There was a party in my backyard this weekend. A going away party for my roommate, A. She was one of the first people I met when I moved here three years ago, and I met her through the first roommate I had here, C (though I moved into this house because of The Boy, not A…it’s a small world). C came to the party with his fiance. The two of them have just moved back from Madison, Wisconsin, where she was pursuing her masters. We got to talking and reminiscing and then suddenly remembered and recounted another mini-adventure.

This one time when I still lived with C, my friend Y was visiting me. It was fall. There is this awesome small island, barely outside of town (a 20 minute drive away) that has farms and nude beaches (of which I have yet to partake) and all manner of islandy things. In the fall there is a pumpkin patch. You can frolic in a corn maze and pick your carving pumpkin straight out of the muddy patch and drink apple cider and use porta-potties (well hey, it can’t all be lollipops and gumdrops, can it?).

On Y’s last day in town, we decided to go pick out some pumpkins. We went in the afternoon. C drove us in his pickup. We frolicked in the maze. We picked our pumpkins. We drank our cider. We…used the facilities? Who knows. Probably.

As day transitioned to eve, we prepared to depart. We started up the truck and made our way out of the bumpy makeshift parking lot. We rolled down the windows and enjoyed the breeze.

And then we hit a long line of cars.

I guess everyone was trying to leave. The island has one long road circling the perimeter, and one skinny bridge crossing to the main land. So there are no alternate routes. So we waited in traffic.

And waited.

And waited.

It was that kind of traffic where everyone turns off their engines and kids get out of all the cars and run around in the grass, making temporary fast friends with the neighboring car’s kids.

Normally, this wouldn’t really be a problem on a Sunday afternoon. But C had a gig. And Y had to catch her plane home.

Oh. And we had almost no gas.

But what can you do? So we kicked off our shoes and relaxed in the pickup’s bed, admiring the fall leaves and soaking up the nice weather. We watched kids catch butterflies. We shot the shit. All in all, it was quite enjoyable.

But then it was an hour later.

To be fair, the truck had moved. A few feet.

I had to pee. So badly.

The road runs along the front yards of homes. There was no bush to duck behind. Before we had hit the traffic, we had made it too far from the patch to walk back without losing the car. So I waited.

And waited. C called to tell people he might miss his gig. Y called to see if she could switch to another flight, which she couldn’t. Every time we got to inch forward, we threw the truck in neutral and pushed it to conserve gas in the hopes that we could make it off the island and to a gas station before puttering out.

My cousin calls. He’s in town from out-of-state, want to hang out? I tell him where we live and that we’re on our way – but going nowhere fast.

And then I couldn’t wait any longer. And so, though it is totally not my style, I hopped out of the bed of the truck and knocked on someone’s door.

Um. Ya. See…I’m so very sorry, but um…well. There’s really bad traffic and I have to pee REALLY badly and I’m so sorry to bother you but –”

The woman waves me in

First door on your right. You’re the third person today. This happens every year.

I thank her profusely and run to the bathroom. And when I get back out, the line of cars is moving. Slowly, but not inching slowly.

Hooray!

Wait. Crap. Where is the truck?

I’m still barefoot, but I’m worried that if this starts really moving they’ll have to get out of line to wait for me and then it’d take even LONGER to get off and it’d be my fault when everyone missed their shows/flights or the truck ran out of gas.

So I bolt barefoot down the road. It’s pebbly and ouchy.

Turns out it hadn’t gone that far. And it stopped right up again. So I ran for nothing. They’re right there. Six houses ahead.

I hop into the truck, and my heel is throbbing, so I pull it up to look at it. I must have stepped on some tiny shard of glass that worked its way into my heel because it’s bleeding underneath the heel callous and creating an interesting Rorschach.

So thereafter they push and I steer when we move, because now I’m lame.

We eventually make it off the island, some two hours later (usually probably a 10 minute drive around the island).

We get gas.

We mad dash back to the house, where my cousin and his friend have had an interesting stand-off with our other roommate wherein he was thinking “who are these punks loitering by our house?” and they were thinking “who is this dude drinking on her porch?” which has since resolved, and they are sitting on the couch on the porch, having a beer with the other roommate.

