I really need to get a job. I’m a very much homebody who will go weeks without leaving my apartment if given the opportunity. Yesterday I admitted to Dawg that I had intended to mail a letter since last week but haven’t felt like leaving our home and his response was to smile and say “ya gotta go out.” So I drank all my milk last night to force myself to have to leave the apartment to go to the grocery store to get milk the next day so that I would have some for filming Cereal Wednesday, and presumably allow me to mail my letter. That worked — I went out today.
Some of you know that during the outing I had an incident with a bottle of malt vinegar. It didn’t survive, but I didn’t cut myself cleaning up the shards that spilled all over the driveway of the next door neighbor. I started getting really, really angry. Angry that it was hot. Angry that I had intended to get that malt vinegar many times before and finally got it only to smash it on the ground. Angry that my groceries were so heavy. Angry that I hate leaving my home and this is EXACTLY WHY.
And then I finally got inside and violently shrugged all the grocery bags out of my hands and started putting groceries away, angrily, furious with myself that I STILL hadn’t mailed my letter yet and now THIS happens, and then the Dove ice cream bars wouldn’t sit correctly on top of the Mystic pizza boxes in the freezer and I started getting PISSED and ramming the boxes in… and then the rational part of me showed up and yelled at me, out loud: “Stef, you need to CALM DOWN, this is NOT worth being angry over, and none of this even MATTERS.”
And then I really had to go mail the letter because it’s actually due to be in Connecticut by tomorrow, not that this will even happen, but keeping it in my possession wasn’t going to get it there any faster. So I went back downstairs to mail the letter. And I walked by a burnt out car parked the wrong way on the one way street where our police precinct resides. And I thought that through. This car burned out. Perhaps starting while people were in it. Hopefully not finishing with people in it. The wheels were still fine but the car had fallen down on itself, perhaps because the axle broke or melted or, I dunno, but it wasn’t good, and all the glass was broken, and I could smell the char as I walked by, and I thought, “hmm, I wonder how that car got parked the wrong way and then burned down” and then I mailed my letter. As I walked back through I let my grown-up mind take over and realized the car burned somewhere else, probably in a parking lot or on the side of a road or on a bridge (why do SO MANY cars here catch fire while they’re on a bridge? I don’t know, but it’s true) and then it was extinguished and the car was brought to my neighborhood because someone in my neighborhood owns that car so a tow truck parked it in the one spot it found, and since the tow truck would be travelling with the one-way traffic it put the burned out car, which was loaded onto the tow truck backwards in the first place, right?, onto the street so that an insurance adjuster and a police officer and the owner could evaluate it and the rest of us could wonder under what circumstances that car caught fire.
And suddenly my bad day just doesn’t seem so bad.
Please go read this post, it helps us put our bad stuff into perspective. My favorite line: “Everything is actually only around 8% as terrible as you think it is. Quote me.”
1)Look, I’m here, I’m reading. So, we’re still friends! HA.HA.
2) I have never, in my entire life, seen a burned out car much less thought about how it got that way.
3)And this is why I will ALWAYS read your blog.
4) Love you.
Great post. Very true… don’t sweat the small stuff.
Yay for a little perspective.
I think you are probably just generally frustrated, so you got irritated at things that wouldn’t normally bother you. It happens. You’re under a lot of stress looking for a job – whether you realize it or not.
xo
But you DID go out and get what you needed (and got what you needed to get done), so yay!!
I could totally be a hermit, too. In fact, now I have to go to the grocery and drop off Z’s lunch since she forgot it this morning, and I’m all whiney about it.
What do you use malt vinegar for?
Sybil, the English heritage in me likes to use it on potato products. Also, I mixed it with mayonnaise at the Belgian cafe during BlogHer because BE Earl said that’s what the Belgians do (no Belgian ever did that while I was in Belgium, but whatever
and it was amaaaaaaaaaaazing on fries.
Might go good on salad too. I do enjoy putting vinegar (no oil) on my salads.
See, you just needed to get thinky thinks going before you felt better. (I could hermit myself, too. I prefer it that way. No one disappoints you or hurts you that way. But I digress…) See, I got all thinky right there.
Anywho…I use olive oil and tarragon vinegar on my salad. It’s amaaaazing. And we do a cuke salad (cukes, oil, tarragon, tarragon vinegar, and rosemary – toss in a slivered onion and some gaaaahlic, and tomatoes if you’re not allergic (like me – because calling 911 wouldn’t be a fun Friday activity). In fact, I think I’m gonna make me some cuke salad today.
See, now you got me all thinky. Hrmph. ;D
i love it when a little dose of perspective is thrown my way. thank you, life.
and – thanks for the link to filleosphy – what a great blog.
I love how even though you’re all spastic, you’re totally able to keep yourself in check.
I think I’m going to use your voice as my “get a grip” voice because when I try to make myself get all rational, I tend to want to punch myself in the face but when *you* say it, it makes sense.
Besides, I could never want to punch you.
I saw a burned out car in East Saint Louis when I was in law school. It’s creepy!
Ritz, Klondike Bars, and Pizza? Sounds like an awesome dinner!
My store didn’t have any exciting Klondike bars, so I also got Dove dark chocolate covered ice cream bars. Amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. The trick with those: Bite into them. Don’t just lick the chocolate off. The most amazing flavor combo enters your mouth when you introduce the vanilla ice cream to the dark chocolate on your tongue.
And we always get Mystic pizzas because it makes me think of the movie.
That’s a great line.
If it matters, I would totally hole up with you for a few days and eat brownies.
Malt vinegar is for fish and chips, along with lots and lots of tartar sauce.
Really hoping a good IT opportunity comes your way soon. As a fellow IT person who spent time not employed, I know what you are going through. I ended up doing a lot of side work, but even that wasn’t the easiest to manage – especially when it didn’t cover all things financial.
Marty, the malt vinegar I got first was Heinz, but the second bottle I got specifically says “fish and chips” on it. I don’t eat fish so I don’t talk about it.