So I suppose that getting stuck in the vehicle, even when it's easy enough to release yourself from that bondage is a proper enough parallel for everything that's happening right now. I simply don't take the time to think when the proper moment arises. It gets me in constant trouble, where the problem could be easily bypassed.
I just took the extra time to edit the first post, and I'm still quite dissatisfied. It doesn't look as I wish it would, and the content is severely lacking as well. I don't have the patience right now to learn my Word 2007 program on my new workstation--another situation in and of itself. The only way to keep my sanity right now is to go straight to the composition page within the blogger and do this directly. It's entirely inefficient, which is another form of frustration, and it doesn't have the ability, as far as I can tell, to make simple indentations on paragraphs and etc. and etc. and etc. I hope that was a long enough run-on sentence to accurately convey the current state of mind.
Anyway, why am I doing this? Good fucking question. I don't have a good answer for that yet, unfortunately. I'll go back a couple (or three now--sheesh!) days and explain. I wish it could be done with brevity, but it probably won't...
After ruining the tires on my F-150, I went to Wal Mart to get a pair for the back axle. That was a Sunday, and they said they could get me in and out without an appointment, so there I went. I ordered the cheapest set of Goodyear Viva 2s they had, made sure they were in stock, and inquired about the wait. "About forty-five minutes," I was told. The time was 3:45. I said fine, and walked to Burger King, because the food is fast and cheap (kind of like me). I got to the BK, and there came upon me a realization that if I were simply dropped into this place without knowing where I was, I would have determined within five minutes that I was Ottawa, KS. Every ugly teenager had an even uglier baby, and a high percentage of the people in the building were either on Meth, were dealing Meth, or were looking for Meth. Neat town, Ottawa.
Finished eating, and went back to Wal-Mart. Truck is still in the lot. Tire is completely flat now, so I suppose I made one good decision that day. Already about a half hour had elapsed, so I figured I'd do a little grocery shopping. I was pretty much out of food at home, and unless these grease-monkey magicians had a few tricks up their sleeves, the vehicle wasn't getting two new tires for quite a bit more than fifteen minutes.
With my disposition, shopping at Wal-Mart is hell. It's somehow worse than any other retailer, because it has a tendency to extract all the worst elements of society within its walls. I already know I'm the least patient person I know, and inside Wal-Mart it becomes worse. Ugly people become somehow more ugly in Wal-Mart. Obese people shop for clothes they can grow into in Wal-Mart. The poor become poorer in Wal-Mart, and so on and so on and so on. It's a tremendously frustrating cycle. And now I'm stuck in Wal-Mart.
For the above reasons, I consciously try to limit my exposure to Wal-Mart. It makes me a worse person when I'm there, and I already know I'm a pretty low-quality individual when it comes to inter-personal relationships. I'm not sure I could be friends with myself. I don't like that I'm an insufferable ass. Working on it....quite a project... But I jump through the hoops and do the necessary shopping, despite their high prices. Wal-Marts are only as competitive in their pricing as they need be. In Ottawa, they have a virtual monopoly on many items, and they know it. It's a hidden tax on the poor and stupid...count me as both, I suppose...
But I'm finally ready to check out. I get into the only check out line with one outfit in it, and started to unload my cart. The guy in front of me looks at what I'm doing, and says, "Oh, I'm sorry, wait a minute," then this mother-fucker starts placing items in his cart up onto the conveyor right in front of me. "This is two separate purchases," he says to the cashier, and he smiles at her. I am not smiling. He's sitting here bullshitting with the cashier, and his mom, or whoever the hell he is with, and he's got all fucking day to do whatever the hell it is that he's going to do, and he's just going on with his business, because he probably has done stupid shit like this his entire life. He simply doesn't know any better, and now I'm seething.
Somehow, I manage to avoid physical confrontation. I think it may be that I scare people to death with my attitude and outward appearance. I've shaved my head since I was about twenty-one, partly because I started losing my hair at a young age, and I didn't have the patience to try and make a receding hairline look like anything other than it is. Other people can care about that--not my deal. I haven't paid for a haircut in a decade and a half, and I never have to bitch the barber. They can't do much with an infertile field, anyway. That being said, I guess some people think I look mean. And I'm kind of a big guy, too. Not fat, but pretty well built. I work construction, and I'm in decent shape. I'm strong. People don't want to fuck with me, and generally speaking, it's probably a good idea. I'm pretty wound up, and although historically I only take out my frustration on inanimate objects, things do not end well for those apt to provoking me. I don't strike first, but shit man...don't strike...
