Bomb, Schwing, Wig, Testes

October 05, 2005 - 3:56 p.m.

Man I never write about my day to day life because ya know, like is boring and shit. I mean, your life is boring too. Maybe even more than mine. But sometimes you just gotta vent when god hands ya a piping hot turd sandwich for lunch. And breakfast and dinner.

The morning started out ok, nothing too bad, I wasn’t looking terribly ugly or anything. I got on my Schwing and rode to the train to go to work, and saw that the whole station was blocked off with police tape and there were pigs everywhere, standing around with one hand on a hip and the other hand on a donut. An enormous amount of work was getting done lemme tell ya.

I was immediately pissed because I know some shit-for-brains moron was behind this, and that there was no good reason for the station to be closed. Especially not for a donut-eating contest. I hollered into the crowd of about 100 people on the street: “What the hell? Is this closed?”

Some little broad, who deserved to get slapped because she was wearing my Superman t-shirt turned to me and said, “There is a suspicious package so the trains are stopped.”

Now you and I know both no that there ain’t no goddamn bomb, it’s just one of a million bags of trash laying around, probably with the remains of someone’s Taco Bell Enchirito lunch. And you know it was just a lazy muthafugga who don’t feel like going to work today who called in this bag as a bomb.

Because no lie, just awhile ago, right after the London bombings, one of our train conductors stopped the train one morning, got out while all of the passengers looked on, and used a payphone to call 911, and do you know what he said? “There’s a bomb at Clark & Lake. I’m gonna set off a bomb at Clark & Lake.” Then he got back on the train and waited for the emergency bulletin, advising all trains to immediately come to a halt, so the fool could take the rest of the day off! And the call was traced to an El platform payphone, which was fishy, so the 911 center played the recording to the CTA chief and do you know what HE said?? “That’s John Jones, the conductor. I recognize his voice.”

And of course it was “John The Lazy Idiot, Soon to be Imprisoned Jones.”

But anyway. I don’t need to convince you that there are stupid lazy people in this world. And I don’t even live in California!

I reached into my purse to call my boss and tell her that I was going to be late, and October 4, 2005 is the first day in my entire life that I left my phone at home like a douche.

So I promptly turned right around on my Schwing and headed home, and that’s when I got run over by a silver mini-van.

Ok, it didn’t exactly drive OVER me, like I’m not a pancake or anything. God, this reminds me of this meme, mantra, whatever you call it when you obnoxiously repeat the same thing over and over when you’re 16 and you think you’re totally cool but you’re just a knob. I think I started the meme but - OH WHAT’S THAT! What’s that shrieking?! Oh, it’s just KC, I can hear him screaming that NU-UH I TOTALLY INVENTED THE MINI-VAN MEME. Yeah, yeah KC. You totally invented like, everything on the planet, and I’ve never had a unique thought in my life, ok, and that’s why I’m the one who’s written 135,000 words on this piece of shit blog and you can’t even write (or speak for that matter) WITHOUT CAPS LOCK. ALL THE WORLD’S IN CAPS LOCK, WHY NOT?? I AM SCREAMING AND I MUST BE HEARD!

Anyway. Meme. It was simply: “Mini-Van Source of Irritation.”

I think mini-vans were INVENTED when I was a teenager (there goes my gray pussy talking again) and it is a widely accepted fact that only Asian soccer moms and Mole Men drive mini-vans, always in the left lane, breaking at every green light with a bumper sticker that reads I AM SO AFRAID OF DRIVING OHMIGOD! So the stupid mantra was born, that the greatest source off all irritation can be attributed to the MINI-VAN.

But it also had to be said in a Mr. Miyagi voice, for only a wise Chinaman has the authority to decree the greatest source of all irritation.

And it has to be said very slowly, with long pauses and ahhhs between words.

Meeny-Vahn ahhhh…

Sose of ahhh…

Idda-tation ahhh…

Could that be any more hilarious??

Yes.

275 words later, and I am ready to get to the point and finish saying that I was run over!

