A Day in the Life: June 4. 2012

5:10 AM – I’ve fallen asleep on the couch again, watching Youtube on TV.  This is not a good habit to get into.  I strain and peer to try and see the clock but I cannot see the time without my glasses.  I pad the coffee table for them, put them on.

Damn.  Too early to get up and too late to fall back into deep sleep.  I plod to the bathroom to pee, plod to my bedroom and doze until the alarm clock goes off.

5:45 AM – The alarm clock goes off.  I hit snooze and try to wring every last drop of sleep out.  It’s of little use, but I try nonetheless. 

6:00 AM – I plan to have a bite of breakfast before work as I always feel better when I do, but I get distracted reading emails and Google Reader.

6:20 AM – Oh shit, I gotta get moving.  Brush teeth.  Put on clothes.  Run out the door.  No breakfast.  I stuff two apples and leftover curried bean soup into my lunchbag.

6:27 AM – Catch the bus to work.  It’s the same 3 people every day when I get on.  Cute young Asian woman, who looks up from her book and smiles at me every morning.  I smile and nod back, frowning a little on the inside when I see her wedding band.  Next is a middle-aged native woman, who is nice enough, but will chew my ear off the entire bus trip, so now I wave and smile, but keep my distance.  The third is a sullen man in the back, wearing a construction safety vest and ridiculously loud bass booming out of his headphones.  We never acknowledge each other.  I read a couple of stories out of Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House.

6:45 AM – Get off the bus, and leg it the remaining 5 minutes to the office.  The first person I always see is Svetlana, our receptionist from Russia with the thick Boris dahling accent.  She is young and very nice and we banter a minute before I get to my desk.

10:30 AM – I have been snowed in with paperwork and invoices all morning and I can scarcely believe it’s this late.  I go for a walk to the Wal-Mart, which is about 5 minutes away and buy pre-cut, pre-washed broccoli and canned pasta for lunch.  I make a mental note to set aside 10 minutes to make my lunch before I go to bed tonight and I also note with bemusement that I’ll get lazy and I won’t bother. 

1:00 PM – Now there is virtually nothing to do.  The classical music playing on our small office radio is making me drowsy.  It’s liable to be like this for the rest of the day.  My workmate in the office, Stan, only works part-time and has gone home for the day.  I’m all by my lonesome in my corner of the building.

4:45 PM – I walk in the door and resist the urge to sink into the couch to play video games until midnight.  I survey the place; it’s like a toy-filled bomb went off in here.  I can’t rest now.  I’ve got to make supper, go for a jog and head out to Nick’s soccer practice.  I put a chicken breast with a splash of olive oil in a pan and set it to medium.  I wash some dishes while it cooks and set up the rice cooker.  While that’s going on, I do two loads of dishes and change into my jogging gear.  The rice is done, so I cut up the cooked chicken, add some frozen veggies and throw it all in a pot with a few dollops of one of a dozen half-filled bottles of sauce I got in the fridge.  I think it’s some kind of rib sauce, but I’m not positive.

5:30 PM – I go for a jog, debating on whether or not to run the 5k route or the 3k route.  I’ve got a lot to do tonight, so I opt for 3k.  The route takes me near my ex-wife’s workplace, and I worry about bumping into her.  I don’t want her to think I’m showing off by running near her workplace, but at the same time, this is the most convenient route for me; no busy streets to cross and lots of shade from trees.  For this reason, I keep this route and let her think what she wants to think.

6:00 PM – I eat supper on the couch, shoveling in chicken and rice with a big spoon right from the pot I cooked it in.  I annoyingly realize the pot is too hot to set down anywhere, least of all my lap.  I eat while holding the pot in the air in front of me by the handle.  This is really awkward, but I don’t want to get up; I’ll just eat really fast.

6:45 PM – I’m at the field for Nick’s practice.  I’m the only one here.  I’m paranoid that I’m in the wrong place.  I text my ex and yes, this is the right place.

7:00 PM – Nick and two other boys from his team are here, but no one else.  The coach doesn’t show up, nor does she message or call anyone.  We watch the boys play in the park for an hour, before I leave.  I observe, with more than a little Schadenfreude how cool and distant the ex and her new fiancée are with each other.  They don’t sit together.  They don’t hold hands or show no affection toward each other at all, and that is not par for the course for my ex.  Then I put it out of my head.  It is none of my business.

8:00 PM – No one else shows up and we go our separate ways.  I kiss and hug the boys good night and head over to a pub to meet up with a couple of friends.

