Previously Unpublished

Since I got the day off for Columbus Day, I sort of lounged around for awhile and read a chapter of my trial advocacy book and then I went to pick up Ticket for lunch. She suggested a shopping center with lots of options, and we ultimately decided on a well known and franchised, local eatery. I have never been there before, but was very happy with the results and we were having a great lunch time date. It is nice to do those sorts of things every once in awhile when you have the chance. I even brought her flowers to show off at the office.

Well anyway, we’re halfway through a lunch of BBQ chicken, salad, and breadsticks when lo and behold, along comes a yellow jacket; and it was aggressive. As far as I know, I’m not allergic to bees, wasps, etcetera, so they have never really been a worry for me though I am not often confronted with their presence; well, except for the time they built a whole colony in my parent’s backyard when we were on vacation, but I digress. I tried shooing away the pollen-seeking bastard, but he was not deterred, and I think that I was actually agitating him (I have heard they get pissed when you upset them, but somehow I guess I thought it wasn’t true having never really been in the situation myself.)

He started sort of dive-bombing at Ticket and she jumped up from her seat. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, but I had a bread stick in hand (they’re about 10 inches long and pretty thick - think porn star), but my strikes were proving futile. Finally, he lands on a piece of chicken that had fallen off of Ticket’s plate and I saw my opportunity. He looked at me, I looked at him, and bang, bang, he was dead. I got a direct hit with the bread stick and he turned up in a very appropriate, coiled up fetal-dead posture on his back surrounded by red BBQ sauce and the remnants of garlic salt.

We hid the wadded up napkin-coffin and the murder weapon between the salad bowl and the leftover chicken plate and finished our lunch. It was a nice day outside. I took Ticket back to the office and went home to have toast and honey. I don’t just take out my enemies; I mock them (yeah, I know bees make honey, but I’m sure those damn wasps still got the message.)

-jd

So it is Columbus Day. Apparently my office, where I intern part-time during the school year, neglected to mention to me that I had the day off. I took the commuter line all the way downtown only to find the large wooden doors to my office clamped shut with a stack of newspapers outside the door. Apparently we get the Journal.

Just to make sure, and to show that as an intern I have not been reduced to greedily eyeing this day on my calendar since I got my little space in the office over the summer, I knocked on the door , left a message with the front desk, and then took the day’s edition of the local paper from among the pile that had built up over the weekend. I grabbed a Mt. Dew and headed back to the commuter plaza.

Luck was on my side and another train was ready to pick me up after I leisurely strolled across a street and was lectured by a UPS driver that when I am in a cross walk, and he lurches forward into the intersection, that is not a signal for me to stop, but rather, I should keep going because I am holding him up. Oh, I forgot, when giant vans sort of just glide into the intersection as you are halfway across, and where you have the right-of-way both as a pedestrian and because it is a four-way stop, that you should not be cautious and skeptical when said van does not appear to be coming to a complete stop. Asshole.

Well, I boarded the train that would take me back to my car so that I could spend the day basking in the sports websites that would laud my glorious Cardinals for beating the Padres in the Division Series, while also getting lunch with Ticket, and eventually writing my cross questions for my trial advocacy class; when I am treated to an amazing show. It seems that our train was being delayed by a train ahead of ours and we were moving slowly down the tracks to accommodate. Suddenly, just outside the next station, we stop outside under an overpass of sorts. The guy catty corner to me just flips out. He does not deal well with overpasses and he let us all know it. We’re talking banging on the windows, constant yammering, stomping - it was wild.

I felt bad; but also as though I was truly embraced by the folds of urban life. Too bad nobody really got to see my new suit.

-jd