I almost killed someone at work the other day.
It's been REALLY hard getting back to work. I mean, I took two and a half months off, and to be working 40-50 hours a week at a brand new job, with stuff I've never handled before and clientele I'm NOT used to, of course it's going to be hard...
But the other day, I came SO close to blowing up. Seriously, I almost just walked right out.
Boss-Lady is THE single-most histrionic human being I've ever encountered. Not that this is necessarily a BAD thing, because being freaked-out a lot DOES have its benefits. But it was just rubbing me in ALL the wrong ways. Coworker-Boy had turned off the air-conditioning and opened a door, to let some fresh air in. Boss-Lady FREAKED and said, "Helena, WHY is this door open?"
"Because Coworker-Boy opened--"
"Listen, you're NOT to have this door open, ever!"
"But, C-"
"I don't want to hear it. Letting the air-conditioning out is making our bills soar."
"But the air-cond--"
"Just keep it closed."
So, I kept the door closed. I kept my mouth shut. Boss-Lady wouldn't hear anything I said anyway. Two minutes later, Coworker-Boy opened the door again, asking, "why'd you close this?"
"Because Boss-Lady came in and--"
"Well, we need some air in here..."
I kept my mouth closed. I got yelled at AGAIN by Boss-Lady. I kept my mouth closed. I gritted my teeth and said, "okay." Seems pointless to argue with anybody when they're talking five thousand miles a minute...
She asked, "Are you BRAINDEAD or something this morning? You seem to be really quiet. What's wrong with you? Pick it up, pick up the pace."
Holy fucken shit, it was like this ALL damned day. Halfway through my shift, I made an escape to the break-room for lunch. Boss-Lady found me outside, sucking on a cup of yogurt, and trying to calm myself down with a few pages of the book I'm reading.
She apologized. "I'm sorry everything's been so hectic, and everyone's so stressed. Don't take it personally; we all like you; we just DON'T like the fact that we're too busy to train you properly."
Whatever. I felt like saying, "oh, yeah, well, fuck you, lady." I was just in the shittiest mood in the world. Plus, the place really DID need some fresh air. It's incredibly hard to breathe in there. I have a really violent allergy to something in the air, which wasn't helping ANYTHING...
She said, "What're you reading? Oh my GAHD, Tom Robbins? I've never even heard of that title! I thought I'd read them all!"
She likes Tom Robbins??? Okay, so she won. I didn't feel like telling her to take a flying leap up the rear end of a bovine anymore. She melted the bitchiness I was feeling. She fucking won. I didn't kick her ass. I didn't walk out. I wasn't exactly in a GOOD mood, but I didn't kill anything.
The college kids are back. I noticed the tell-tale signs everywhere as I walked home from work.
I consider myself to be a very open-minded person, really. If you tell me you enjoy performing sex acts with your housepets, I'm not going to laugh at you. If you're a different color, a different economic class, a different gender, whatever, I really don't care all that much. But I can't deny, I have a really awful prejudice against the SUNY-Binghamton kids...
It's cute, at first. All the new freshmen, clustered together at bus stops. They're asking directions to places that are right in front of them, they're making stupid tourist-y comments like, "whoa, this town has a WALMART???" They're wandering around in the evenings, looking for restaurants and clubs and other things to do. They're tourists, really, and for a few days, it's sort of cute.
After awhile, the novelty wears off. They start to realize that it's a small town with a lot of grey skies. They start to bitch, "there's nothing to DO around here!!!" And, for the most part, they're right. It's an old town. There AREN'T any young people here, not natives anyway. The natives, once they leave, know better than to come back. Well, some of them do. The rest of us are right here. And naturally, nobody's going to build youth-oriented businesses for two or three native kids, and a flock of transient college students. So, yeah, the college kids are right. There IS nothing to do here.
But that DOESN'T give anybody the right to be an asshole about it. I mean, we all gripe once in awhile, but I can't tell you how many snobby-looking Gucci-wearing bitches I've heard over the past few years, every fall, whining, "oh my gahd, this place is like, so DIRTY, and there's like, nothing to DOOOOOO!" Read a fucking book, bitch. Go to a fucking coffeehouse and read a fucking book. Write a letter. Watch TV. Wander around town and peek over the bridge at the River. Rent a crappy movie. Go to the Art Theater and see a GOOD movie. Stand in front of the Courthouse and look at it in awe. Stand on top of the parking garage and sing Southern Rock songs. Go to the Salvation Army and buy lots of ugly eighties clothes! (That's what Mike and I used to do sometimes in Santa Fe when we were bored! Santa Fe had no "young" community either, so LOTS of college kids converged at Salvation Army every weekend! On the East Coast, that's taboo, because it indicates that you're poor, but West Coast kids have no problem with shit like that...) There is SO much to do with your life! It pisses me off SO much to hear the whining, the snivveling, the complaining...
