I'm sitting in a massage chair in the Milwaukee airport. Isn't that an odd sentence? It's about 5:30 pm and I've been here almost two hours. (I'm not getting a massage. I just wanted to sit here. And no one has yelled at me. If they did, I'd say "it's a free country" and then I'd point to the giant American flag hanging in the window to my right. So I have a plan, is what I'm saying.) My flight doesn't leave until 9:30 pm so I'm kind of on an adventure, like that time my Mom gave me a quarter to walk downtown and buy a newspaper by myself when I was 9. (That story sounds so made up; as if I were a kid in the 50's or something. But it's not made up. I felt like such a grown up that day. However somewhere along the line a fake memory of buying a Coke for 25 cents made it's way into the story as well. I swear that Coke was real, but I don't know how it could be. Except... it was Minerva, Ohio. If anywhere in 1996 could have still gotten away with selling glass Coke bottles for a quarter, it's Minerva.)
The reason I'm here is that Aaron's lovely, spunky Grandma Irma passed away last week and we celebrated her at a funeral this morning in Gurnee. Now I'm hopping back over to Phoenix one day ahead of Aar so that I can make it to work tomorrow.
I've read before that the things that bother you most about other people are the qualities in yourself that you most hate. Or maybe the qualities you just fear you have? I don't remember. That's kind of an important distinction though...
Either way.
I don't want to be this person:
Her: "Oh my gosh, I just drank poison. Help me. I am dying."
Me: "OMG ONE TIME I DRANK POISON, IT WAS SO MUCH FUN LISTEN TO MY LONG STORY ABOUT IT, FULL OF INCONSEQUENTIAL DETAILS"
Her: (dead).
That's the type of person that bothers me the most. Am I her?
The Midwest smells so sweet in the summer. Today we drove by the house in Oak Creek, WI where Aar lived until he was 2. We drove by around 2:00 PM. On a Wednesday in summer. Three little girls were playing with a plastic castle in the driveway, and my heart broke and melted and buried itself beneath the pavement. I want that back - sunny, fleeting Wednesdays. With plastic toys in the driveway and grilled cheese.
The summer between our junior and senior year of college, Aar and I painted the apartment above the funeral home in Warren, Ohio. His dad worked there and we were broke so he handed us some white paint, said we had a week and that he would pay us at the end of it. Sometimes I think about that week, and about how curious things like that are. Where for a succession of 5 or 6 days or so, life was absolutely consumed by that little apartment and paint and old sheets on the floor. Then we left and haven't really been back hardly at all. The song "You Just Forgot" by Mindy Smith was in my head the whole week, and I sang it loud and clear every moment. Now when I hear it, I smell paint.
What's the story on getting Quizno's at the airport? Are we talking $5 for a bottle of water or am I good since I haven't gone through Security yet? Gotta go, Mustachio over here is making eyes at me. That's my cue.
Well... That example made me so laugh. I used to have quite a few people in my life that were like that. Pretty annoying indeed.
ReplyDeleteHm, there's one thing tht drives me mad fast. When people are unreliable and never on time. Americans often time don't get how much it freaks me out. Ok, the stereotype of the always-on-time-german might Be true for me. Being on Time is 5 mins early. :) so for this one its not true... Because I'm not like it.
I hate whiny people tho... People who always wine and get a bunch of attention. Probably... Because I'd sometimes like to Be like that, just wine and get everything because I am soooo poor. :P well, I guess I expect a lot from people... Äne from myself what makes me feel like a loser sometimes.
So... I think a lot of people don't like others' bad habits because those reflect their own... But it doesn't have to be true. Sometimes there are just things we don't like without actually finding them within ourselves.