We throw C’s gear into the bed of the truck and he zooms off.

We throw Y in cousin’s car, and drive like crazy people to the airport.

C makes it to the his show at the last possible second.

Y catches her plane at the last possible second.

I hobble around and hung around with my cousin.

It was a happy ending.

Six months later, I still had an inadvertent tattoo on my heel to remind me of our random adventure. Honestly, I didn’t half mind. And, fortunately, it was on the sole of my foot so no one had occasion to say, “interesting ink…what’s the story?” to which I would have had to reply, “see, this one time I had to pee…”

A friend of mine recently met me at my office after work so we could go for a walk in the park up by my old apartment. On her way to my office she got stopped by a canvaser, and when I emerged from the building, I saw her but was held up by another canvaser.

When we had extricated ourselves, we went up to my office for her to change, and upon emerging were hassled by a third, and exceedingly pushy, canvaser.

I had long been of the opinion that, hell, we’re in public. They’re as welcome to be out as I am. So while everyone else griped about them, I shrugged my shoulders. I would just smile, say no thank you, and keep walking.

But as of late I’ve been less and less pleased with them (I know it’s just a crappy job – I don’t mean “them” as much as the situation).

See, I like to interact with people in public. I like to make eye contact, and smile. I like to be friendly, and to the best of my ability, I try to help out strangers. When they drop something, I’ll pick it up and hand it to them. If someone asks for directions, I’m happy to provide them. And the thing is, as hippie-y as it sounds, it’s really exhausting to avoid eye-contact like the plague or interact with someone and have to refuse them what they’re asking for over and over again.

So, being that my office is right smack dab downtown near all the shopping, the corner outside the building usually has at least three canvasers at a time. At least. This means that if I go a few blocks away to grab lunch at a food cart, I probably am faced with five canvasers on the roundtrip (since they’re not just on the corner in front of my office, but all the other high profile corners too). It’s completely exhausting. They grab your hand or stand in your way. The girls are self-righteous. The guys use their job as an excuse to flirt like drunk frat boys. It’s exhausting.

So as my friend and I hiked up to the park, we were discussing this, and she explained that canvasing was the only job she could get when she got into town, and she worked off commission, and it sucked. So she tries to humor them a little (though she also said that she had made an effort to pinpoint those who worked on her turf and avoid talking to them since she knew they’d probably had enough of it daily).

So this week as I’m coming out of the library, some guy says, “Hey you, pretty girl with the green shirt.” He’s the third canvaser I will have passed since leaving my office at noon. I use my normal line, “I have time, not money. Do you need volunteers?” He brushes that off, so I say, “I’m sorry, but I’m not giving away any money.” And he assures me that he won’t ask for my money. So. I humor him. I listen to his ridiculously long spiel. He’s from Greenpeace. There’s this horrible paper company cutting down old growth trees to use for toilet paper. They’ve tried appealing to the company, but it won’t budge. So consumers need to take action. Great, I say. Tell me again the name of the company, and I’ll happily boycott them. He says that’s great but rushes on to say that the only way to make change is through organizations like Greenpeace. I stop him to ask if Greenpeace wants my money. He said, “Yes, but I’m not asking you to give money to ME. See. I didn’t lie.” Which outright pisses me off.

Does this really work? Do people stop and get cajoled into listening and then say, “Ok, I’ll give you money even though you just tricked me.”? I highly doubt it.

I repeat that I’m not giving money. He asks why. Again, I humor him and explain that when I give money to charity, I do so after having sought and researched the cause myself – not just because some stranger asks me on the street. He says, dripping with self-righteousness, “That’s great. Those are nice shoes you have. Did you research them before you bought them?”

Not ever knowing when to shut up, I answer honestly and say, “No” (I bought these $7 flip flops at a 7/11 in a tiny town this past Memorial Day when we were on the beach and all I had were sneakers.) But quickly follow with, “I’m not arguing with you,” and turn to walk away.

He says to my back, “I’m not arguing with you. I’m just trying to show you the error of your ways…” Not even feigning a sincere desire to be helpful – just dripping with disdain.

