How Spontaneity (Figuratively) Killed The Planner Mom

When you are a parent, spontaneity is not your friend. I am a planner to a fault, and my husband is the very definition of one who flies by the seat of their pants. He loves being spontaneous, so every once in a while, I make a concentrated effort to plan to do something spontaneous. I know – planning to be spontaneous isn’t being spontaneous, but this is the extent of the deal with the devil that I am willing to make. But every once in a while, the stars align for a brief moment in time, and I agree to do something on a whim. These times rarely end well.

Our son has been sporting the haircut of a very angsty emo teen for a couple weeks now, due to the fact that we have noticed a downward spiral with each haircut that he has. The first one was a breeze – he sat up on his dad’s lap, smiled, and patiently withstood the hair cutting process. From there, it became progressively louder and more challenging. Imagine greasing up a feral cat and asking it to sit still and be groomed. Then add blue suckers covered in hair, a lot of screaming, and phones being thrown in the wild animal’s general direction hoping it would enjoy a YouTube video and calm the heck down. Now you have a picture of what our night looked like.

Around 6:30pm last night, we decided to call a salon near our house and see when their next available appointment would be. As luck would (or wouldn’t) have it, they had an opening at 6:45pm. Putting aside the panic that struck the pit of my stomach at doing something so last minute, I forced my most believable smile and against my better judgment said ‘Sure! We’ll take it!’ Grabbing a sucker for my purse to use as a lure for a well behaved, no tears experience, we loaded up and headed toward the salon, discussing with Clark what we were about to do, and being lied to with every utterance of agreement from him about the plan. We walked in right on time, were greeted, and shown to the chair. That is where things began to unravel.

As she pulled out the shiny cape with the fun animals on it, Clark went from cheerful to screaming bloody murder in 0.42 seconds. She, having the same idea as myself, grabbed the basket of suckers and offered him a token of bribery for allowing her to shape up the mop of hair he had on his head. Sans cape, she calmly grabbed the clippers and slowly turned them on, demonstrating to Clark how they didn’t hurt byrunning them across her arms. Convinced this was all a trap, Clark took the sucker in one hand, and with both hands, put a death grip on his hair and made clear his displeasure at the thought of cutting even one strand. Deciding that it was best to take a break, we sat in the lobby and allowed another customer to go ahead of us.

Said customer was a control freak mom and her 8 year old. FORTY minutes later, the mom was still telling our poor stylist how she didn’t like her son’s hair and wanted it even shorter. So the nice stylist cut it shorter. Then the mom wanted his bangs swept to the side. No, the OTHER side. Judging by how important the bangs were to her, I can only deduce that One Direction is hosting auditions in our town today, and those bangs are her kid’s shot at stardom. Bangs swept to the correct side, the son mentioned how itchy his neck was and mom nearly blew a gasket on the stylist for making the son’s neck itch. All I could think about was how this nice girl was probably going to set her scissors down, walk out the door, and never return. She was incredibly patient, washed the boy’s hair, and then sweetly smiled at us and asked if we were ready to try again. I should have asked if she was well versed in performing exorcisms.

90 minutes, many talks, offers of YouTube videos, a water bottle he was allowed to squirt wherever he wanted, and two suckers later, she did the best she could with scissors only while Clark did his best impression of a very angry honeybadger. And while the hair is finally out of his eyes, he looks as if he was the one entrusted with scissors and left unsupervised to cut his own hair. Out of protection for her business, we promised not to use the stylist’s name or salon, as this is not a reflection of her skills and talents. It is, however, a glaringly accurate picture of what happens when you think a spur of the moment haircut an hour before bedtime on a 2 year old is a good idea…

Hostile Work Environment

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time at all, you know that my luck is not the greatest. Mine is a life sprinkled with good fortune in terms of family and irresistible good looks, and terrible in terms of staying upright, my dream to be independently wealthy, avoiding weird illnesses, and other things of the sort.

