Day: July 29, 2005

Everyone has them: those people who, by their mere existence, send all your atoms and neurons and protons and neutrons and all that other stuff I didn’t study, into one discombobulated, frenetic grinding mass of IRRITATION. The human equivalent of fingers on the chalkboard, sand in the vaseline, rough skin and hangnails while knitting with silk. By gum, you just want to stand up, walk over & pick up a 2 x 4, and pound the living shit out of them until the atoms and neurons and protons and neutrons calm the hell down or you pass out, whichever comes first.

It has to be chemical, combined with a strong biological instinct or something. Somewhere, sometime, back in the primoridial ooze or another life, one of those funny-smelling people did something to my ancestor, and imprinted a deep-seated revulsion right on one of my inherited DNA strands. Literally, the P. of her UNDERPANTS is evoking that same revulsion in me, and instead of getting the 2 x 4, instead of lashing out, I am calmly doing nothing. But my atoms and neurons and protons and neutrons are still churning, frothing, shouting, KILL! KILL! SMASH HER UNDERPANTS JUST KILL AND END THE STIMULI.

And don’t get me started on the gnomes. They have to try to herd and wrestle all the churning molecules, and then THEY get pissy, and it’s all I can do to not write scathing emails. So instead? I blog.

Conversation from a couple weeks ago:

Kristin: “Lindsay just wrote me and said that Thai Place was closed.”

Me: (inhaling all available oxygen in my office) “WHAT??????”

Kristin: “She said they tried to go today & they were closed down.”

Me: (gasping like a fish in the bottom of a boat, arms flailing) “WHA? NO! WHA? That can’t be right. I did takeout last night. I have all these gift certificates! What am I supposed to do with – NO!”

Kristin: “I don’t know! That’s what she said!”

Me: “I’m calling them.” (fingers stabbing keypad on phone: 753-THAI. Don’t even laugh that I have it memorized. It’s easier than my own phone number.)

Fast Busy Signal.
Then, that supposedly calm, soothing voice: We’re sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected. Please check the number and try again.

I LUNGE at the display on my phone. I have dialed the number. 7.5.3. T. H. A. I.

Me: “OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD! The number is disconnected! That can’t be right!” I stare, dumfounded at the phone. “I’m calling them again.”

(beep beep beep, 753-THAI) This time, normal ringing. Then, like a musical symphony of string instruments and a piccolo, I hear, “Hello, Thai Place.”

Relief floods my body. I decide not to pass along the rumor to this fellow, since he doesn’t have a sweeping command of the English language, anyway. Instead I revert to the tried & true standby: “Hi! How late are you open?”

Him: “We are open right now.”

Me, now unable to stop playing this charade: “No, how late are you open tonight?”

Him: “We are open right now through dinner.”

Me, now completely jammed into a corner and unwilling to be rude, yet, for no apparent reason now feel compelled to establish their closing time before I will hang up: “No, how LATE, WHEN do you CLOSE tonight?”

Him, in heavy accent, mind you: “Ten Forty.”

Me: “Ten Forty?????? Uh, OK. Thank you!”

I then inform Kristin not only are they open, they are open until 10:40. Which is an odd time to close, in my non-restaurateur mind, and then as I’m saying all this outloud, in some kind of post-traumatic stress chatter, like a spider monkey, I realize it was the accent and they probably close at 10:30, and I say all that out loud as well. I hear the I.T. guy on the other side of the wall chuckling at me. I do not care. My pants could have fallen off, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

The point was, they were OPEN. The opposite of CLOSED. Hallelujah, thank you Buddah! White doves flew about my head in a symbolic flutter of peace restored. And my heartbeat could return to its normal resting state. Because grilled mint beef salad is the most amazing dish, ever. I could eat it every day, sometimes twice. 10:40 in the a.m, 10:40 at night. Thai Delight. Breathe in, breathe out. Cancel the Code Blue.