So I'm pissed. The guy in front of me knows it, too. So now he's kind of in a hurry, because I'm slamming my items right up next to his as he's trying to make space for them on the conveyor. I'm doing everything I can so that he has to hand the items individually to the cashier, which he ends up doing for the last four or five items. Neither he nor the cashier wants to engage me in any way by this point. It's not a security moment, as long as the two can successfully negotiate an efficient transaction. Their hands being somewhat forced, they manage to do this, and the situation has been diffused. And it's not like I'm in a hurry. They have yet to page me to inform me my vehicle is done. I can go nowhere. Yet I'm pissed that I couldn't get through the checkout a little quicker. The time is now 5:10.
I take my groceries back to the tire center, and see that the truck is at least now in the shop. The woman working the desk tells me, "They need you to sign this waiver. Those tires don't meet the manufacturer's recommendations." They did not page me to inform me of this fact--they just all sat around looking at my truck, waiting for me to appear before beginning the work on the vehicle. The intercom is right there in the phone system. That's all they had to do to get me to sign the waiver. They already had a copy of a previously signed waiver in their possession. I had to sign an identical waiver on Nov. 1 of last year, when I'd purchased two tires identical to those I was now purchasing. Without notice of any of these facts presented to the worker, I signed the waiver, and the shop monkeys started installing the tires.
Sometimes, I'm impatient with cause. This was one of those times. It happened after I'd realized I was the most impatient person I'd ever known, and I think in this instance, I handled it quite well. I might have been emotionally spent from not blowing my top over the previous incident in the check-out line. I don't know. They had a kiosk with several maps, and I started looking through the newest version of the Rand McNally Kansas City Streetfinder. I've been working in KC, and since I had nothing better to do for the forseeable future, I thought I'd see if there were any magical new streets to get me around town any better. There weren't. One feature I liked was the indication of one-way streets. In the oldest grids of KC, almost all the streets are one-ways. I've been around town enough to know which direction most of these are, but I thought that was a handy feature. What I didn't like was the new page numbering system. Some genius at Rand McNally apparently decided to number all pages in the United States, regardless of your geographic point of interest. So now, one has to jump from page 2567 to page 3145 to move a block North or South. Easier for Rand McNally, I suppose, but hopelessly stupid. Stupid. Someone probably got a promotion for this idea.
But I'm standing there watching these people put tires on the truck, and I think about stealing this map. I have the money to buy it. I don't particularly want it. I just think it would be a somewhat fitting payback to Wal-Mart, to the Walton and Glass families, and to these fucking idiots who were making me wait in Ottawa for a truck that could have easily been done by this point. It's now 5:45. And it's everything I can do not to steal this map.
Eventually, the truck is released from the jack, and the boys are again standing around the vehicle gawking at its contents and it's general state of disrepair. All the dents and dings on the vehicle are a direct result of impatience. I run the vehicle into things that needn't be hit on a regular basis. I'm a menace on the road. I text on the telephone while driving, knowing it is unsafe, and not caring. I can't help it. Driving bores me. I don't like it. It's just one other thing that seems to get in my way, and prevents me from a more efficient use of my time. Anyway, all the dents, dings, scrapes, missing mirrors--all my fault. I know it. At least it's a source of amusement to others on this occasion.
I walk up to the desk. "I'd like to pay for that thing," I tell the woman. "They're not done with it yet," she replies. I walk to the window and look out into the garage again. They are most certainly done with it. They're now all leaned over the truck bed and looking at the various items strewn about, and laughing to each other. I don't know why they find it such a source of amusement, but they do. I point out the window. "You call that working on it?" I asked her. She kind of rolls her eyes, and says, "Let me see if I can get the final bill." She waddles off and runs down one of these idiots, who is now clearly just burning time so that he can clock out and go home, and he reluctantly processes whatever needed to be processed to print my bill. I think he had to hit one button on his mobile keypad.
Finally, I've paid for the repairs, and I'm on my way home. There is a thick fog which doesn't at all prevent me from breaking every law of the road on my trip. Stop signs, not for me. Red lights? I check for a camera, pedestrians, and other traffic, and I disregard these. Speed limits? I prefer not to. As I said before, I'm a menace, and I know it. I don't like it, but I know my limitations, and I'm going to do all I can in the future to be better about this sort of thing. Right now, it's just not in my toolkit...
After it was obvious that I was the least patient person I'd ever personally known, I called my Aunt Susan in California. She's married to my dad's brother, and I call her occasionally to let her know I'm still totally fucking insane. I got the answering machine, and left the message: "Yeah, it's Slade. It occurred to me that you and Dallas strike me as two very patient people. I wondered how you did that. That is all." A stupid message, to be sure. I'm not good with leaving messages. Hell, I'm also not good at speaking to people directly. I'm not good at ignoring people. These are just a few deficiencies of character, and they all somehow point back to the impatience issue as I see it today.
What I had to do next was watch some TV. I don't watch much, but I have to do it sometimes to get out of my own head. This was one of those moments. I would pace the floors and wear out the carpet if I didn't do something with my time, and right then and there, as I was only waiting for that phone to ring. I was messed up, and for the first time in my life, I knew exactly why.
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