I did hit a small jackpot in the job lottery and found one that keeps me busy, paid, and overall, pretty happy. In the couple of years that I have been there, I have become the go to person for most things, and enjoy getting to be a helper throughout the majority of days. The problem with being the helper is that when crap goes south, there is nobody to turn to except yourself. And crap always goes south.

I took a much needed day off after Thanksgiving so that we could visit Ryan’s family 6 hours away. After working Wednesday, we hit the road about 4pm with a toddler stowed away – he did a good job both ways overall, but traveling with a toddler just makes it more complicated. After a few days, we made the trip home late Saturday, rested on Sunday, and hit the ground running on Monday. Ready to be back to work, I strolled into the office my usual hour + before another soul arrives, and started answering the swarm of emails that awaited me. Before long, I needed to reach into my top desk drawer to retrieve my stapler that I have to hide because I work with hoodlums who will steal anything left out.

I grabbed the stapler and noticed something small fly off of it out of my peripheral, but didn’t think much of it. As I proceeded with my day, I took inventory of my desk and noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Random pieces of all of my office supplies were flying off every time I picked something up from inside my drawer. I decided to investigate, not knowing that I would never be the same as before saidinvestigation.

Upon an extended look into my drawer, I realized that I had an intruder gallivanting through my things in the form of a rodent. A mouse had been in my desk! And he left so many presents. As I continued to search and remove said presents with bleach wipes, I noticed that this had been more than a quick drop by visit over the holiday weekend – I had a full blown squatter living between the 3 drawers and inner workings of my desk. A mouse was living in my desk and using my nametags as urinals!

Having grown up in the God forsaken desert where the only living creatures were scorpions and tarantulas, I have very little experience with mice. Everyone who I begged to help me asked me if I had any food in my desk, and I kept telling them that I have gum and like 3 werther’s hard candies; 2 of which had been eaten through. 1.) Apparently, my mouse is an 85 year old woman, and 2.) I have food in my house, but that doesn’t mean that people can just show up and say ‘You have food, so I live here now’. That is not how it works! What am I supposed to do? Draft a tiny little subpoena and leave it in my desk with a court date?

Luckily, we have an amazing maintenance director who brought me some traps, told me to put them in the middle drawer and around the walls, and he would show up at 6am to check the traps for me. I think he took one look at me and knew I was no match for a creepy crawly mouse. Day 2 of the hostage situation began with new presents in drawers 1 and 3, and an empty trap in drawer 2. She’s a smart little old lady mouse!More bleach, some prayers, and the trap moved to drawer #3, and I ran for my life.

Day 3, I walked in, set my things down, and slowly opened my bottom drawer with my foot. As it slowly slid open, I thankfully saw no mouse and better yet, no mouse trap! As I rejoiced at the mouse’s day of reckoning, I felt the slightest twinge of sadness for the mouse’s life being over at the tender age of 85, but I technically didn’t kill her. I just ordered the hit that did kill her. Totally different. She’s either haunting me or she left her husband behind, because as I left today, I swear I heard a squeak as I shut the drawer. It either said ‘Rest In Peace, Gladys’ or ‘I’ll exact revenge on your life, Heidi, for killing my dear wife Gladys’.

Adventures in Atlanta

Part of my job calls for travel a handful of times each year; something that aside from being away from my boys, I mostly enjoy doing. This year, I have traveled to Birmingham and this last week, I was in Atlanta. The company I work for spares no expense at these things, so I always end up with a nice hotel room and great food – if you don’t count the 14 hour days, it sort of feels like a vacation!

Looking forward to my stay at a 5 star hotel after being chauffeured in a towncar, I packed my bags and hopped in the car with my boys who were waiting to take me to the airport. For weeks, I had been explaining to Clark that I was going to be gone for a few days, and when he started saying ‘Momma go to Georgia’, I thought the odds for a tear-free goodbye were looking good. So once we arrived at the curb outside the airport, I kissed Ryan goodbye and opened the door to the backseat to see my sweet boy sitting in his carseat with silent tears falling down his cheeks. It was at that moment that I considered quitting my job and never leaving the house again, but reason got the best of me and I somehow mustered up the courage to walk away from the car and through the entire airport sobbing like a crazy woman.

