One of the Good Guys

Thursday. A bad day from the jarring start.

I was up until well after 2:00 AM, insomniac, having decided to act on the inspiration from Luke Smith to start a seven-season DVD marathon of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (greatest terebision writing of its time, and anyone who says otherwise is a fool).

8:34 AM. Knock knock knock knock knock. Ohhhh, where’s the fire?! Well, that’s what I get for posting my work schedule on the fridge; Brooke needed me to watch the fussy baby while she worked, and she knew I didn’t work until 2:00. From now on, my work schedule shall remain a mystery. So yeah. I’m going to skip a few episodic details here and just leave the general crappiness to your imagination. Next thing you know, it’s after noon and the kid’s taking a nap and Brooke’s on a conference call, so I sneak out for some much-needed coffee before work.

I went to the Crooked Tree (aka “Site B,” when I’m feeling more like relaxing with a book than getting stuff done in the brighter atmosphere of Picasso’s Art of Coffee). My precious bubble of all-too-brief isolation was ruptured by… wait for it…

Wait for it…

A bus pulled up in front of the coffee shop and a high school choir unloaded, filing into the coffee shop for some caroling.

Actually, they were pretty darn good for a high school choir. Too bad they relied on the resident out-of-tune piano. Yyyyyeowch.

This unexpected performance had a three-pronged effect. First, initially, I was amused and pleased to see that a tuxedo-and-prom-dress-sporting clan of vocalists had come to find me to bring a little Christmas cheer to my day. Second, and almost just as initially, I felt a horrible pang of remorse, for I should have applied for substitute teaching at their school system in addition to the one that snubbed me. Third, and most profoundly, I felt a much more resonant feeling of remorse for not being their actual teacher, never mind sub teacher. Because I was qualified to do it.

Once again, I was an unnoticed, forgotten little composer in a sea of artless buffoons. Uh… that sounded a bit snobbier than I intended.

After the wassailing, the kids were free to order their own drinks and chill for a bit before loading back onto the bus. One guy saw my paperback (Star Wars: Allegiance) and struck up a conversation about the Expanded Universe and how he was interested in getting into it. This was the second EU conversation I had with a total stranger in less than a week at that place… anyway, from there we started talking about choral music, college, and everything related. It was nice to talk to someone (even a high-schooler) about music for a change. “Culturally starved,” I guess is the term that synopsizes this little anecdote. Yeah. With my last cup of coffee, I stared pensively out the window, thinking about how underappreciated I am and how I “should” be “doing” something with my degree, with my life.

“Life”… I use the term loosely.

Somehow, this made me think about how Sensei Banks had just added me on Facebook, which seemed horrifying on so many levels…

Crap, the clock said I had to go to work in twenty minutes. Helluva mindset to start a crap job with, huh? Given the mountain of personal frustration I had encountered so far that day, by this point I was quite wound up. I guess my attitude was “militant enthusiasm with a hint of sardonic retort.” Basically, don’t be a dick customer to me unless you really, really, really think you can outwit me. I was fearless and energized, because all I could think about was how I’m way too hardcore for any petty nonsense that was bound to happen.

So I went to work.

After clocking in, I passed a dude on the sales floor with a fleeting moment of banter, who told me “Welcome to Hell.” I shrugged it off, for I had been to Hell, and it was actually 487 miles east of there. After a moment of self-deprecating humor, he insisted, “You’re actually one of the better ones working up there.” I found it to be an odd thing to say, since he had never even seen me in action. It insinuated a level of workplace gossip in my favor. I filed that little nugget away for later.

By this point, I had recognized many faces of previous customers. You definitely recall the more difficult ones. Yeah, and every single one of the most difficult customers I’ve ever had came into work today. Fine by me. It was a blur… my hands were a blur as I went through the motions with a hint of Jason Statham behind my trite little customer-service platitudes.

