Saturday, December 31, 2005

Goodbye 2005

Will not procrastinate

2006 is gonna be different. Better.

For starters, I will make sure to get my Christmas gifts mailed to people before December 31st. Went to the post office this afternoon to mail off some belated gifts and it had closed early, at 2 p.m. I had arrived at 3 p.m. That means my presents won't be mailed out until the January 2, 2006, which means I'm a horrible daughter and sister.

Second errand of this rainy Saturday was to grab some food from Trader Joe's. Place was a madhouse. Produce section looked like locusts had hit it before I'd arrived. Swarms of people clogged the aisles, snatching everything off the shelves, and my favorite new snack was missing: Trader Joe's Potato Crisps. I love them. Instead I got two bags of the garlic-flavored Potato Crisps, but I really wanted the plain ones.


Merry Christmas Asshole

Oh, last Friday I went to Trader Joe's to get snacks for the trip and got into a shouting match with a man in the parking lot. He called me a bitch and I lost my cool and shouted, "Merry Christmas, asshole," aware that I probably looked crazed to passersby. Here's what happened. The parking lot was packed with cars and parking spaces were as rare as girls who like comic books. As I was pulling in, this Mercedes to my right was about to leave. My front bumper had barely passed the rear of the Mercedes and I immediately stopped and backed up a bit. Behind me were two cars, a crappy green Datsun and an annoyingly large luxury SUV. I backed up as far as I could to leave room for the Mercedes to back up. I look into the rearview mirror and the guy behind me is shrugging his shoulders like there's nothing he can do, there's a car behind him. But I can clearly see he has about five feet between him and the car behind him, which is plenty of room to back up a bit, given the situation. We are at a standstill, me inching my way in reverse, him acting as if he's never learned how to be considerate and back up. Of course the couple in the Mercedes keeps looking back at me, as if they don't have enough room (which they actually did), but I try and be accomodating in situations like these and crane my neck to look back to let them know I was trying. So the guy behind me yells out, "Hey, bitch, I can't back up." And I poke my head out the window and scream, "It's called reverse." And the car in front of me exits the space and I pull in and all is right with the world...save for the fact that I am seething with hatred for the guy behind me in the green Datsun. As I slam my door shut, I yell, "Merry Christmas, Asshole" or something like that, and the woman in the Mercedes is looking at me disapprovingly, either because I made their lives difficult, or because I had just called someone an asshole. But the guy is on his cell phone and doesn't hear me so I walk into the store angry. My mom was already in the store stocking up on cheese and wine. I prowl the aisles hoping to run into Datsun man so I can explain to him why he's an asshole. I literally spend the rest of my time hoping to run into him. I did not. Maybe that's a good thing. Am I proud of my behavior? Not particularly. Would I like some kind of revenge on this man? Definitely. I'll bring it up in therapy next session.

Next year

I want to create a lot more. Thanks to my mother's Xmas generosity, I will soon have a new camcorder with which to create all sorts of fun things. And because it's 2006, I will actually make an effort to make use of it.

In any case, I want to wish you all: Happy New Year!

6 comments:

VagabondLoafer said...

Happy New Year Laura!

duboisist said...

Ditto

Son of Gigan said...

Hey lady, did you ever stop to think that my Datsun might not HAVE a reverse gear?

Butternut said...

Sister? There is... another?

Parking in L.A. blows and I'm sorry to hear you ran into problems, Laura. I had a similar parking incident a long time ago. There was a bit of shouting involved, and I never shout, and at one point I seriously considered throwing the jack from my trunk through the guy's windshield. I think that incident took a month off my life.

T.J.'s (as we call it) wasn't too bad when I went on Friday, around 7pm. Of course it's much easier to park in the Valley. I've lived within walking distance of a T.J.'s twice in my life but I still didn't go there because of how insane it can get. I pick my times carefully.

I hate Christmas. Not in a Bah Humbug kinda way but in a "this is really stupid way to foul up a month and a half". I'm glad it's over, again.

Happy New Year All!

Enadiate said...

My resolution is to get a girlfriend and regularly start my own podcast.

Happy New Year, Laura.

And I know what you mean about the way people drive... I live in Illinois and I see so many idiots driving.

Well, hopefully people will suck less this year.

Freefall Jones said...

Waitaminute. Girls don't like comic books?