Before long, a plane arrived and it was time to get on it. Trying to shake the sight of those tears on those sweet cheeks, I chuckled to myself after realizing that yet again, my short little legs were granted an exit row seat, with precious inches of completely wasted on me leg room. I believe that makes my total 5 out of 6 flights this year where I received angry glares from tall people as they walked past me to their average leg room seat. After buckling up and following along with the safety card (I take exit row responsibility seriously!), we were taxiing down the runway and in the air! Our captain had told us that the previous flight was smooth except for some storms in Atlanta, so I was expecting more of the same. 

About 3 minutes after being airborne, there was a deafening noise inside the fuselage – alarms were sounding, people were bouncing around while seatbelts were on, we could feel the cargo hitting the floor beneath our feet, and very faintly, we heard the voice of the captain on the intercom. What we couldn’t hear was anything that he said because everything else was so loud. I am a calm flyer – I understand how closely monitored planes and pilots are, as well as how miniscule the odds of anything going wrong are. But nonetheless, I firmly wrapped my hands around the armrests and stared out my window until the gray and black of the massive clouds we were inside of dissipated to calm blue.

Not realizing that my husband was unaware of the ability to text and send Facebook messages from the newer planes, I recounted my harrowing tale and he said ‘You already landed?’ ‘No – we are still in the air’ ‘They let you send texts from a plane now?’ ‘Are you crashing?’ Unfortunately for him, my response to the ‘They let you send texts from a plane now?’ question didn’t send until after I had received ‘Are you crashing?’, so my answer of ‘Yes’ did nothing to comfort him. About the time I had it cleared up that yes we can text, and no we are not crashing, the pilot came back to say, and I quote, ‘Folks, it’s about to get bad, and it will be bad until we are on the ground in 40 minutes.’ And he was not wrong. It was the worst flight I have ever been on, and it’s not until you land after a flight like that that you realize your return flight is Friday the 13^th.

I was more than relieved to see that my hotel room lived up to my hopes, because after a flight like that, I contemplated moving in permanently.

After settling in, I rested up for the next few days, as we had a packed schedule. Wednesday and Thursday were very long and tiring, but overall, it was a good conference. That leads me to the last day, and the prospect of boarding a plane on Friday the 13^th after almost dying on one on Tuesday the 10^th. I woke up like this:

Who gets pink eye in a 5 star hotel, nowhere near a germy little kid? Apparently, I do. Point you, Friday the 13^th. Luckily with my glasses on, it wasn’t terribly visible, so I got packed up and headed down to finish off the week before heading to the airport. My flight was scheduled to leave at 9:45pm, but I had managed to get on standby for the 3:30pm flight. The course ended literally right next to the airport, so it would be a short commute once we were dismissed. A classmate of mine had an app that told him where each plane taking off overhead was en route to, and details about the plane itself. Keeping with the theme of the day, he informed me that my standby flight was the one directly over my head as we unloaded at the airport, meaning I was in for a 6 hour wait until my next flight. Loving airports, I took my time through security, got a snack, and settled in at the gate where this exact flight had left from the previous 6 nights.

As I waited and chatted with those around me, I received a text that my flight was actually going to be from a different terminal, so I would need to take the elevator 3 floors down and board the tram to get to the next concourse over. No problem. I did all of those things, and exited the tram to find that the elevator in the new terminal was broken, and I would have to take an escalator, that I am deathly afraid of, THREE STORIES up to the concourse. Apparently, when you are destined to die on Friday the 13^th, it doesn’t matter if it is by plane or escalator. Hands shaking, I finally stepped on after watching 10 ascending stairs pass me by, held on for dear life, and didn’t look up until I had to jump off so as to not be one of the people on the news who get sucked into the stairs of death.