And first of all, Greenpeace, that is some bullshit tactic you have of getting money. And not only is it abhorrent, but I highly doubt people go, “Oh! There are errors in my ways! Oh my god. I hadn’t realized. Here – have a twenty.”

Second, I just kept walking, but it was fifteen minutes later, back at my desk, when I stopped wanting to march right back to him and say, “Hey, Punk. Did you research those industrials you have in your ear? Do you know where the metal is mined from? Or are they bone? Do you know where the bone for those earrings comes from (most come from irresponsible farming)? Oh, and you have a really nice faux-hawk. Did you thoroughly research the mousse you used? Do you pay to be a member of Greenpeace? Do you have any idea if the TP in your apartment is made by a subsidiary of Kimberly Clark?”

That’s what I thought, punk.

[I know - I just fell of the face of the earth, didn't I? Oh well. I'm back.]

When The Boy is not ever-so-kindly carting my lazy self around, my main mode of transportation is bus. It is how I get to and from work most days.

There is a whole culture around riding a bus that you would never think to dream up if you don’t ride one yourself. There are expected things, like the regulars you see every day, and there are things less easy to predict.

For example, I had no idea that a disproportionately large percentage of my Seasonal Changes mental landscape would be tied to riding the bus.

I distinctly remember one morning during my first winter in Portland when it had snowed and half the buses got beached, crisscrossing lanes of traffic, hazards flashing. And so I walked to work. I walked about thirty blocks. As I scaled my way up from random residential streets to larger, commercial streets, more and more similarly stranded commuters joined the stream until I crossed the bridge with a brigade of other walking workers. It looked like a trudging exodus.

A few mornings later, when the buses were back on their routes, but the snow had yet to melt, I waited at my normal stop. Things were slippery, and when the bus started braking a block away and finally halted out in the middle of the street, I started to step off the curb to meet it and climb aboard. The door opened and the driver yelled, “STOP! STOP RIGHT THERE! WAIT! STEP BACK!” frantically waving her hand in the palm-out “stop” position. Startled, I stepped back onto the curb before I realized she was trying to keep me safe: the bus was slowly sliding towards the curb. It groaned and creaked and slowly slid right up to the curb, where it came to rest.

The driver nonchalantly relaxed her hand and cheerfully welcomed me, “Mornin’! Come on up!”

This past winter, so many buses were getting temporarily (or less so) stranded that the bus schedule was useless and, not having any desire to wait 45 minutes in the snow (in my ill-equipped wardrobe) for my morning ride to show up, I would check the transit website. They knew that guessing arrival times was useless, so they’d handily hijacked the bus GPS system to track arrivals at stops. You could look up your bus stop and watch:

1.3 miles away.

…

Now 1.1 miles away.

Now 1 mile. Time to go trek to the stop.

But, I’m guessing due to the slipping and sliding, there were times that you’d watch and it would be more like

1.3 miles away.

…

1.3 miles away.

…
…
1.3 miles away.

…

1. wait. 1.FOUR miles away? It’s getting farther away?

But now it’s summer.

We were having a heat spell last week, and it was HOTT. Aych. Oh. Double tee. HOTT. It’s the kind of hot where I’m guiltily ecstatic that we have central air in the house. I know I should leave it off and tough it out and be a good little environmentalist, but when it’s bedtime and your indoor thermometer reads 87 and it’s still so much hotter outside that you don’t want to open the window…well… Well nothing. The air conditioner is on, set to a very reasonable temperature, and it is AWESOME.

Anyway.

The transit website now has reports that the light rail train is running off schedule because they’re running at slower speeds to prevent issues from the heat.

Two days ago, the bus I was riding on overheated and the always-surly-but-especially-surly-that-day driver informed us we’d have to just wait it out, or grab the next bus, whichever came fist. It wasn’t long before we were back in the fight, but by then a bunch of people had harumphed and left. Presumably to walk in 100+ weather. Ha. Have fun with that.

Today on the drive home, the bus’s constant whir-hum suddenly dropped off and, without hesitation the way-less-surly-more-awesome-than-the-other-woman driver said, “Ok folks. Listen up. We just lost the air. You’re going to have to open all the windows.” One of the street characters (the ones who always know the drivers and sit up front to chat) said, “That’s too bad for you, huh?” and the driver shrugged it off, “Fifth time today. Last night my engine died with no warning and I had to coast to the shoulder. This is nothing.”

