monkey nonsense

this past tuesday was interesting. ann asked me late in the afternoon whether it was a good day or a bad day… and i think i would classify it as a good day.

i normally tutor in the city tuesday evening so every tuesday, i’ve been driving to rosslyn, parking my car there, and riding the metro in. this ends up being pretty costly so i’ve been meaning to wake up early to get the “early bird” special at the garage - in by 9, $9. so of course, this tuesday, i woke up late. d’oh! i got ready as quickly as possible and headed out.

when i noticed one of my tires was deflated. not flat, just really deflated. i checked the other 3 tires and they seemed fine. i figured my tire must be slowly leaking… or it’s a flat and i just happened to catch the tire while it still had some air. i hoped for the first case… so i had to go to the gas station first and get my tire checked out. i ended up just pumping air into my tires and hoping that it was just a slow, gradual leak. and then i headed into the office. really late now.

then, during lunch, as i was eating my cheap, korean bulgogi from the cart (good stuff)… i felt this hard object in my mouth. i was a bit taken aback because bulgogi doesn’t usually have bones. so i spat it out and realized… it’s the crown from one of my root canals!! d’oh!!! i’ve been avoiding the dentist like the plague because i hate dentists. dentists are evil… and they always have bad news!!! so… now that my crown has fallen off, i had to make an appointment to go see the dentist. i called and was only able to get an appointment today (thursday)… which meant that for the past 2 days, i’ve been eating with a stump of a tooth and i’ve been afraid to bite on that side for fear of damaging that stump of a tooth. but perhaps the worst result of losing my crown… is that i missed going out to this fancy restaurant with coworkers! one of my coworkers planned a trip to this belgian restaurant (he says one of his favorite places to go in the city) for the restaurant’s anniversary celebration. it was a $20 fixed menu meal… man! i really wanted to go!!!! instead, i have to go to the dentist =(

THEN, on the way to tutoring, i was sitting on the metro (’cause i was going the opposite direction of traffic, i actually got a seat!). those familiar with the washington dc metro will know that half of the train seats are facing forward while the other half are facing backwards. i was sitting in the first/last backwards facing seat, which means the people behind me are sitting with their backs to me (since they are facing forward). so i was riding the metro, sitting on the window side of the backwards facing seat… trying to sleep. and i have a lingering cough from last week, when i was sick… so i coughed. now, i’m sure i probably don’t do the best job, but i think i make a conscious effort to cover my mouth when i cough…. when all of a sudden, this black elderly lady starts yelling really loud… “what the fuck. cover your mouth! i’m gonna slap you… i’m gonna slap you if you don’t cover your mouth one more time!! you getting your cough all over me. i’m gonna slap you” and so i was puzzled… is she talking about me? so this is the thing… that was one of my few coughs, i was really trying to minimize my coughs… and i was really trying to cover my mouth. now here’s the other thing…. the lady is sitting with her back to my back! AND she’s sitting on the aisle side, not window side! so how my cough travelled diagonally BACKWARDS is beyond me! furthermore, the lady sitting next to me was rather large and was pretty much IN my personal space. she didn’t even flinch when i coughed! neither did the 2 people sitting in front of me… whose heads would be in direct path of any uncovered coughs i might send! so this lady… goes on for another minute or two, yelling quite loudly. the lady sitting in front of me turns around to see what the commotion was about… and gives me this weird look like… huh? how’d you cough on her??? i end up totally ignoring the lady and she eventually starts talking to the person next to her all calmly again. i think she might be a schizo….

in any case… that actually really pissed me off. i feel like she was just paranoid because she heard me cough.. there’s no possible way she could have felt my cough!! and for her to make such a fuss… and to threaten to slap me?? shoot… i was tempted to turn around, cough on her… and say THAT’S coughing without covering my mouth! to prove a point. but then… i didn’t want to be on any news headlines - “metro fight erupts over coughing” or anything like that. i guess it was just icing on a rather bad day.

BUT then, when i was at tutoring… the kids were reading CURIOUS GEORGE! that’s right!!! i got to read curious george goes to a movie with charles… while the boy next to us was reading curious george! and over at the next table, there were 2 more curious george books (i could see from where i was sitting to see what book they were reading). man, it was awesome!!! that made my day.

and so, i think overall, despite the deflated tire and the broken crown and the visit to the dentist instead of an awesome restaurant and the whole coughing near-fight incident, i’d call the day good