Having survived that, I endured two more gate changes over the course of 2 hours until the screen at the gate I was at said my home city on it. I sat, along with 50 others, and watched the delay keep growing and growing and growing until it was no longer Friday the 13^th, rather, Saturday the 14^th, and I was still in the airport. The plane that they sent us from Pennsylvania had ‘mechanical issues’ and was delayed four hours, which meant our pilot was ‘timed out’ and had to have a mandatory rest period (good rule!). They assured us not to worry, as they had requested a backup pilot, and our first officer (who looked to be pre-pubescent) was already on the plane. Turns out that when a backup is requested, they have two hours to accept or decline the flight, and then an additional two hours to arrive at the airport. Our super awesome replacement pilot accepted with 7 minutes left in the first two hours, and then the clock started for his two hour window to arrive. This is where things went downhill.

Nobody likes to be delayed at the airport. I had been there for 8 hours at this point, and the people I was sitting with had been there for 15 hours. We all wanted to get home; none more than the older couple who repeatedly loudly announced that the following day was the husband’s 60^th birthday, and he wanted to be well rested before his party. Seriously. That’s a direct quote from the 60 year old. Complaining to all of us was not enough to get things off of his chest, so he called the airline, and obnoxiously pointed his cell phone in the face of every gate agent around, telling them he was getting their photos so that he could have them fired. After hours of listening to this couple act worse than the 4 year old who was also on our flight, a lady who hadn’t said a word prior had enough:

Nice Lady: Why don’t you sit down, shut up, and wait for the pilot like the rest of us?

Birthday Boy: I travel every week –

Nice Lady: Then you should be thankful that you get to travel and see the world! Seriously – that’s ENOUGH!

Birthday Boy: Yeah? Well you’re not getting home tonight!

Second Nice Lady: You need to be thankful that you have a home! All these people are losing theirs to hurricanes and fires and you are being obnoxious about having to wait. So SHUT UP!

Birthday Boy’s Wife: No! YOU shut up! He’s 60 and isn’t going to be able to rest before his party!

With that, we sarcastically all sang him happy birthday; he cringed and his wife beamed with pride, taking all of the credit for organizing this chorus for her husband. It was now 3 hours after the reserve pilot accepted the job, and off of the plane walked the First Officer, who had been sitting on it for six hours waiting for his counterpart, and had now also timed out and needed to rest. It was 2am, our flight had been rescheduled for 6am with two new pilots, and they were offering hotel vouchers and putting people on standby for the 10pm flight the next night. Birthday Boy and his wife took the hotel and the later flight, while the rest of us, including a couple with a small baby, settled in and waited it out.

By 5am, I was bruised from rib to rib from trying to sleep on the airport floor, exhausted from not being able to sleep on said floor, I had been at the airport for 14 hours, and I had freaking pink eye, but I was boarding a plane to head home! It was a much less eventful flight, I had been upgraded to a comfy seat, and I even got the privilege of watching the sun rise over the horizon.

After I returned home to my boys, a co-worker told me about a flight the same day (Friday the 13^th), to Helsinki, whose airport code is HEL, and the flight just so happened to be #666. I am not terribly superstitious, but after my week, HEL no!

Home

Home. It’s always been a bit of a fluid word for me, spanning 3 states and numerous cities. Las Vegas has always been on the list. Whether as a reference point while explaining that my dot on the map hometown is an hour away, or a story from the four years that it was my actual place of residence, Vegas has always been in the same sentence as ‘home’. While it has been years since I lived and worked there, waking up to the news today over 1,000 miles away shattered my heart just like it would if I was still 3 miles from Mandalay Bay.

First shock as I frantically scanned the articles, then relief as one by one, I saw my friends check in on social media as ‘safe’. Next came the nausea at the thought of why I hadn’t heard from some of the people I had texted. Trying to remind myself that it was in the 4am hour where they were, I sat on the edge of the tub with my face in my hands and my knees shaking, jumping at each noise my phone made, hoping it was another one of ‘my’ people saying they were okay. In the same moment, realization that so many people wouldn’t ever get that text. And in that moment, while I was overjoyed that ‘my’ people were all alive, every one of those concert goers became ‘my’ people.

