The Pink Shoe Diaries

Yesterday afternoon was like a one-two punch of retardation.

An insurgence of idiocy.

A melee of morons.

Basically my voicemail at work is not working. I try to check it, and it tells me "Hell to the no" and to consult "admin control". Well, I am admin control and I haven't the slightest idea what to do. And since we go through three different companies to have our phone lines running I had no idea who to turn to for help. I consulted the handbook for 20 minutes before realizing it was a handbook for the older phone system and we don't HAVE a handbook for the newer one. Awesome. Then of course I called the company that CAN help me only after calling the other two and sitting on hold for about 15 minutes each time. Brilliant. So I finally get this third company on the phone, explain that I can't get to my voicemails and a nice young lady assures me someone will call me back in a few minutes. Two hours go by and finally I call them, irate.

"I thought someone was going to call me back in a few minutes!?" I said
"We did call you. No one answered so we left a voicemail!"
"Um, didn't I tell you when I called that I can't check my voicemail and therin lies the problem?!"
"Ohhhhhh."

Truth be told I found it SO stupid that I was not mad. In fact I was laughing.

At them, not with them trust me. And I still can't get my voicemails.

Then on the way home, I am at the gas station filling up, blasting Pink Martini and "Donde Estas Yolanda?" comes on to my delight, and also to the delight of the young gentleman filling up next to me.

"That's shit is the JAM!" he says to me
"Yeah it's a good song"
"So what are you baby, Mexican!?".

And i tell you I had a flashback to the first time in my life that I remember hearing the word "fuck". I was eight years old, walking down Huntington Ave with my dad and brother after spending an afternoon at the MFA. Two younger guys were walking in front of us, and a loverly woman wearing huge sunglasses in a white fur coat walked past us. One of the younger guys stopped her and asked "Excuse me do you have the time?". She told him and was about to walk away. Then he said

"Yo, baby what are you, Persian!?"
And she said "Fuck off!"
And he said "Why don't you fuck on!"
And his friend said "Shut the fuck up there are kids behind us".

That brief conversation between strangers on the street in 1988 has stayed with me all this time, and I only hope that when I have kids their first time hearing the F word can be equally as memorable and entertaining.

At any rate I did not tell that gas station man to fuck off, though I did say no and commence squeegy-ing my windsheild.