I was riding home in traffic, story of my life, and the silver mini-van came up from behind me and was braking indiscriminately and weaving from lane to lane. I take my life into my own hands every day that I mount my bicycle, so I am prepared to save myself in the event that a reefer-smokin hippy is barreling along, and aims his V-Dub Bus right at my Schwing, singing John Lennon’s, “For you are the magnet, and I am the steel.”

I saw the mini-van coming towards me so I began braking and he ran me off the road and since I quickly assessed that my life was not at risk, I happily ran into his piece of shit vehicle, scraping all down the side, and then I tried to get around him and he continued pulling into me. I finally got to the front of his car where he was now parked perpendicular in the middle of the street. I started yelling. Hey asshole. You ran me of the road. Watch where you’re going. Hey. HEY. Hellllooo??

He wasn’t listening to me. He was totally oblivious. He opened his car door and started to get out to drop mail into a mail box. He still does not see me standing in front of his car, nor does he hear me yelling.

I keep repeating the same word over and over.

Hello?

Hello?

He never looks at me, and it is clear that he isn’t faking ignorance either.

His ignorance was AUTHENTIC.

Fuggit. I haven’t the time. I scraped up his car and not myself so the issue was moot anyway.

I went home and called my boss and then called a cab, that took 40 minutes to get to my house, which is like utter bull, cuz cabs are so desperate for a fare in the middle of the day, they’re like, “Pleeeze! I’ll suck yo dick!” Not that I’m in a serious hurry to get to work or anything, but if I’m late, my ass don’t get paid.

Finally I can relax, in my cab. For one block. And then the cab screeches and weaves. And voices are yelling. I looked up and saw we were entering a construction zone, with orange cones lined up and flaggers indicating to move to the right lane. But we’re just heading straight into a crowd of workers and they’re screaming obscenities. Oh gahdamn, now the cab driver is yelling Shut the Fuck Up and oh shit, now the worker is yelling Fuck You FAGGOT. And now we’re surrounded.

And for some reason I feel entirely responsible. What is with the self-blame? What kind of pussy am I? I feel like I need to apologize to someone. But then I quickly remember that I’m just a passenger so I slouch in my seat and try to ignore the fact that there are angry orange vests pushed up against all of the windows and burly men and women are giving me the finger. Then, uh-oh, the cab driver starts yelling at them in Arabic and I’m like: Why did he have to go there? And a black dude is leaning into the window barking out the word Faggot, which kind of made no sense. And I’m thinking maybe I should never have gotten out of bed this morning.

Ya know, getting yelled at can totally ruin a person’s day. Even though I wasn’t actually getting yelled at, I was getting yelled near and it made me all pouty and sad and upset. That shit ruined my day and here I am wasting time writing about it.

One other thing that has nothing at all to do with anything. There’s a new woman who got hired at my job, and she is black. Not that it matters. Let’s call her Barbara. The first week there, she had very short hair, a cropped afro if you will.

The following Monday she showed up with shoulder length, red hair. Ain’t no thing. It’s my understanding that when people apply fake hair to their head, you’re supposed to act like you don’t know so I zipped my lip. But it was clearly a wig. I would have known that even if it didn’t have a chin strap.

A week or so after that, the pilot and I participated in a Scooter Rally, meaning that we hopped on his vintage Vespa and rode along with about 100 other scooterists, in a big long line around the city. As we were heading down Milwaukee Ave I saw Barbara standing on the sidewalk, all agape at this processional of Scooters, as were all the onlookers.

And praise Jesus, do you know that Barbara was standing directly outside the storefront of the one and only Wigs and Plus store? WIGS AND PLUS. Many jokes have been made over the years, about the fact that the word “and” basically means “plus” so we’re talking about WIGS PLUS PLUS. The “Plus” being any other non-wig items that one might want to accessorize with.

So the Wig was standing outside of the Wig Store and thyne eyes shed a tear for the beauty of it. My eyes flitted up and down, from her head, to the giant sign above. Wig- Wig. Wig-Wig.

WIGWIG!

And hold me now, this stupid thing that warms my soul, that I can’t stop staring at, that I want to bring to bed with me and squeeze it and wrap it around me. The soothing movement, the repetition, it’s like swaying in the breeze on my hammock.

Behold - The Raccoon with the Sack:

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