At the heart of it, they are all ‘our’ people. They are fellow Las Vegans, and Southwesterners, and Midwesterners, and Americans, and just fellow human beings – that makes them our people. Our people are hurt, and broken, and dead today because of another one of our people. And I, personally, don’t need to know his name, or his age, or his background. 

We failed the victims and their families. Someone sold this person upwards of TWENTY rifles, and thousands of rounds of ammo (This isn’t an anti-gun issue for me. Have your guns. Use them responsibly. But also demand that nobody should have access to one without a rigorous screening, and that even after that screening, nobody needs that much ammo or the ability to make a weapon fully automatic). Someone saw a red flag somewhere and didn’t speak up. Someone let him walk out of a store with an alarming amount of guns and bullets, and someone else let him walk into a hotel with them.

I am a mom, and this blog is meant to be a forum to recount the fun, challenging, and hilarious stories that come with being a parent. But today, it serves as a heartbreaking reminder that this is the world my precious, innocent child is going to inherit. Doesn’t he deserve a world where this kind of behavior isn’t tolerated? I mean truly not tolerated. That means putting our money toward legislation that makes healthcare accessible and affordable and a real option for someone battling mental illness. And it means putting our money toward legislation that keeps it possible for responsible, law abiding, mentally stable recreational gun owners to obtain a firearm, while also making it an extremely rare circumstance for someone who is not all of those things to acquire a gun. It means empowering law enforcement and everyday citizens to be able to dive deeper into a situation when something doesn’t feel quite right. It means media taking a stand and vowing to never air the name or photo or front door or distant relative of the shooter. And maybe it even means fighting for a world where someone cannot purchase hundreds of bullets at a time. I know that one hits a nerve, but isn’t my child’s life worth the inconvenience?

Today, I am incredibly thankful that there were so many helpers there last night in my home. The police and the medics and the firefighters and the doctors and nurses and good Samaritans and all of the other people that I am failing to name. And I am selfishly thankful that my child is too small to understand what happened, and that I don’t have to look into his eyes and explain it. One rule as a parent that I am very passionate about is not burdening little people with big people problems. No kid should have to worry about their safety at school, or a movie theater, or a concert, or a festival, or a damn grocery store. And whatever we as big people have to do to make sure that is a fundamental truth, I am okay with.

Case of the Mondays

Yesterday was Monday. Not my favorite day of the week, but I happen to have a job that I enjoy 94% of the time, so I woke up excited to get my day started. That lasted for about 2 hours. By 9:30am, I was debating hiding under my desk or locking myself in the bathroom for the remaining 6 hours of my work day. I like to think of myself as Olivia Pope. I am the fixer at work. Someone has a question or a problem or needs some help, they come to me. I know who to call for help with most things, I know where we keep almost everything, and I generally have my finger on the pulse of most things on the horizon. I am a fixer.

I like being a fixer. Except for when I cannot fix something. Yesterday, I couldn’t fix anything. Every project I was in the middle of at work figuratively went up in flames. I was the bearer of bad news most of the day, and while I wasn’t actually shot for being the messenger, I did not escape completely unscathed. There were wounds that will take a while to heal, but eventually, they will scab over and we can move on with our lives.

Ready to put the day behind me, I grabbed Clark from daycare and went home to intercept Ryan and head to my happy place; Target. As I pulled into the driveway, Ryan met me outside to tell me that the house was completely dark and getting warm, as we had no power. Being the smart guy he is, he told me that it probably wasn’t a great idea to get groceries since we were unsure of when our fridge would be up and running.Trying to make lemonade out of some powerless lemons, we headed to Olive Garden – my favorite!

