Hey, have I ever mentioned that I used to be a science teacher? Any science teacher knows about entropy. I'm not talking about the mathematical formula, but the basic concept that systems tend toward disorder. Like Life After People, that show Farmer H used to watch on the History Channel, about how once man is gone, structures decay and collapse, and plants go wild and cover the ruins. Or, in a more short-term example...once a teacher steps out of the classroom, students tend to not remain silently seated in orderly rows, but grow increasingly less orderly until all Not-Heaven breaks loose!
Well, forget all that! Who needs a bunch of stuffy science teachers telling them how the world works, anyway? Mrs. HM is here today to promote her own Theory of Even Stevenness. Which says the positives and the negatives tend to balance each other out and achieve a neutral status.
HEY! It could happen! It happens to Mrs. HM all the time.
Friday, for instance.
There I was at The Devil's Playground, having only stopped in to pick up a Christmas gift for Genius's roommate Friend. I'd seen it a couple days before, and didn't get it. You know how that goes. You regret it later. So I went back, for an R2D2 Christmas ornament. As luck would have it, I found the very one I was seeking, and MORE! A different kind of collectible Star Wars ornament. So I gathered some more, and got in line.
Let the record show that I was also getting a haircut for a funeral (not my own), and had done the mobile check-in app with Terrible Cuts before entering The Devil's Playground. My wait time was 23 minutes, and Terrible Cuts is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from The Devil. When I put my cart third in line, I had three minutes left.
Of course all the lines were backed up. I was in the shortest one. The people hassling the Devil's Handmaiden over a non-working card had the whole conveyor full. I guess they were paying for separate orders. The older lady in front of me had a cart piled full of what looked like her entire Christmas gift haul. She turned around as a higher-up Handmaiden walked by, tsk-tsking at the backed up lines.
"Oh! You are going ahead of me! That's all you have?"
"You don't have to do that. I'm okay."
"You come right up here! You don't have hardly anything, and I have this whole cart!"
"Well...thank you SO MUCH! That's so nice of you!"
We switched places. A 20-something gal with unnaturally red hair came up to Kindly Lady. Apparently they were together. Red said, "Oh, look! Somebody ELSE must love Star Wars, too!"
"Yes! It's the perfect gift. Just what I was looking for!"
My faith in humanity was almost restored enough that for those few minutes, people DIDN'T piss me off! So nice of Kindly Lady to put me ahead of herself. I had a good chance of making my haircut check-in on time.
Okay. So that didn't happen. Even though the app showed that I had ZERO wait when I got back to T-Hoe, and drove the half mile to Terrible Cuts...three other customers were already being terribly cut, and I had to wait. No big deal. I sent a picture of my Star Wars loot to Genius, who agreed that it was the perfect gift.
I got my lovely lady-mullet trimmed, not so terribly, by one of the cutters I like. I was actually cheerful, in the Christmas spirit, temps in the 30s, country Christmas songs on T-Hoe's radio, when I left. I went down the outer road behind Terrible Cuts, and sat by the O'Reilly Automotive shop, waiting to make my right turn and head over to the lake road for a stop by the dead mouse smelling post office to pick up a package.
HONK HONK HONK HONK!!!!
What in the Not-Heaven? Some impatient rumpus-orifice had his big white pickup truck on T-Hoe's bumper, honking to beat the band. AS IF the oncoming traffic was under my control. Sweet Gummi Mary! You can't just pull out in front of moving traffic, even if you drive a sturdy T-Hoe. That traffic was spaced out just enough that once a car went by, the next one was too close for me to get out.
Maybe White Trucker didn't notice the guy in black leather on a motorcycle. It was an overcast day, so maybe he just didn't see. No way was I pulling out in front of a motorcycle! That's how my uncle got killed. A truck pulled out in front of him, and he slid under the back of it, trying to stop.
That whole honky thing kind of took a way my Christmas spirit.
Even Steven gives, and Even Steven rips it away. HM's Theory of Even Stevenness.
4 comments:
Honkers who honk when there's no way you can get out of their way are destined for a special room in the fiery furnace place. The room where all the souls of Christmas dinners past (geese) are honking their sorrow to the end of time.
I think you came out ahead. You got what you wanted & you shouldn't pay attention to impatient honkers!!
I hate those who ride my rear so close I can see the pimples on their face. Makes me want to get out of my car and go tell them what I think of them. I would never do it, but I do like to think about it.
River,
Ooh! You've painted such a pretty picture of their Not-Heavenish reservation in the afterlife!
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fishducky,
Star Wars ornaments in the hand (or at least in T-Hoe's rear) are worth more than the ire elicited by an unreasonable honker. You're right.
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Kathy,
One of my former students did that! He was dating the gal who lived across from us back then, in the days before the Killer Poodle and Crazy Rottweiler family moved in. He had a guy riding him all the way to our gravel road. Student pulled over, and the guy did, too. That made Student mad, as is the way with 17-year-old invincible dudes.
"I got out and walked back to him, and said, 'What's your PROBLEM, bud?' And he pointed a gun at me! I almost crapped my pants. I put up my hands, and backed up, and said, 'Oh. I see there isn't really a problem. You have a nice day.' I went back to my truck, sure he was going to shoot me in the back! I'll never do that again!"
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