Lauren flying through stars
Thoughts bounce around my head like pinballs in an arcade machine.
I often get lost in time.
At a glance, it’s 9 a.m. Then, it’s 9:20.
Where did the time go?
Don’t know. But I really could have used those twenty-minutes.
Bada-Bing. Bada-Boom.
I’m back in real time or stationary chair-butt time, sitting in a fancy reception area waiting for an appointment with a headhunter.
Will I leave with my head or will it end up shrunken, hanging from a chain of teeth? I’m glad I recently had them cleaned.
What’s that? My thoughts burn rubber, as they screech to a stop and idle on idle conversation to my right where a couple spews random chunks of words.
The receptionist makes a cameo appearance.
“You don’t have two forms of ID. You need to come back.”
Employment agencies now require two forms of ID or a passport. They need to be sure that you are not masquerading as an illegal alien version of yourself with a space pod and ray gun.
I was not. I just forgot to bring my passport, the holy grail of citizenship.
Forgetting things makes me late. I was late for the headhunter, which is why I feared for my head. My dog recuperating from knee surgery and a blocked road, like my dog’s bowels, set me back this time.
The warning. A cop sitting in a car with swirling Lindsay Lohan lights, not directed at me but at the blocked road, provide a clue that I had to stop. I did.
Pulling up next to him, I attempted to open the passenger side window. I fumbled with the window lock, which was also four-door locked on the driver’s side, the heart of window central control.
The cop stepped from his car.
Oh, God. Is he going to give me a ticket for being a retard, or is he going to pat me down on suspicion of incompetent behavior? I should be so lucky.
He does neither. He feels sorry for me, pitying my car window dysfunction. I open the door instead.
“The road will be opening soon,” he said.
“How will I know?”
Will there be fireworks or vuvuzela horns?
“I’m going to radio ahead. Pull up behind me —”
“With or without the car?”
“— In the car, when I move, you’ll know the road block has been Metamucilized.”
I made that up.
I follow Mr. Cop to a stop and wait for the signal to move up his rear.
Seconds later, Mr. Cop edges forward. I gun the gas, head down the ramp, and take a right hairpin turn onto corporate park road, eventually ending up in waiting room purgatory.
In a blitzkrieg attempt to prevent my ass from falling asleep, I blindside the receptionist at the glass window. The window is shut, the receptionist MIA.
I return to my seat and stare at the other glass appointment in the room, the door. Although it doesn’t have an appointment and doesn’t need to fill out forms, a pile thick deep, that require a signature on the bottom sheet. A one-sentence disclaimer follows at the top of the next page.
Disclaimer: If directionally impaired and chronically late due to impairment, you must surrender your first your paycheck and first-born son.
I sign.
Two questions befuddle me: The date and time. Who the hell knows? I’m still stuck in a retro thought jag from 2009, while skipping down the tangentially-inclined yellow brick road that leads back to unemployment Oz.
You are hilarious! I'm glad the road was able to unload its blockage with you on a cop's rear.
The mental image is killing me.
: )
LOL. This was hilarious. At times, I wonder where the time goes too. And stay away from those arcade machines!
Thank God they stopped giving out tickets for being a retard.
I'm wanted in five states.
Thanks, Mr. S. Time is a slippery bar of soap.
Ha! Mrs. B. So far, there's only an APB out on me in CT and NY.
Time is slippery. And inevitably, whenever I am in a hurry, every cop on the force is out on the road I'm driving. Where's a doughnut shop when you need one? I have a perpetually lead foot, so my sister got me a radar detector for Christmas. Best gift ever – it's changed my life!
Great post, Girlfriend! Hilarious! Good luck with the agency. Hope they know what a valuable property they have in you.
Got to love radar detectors and doughnut shops. Thanks. I got an 80 on my excel test.
So how does it end!!???
Do you get the pat down you so badly wanted?
Do you get the job?
Do you become a neck ornament for a pygmy native?
Do you…
Wait what about that shiny object?
Ha! Great Questions, Nathan. I do lose my head from time-to-time, but it always comes back, like a Frisbee. No ending to the story yet.
I'm still distracted by bright shiny objects. I never got the pat down or the job. But I'm happy to say. I still have my teeth.
You've won a prize. The prize itself doesn't exist yet, but that's beside the point:
http://doginthewaterpipe.blogspot.com/
I lose track of time easily, too. But I'm not as funny about it as you are.
Thanks for the non existent prize, Paul. I'll be by to air save it.
Tracie, you are funny about everything.
"Will there be fireworks or vuvuzela horns?"
HAR!
Helpful cops. God love 'em.
Your head is a strange and delightful place to visit.
: ) Thank you JD. I'm thinking of offering the left side of my brain as a timeshare vacation property. I rarely use it anyway and could use the extra money.