We have found recently that our almost 2 year old is not a fan of eating. Ever. Unless it is a chobani greek yogurt or a banana, meal time is a battle of epicproportions and strong wills at our house. He does love his carbs, just like his momma, so pasta and bread felt like our best shot. Once seated and settled, Clark took it upon himself to loudly greet all who were within 20 feet of us, multiple times. ‘HI!’ ‘Hiiiiii! ‘Hi!’. Repeatedly. When not assaulting the restaurant with ‘hi’s, he passed the time by pointing at everyone’s food and signing ‘eat’. When we offered him the menu pairings, his only response was ‘No!’ Clark do you want ravioli? No! Do you want chicken? No! Do you want 8 million dollars in exchange for 3 peaceful bites of food? NO!

Gluttons for punishment, we ordered in spite of the prolonged hunger strike, and offered him many different flavors. The only three things he would willfully consume without screaming his head off? Tomatoes, black olives, and French fries. Not completely dissimilar to his mother’s palate. He also gleefully stuck his finger into the ketchup and licked it off. Hey – it’s kind of a vegetable. Also not eating was my husband, who was now 6 shades of pale and gingerly touching the side of his mouth. He was experiencing tooth/nerve/mouth pain and was visibly distraught. Being the fixer I am, I called every dentist’s office I could find, asking each if there was any way they could see him immediately. After several calls, one very nice lady told me to get him to the office by 5pm and they would treat him. Perfect! I hung up, looked at my phone, saw that it was 4:56 and did some quick math. 1 toddler, 3 plates to box up, 1 check to receive and pay, plus 1 toddler being buckled into a 5 point harness, and 15 minutes of cross town traffic. Carry the 1. No. Can’t make all that happen in 4 minutes.

Ryan assured me that he could wait 24 hours to be seen, and would get some medicine if I took him home. So, we went home. Ryan got Clark out of the car and my job was to unlock the door. We have 2 doors – a regular door and then a glass storm door. The glass storm door, as you would imagine, is the one closest to the outside. Said storm door locks and unlocks, but only from the inside. There is no key hole on the outside. And wouldn’t you know it – we accidentally locked that door when we left for dinner. So now we are locked out of the house that still has no power. And short of our dog having opposable thumbs and half a brain (She’s sweet and we love her, but she has neither of these things), there is nobody on the inside who can help us get in. Oh, it’s also somehow 90* in late September in the Midwest. Perfect. Clark and I sat in the car and I gave him a stationary driving lesson, crazy hair, and a demonstration of selfies with the a/c blasting (Growing up in the desert taught me a thing or two about how to survive the heat during power outages!), while my husband took various tools from the shed and attempted to break into our own house.

Get the man a mask, a bag with money signs on it, and a wrench, and he could have a future as a very successful burglar, because he broke in, people! Clark and I followed him into the hot, dark house, and I had no more than shut the door when I heard a very eery sound. I turn around, look outside, and there is 40 mph winds, pouring rain, and every trash bin on our street is skiing into the alley when 90 seconds prior, the sun was shining. Oh good, it’s the apocalypse. That’s really the only thing missing from this day.

Mercifully, the storm only lasted a few minutes, we have sweet friends who took us in for the evening, and when we returned home, the power had been restored, and the house was on its way to cooling down. We went to bed and greeted Tuesday with fresh eyes. Unfortunately, Tuesday was just a second Monday involving a broken phone and (unrelated) dog pee, but we have high hopes for surviving Wednesday!

A klutz and a massage therapist walk into a bar...

Some people have a magnetic quality about them – they draw other people in because of their charm, or looks, or whatever sort of magical aura they give off. Others seem to have a certain luck about them – everything falls into place in their lives, they are seemingly always in the right place at the right time. And then there’s me. Oh sure, I am magnetic and I also have a very specific brand of ‘luck’ that follows me wherever I go…it’s just an unfortunate combination.

