Caustically Optimistic

Fits & Starts - part two

Fits & Starts, Part Two

I have to apologize, but I hate doing it.  It’s not that I can’t admit that I’m wrong or that I don’t feel like I should – I want to apologize and have this weight lifted off me.  What I want to do is say, “Stan, I’m sorry[i] for being a penis[ii],” without going into detail about the whole episode or disagreement and how I am a repugnant human being.

 I hate this because I want apologies to me to go like this:

            Offending Person: I’m sorry.

            Me: Okay. 

I don’t want you to go into too much detail about what went on and how much you think I need to know.  I’d like to make my own story up in my head, it’s always less hurtful than the one you’re going to drop on me.  I am paranoid and I will only add my own epilogue to your tale of sadness.  My faith dictates that I forgive you, it is so much easier when I don't know what you've done.  

 This comes up, not because I have to apologize to someone, but I am going to [obscenity] someone’s [obscenity] the [obscenity] up.  I lost my wallet and because I am a man, I am going to pass responsibility on to someone else.  I didn’t lose my wallet; someone took it.  Someone had to take it.  I wouldn’t have misplaced it.  NOW I have to go buy a new one and this means entering a long-term relationship. 

I liked my old wallet, and apparently someone else did as well, and now I have to find another one that meets my needs and doesn’t cost more than what is carried in it.  The DMV replaces your driver’s license, the bank sends you a new debit card, and Triple A doesn’t card you.  But your wallet doesn’t replace itself.  Also, this wallet was a gift and was intended to be a bit more (um) “grown-up” than my other ones.  Apparently, it grew some legs and wandered off. 

If I wanted to be in charge I’d have been born a woman, I don’t want to make decisions I want to do what I’m told.  Now, I have to go to the store and decide between money clips, bi-folds, tri-folds, and a bunch of other things that evade my understanding and will impact my life until this happens again or Christmas.  This is like having a baby only it will take longer but involve less blood to find a new wallet. 

 

 

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[i] Never apologize to Stan: he is always, always wrong.  I am using Stan as an example because it is comedic. 

[ii] Remember, just because you have one doesn’t necessarily translate into being one.  

Fits & Starts

Fits & Starts – Part One

I haven’t done this in weeks, I don’t care what Marie says: it’s nothing like riding a bike. 

I keep having ideas of what to write, but not time.  I went to Betsy’s wedding, where unlike Valerie, she is commended for not being Bridezilla.  She called me today about that, being Bridezilla, because I am the friend who you can alternately count on to have an appalling lack of tact and point it out in others.  The only thing you could say about Betsy’s wedding is that she didn’t make you cart off a trinket commemorating the event.  Well, I did but that’s because the music teachers always give me a song to sing about it later. 

My coworkers insisted that I go the wedding or at least the Last Night Out and molest a bridesmaid.  Betsy was at no point Bridezilla toward me but had I done that I would have incurred something reserved for surly adolescents and I was looking to make friends not fill the roll of Dwight Schrute at her wedding – Jeff showed me the wedding episode so I’d prepared.  I did however wake up hung-over on the floor of a hotel with the tall, dark handsome type of substitute teacher (named Anthony) and a blow-up doll (named Clark). 

Stop exchanging money, it’s not nearly that interesting or insightful but it is something I cherish dearly: a good story.  More than that, I love a set of facts I can misconstrue. 

In Fits & Starts, Part 2 I will let you in on how not to seduce a man, why we like hunting, and what not to do with a piñata.