All the homeward-bound commuters did the obligatory sigh, head shake, tsk, scowl, and/or outraged yelp to bemoan Fate’s gall in inconveniencing them so. Then, in unison, everyone dramatically threw their arms in the air and heaved open all the windows.

This is the general attitude People get when something doesn’t operate as they wish it would. When the buses slide, or never show up because they’re stuck in a snow bank, or overheat, or quit pushing air…people get really grumpy.

And I throw my arms in the air with disgust and share a tsking moment with my bus-bench-neighbor like the rest of them.

But the secret is that I really love it when these things happen. It’s like having a little, mini, harmless adventure that doesn’t really inconvenience your day. Of course I only love it until I don’t, and I only love it when I’m in a pleasant mood, which I am upset to find myself in less and less these days (but that’s a topic for another day). But generally, when I am what I would like to call my normal, good-natured self, these adventures make me positively giddy.

There’s something really fun about being stuck in a (minor) pickle with other people and having to make the best of it. It’s the stuff corny bonding tales are made of, and I eat it right up.

I had occasion to go down to visit my family for the Fourth of July this year, which was most lovely.

I think it’s common in a lot of places to go to some city center or park and watch a fantastical public fireworks display, but I imagine this is especially true in California since fireworks are illegal (not that that stops anyone).

We did just that. It’s one of those rare exceptions to my general distaste for large crowds when I get starry-eyed and clasp my hands together with glee, skipping and batting my eyelids while I expound on the sheer splendor of the display of community.

The streets get blocked off, and people pour in from all directions.

They play cheesy music, which fortunately we could not hear from our vantage.

I tried to take some photos with the fancy shmancy “fireworks” setting, but I never could quite time them right, and consequently, the best I have to offer is:

Which I think is pretty cool. But ya, I know. Not fabulous.

I think the best part was this mom, dad, and young-ish kid behind us. They were chattering away in what sounded like it might be Russian. They would chat and then fall silent, then chat, and then silence. And after one bout of particularly contemplative and wowed silence, the kid suddenly pipes up very urgently with something that I can’t understand but is clearly a question. And mom says, heavily accented, “fye-er wairks.” Another moment of silence as the kid rolls this around in her mind. “Fye. Er. WAIRKS?” she asks. “Fye-er wairks.” And then she broke it down and asked something about “FYE-ER?” and, after some explanation from her mom, “WAIRKS!?” and some more explanation. It was priceless.

And the thing is, since we couldn’t hear the crappy music, you don’t really have a cue for the finale (what with the musical swelling and all). So the big fireworks go off in nicely timed succession, and then every so often a multitude of the itty bitty ones go off down below

And you’re like, is THAT the finale? Is it ending now? Ya…that must be the finale….it seems finale-ish.
…

Oh.

…

I guess not. Still going…

And that happens a small handful of times, and you’re wondering if there will even BE a finale or if they’ll just sort of go until they’re done because, at this point, the sky is pretty smoky and you’re figuring with all the budget cuts and all the cities that have canceled the fireworks displays, how many more can they HAVE? Right? And my mind is wandering…like I wonder if, in countries that are at war (on their land, not in some faraway place), fireworks are a no-no. Because even if it’s a well-known holiday, if you’re used to hearing bombs go off, do you really want to hear explosion after explosion? I wonder…

So I’m wondering.

And BAM BAM BAM KABLOOM BAM BOOM BIM BAME BOME BOOM BOOOOOOOOOOOM.

‘Splosions galore. Nothing artistic about it. Just lots of gunpowder.

Turns out, THAT was the finale.

In addition to complaining about whatever I please, recounting stories of minimal importance, extending past the confines of my living room in my quest bore others with my vacation pictures, and a slue of other utterly disconnected and random topics (if one can call them topics), I’ve decided to add “tech blog for the not-so-advanced” to the list, because this dood is SO my hero. Comments are closed on that post so, since I can’t say it there, I figured I’d say it here. Plus, maybe some small percentage of my readers (so a small percentage of my small number of readers would be, what, uhhh…. 0.15 of a person?) will think I WANTED TO KNOW HOW TO DO THAT TOO! NOW YOU‘RE MY HERO!

