Buscapade digressions, marinators, & rulebreakers; NSO; Latte Friday; & a pharmacist doctor…

~Friday~  It wasn’t overly hot this morning, but I still waited on the shady side of the street. In contrast to the one or two people that have been on in the past couple of weeks, the bus actually had 8-10 people on it already when I boarded.

Library Man was aboard, and since there wasn’t a newspaper or magazine in his hands, I just looked at the hair on his arms, and wondered what he was like in bed—what he did with the wife and how often, since there was a band of gold on his wedding ring finger. But I extremely digress…

The good news about the ride this morning was that the air-conditioning was going full blast. The bad news was that at a stop on Gorman, a woman took the seat behind me to whom I wanted to say, “Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?” So much for enjoying nice, cool, crisp air.

At the McKimmon Center stop, a man boarded with his head cocked against his shoulder to hold his phone to his ear as he deposited his fare. I had to restrain myself from pointing at this placard

as he not not only ignored bullet item number one, but he was then totally oblivious to the concept of “using one’s inside voice” once he took his seat and continued his phone conversation loud enough for everyone to hear every word from every seat on every bus in Wake county. Okay, that last “every clause” was hyperbole.


I participated in our IT organization’s part in New Student Orientation in the capacity of “back-up presenter” and “Vanna White” (a.k.a. slide presentation advancer) to my friend and colleague, Twanda. She’s a cool dude (who’s really a gal), and she’s the first presenter I’ve advanced the slides for who was using an iPad for her presentation.

It worked out well, as I could see the surface of the iPad and although I couldn’t read it, I could see enough of it to visually cue me as to which page she was on, and when she flicked her finger or thumb across the surface to advance her page on the iPad, I advanced the page on the desktop PC that was projecting the slides for the audience.

We took only a couple of questions from the parents after the presentation, as ours was the last presentation between them and lunch and driving back home to enjoy the last few weeks with their students before “shipping them off to college.”


After two quick edits for my officemate, Rhonda, I caught the Wolfline #9 Greek Village bus over to Mission Valley, where I joined Anna for a late lunch break and Latte Friday, and after a little while the birthday boy, Brad, arrived. His birthday is actually tomorrow.

Anna had brought homemade cheesecake cupcakes beautifully topped with a clump of blueberries held in place with apple jelly. She held a candle in the air, lit it, and then said to Brad, “Blow me,” and then added thoughtfully just as he’d take in a great big breath, “Make a wish, please.” We laughed pretty heartedly at that and all agreed it would be a good line to add just before receiving fellatio. Make a wish, please!


Jen was leaving the office just as I was rushing to catch the bus, and she said, “Come with me!” Thanks, my friend. On the ride home, we made plans to get together tomorrow at 1:00 to watch Glee at her place, from the beginning, starting with the pilot. Yay!

I ran by K-Mart to pick up my Nexium refill, which I’d called about earlier in the day because it had been so long since they called to tell me it was ready that I was sure they’d’ve taken back of the pick-up shelf by now. I was right, and they said they would refill it and have it waiting for me tonight.

When I got to the pharmacy window, I witnessed the pharmacist playing doctor, with which I’m a little uncomfortable. Not that it has anything to do with me.

A Hispanic man whose English wasn’t very good, was showing her a rash on his arms, which he said was also on his legs, and she was asking him what type of work he does. He either didn’t have the words at his disposal quickly enough or he was thinking about if he wanted to divulge that information, so she tried a different approach to find out what she wanted to know: “Are you working outside?”

He said, “I take junk and pile it somewhere else.”

Then she said, “So you’re outside, then. Are you near plants or trees more or do you see a lot of bugs?” I guess she was trying to determine if it was perhaps an allergic reaction to flora or if they were bug bites.

Between them, they settled on bug bites, and she came out of the door of the pharmacy and he followed her to what I think was the Benadryl and/or Lanacane type remedies.

The young girl left in the pharmacy running the register said to me, “Mr. Martin? Nexium, right?” which sort of startled me. I mean I only come there every 30 days for the stuff.


I lay down for a nap at 8:30, and woke up at about 10:00, about a half hour before my alarm was to go off. When I turned my phone back on, it wouldn’t connect to the Verizon Wireless network to access my e-mail and the Internet.

I stayed in tonight, and the service never did come back during the time I was awake before going back to bed for the night.

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