But this cold day in December, I was early. It was 8:45 and I was showered, clean-shaven, decked out in my biking gear and ready to head out the door with my lunch box in hand. Well… insulated lunch bag.
Maybe listening to Kanye in the morning made me shave faster. Maybe dreaming of Godzilla made my morning start with an extra dose of adrenaline. I don't know why or how it happened. I'm just stating the facts, ma'am.
Despite being early to work, I ended up being late anyway because I inadvertently punched my cactus.
Yes, I have a cactus. Its name is Big Daddy Macktus and it sits on my nightstand so I can see it every morning when I wake up. It reminds me of Texas even though I never saw a single cactus while growing up in Houston.
Yes, I punched it. I wasn't trying to, I swear. I placed my phone in front of the cactus for some reason, so when I went to grab it before leaving EARLY, I accidentally punched Big Daddy Mactus. Well, more like tapped it with my fist. I barely pushed it back a couple of inches. The damage he did to my fist was worse. My right hand swelled up a bit and I had to spend twenty-minutes removing the spines using Delma's red Tweezerman tweezers. (More companies should just add the suffix "-man" to the end of whatever products they sell. Toasterman. Ottomanman. Amoxicillinman.)
Also, did you know that cactus spines are actually cactus leaves? Or modified bud scales, but apparently that difference is inconsequential because bud leaves are pretty much modified leaves. At least according to this asshole.
Cactus leaves? More like cactus grieves. Because that's what it caused me. Grief. Also, lateness. Cactus lateness.
For the rest of the day, I also had to keep clenching and unclenching my fist because it kept going numb. It was like that time I got stung by a jellyfish and my foot wouldn't fit in my shoe anymore and I couldn't feel it and then I almost passed out when climbing the Mayan temples at Ek Balam.
I didn't pass out on my bike ride to work. But I did have to deal with snow.
Snow's over, guys. As in like, it used to be cool, but now I'm over it. It snowed all day today and the whole time I just kept thinking "UGH NOW I'M GOING TO SLIP AND FALL LIKE FIVE TIMES ON MY WAY TO TRADER JOE'S THANKS A LOT SNOW."
Snow sucks. It wasn't so bad the past few years because a) it wasn't snowing EVERY DAY OF WINTER and b) it never really dipped below zero and c) I didn't have anywhere to be so I could just curl up with Vicki and read Nancy Drew mysteries. I miss being unemployed.
There's just so much of it. And when people shovel their sidewalks, they only really shovel enough of it for one person to walk by so when two people meet, they gotta do that weird dance where they figure out who's going to let who pass. Except, most of the time, people are like "Fuck you, get out of my way" and body check me into a snow bank and I just lie there and pretend to make snow angels, but really I'm crying into my infinity scarf.
Snow gets into your shoes. Snow soaks your socks. Snow gives you athlete's foot.
Snow makes it impossible to bike. You know how at museums they have those exhibits that show you examples of materials with different viscosities? And you can turn a level or crank a wheel or something to see how it easy it is to move something with low viscosity, but then when you go to the high viscosity materials, you're all like "Damn, this is a work out!" Biking in the snow is like that. Except that also it's slippery so you can fall off your bike and roll into the lake and die of hypothermia like Jack from Titanic, except you know there was TOTALLY room on that door. Rose was just being selfish.
AND, I don't know if it's true, BUT I have a sneaking suspicion that SNOW is the reason I got SICK and had to use a PTO day last week. Come on, snow. Own up to it. Quit being an ass-snow.
Taking a Wednesday off was nice though. I slept in till noon and then played video games and then went back to sleep. I miss being unemployed.
The grass is always greener. When I don't have a job, I'm all like "UGH I WANT A JOB" but then when I have one I'm all like "UGH I JUST WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES ALL DAY EVERY DAY." When there's no snow, I'm all like "Aw, I miss snow, it's pretty" but then when there's snow I'm all like "HOW COME I DON'T OWN A FLAMETHROWER."
Just a few weeks ago, I never thought I could get tired of snow, but that was before I realized we still have like four months left of this shit. There's snow everywhere. There's snow on my balcony. Chicago is covered in snow.
At least it's not covered in modified bud scales though.
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