March 26, 2007
Monday night was slow, in terms of deliveries. There was a late spate which I was grateful for, but before that, I wound up taking a single down Sweet Air Road. It was hard to avoid noticing the accident at Sweet Air and Manor — someone lost control and dove headfirst into a telephone pole. It didn’t appear that anyone was hurt, but two police cars — lights flashing — were blocking northbound Manor Road and eastbound Sweet Air. An officer was directing traffic. No big deal, I got through, made my delivery, and came back the same way.
And here’s where it gets fun.
So, when you’re westbound on Sweet Air, you come over a hill just past Manor Knoll and have a long view ahead — at least three quarters of a mile, I’d guess. You can see the traffic light. You can see the guy in blue in the intersection, and even if you can’t, you can see the police car with flashing blue and red lights.
Anyways, so I’m making sure I’m doing the speed limit and as soon as I can see the officer holding his palm up to me, I stopped my car and waited for him to motion me through. The traffic light was green, but anyone who remembers their driving test knows that regardless of the signal, you obey a police officer’s instructions.
So I stopped.
The white pickup truck accelerating towards me, however, didn’t.
(more…)
I’m making progress through Enterprise’s third-season. Yesterday, I watched an episode entitled “Impulse.” The Enterprise is trying to locate a super-weapon being manufactured by a race called the Xindi in an unpredicatable region of space called the “Delphic Expanse.” That’s, in short, the plot of the entire third season. Anyway, so Enterprise is in this “Delphic Expanse”, known for its strange spacial anomalys, when they get a distress call from a Vulcan ship. A boarding party heads on over and, y’know, it’s essentially “Night of the Living Dead” in outerspace featuring crazed zombie Vulcans. I don’t know that the episode was all that great, but I’m surprised that, for a crew which relaxes once a week for a “movie night” during which old 20th century films are shown, Archer never orders “set phase pistols to kill, destroy their brains!”
I, also, wrote a (never-finished) Star Trek story about zombies. Not zombie Vulcans, though.
Spring Break can’t be over. I mean, it really really can’t be over. I don’t want it to be over. I want to hold onto it, kicking and screaming as I’m forced back into the draining work/school schedule I’ve subjected myself to for the last seven months. You know it has got to be bad when you work fifty hours in six days and find yourself thinking about how much free time you’ve had, and how you’re going to miss all that free time when classes resume.
For me, classes resume tomorrow. Technically, today is the last day of my Spring Break, even though I am spending all day working.
I’m already making plans for late May and early June. I’d like to take a few days off and make another trip to West Virginia for some rest and relaxation. I wish I could have gotten more rest in this past week, but the reality is that my school workload, my work workload, and the crush of bills and my worry about paying them is very wearing. Saturday was great — it was, really — in addition to the not-so-hot Beer, Bourbon and Barbeque, I met up with Jennetic in the afternoon and got to meet her sister, Drella, who is totally and completely awesome, and their friend L., who shares my road-rage (I’m not alone in wanting to drag people out of their cars and beat them senseless!!!)
Still, I’m dreading returning to school. Maybe it’s just this taste of freedom, or all the free time I’ve enjoyed. I certainly didn’t do anything productive — I didn’t clean my apartment like I said I would, I didn’t do my taxes, I barely did any laundry and I certainly didn’t clean my car out (or wash it).
For my night class tomorrow, I’m writing a short-story (it’s either that or an analytical paper). Anyway, I’ve got to write a “proposal” for the story, and the story I keep thinking I want to write — about a Marine who returns from Iraq and travels to his grandparents’ dead farm to find himself seems a little too derivitive of two stores we’ve read this semester: “Soldier’s Home” by Hemmingway and “Displaced Person” by Flannery O’Connor. I guess it’ll depend if I think of something else to write about today at work, otherwise, that’s what I’m going with.
I really wish I could get a second week of spring break. Please? Pretty please?
I didn’t even get down to Ocean City!
(Actually, I think it has probably been about four years since I’ve been to Ocean City).
Pest Control is one of those things that the food industry has a love/hate relationship with. I mean, in any food establishment, cleanliness is priority number one — even above selling food or making money. Ever been running a shift when the health lady (of guy) comes around, and you’ll know what I mean. Every restaraunt I’ve ever worked in has employed a pest control agency to come around once a week and do a little pest control.
Gary’s very strict about when he wants his pest control done.
Here’s when he doesn’t want it done: Friday at noon when the lobby is packed with customers.
And there you are, Mr. Pest Control, all zippered up in your stupid gray costume with your equipment and your pouches and bags hanging off of you, looking like some overmuscled half-wit junior ghostbuster, insisting that you be allowed to do your work, no doubt too fucking stupid to understand why Gary, why dear poor patient Gary, is so very insistent that you not do your job in front of his customers who, after viewing such a sight, might indeed be disinclined to order food on this particular day.
Hearing about the confrontation later, Gary explained that he was very close to escorting Mr. Pest Control into (the rapidly approaching front of) a bus. Zap, who witnessed the event, expressed his opinion that Mr. Pest Control would’ve put dear Gary into a trashcan and rolled him down the parking lot into the dumpster.
