All of a sudden, things are weird. Really weird. My boss is like, in bad shape. He lost 25 pounds while I was gone, apparently it is some kind of heart issue. . . I went to work to cover for him today because he had a doctor's appointment, during which they begged him to be admitted into the hospital. He refused, then called to let me know he'd be back tonight . . . "I've been diagnosed as an asshole." He found out on like Monday, unbeknownst to his girlfriend, who dumped him the same day. He hadn't talked to anybody about any of this until I went to work this morning, so he talked to me for like three hours. Textbook potentially-fatal-illness talk . . . fluctuations between anger and fear, sadness, shock. In unrelated news, my mom bought a minivan yesterday. I still am having trouble understanding that, considering that 99% of her driving time is either alone or with only my brother. But whatever. That means she will offer me use of the Lexus (96 ES300, they bought it used for like 16K) much more frequently. Can we say . . . 5-CD changer? Also weird, my room is all super nice now. The IKEA thing kicked things off (I came home with curtains, a bed canopy, one of those hanging paper lamp things, and a comforter cover), then yesterday I went to Target to pick up a curtain rod, which also ended up being really nice. We've lived here for like five years and I never even put a poster on the wall, much less actually "decorated." And our final weirdness is my airport security nightmare of a memory. Attempting to depart from Sacramento, I of course went through the metal detectors and, whilst waiting in line, noticed a HUGE herd of security people. I honestly thought they must be doing group training or something. Of course, I set off the metal detector. In the days of yore, they'd try to help you find what set it off so you could remove it and try again, but not now. Noooo. Instead, I was immediately pushed into a little corral, a narrow area cordoned off by those little rope things. This is when I found out what all the security people were ACTUALLY there for . . . to molest me! This chick came and got me, whisked away my shoes and backpack, and made me do the stand spread-eagle thing. Ok, I had gone through that before at theme parks and whatnot, the metal detecting baton isn't that intrusive. I did not, however, anticipate what would follow. First, she told me that my belt buckle had set off the first metal detector - "Those kind always do." So then she takes the baton to me. Then she says: "I need you to unbuckle your belt and I'm going to feel the area underneath with the back of my hand." "Your pants have metal buttons so I'm going to run the back of my hand over your buttocks area." (hmm, she didn't run the back of her hand over the pants areas where there were other buttons, like the front of my legs.) Then, the thing was going off around my chest so she's like "Are you wearing an underwire bra? I'm going to run the back of my hand all around the outline of your bra." Yeah. Perfect. Needless to say, I took great pains to not set off the metal detector when it was time to fly home. |