOGE. AN EFFICIENCY! $800!!! HE A SCROOGE.”
Li’l Dino boarded and went to the back and it started up again, “I GOT TO GO TO COURT TODAY. HE CAN’T WAIT ‘TIL THE 30TH LIKE EVERY OTHER RESPECTABLE LANDLORD I’VE DEALT WITH. SCROOGE.” I got the distinct impression that she’d dealt with a lot of landlords, and they with her.
At the next stop two people got on the bus who kept us waiting nearly three minutes. That’s a long time at a stop. The first person had a dollar bill that was so wrinkled, crinkled, and otherwise worn out that it literally took her about 15 tries to get the fare machine to take it. Finally, the bus driver took it, did this severe “ironing” and “massaging” of it, and there was a collective sigh of relief from the bus when the fare machine subsequently took it. Moving out of the way, a “piggy-banker” moved up and started depositing what must have been 40 nickels. Look at the time! Tap. Tap. Tap. On. My. Watch.
Two people got on at My Three Sons‘ stop, but not the man himself. Again, his two sons and the little lady were at the stop with no daddy or baby in sight.
As we pulled away, Diarrhea-of-the-Mouth got on the phone, and I would say she started screaming, but she just continued to scream as that’s just how she talks. “HEY TONY. IT’S VICKI.” It was a little jarring to hear her real name like that. “WHAT HAVE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT ME? SOMEBODY BEEN TALKING ABOUT ME. YES, THEY USED TO CALL ME THE TACO BELL QUEEN.”
At that point I thought of Susan Powter: “Stop the insanity!”
As we approached the intersection of Gorman and Hillsborough, I saw the woman pushing the double stroller whom I talked about several months ago now. It was the day that earlier on the route that morning I’d seen an Asian man pushing an empty stroller, and then when I saw her later, on her morning jog pushing a double stroller, I looked inside it to see if maybe she had an Asian baby in one of the seats. But I digress…
The last thing I heard on the bus—which I think Li’l Dino said—was, “I saw Pocahontas the other day. They cut her hours.” My first thought was, “My god. A person with a built-in character name. She’ll be easy if she starts riding the bus.”
I had two work meetings today, one I made the other I didn’t. I made my morning department meeting, and didn’t make my afternoon meeting from 4:00-5:00, as I scheduled a doctor’s appointment this morning for 4:15 this afternoon. I’ve had this cough now for 3.5 weeks. Tired of it.
Doctor’s office visit—two interesting conversations:
- Upon arrival
- “Is that a new card?” she asked me after she’d already swiped my credit card charging me the $20 co-pay that was in the system.
- “I don’t think so,” I answered, handing her my BCBS State Health Plan insurance card.
- Looking at the card she said, “Oh, it has changed. The co-pay’s gone up to $25.”
- “Bastards!” I ejaculated under my breath.
- She looked at me incredulously, not saying anything for a second, and then said, “Ha!” and then “Exactly!” nodding her head, as if to say, “Hell yeah! Tell it brother!”
- She ran my credit card through again to charge the additional $5.00, and as it was finishing up she was looking at me with a smile and then said nodding her head up and down, “I like that.” She paused for a second and I thought she was looking at my Grammar Police t-shirt, but just before I said something about it she said, “I like it when people say exactly what they’re thinking. That’s great!” She was still tickled that I’d blurted out “Bastards!” in response to her pointing out my increased co-pay.
- Upon departure
- The customer in front of me was checking out and she said to the person (who was pregnant) checking her out, “Boy or girl?”
- “Boy,” the lady working behind the counter answered, and it was obvious to me even after that very short exchange that the pregnant lady didn’t want to engage the customer any more than that.
- “I can tell,” the customer said. The pregnant lady nodded her head as if to say, “I know you can, and I don’t care to hear how.”
- The customer looked past her to another lady working there who was behind the pregnant lady, and the customer directed her next statement to that lady, “She doesn’t want to hear how I know.” And with that, the customer said while turning around, “I know it’s a boy because…” and she pointed to her fat ass and said, “…because I had the same spread with my boy.”
- I thought, “Had?!?”
- As the customer closed the door upon leaving, I stepped up to the pregnant lady to check out, and I said to her, “For what it’s worth, her ass is way bigger than yours.”
- She smiled and said, “Oh, I’m used to her. She came in here when I wasn’t pregnant and asked me if I was, and when I said no—and I wasn’t!—she said, “Are you sure?”
I dropped off my Nexium prescription at the K-Mart pharmacy, along with “My Little Purple Card,” and went to the gym while it was being filled.
I did 60 minutes on the treadmill burning off 460 calories, while listening to a podcast episode of Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me!
Back at the pharmacy, the pharmacist said handing me my meds, “The co-pay was $55. Your card took off $30, so your total is $25.” Glad to only be paying $25, but remembering the ramifications of that “bargain” on the entire health care “system” that I learned about in that This American Life podcast I recently listened to, Someone Else’s Money, took some of the “joy” out of it.
I went to Trivia alone tonight and want to capture two things said by Mark K Mart:
- One of the trivia questions was (true or false): “Crickets have their ears on their legs.” To which Mary quipped, “When I was younger and more flexible, I used to have my legs on my ears. A lot.” It’s false by the way; crickets’ ears are not on their legs.
- During the break she told the audience that she’d just starting working at a consignment shop, out of drag as Randy of course, and that there’s this 60 or 70 year-old lady who works there who made the funniest comment. Shortly after Randy started, John Paul Womble (who co-hosts Drag Bingo with Mary K Mart) dropped in with his partner, and the lady asked Randy how he knew John Paul and his partner, to which Randy responded, “I know them from Drag Bingo.”
“Oh!” the lady exclaimed. “That reminds me! That Mary K Mart that does Drag Bingo is supposed to start working here pretty soon.”
“I am Mary K Mart!” Randy said.
To which the lady sighed wistfully, “Oh. I don’t know why I thought Mary K Mart was actually going to be working here.”
As an aside, an affirmation from Mary K Mart: She responded to my Facebook e-mail today letting me know that she’d seen my Trivia Drag Queen questions and she added, “Luv the questions!” She hopes to use them some time in the next couple of weeks.