If You Want to Take Me up and Take Away my Innocence, I'm on my Knees, Baby Please, I Need Experience

So, I'm trying to figure out what to post. Because I should. My Archive is way too empty.

Oh, here we go:

Last Friday I had probably the worst day at work I have ever had. Basically, I no longer come to work at 6:30. We have a rental in the pool from 5:30 to 7am, so I just walk in at 5 minutes to 7 and start throwing down mad skills all over the deck.

Now, I was aware that there were various times during the year when this rental would not be in, and on those days I would need to come in at 6:30 and open the pool. So, being a responsible person, I asked for a copy of their monthly schedule so that I would know well in advance when I needed to be in early to work. I received one promptly, and I quickly perused it in 2 ways:

First, I glanced over the entire schedule.
(Tangent: The schedule was arranged in a Monday - Sunday pattern rather than a Sunday - Saturday pattern. People who schedule in this manner are usually tier-1 organizational nazi douchebags)
I noted that there were rental times written into every weekday of the month, as well as times on Sundays. Two times on each Sunday, actually, but that was the weekend and I would never be working it, so I wasn't really concerned.

Were I a less considerate person, I would have left it at that. However, wishing to make sure that I was absorbing the information correctly, I also glanced over the times for the upcoming week: Monday 5:30-7:00, Tuesday 5:30-7:00, Wednesday 5:30-7:00, Thursday 5:30-7:00, Friday 5:30-6:30. OK, I thought to myself, I won't see them on Friday, but at least they'll still be in. I should probably come at 10-to instead of 5-to on Friday just to double-check everything. And that was all I thought about it.

Until Friday morning.

But now, let me interject with a hypothetical scenario. Let's say that you and I are friends. Not much of a stretch, I hope. Let's say we're really good friends. Not that good. But good. Every day we get together for coffee at 5:30 after we're both done work. We have coffee on Monday until 6:30. We have coffee on Tuesday until 6:30. We have coffee on Wednesday and Thursday until 6:30. On Thursday night I say, "Well, friend, my schedule is sort of crowded on Friday. Do you mind if we go from 5:30 to 6:00?"

And being such a nice friend, you say, "Of course not. 5:30 to 6:00 it is!"

And we part ways. You go home, eat dinner, watch television, study, use the internets, etc. Eventually you tire of these conscious activities. You begin to feel sleepy. Very sleepy.

You go to your room, undress to your own personal level of comfort, and slip into bed.

You sleep.

You dream. In your dream, God unveils Himself to you and you stare in rapture. He tells you that you have a great part to play in the destiny of his chosen people, etc, etc, etc. Just as He begins to tell you your exact role, you hear a telephone ringing.

You wake up, and realize the telephone really is ringing. It's 5:45am.

I'm on the phone.

"Where are you? I'm here at the coffee shop! I can't believe you aren't even out of bed yet. Didn't we agree to meet here at 5:30?"

Back to reality:

I walked into work on Friday already feeling rushed. I had gotten up on time (literally thinking Thank God it's Friday), but then realized that I had forgotten to make a lunch, and that I'd told myself to show up early that morning to make sure things went well.

I didn't show up early. Lunch turned into somewhat more of a travail at 6:40 than expected, and I flew through the door at about 5 minutes to 7.

Suffice to say, there had apparently been some confusion regarding the specification between times in the ante meridiem and the post meridiem. This resulted in me walking into work, wise-cracking with the CEO of the organization I work for (Who was inexplicably running the reception desk at 6:56am), and sauntered down to the pool, expecting not to hear the rental in the water.

I did not hear them.

I walked up to the office, deposited my backpack, turned on the radio, and noticed something in the pool.

It was the vacuum. The vacuum that gets taken out every morning by whoever opens the pool. Ergo, the pool had not been opened.

Opening the pool is a half-hour process. I did it in 12 minutes, and only had to swear at my CEO once.
(Tangent: Or so I thought for most of the day. I could have sworn I phoned up to her and said "CEO, we're fucked", whereas, upon asking her sheepishly later in the day, I actually said "we're screwed", thus saving my job)

Now, that is a pretty normal run-of-of-the-mill anecdote in my life. But I just got so angry about it. I went back to the schedule to see if I could possibly have been in error. Nope, it still said 5:30-6:30. But wait. It's written on the lower half of the box in the calendar, rather than the top like Monday-Friday. Of course. Why didn't I immediately realize that a half-inch difference on the schedule translated into a 12-hour fucking difference between the value in that box and the value in the one beside it.

