It takes a lot to tick me off. I'm not entirely sure why. It could be a lot of things that shaped this particular trait of mine, but I don't think the reasons matter. I tend to roll with it. After all, when a problem arises, I can't fix it if I am busy screaming and yelling. I accept it, roll with it, and move on. Except for today.
This morning, J got up later than he wanted to. Apparently, he had a 7:30 meeting that he forgot to mention which means I was suppose to psychically know that he wasn't suppose to hit the snooze button twice and I was suppose to yell at him to get up and go to work. Ooops. My bad. Who knew? So, while he was in the bathroom getting ready, and muttering to himself, I made sure our daughter The Jew was up and moving because she works for him and they ride together. I could hear D1 (or is he D2? or maybe R2?) moving around so I assumed he got the message about the earlier-than-usual time of departure.
The three grumpy amigos scooted out the door at 6:50, which isn't bad since J wanted to leave by 6:45, and off they went. That just left me and The Cheese at home. At 7:30, as she is asking me (yet again - get a job woman!) for lunch/gas money, I grab my purse. Lunch money? check. Crackberry? check. Van keys? Um, van keys? Hello... van keys? no check. Crap. Who drove my van last? The Jew. The daughter in the car that is already on the turnpike and headed for Akron. I feel a bad sense of foreboding....
I quickly text her thinking to avoid 20 minutes of key-searching by simply asking her where the keys are. "Oh, mom, I'm so sorry" is the text I get in return. The keys are in her purse. She calls me, all "sorry" and "I feel so bad." Eh. Shit happens. She offers to drive her dad's car home when she gets to work and bring me the keys. No worries, I tell her. I'll have The Cheese take me to work. And I meant it. It wasn't a big deal. A little inconvenient, but really, we could work around it. As she hung up the phone I could hear J in the background yelling about the situation. Not sure what he was mad about - HE wasn't going to have a 17 year old drive HIM to work. But that's one of the biggest differences between me and the hubby. He hasn't learned to just say "Eh."
I get to work and share my morning events with the rest of the peeps in the "bullpen." You see, I work in a room with five other people and we call it a "bullpen." We each have our own space, but really no privacy. Everyone sees and hears everything. After five years, I thought I was use to it. Today we would learn otherwise...... dun dun dun insert melodramatic music here... The guys are all like J, outraged at the situation and sharing their righteous anger at the stupid things kids do and they launch into their own "oh, yeah, well my kid once did this" stories. I just shrugged my shoulders and said "Eh."
All good, right? The day went on, work was done, meetings were had. It was typical. Until lunchtime. The guys all go to lunch together almost every day. Today, they decided to grab sandwiches from a deli next door and eat at their desks. And that's when the problem started.
One of the guys bought a bag of potato chips. As I sat at my desk, with my back to him, I could hear the bag rip open and the crinkle of the chips. I heard every crunch he made as he ate, as if it were fingernails on a chalk board. I couldn't hear anything else. For 15 minutes. I thought I would go nuts. And then I started to notice other things, the way he makes this "slurp" noise when he drinks, the way he "heavy" walks across the room so that my monitor sways, the way he breathes through his mouth as if he just got done running a marathon.
What happened? Where did this all come from? Why did I want to walk across the room and choke the life out of him and tell him to just shut up!!!!!!!!! It was like Chinese water torture or something. I couldn't concentrate. I got nothing done all afternoon. It was like every sound from that corner of the room was magnified 1,000x and I was the only one that could hear it. I went to the boss and said, basically, I'd spent five years in the "bullpen" and needed a change. I begged him to consider reorganizing our space and moving me into one of the cubicles outside the "bullpen." He's thinking about it.
For now, I have no answer. PTSD maybe? Last straw on a camel carrying too much hay? I don't know. I shall have to think on this for a while. In the meantime, I had J hide all the guns and ammo in our house. I don't know if that will help, I just know that it's very odd for little things like this to make me as crazed as they did today. But I am a little nervous about the fact that tomorrow is another day, and hopefully there will NOT be a bag of chips waiting there for me.
Respectfully Submitted,
K8
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