Later in the evening, a couple of Japanese guys bought a couple of winter coats, neither of which had tags and therefore had to be looked up by a field agent while they waited at the register. Almost prophetically, earlier Herr Vogler and I had joked about how the next time a couple of Japanese people checked out, I should speak to them in their native language and cause them to crap their pants. Well, these guys seemed amused by it, and talked back. It wasn’t quite the brown-noise reaction I had hoped for, but I prefer to think of it this way: who f***ing expects a lowly cashier at a store in Midwestern America to speak something as esoteric as Japanese?! Spanish, maybe, but…

Anyway, somehow I filed this under “negative experiences,” because I lamented not having studied or practiced the language in several weeks, and the reaction was far from pants-crapping.

Life went on.

After a series of other crap, the night was finally nearing an end. As I had described to a coworker to poked fun at the fact that I was still there two hours after having gotten off work at 8:30, “This is the day that just won’t end.”

After a juvenile-humor-infested phone conversation with the Blanch, I determined that it was okay to “just have a beer on a Thursday night,” especially when I didn’t have to work on Friday so it was essentially my Friday night. So, with the Blanch’s blessing, I decided I wanted a Killian’s or two… or seventeen…

I patrolled Main Street, but I swear every single bar had a dang cover band playing loud, crappy crap. I just wanted to have some relative quiet. So guess where I ended up…

“I’m not going back there.”
--A Dark and Stormy Knight, posted November 23.

”I was reminded of Clark Kent at the end of Superman II, when he goes back to the bar just to kick some ass because he *can*.”
--Menagerie, posted December 8.

Options were few. So I returned to said bar because I wanted to kill a couple hours before going back to the house. I had my reasons.

The last thing I expected to find at this point… the last thing I expected… was some good karma…

Said server was working again, serendipitously. She was off-and-on engaged in a conversation with a coworker who was sitting on my side of the bar. Eventually, it became a three-way conversation, after the place died down a bit.

Beyond talking about wedding plans/pitfalls, master’s degrees, asshole customers, and expectations of people who shouldn’t have any to begin with, we talked about the episode from a few weeks ago, how I was irritated on her behalf at the way people were acting. She had a lot to say.

I found it hilariously (and blogworthily) ironic that she, in all her animated ranting, told me that I seemed like the angry one on the matter. I insisted that it was merely “righteous indignation,” which for some reason elicited laughter from both of the girls. Hmmm… yes, I made a mental note to mention that to the Captain later. “Righteous indignation” is his domain, you know.

I reminded her that all would turn to silver glass, that the status quo was mere fleeting bullshit, that she wouldn’t even remember this discussion after a couple years of marriage. She told me that I was preaching to the choir, and her just-off-duty coworker just smiled. I took illogical comfort in knowing that I would, in fact, be forgotten in time.

Like I said, I didn’t expect to do any good for society when I walked in there. After all, I told them, if I was there at all, chances are it was because I had a bad day. So it was good to speak my mind for a change.

A large part of this exchange was regarding the connotations of the bar itself and assumptions based on the… attire the waitresses wore. Far from a skin bar, mind you, but decidedly less classy than, say, the Classic Cup Café. If you know what I mean. I should mention that my final tab reflected that my fourth beer was on the house. I guess the moral of the story is: treat your wait staff like human beings. But that’s a rant for another time.

So there was a modicum of redemption, a quantum of solace, at a place I had previously sworn off. Ironic. All for a couple of beers to blow off steam. I realized that now I would probably see them again, at least once. I said, putting on my coat, “Just remember, the next time you see me… I’m one of the good guys.”

She reassured me, “Whenever I see you come in, I assume you’re here for a beer, not the women.” True enough, but this was only the second time she’d seen me come in at all, so the use of the adverb “whenever” seemed misleading and inappropriate… but I didn’t belabor the point.

Bonding (and even commiserating) was one thing, but it still wasn’t quite the vindictive moment of glory I had been thirsting for since a few weeks ago…

Nevertheless, I was content that I had put a positive capper on a consistently, unbelievably crappy day, and that it was a satisfying follow-up to the previous post, which lacked a certain sense of resolution.

So I retreated once again into the moonless night, ever vigilant for an opportunity to punish the wicked…