It pisses me off to see people hating this town because it's not their precious Long Island homeland. Well you know what? Binghamton may not have as much to DO as downstate areas... It may not be as economically properous. It may have a higher per capita number of schizos than anywhere else in the world, but DAMMIT, it's cleaner, it's prettier, there are TREES everywhere, there are parks, you can WALK to places instead of having to take busses and taxis, your rent is cheap, your food is cheap, and you've still got a couple of snobby places to shop and a couple of snobby clubs to attend to... You can walk around at night alone without carrying a gun. You can get cheap drugs if that's what you dig. You can hike in the mountains! You can join the outdoor hiking group on campus and visit all sorts of neat places upstate. There ISN'T nothing to do here; there's just a huge lack of imagination.
The college kids always make me feel so dirty and poverty-stricken. So what if I don't wear Armani (okay, so I do own exactly ONE thing with an Armani label, but you don't need to spread it around...)? A bunch of girls GLARED at me today, and raised their eyebrows, as if to say, "like, EW!" So I'm not rich! Dude! Leave me alone! I'm happy, you know, with what I have! Well, for the most part. Bitches. So what if the SUNY kids mostly come from richer areas? Doesn't mean they have ONE iota of a right to look down on Helena Thomas.
I hate to feel so angry and resentful of the college kids. I mean, I've met some people I REALLY like. I've even met a couple of people from downstate that I like. Chris, who I consider a very good friend, is a downstater by upbringing, and HE doesn't find it necessary to be an asshole. So obviously, it's not everybody. So I feel kind of guilty for having kind of a closed mind on the subject. Still, though... I look outside, at my quiet little neighborhood; my street is now lined with sportscars and hoochie-mama girls... I just want to kick the shit out of them. I know what's coming. Any day now, the complaining will start... "What's there to DO in this shithole?"
Go home, nasty people.
On the subject of poverty, this has been a VERY bad week for me... I've been living on change in pockets in the laundry basket. For four or five days, I consumed nothing but pasta. No sauce, because I couldn't afford it. I heated up some ground veggie-burger stuff, put some cheese and spices in it, and called it a meal. I HATE veggie-burger meat. It was all we had, though. Norman is a very weird eater. I don't think he's ever really hungry. He can live on one meal for like, five days or something. I NEVER see him eat. When Evolution spread its big green wings, it decreed that camels should have human offspring. Norman's grandparents were camels. Thus, Norman had big, beautiful camel-eyes, knobby knees, and an invisible hump (???) that allows him to live for many days without food. Thus, there's never any food in the house unless I put it here. No problem, because I end up eating it anyway, but it IS a problem if I go broke and have no food.
Now, this is a noble sort of poverty. I had $370 dollars when I came back from Seattle. Not bad, really, considering how easy it would have been to blow that on stupid souvenirs and lattés and things... But the first thing I did when I came back was to sign up for a class at Broome Community College. The bill: a whopping $350. Twenty bucks to live on, indefinitely.
So I've been living on ramen noodles and pasta-creations. Yesterday's lunch: a container of yogurt. Dinner: chicken-noodle soup and potato chips. And that was about the biggest meal I've had in a week.
Tomorrow, I get my first paycheck. I can pick up my film at the drugstore, and buy some ACTUAL ground beef to put in the freezer. I can go out and have coffee someplace instead of making tea here. I can stop being so damned HUNGRY. I can return Chris's favor and buy him a drink. I can maybe even set aside a few bucks for my books for my class...
I've got a lot ot do today; it's my day off and I have tons of errands to run...
~Helena*
PS -- Absurdity of the month: last night, and I SWEAR this is the truth, I saw a "don't do drugs" commercial with an APHEX TWIN song in the background. I don't know about anybody else, but Aphex Twin produces some of the trippiest music I've ever heard in my life... Dude, now somebody's using them as "what's your anti-drug?" music??? A sign of the apocalypse? I don't know, but it freaked me out for a good long time...