He Said What?

I had a great day. You won't believe it after you read all the crazy and crappy things that occurred, but it's true; I had a great day.

I had a dentist appointment this morning. It rained thoroughly last night and on into today, so it took me much longer than the time I alloted to make the drive from Dallas to Ft. Worth. Traffic around downtown D was bad bad bad, but I was only a few minutes late, and it all worked out because they weren't quite ready for me. I was complimented on the care I give my teeth, and we talked about options for whitening them (how many caffeinated drinks to I consume each day? 89? 154? Not really that many, but I would like a bit brighter smile. I certainly don't want them to glow. I think there is a good balance to be found. I'll do that procedure in the near future.

I made it back to Dallas after the appointment, and the rain had stopped. I still had a couple of hours before I needed to head to work, so I put "The Others" in the DVD player. I had seen it in the theatres when it first came out, but couldn't remember much of it, and it spooked me so badly when I tried to watch it last night, that I had to turn it off and sleep with the light on. I'm such a scaredy cat sometimes. I finished the film and headed to work.

I was walking from the parking garage, along the side of the store to the front, when some man yelled "Fat Bitch", and a bunch of other unintelligible things, from a car that was going down the street. I didn't turn to look, and there is a slight possibility he wasn't yelling at me. But I didn't see anyone else near me at that time. What possesses people to yell things out their car windows?

I was feeling really good about the work day, getting a lot accomplished and really trying to give positive feedback and reinforcement and public recognition to people. I had asked for some feedback from folks earlier this week, and several people said they felt they weren't receiving enough positive feedback. And people are doing great things all the time, so this is something I'm working on.

Then a little before 9pm, I had a guy who made the guy who yelled 'FUCK' at the top of his lungs, the guy who dropped his crack pipe on the floor, and the guy who threw ice water all over a table of books, look sane by comparison.

This guy did something, then apologized for it, then wanted to shake my hand, then folded his middle finger down to 'flip me off' during the handshake. Remember doing this in the 4nd grade as a joke with your friends? Then when I called him on it, he began yelling at me, telling me he was disabled, and tried to convince me that his pinky finger on his right hand is folded over and that's what I felt. I couldn't get the guy to leave, and he made a big ruckus at the front doors until a friend? of his came through the front doors and dragged him out by the arm. The whole time this guy was yelling "I'm disabled. I'm disabled. She won't apologize!". Um, yeah. There's more to it than this, but suffice it to say that I certainly didn't want my customers or my staff to have to see that crap going on, and his behavior was absolutely unacceptable. One of the customers said, "Freak show!"

Good grief. He must have been drunk or high or 'distressed' as he put it.

I also skinned a big chuck off the knuckle of my right thumb while helping my cafe seller unscrew the top of one of our whipped cream devices, which happened while I was helping mop up a huge cold brewed coffee leak in the cafe kitchen. So I was mopping and bleeding, mopping and bleeding.

It was still a great day. I am loathe to go to bed because then the day will be over. But it is almost 2am, and I must away to dreamland soon.