But anyway, in keeping with the (see above re: disconnected and random topics), let me now take the opportunity to tell you what bothers me. Or rather, since a lot of things probably bother me, what REALLY bothers me.

It REALLY bothers me that, most often, at least when dealing with large bureaucracies and corporations, the only point at which you are provided good service is when you turn into a giant, whiny, entitled brat.

FOR EXAMPLE.

I recently spent a lot of time on the phone with Medicare trying to resolve one client’s account. When I say recently, I mean more like over the course of some five months. And no, I am not exaggerating. And what happens when you call Medicare, because I know you’ve been dying to find out, is that you wait on hold (and…wait…yes…in fact I think I might have mentioned the hold music) you wait on hold until someone answers the phone. And that someone is somewhere in a different time zone and is one of eight bazillion people answering that phone number, none of whom have identification codes or callback numbers so it’s not like you ever speak to the same person twice. And they ask you for information. And you fax it. Except it takes about three days to fax any information to them because they have ONE FAX NUMBER. For all of Medicare. Just the ONE. And then you finally get your information through. But they never “find” it. Or it never gets processed. Or whatever. So you send it again. And then you wait the sixty day processing period because if you try calling (hold music) before the sixty days are up “just to check on it”, you are simply told that it won’t register in the system until the processing people have processed it. And that takes 60 days. And no, they don’t have any incoming phone lines in the processing room of processingness, so you can’t speak with them.

And then, when sixty days have passed, you call again (hold music) to check on it. And they say it’s processed and in the mail and to wait a few more days. And then you call back (hold music) after a few more days. And they say to wait a FEW MORE. And you say no, please send it again. And they say, ok please hold (hold music), but then they come back and say it’s not in the digital system yet so they can’t send it again. So please wait a few days and call back.

And then you wait a few more days and call back (still with the hold music and the going crazy, by the way, in case that pattern hasn’t presented itself to you yet), and THIS person tells you that, oh…no…actually that thing that they said was completed on time (on time being a relative concept when it takes 60 days to process a letter) and already in the mail was just a copy of something they’d already sent and the thing you are waiting for hasn’t been processed yet because instead of what you said in the letter (two and a half months ago) about charge one and charge two, you have to PHYSICALLY CROSS OUT AND CIRCLE, respectively, the charges you’re talking about on the ledger and send it back again because describing the charges by the name listed on the ledger is just too confusing, apparently. So please start again.

So (are you still reading?) you circle and cross out with fury and re-fax (another three days to get that through). And then you call back (hold music) and are told to wait the 60 days for processing at which point you say

(in your head) HOLD. THE FUCK. UP. (and out loud, with only the tiniest edge of insanity) May I please and ever so kindly speak with your supervisor? This dude assures you at least four times that while you can speak to his supervisor, she will have no ability to speed this process along for you, but you insist and so you are asked to hold (hold music) and you wait a full twenty minutes before….

A saccharine sweet lady gets on the phone, apologizes profusely, listens to your saga, asks you to hold (hold music) while she checks out the issue, comes back and says, “Actually, ma’am, I see that none of these charges are related. I will get out a letter to you to that effect this afternoon.”

And you receive that letter later that week.

And would you believe me if I said that that is the SHORT version of the story? The version where I don’t even bother to mention at least five other times that I called (hold music hold music hold music hold music hold music)?

And so MY QUESTION is, people, my QUESTION TO THE WORLD, is how much of a dent could we take out of the national debt if we were to replace:

1. The money spent on wages for roughly ten (I’m being generous here) phone calls, roughly seven minutes each (including data entry), PLUS
2. The money spent on all the phone lines for people like me to HOLD…again, PLUS
3. The money spent on health care for people like me who just might go crazy from the experience

TIMES the number of people who have had this experience (raise your hand)

with

A small fleet of people with half a brain who evaluate and handle (simple…such simple) issues as they arise and in a timely manner without creating a paper trail storm of useless notes that convey no information at best.

How much? I dare you to guess.