16:35 - Monday, May. 23, 2005
people are ridiculous human beings
Nick is working for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals, being held here in Boulder, which means he works 12 hours a day every day for a few weeks but which also means that he was the one cutting out the free-meals-for-Odyssey-participants armbands, and he cut me one! So I don't have to pay for food for about a week. Nick is good at getting me free food. When he worked at the panini place, he used his free lunch perk to get enough food for both of us. That was three times a week for lunch. I'm probably 500 dollars or so richer because of him.
I was in the dining hall with my armband surrounded by screaming little geniuses and their super-obnoxious parents (case in point: I'm standing in line for the salad bar, boxed in on three sides by a) the woman ahead of me in the salad bar line, b)a skinny kid with a tray full of pudding standing dazed in the aisle, and c)an angry father with a arrow-in-the-heart tattoo getting a Coke, and this frazzled woman charges up to me on the fourth side and says "Excuse me!" Now, if I move in any direction, I knock someone's food all over the floor. So I shrug, and indicate the pileup. She rolls her eyes. "EXCUSE me!" she barks. I ignore her. She lets out a sharp huffy "pff!" and shoves at my shoulder with her left pinky. "EXCUSE ME!"
I dislike crowds too. But I don't shove people with my goddamn PINKY. "Hey, hello?" I ask her. "Can you see where you are? Do you need to take your tray to your starving child, or else he'll die? Are you about to puke? Do you see someone choking, and need to give him the Heimlich maneuver? Are you diabetic and need to eat your meals at exactly 6:12? Well??" I'm totally not politically correct when I'm exasperated.)
Anyway, I finally get to my table and there is a hysterical woman (a different one) at the table next to mine. "I just... I... I can't... I don't know where it could be!" she is stammering to the stranger next to her. "I had it in my pocket, and then I had in on the tray, and then... I don't know! I don't know! I can't do the rest of the day without it! I have to call this salon that's only... that's only in Boulder and I'm leaving on Tuesday and if I... if I don't schedule an appointment I might not be back here for another year and I have to get that appointment... they close at 6 and it's 4:30! Oh God!"
The other woman offers the frantic woman her cell phone. "Here! You can use mine! Don't worry! Your kid probably has it or something!"
"Oh no, I couldn't use yours but thanks anyway because I don't have the salon's number on me! It's in my phone but I just don't.. I just don't know where it could be! Rachel has it on hers but I don't see her until tomorrow OH JESUS."
"Okay, look... just call information. Everything will be fine."
"I can't call information! I don't know its name! I just know it's on north Broadway somewhere but I don't remember where! Everything is going wrong! Everything! I'm going to have to go on Tuesday! But I don't want to go on Tuesday! We're supposed to take a drive up Flagstaff Road and that's SOUTH and this is NORTH and I JUST DON"T HAVE ANY TIME..."
...and so on. Jesus. People can't go without their cell phones for an hour? It's like NightRide, where people leave their phones in the car and then they call dispatch AND ASK US TO DROP THEIR PHONES BACK OFF AT THEIR HOUSE FOR THEM. What the hell is that? People are ridiculous human beings.

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