I went outside for the first time yesterday and walked all the way to the corner, where I promptly got into a fight with the guy who works at the convenience store.
BECAUSE MEN CAN NEVER BE TOLD WHAT TO DO BY A WOMAN. We have to listen to them bleat day in and day out about the "right" way to do things and God forbid one of us points out an alternate way of doing it and it's Meltdown On Man Mountain.
The guy who works at the store also owns the Postal Exchange two doors down. I called the Exchange before I left and got this message:
"We're not here." Very helpful. It should have just said Guess When We Open?
I walked there, which normally takes 5 minutes but instead took 15 because of the crutches and the boot. It was closed. I went into the bodega and found him working and asked him when he was going to open the other place and he said, "About an hour." About and Kinda are in the dictionary under the word Vague. So I said, "You should put the operating hours on the outgoing machine so people will know when you're open."
UH OH. Was that a head explosion I just heard?
"It's posted on the door."
That made me laugh because they were not posted before and I went to this strip mall EVERY DAY. Maybe someone complained? A man, perhaps?
"Mike, I haven't left my house in four months, this is my first time out. Surely you haven't seen me since I'm in here every day? Your machine just said 'We're not here.'"
"Uh YEAH, we're not there. We're obviously CLOSED."
I walked away to go buy Diet Pepsis (hi Merecat!) and then said, "There's no need to be nasty." Then instead of shopping I left. I've been going to this store for almost 14 years.
I went to the donut shop a few doors down and one of the regulars, a documentary filmmaker named Tom, offered to take in my mail and post it for me when the store opened. I told Tom what happened and how there was nothing on the machine that would indicate when they open or close and he said, "Why doesn't he just mention the times on the outgoing message?" Great fucking idea!
I hope when he went in to mail my things that he told Mike that. A guy will take advice from another guy, but not from a woman. In their heads they think we're saying, "You're a retard; you're incompetent." In our heads we're helping them. Because guys? Sometimes you don't know everything.
I ran into my friend Carson on the way back and told her what happened and she shrugged, "Latino males, whaddya gonna do?" I'll tell you what I'd LIKE to do.
Go to Uproarious today. I'm talking about joke thief Dane Cook and announcing a contest to give away THREE free CDs next week. Maybe I'll throw in a pair of bloodied Latino balls with your order.
End of chat.