I began pacing the pool in circles. For those interested, I paced 21 times. I know this because every time I went around I wrote a tick on a piece of paper. I also know that every circuit I make around the pool is 64 meters. So it took me 1.3 kilometers of walking to calm down and check the schedule again. Remember that little digression about schedule nazis? Here's a picture of a schedule much like the one I was using. See if you can find where am and pm have been delineated, and see if it makes you want to firebomb the house of the person who wrote the schedule.

Nevermind that. Of course Blogger won't upload it in the size I made it in (There goes 10 minutes of my life that I'll never have again). And you actually might not be able to find it in the reduced image size.

Sooo.... the am pm designation was over on the far left side of every row. It was technically outside of the calendar. I totally missed it because of the way I'd scanned the schedule. To compound my frustration, my Boss came in, I bitched to her about my misfortune, and she was like "It was right there on the schedule, retard".

Here's a fitting end to this story: As I was writing this, my Gmail checker alerted me that I had a new message. It was from the Boss.

Subject: Thursday Sept. 20

Body: Can you teach Aquafit on Thursday morning?

Of course, Boss. Just as soon as you choke to death.

Forgot to put that last part in the reply, of course...

And now for a witty segue:

Speaking of choking to death, it's time for another chapter in the That Girl saga!

So, basically, I thought things were quits between that girl and I the last time I wrote about her. I probably wouldn't have written about her if I thought that there was anything there to salvage.

But I was apparently wrong. My first doubts were had on Wednesday night of last week. I came home from wings (Where I was saved from solitary mastication by Tha Bizz and a young gentleman from my place of employment) to find a phonecall on my callers list from that girl's place of employment. No one had answered the call and they caller had not left a message. Denial had an easy task convincing me that the call must have been from someone else for someone else, and I slept easily for the rest of the week, actually forgetting all about the call.

Wolfgang called me on Friday to tell me that he and Tingles were in town for a special event (Something they'd told me about a week or two earlier and which I had forgotten). They also told me that they'd already talked to that girl and we were all going to a local hole that night. Not the same hole we always go to, mind you. This was a different hole out by the highway. I was very much less than enthused and seriously considered asking them to uninvite her. However, that would have been an extremely childish move. Kind of like making plans with someone and then unceremoniously ditching them for some ugly dude, but I didn't go there. I said that I would do my best to remain civil.

I again made backup plans with Blake.

However, due to a combination of circumstances, Blake and I were unable to connect before I left for the hole, and I didn't know until I got to said hole that Tingles' phone was out of batteries. So, Blake may or may not be mad at me for ditching him. Although, it could also reasonably be argued that the reason I couldn't get in touch with him that night before I left my house was that he'd already gone to a party somewhere and couldn't hear his own phone ringing.

Anyway, we show up, get seated, and things go... really well. They start bumpy with a 15 minute lack of service and a somewhat clumsy apology from her about ditching me for that dude. Not that the dude was actually mentioned in the apology. But eventually things eased into normalcy. I also quickly grasped that the waiter was going to be visiting our table every 25 minutes, so when he brought the first round of drinks I ordered my second. I continued in that vein for 2 more drinks and then it was decided that we should go back to Tingles' place (does anyone else remember this pattern?). Then she bought my drinks! We got to Tingles', went to her basement, and started watching things on Youtube. And then Wolfgang and Tingles had to go to sleep and Wolfgang drove that girl and I home. Anti-climactic, I know. But such is life. I considered asking her to hang out at my house for a while and then getting her a cab, but I'm really glad I didn't. I walked into my house at 12:30 to find everyone in my family up and moving around, having apparently just finished some sort of movie marathon.

I went to bed, woke up early, and went to watch the long boats at 8.

Then I went home and napped.

I showered, ate, and went to the long boat party at Tingles' place, also being attended by that girl. Again, things seemed to be going really well. We all started drinking, we all ate the awesome food provided by Tingles' parents, and some dude at the party told us all this story about how he was nearly mauled to death by a house cat, complete with scars on his legs.

That girl and Tingles suggest that we all go down to the river. And really, who am I to argue? We begin to walk, the entendres begin to fly, and then a series of seemingly innocent entendres all in a row, precipitate a row between Wolfgang and Tingles. Well... It wasn't a row to begin with. They just stopped walking and began talking in whispers. That girl and I stood, wobbling slightly, a few meters down the sidewalk. Soon we realized that Wolfgang and Tingles weren't going anywhere. I urged patience and understanding. Eventually, that girl had to pee. Being just outside a large hotel, we walked past Wolfgang and Tingles towards the lobby to see if we could find a washroom. Tingles was crying. It was at this point that I wondered if we were ever going to reach the river.