Let’s start with my bad luck - lack of coordination: Seven days ago, as I was walking to my desk, I ate some pavement in the parking lot at work. I was fine and walking upright, and then I was on the ground with an aching from my hands to my knees. As I picked myself up off the ground and noticed that I conveniently landed right in front of the security camera, I also realized that my right knee was really hurting. In the state of shock that one finds them in after taking a tumble, I walked to my desk, set my things down, clocked in, and grabbed a tissue that I placedmid-shin to collect the blood that was pooling from my knee. I rolled my leggings up to reveal a moderate scratch and already blue bruise on my left knee, and a significantly more impressive chunk of missing skin on my right knee, with some pavement sprinkled on top. While periodically switching out the tissue, I called a co-worker who found me a first aid kid complete with antiseptic wipes that made me cry more than the fall itself, and about 14 bandages only large enough to cover an infant’s pinky finger. It wasn’t until the nice gentleman standing at my desk asked me ‘Honey, should you be here right now?’ that it occurred to me that I might need more medical attention than a tissue.

Once home, gauzed, and iced, I headed back to work for a pretty quiet rest of the work week. Aside from being sore, and dreading cleaning and changing the dressing of my wounded right knee, I felt fine. This morning, on the one week-iversary of the ‘incident’, I was leaving my neighborhood gas station when I, again, found myself on the ground and in pain. Only this time, there were witnesses, and it was my left knee that was bleeding. As I picked myself up this time, a very nice lady grabbed my wallet, phone, glasses, and keys that were all strewn about, handed them back to me and told me to have a better day. I again went home, cleaned and bandaged my knee, and this time iced my ankle that looks like a softball. When it was time to head into work, I told my boss that I couldn’t shove my foot into heels or even my flats, so I waltzed in bloodied, bruised, and in flip flops…real classy.

Moving onto my magnetic quality – I attract crazies: Since I just had a birthday and was showered with a lot of love and some extra ‘fun’ money, I told Ryan that I think after my wounds heal, I will use some of it on a nice, relaxing massage. It was at that moment that my husband said ‘Yeah…from a CRAZY person!’ Not exactly sure what he was referring to, but trusting my gut that a reminder of a good story was going to be displayed, I bit. ‘What do you mean? Why does it have to be from a crazy person?’ Something in my own wording reminded me and it all came flooding back. ‘Oh, you mean the guy that I had to pay $100 to in advance, but it got me four 1 hour massages, and he kept moving my appointment to the last one of the day so we were the only 2 people in the giant, dark building when I left? And whose office was just an empty desk, massage table, and a futon?’ I was answered with ‘Yes, Heidi, that is who I was talking about (his tone was as if to say ‘Who ELSE would I be referring to??). And also the lady who you went to after I told you that you weren’t going to that man’s office anymore.’ Jogging even more memories, I responded with ‘Oh yeah. She told me she saw angels, and told me their names and what they were doing to each muscle. And then she put my wrist to her neck and told me that when she prays to those angels, they send healing through her arteries and then she passes that healing to me from her arteries to my wrist.’ I sure can pick ‘em!

So if you know anyone of sound mind who is extremely unlikely to kidnap me and also happens to be an on-the-up-and-up massage therapist, please send them my and my bloody knees’ way.

How I Almost Died At Starbucks

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I LOVE Starbucks. It is a magical nectar of the gods that tastes delicious, and it also makes me a nice person. I met a lady this morning at my local Starbucks that doesn’t seem to be a terribly nice person. Maybe when she is properly caffeinated, she’s lovely. Perhaps coffee is what she needs to get her through the day; and deep in my soul, I understand that.

As a tried and true Starbucks customer, I have visited many stores, met countless baristas, and spent a disgusting amount of money (in my quick estimation, it’s in the neighborhoodof the cost of a very crappy car, but nonetheless, a car) on the blended goodness known worldwide as a Caramel Frappuccino. I have encountered baristas who make the perfect blend of caramel and coffee, and I have also been handed a drink that has astrikeout through ‘wc’ (whip cream, for you non-lifetime members), and yet also has a mountain of lusciously peaked whipped cream on top. I fully understand what a bummer it is to navigate the ridiculously sharp drive-thru turn after waiting anywhere from 3 – 38 minutes in a line of cars, get to the window, and be greeted by a way-too-perky twentysomething holding a drink that was not made the way you ordered. I. Get. It.