8:30 PM – We have a beer at a tavern I’ve never been to before, even though it’s been around for nearly 20 years.  They carry good local brew, but at about a dollar a pint more.  The ambiance is nice, but nothing special.  A dozen other places in town have the same beer and ambiance, and it’s cheaper.  We order another round, and they forget about us.  There are literally five other people in the place.  We try to flag the bartender, but he’s busy surfing the web on his laptop.  We get fed up, get up to pay the bill and tries to bill us for the second round.  After a minute of ‘discussion’, and the other people at the bar sticking up for us, we pay for one round, no tip and hit the road.  He scowls at us.  We won’t be back.

9:00 PM – We head over to our usual watering hole.  We’re greeting by our usual good-hearted, if spinny waitress.  We sit on the patio and chat peacefully while the sun sets.

9:45 PM – A van pulls up in the parking lot and some woman, who looks exactly like Snooki from Jersey Shore if she were 25 years older and about 80 pounds heavier spills out onto the pavement.  She is shouting at another car in the parking lot a full five minutes after that particular car drove away.  I don’t know and I don’t want to know.  I only hope she isn’t going to sit on the patio.

9:50 PM – Yup.  She’s sitting on the patio at the next table over, her and a man who looks about 25 years older than her.  She tells everyone in a loud voice that he is her neighbour who was good enough to drive her to cash her cheque, so she’s buying him a beer.  He looks a lot like Jasper from The Simpsons, says nothing, looking straight ahead.  I’m wondering intently what his deal is.

10:00 PM – Snooki Sr. is starting to hit on me.  I think it’s only because I’m sitting closest to her, and her being drunk (and God knows what else) rather than any je ne sais quoi I may possess.  I try being gracious and polite but my gut tells me that that isn’t going to work here.

“Hey cutie, you like to party?  You got beautiful eyes, you know that?”  She is really drunk.  My two friends talk amongst themselves, creating a bubble within, and leaving me to fend for myself.  They look over at me, their eyes smiling, thankful it isn’t them.

I tell her I’m flattered, but I’ve got to get up early for work tomorrow.  It isn’t a lie.  “Hush baby, you can sleep at my place… it’s all good, I won’t kick you out.” she tries purring at me, but it comes out sounding like a slurring mess.

10:10 PM:  She latches onto someone else for a few minutes, before him and his girlfriend get up and leave.  She immediately turns back onto me.  “Hey honey,” she slurs “Give me a smile… I don’t bite… well… not much HAHAHAHAHA!”  Jasper, the neighbour, continues staring straight ahead, pretending to be intimately interested in a billboard on the street.

“I know what boys want.  I know what all boys want.  You wanna see them?”  At first I don’t realize what she’s talking about, but soon, it’s clear enough.  She’s trying to get her tits out.

Except she can’t. 

She’s wearing a very professional-looking button-up blouse and she’s too drunk to work the buttons properly.  I emphatically DO NOT want to see this woman’s tits.  My friends are barely able to contain their laughter.  Thanks a lot, assholes.

“Please, it’s okay… I’m not interested, and I don’t want you to embarrass yourself.”

“What… are you a fag?  All the boys love my breasts, and you’re… gonna see them… and you’re going to love them too.”  She’s trying to talk seductively, but she’s speaking like she fell out of a tree and hit her head.  And she’s still struggling with the buttons on her blouse.  As sad and pathetic is this little attention-seeking stunt is, I’m trying hard not to laugh.  I look over at Jasper, and he just shrugs and holds up his beer bottle as if to say ‘this is all I’m here for, man.’

Sweet Jesus.  I’m actually holding up a hand to my eyes, averting my gaze.  She’s got her blouse buttons unbuttons, and now she’s trying to get her tits out of her bra. 

“Excuse me ma’am, you’ll have to leave the establishment.”  It was the bar manager, making the save.

Thank freakin’ God.  I was expecting a Jersey Shore-style public spectacle, but he just led her outside and her and Jasper walked away, with her shirt still wide open.  It looked like she was sobbing quietly. 

10:45 PM.  I finish my beer and call it a night.  It’s a ten minute walk to my apartment and the night air is cool and refreshing. 

11:00 PM  I get into my apartment, strip to my underpants, and turn on the TV.  I find nothing interesting, so I open my laptop and catch up on my Youtube subscriptions.  As I doze off, I realize that I didn’t make lunch for tomorrow yet.  I’m too tired to get back up.

I’ll do it later.