We didn't. I don't need to get into the details of someone else's fight here. Suffice to say that no one felt good by the end and that it would likely have been a non-issue if everyone were sober.

So, skipping all the sensitive bits, our story continues. Wolfgang and Tingles are still duking it out, when that girl and I decide to cut and run. I give Wolfgang money to take a cab home in case things go really badly, and we jet back to the hotel. Why to the hotel? So she can use the ATM? Why did she need the ATM? To get money for the cab to her place she'd just called, and invited me to tag along in.

Finally, things were back on track.

The cab pulls up and we hop in. As we're leaving the hotel parking lot we look and can still see Wolfgang and Tingles in the same place we left them.

That girl asks, "So, what are you going to do?"

In my head, "Aside from see you naked? Probably take a pee and"

I assume she's asking what I'm going to do after we're done. "Call another cab, I guess."

"Oh... Well don't worry about it. We can work something out, you can stay at my place." And apparently I assumed correctly.

The cab keeps driving and we make small-talk. Now, I believe I mentioned that she lives out at the edge of town. Now, a few of my readers know another friend we have who lives near the edge of town. He lives with his mother and brother, and Blake used to live with them. Yeah, him. That girl lives 3 blocks farther from downtown than him. It was a lengthy cab-ride.

Anyway, the cabbie can't find the house. She tells him to pull over and we get out. It turns out we're only 3 houses down the road from her place. We walk in the back door, and she does not immediately jump me. I take off my coat, set it down. I begin untying my shoes. She still hasn't said anything. As I'm midway to untying the second shoe, she says,

"So, what do you want to do?"

I sense a trap. Is this a trick question of some kind? Does she want me to start talking dirty? I would have thought that that was what she was going for, but she asked it totally straight. As if we'd just stepped off the bus in some tourist trap.

I considered telling her that there were a number of things that I assume I'll be doing when a hot girl invites me back to her house. But that might paint me as a severe asshole and ruin any chance of getting laid that I still have.

A look of confusion crosses my face, and I say "Umm... Whatever, I guess". Which hopefully conveys the full range of options from face-painting to fellatio (which I suppose doesn't need to be that far from the first option...).

Wrong answer, apparently. Because the next thing she says is, "You should probably go. I can call you a cab if you want."

Yeah, I shit you not. Talk about anti-climax.

I tell her I don't need a cab as I just gave my cab money away to Wolfgang and my bike is at Tingles. I tell her to call me and I stride out the door.

I continue the striding until I'm far enough from her house that she can't see me, where I begin to shuffle and shrug my head down because it was fucking cold out there that night, and not just metaphorically. And also because I was wearing my bomber jacket and it doesn't really do up properly.

I shuffle the 4 blocks down her street until I come to a street that takes me directly through the east end of the city all the way back to the art gallery, which is only a block from the hotel where we'd left Wolfgang and Tingles (and only 2 blocks from Tingles' house where my bike was [Yeah, do your math. We got one block from Tingles' place before the argument began]). As I walked up the street I wondered idly if they'd resolved their issues yet. I hoped so, as I was burning to recount the tale of my latest exploit.

As I got closer, I was pretty sure I could see two people in the street, so I stepped up the walking pace. I got closer, and closer, and could see that it was definitely them. But then I got a few steps closer and realized that they were standing in the middle of the sidewalk yelling at each other. I figured I'd try and stay out of it, simply veering out about 10 feet onto the grass beside them and waving at them as I walked by. They didn't acknowledge me, and I kept on going.

I got to Tingles' place, grabbed my bike, and jetted. It was still quite cold.

To date, that girl has not called me.

And now, for the third part of this monstrous post: A review.

That's right, for your pleasure I'm going to review the greatest musical accomplishment of the last 45 millenia (FF Spellchecker wants me to put "milleniums". What a n00b).

Some of you may not know this, but the Beastie Boys dropped a new album a month or two ago. I didn't know it, so I'm going to assume that you didn't.

It's called The Mix-Up, and it kicks ass. This album more than makes up for the attack of mental instability that resulted in To the Five Boroughs. It follows in the tracks of one of their other albums: The In Sound From Way Out. For those of you with no culture, The In Sound was an album the Boys made purely of 3-piece instrumental music. The Mix-Up is more of the same, although Wikipedia informs me that there are plans to release a second version of the album with lyrics to many or all of the songs. In my humble opinion, that is a shitty idea.

You should buy this album.

Review concluded.

To conclude this post,

ONE MORE SLEEP UNTIL I GO TO SEE THE BEASTIE BOYS (and Nora) LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!