Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Ten: Fifty-Seven

Ten: Fifty Seven
Is there anything quite as annoying as going out of town and seeing people you know? Anything quite as, "...ugh" as seeing a person you know and don't particularly care for when you're out of town?
How about having the person you know and don't particularly--hell, especially don't-- like see you and initiate a borderline racially insensitive conversation?
Yeah. All bad.
After working for three caffeine deprived hours straight, I found myself standing bleary eyed in the line at Biggby. While waiting to place my order I felt my phone vibrate. Without looking down, I reached into my pocket, extracted my cell and silently cursed the fools that invented the chain letter and it's modern day equivalent, the forwarded message. Without bothering to tell the sender that if God was really testing me I was too tired to care about failing, I silently took a step forward as the line advanced.
I felt someone tap my shoulder. "Excuse me," they said as I turned around. "I think you dropped your mo--LauRen?"
Oh, fuck. Not this bitch, I thought to myself.
Plastering my fakest, "It's so nice to see you! Won't you please go play in traffic now?" smile on my face, I thanked her for telling me that I had dropped my money. She handed it to me and gave me an unwelcome and very much unwanted hug.
"So how are you? What are you doing up here in Grand Rap--do you live here now?"
I awkwardly patted her on the back while trying to disengage from her embrace. "I'm alright, thanks. No. I'm just visiting for a few hours before I head back to Lansing."
I noticed the line had moved out of corner of my eye so, with what I hoped would be one last forced smile, I turned and took a step forward. There was only one person standing in the way of my coffee and my hasty exit from the shop when I felt her hand in my hair.
"Oh, my God, LauRen. Your hair is so soft! It looks like it'd be...well, y'know. Rough."
The needle on the imaginary record playing in my head dragged across its surface and the music stopped as I turned to face her. "...Excuse me?" My internal DJ changed the song from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 to Lil Scrappy's "Head Bussa" as she blushed at her gaffe.
"Oh, I didn't mean it like that! It's a good thing. I like the 'natural' look on you! Makes you seem...ethnic. You look like you could be on your way to a Black Cat--Lion? Panther?--meeting in your leather jacket."
Oh. My. God. This bitch--this bitch tried it.
With my hands balled into tightly clenched fists at my side, I was about to whirl around and deliver a spinning kick to the side of her head when I saw the barista motion for me to come forward and place my order out of the corner of my eye.
I don't think she realizes or appreciates the fact that my Wild Zebra latte saved her reproductive organs from being introduced to my fists.

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