Over the many times this has happened in a span of 12 years, my reaction has varied from secret delight at the thought of indulging in the extra calories to nicely asking ‘I thought I ordered no whip – did I forget to tell you that part?’. 99.99 out of 100 times, they swiftly apologize, take the drink back, and correct it in 15 seconds. In the lady’s defense, I have very rarely, but it did happen, encountered a green barista who lacks some customer service skills. In my case, she had accidentally knocked my cup over, spilling approximately half of my drink, and when she handed it to me, she said ‘We spilled. That’s why your cup is half empty.’ Trying to see the positive, I assumed that I had been granted the courtesy of a lower price and said ‘Did I get charged for a Venti (large)?’ The answer was a resounding ‘Yes!’, to which I countered ‘But I received the amount of a Grande (medium)…’ With only losing a smidge of her perkiness, she repeated ‘Yeah. We made you a Venti, but we spilled half of it.’ A kind email explaining my disappointment sent to the store manager resulted in a genuine apology, and a gift card for the mishandling of my order and experience.

This brings me to today. I collected orders from the staff at work and set off to go get some coffee for my friends that I work alongside. As I walked through the doors of my local coffee chain and approached the counter, the barista whispered under his breath ‘Oh God! Not that lady.’ As I wracked my brain trying to remember if I had committed any recent crimes and perhaps my photo was on a ‘Wanted’ sign behind me, and he was expressing his displeasure at having to apprehend me for the authorities, he clarified ‘Not you! There’s a woman in the drive-thru who is mad and coming into the store. She’s…she’s uh…well, you’ll see what she is.’ And that I did.

The doors swung open, and she nearly ran a few folks over getting to the counter. I noticed that she was small framed, wore glasses, and had a mixture of blond, brown, red, and black hair. I have no scientific evidence, but I am pretty sure that if it were studied, a correlation between the amount of colors in one’s hair and the amount of F bombs dropped out of their mouth would be found. In my very small sample size from today, I found this to be true. She began screaming about how her drink was made incorrectly, and she demanded to have the name of the barista who committed such a crime, so she could ‘ruin her’. I generally catch more flies with honey than I do with vinegar, but you do you, ma’am. The supervisor calmly reminded rainbow hair that the barista apologized, made her a new drink, gave her the new drink for free, and offered her a gift card for her next visit, and stated that she would not be revealing her employee’s name. Rainbow hair didn’t like that. Her yelling got even louder and she pulled the power card – ‘NOBODY messes up my coffee! Do you hear me?!’ I’m pretty sure a man in a coma at the hospital 3 miles away heard her, but it didn’t seem like a great time to let her know. She continued with ‘I will have ALL of your jobs by the end of today! My coffee was made wrong, and this isn’t the first time!’ The supervisor, who is my new hero, stayed strong and simply countered ‘That’s too bad.’ Rainbow hair realized that her words weren’t holding much water, so she leaned in, made a fist, and swung it in front of the supervisor’s face and shouted ‘Now you’re WITHHOLDING names of employees that I deserve to know?! Corporate will be hearing about this!’ With a final string of curse words that I’ll spare you, she flung the doors open and left.

Ashamed on her behalf, I told the barista helping me that they handled her well, were doing a great job, and I hoped that she didn’t ruin any of their days. I paid for the final order with a $10 bill, and he handed me back three $5 bills and told me to have a good day. Well, considering that I made money on the deal, it was a pretty good day. I said ‘Didn’t I give you a $10?’ with all three bills fanned toward him. He grabbed one of the $5 bills out of my hand and apologized for the mistake. But I was still holding $10. I said ‘But I still have $10…I think I am only supposed to have $5.’ Math isn’t my strong spot, and when it comes to calculating change, I am seriously probably at a 5^th grade level, so I got pretty confused about the whole ordeal. He assured me that my correct change was $10…after I bought $5 worth of coffee and handed him a $10. Which honestly, I feel like I deserved a free coffee after risking my life for it.

As you can see, the love of Starbucks is genetic. I just hope that kindness when working with the service industry is, too. And I hope he gets his math skills from his dad.