Yeah, I know you

I just got this email from my brother, and this was the introduction:

Hey Elana -

It's your brother, Michael.

This really made me laugh slash wonder about my brother, because who else would my brother be? "It's your brother COMMA Michael." Umm, Mike? I only have one brother. I've met you a few times before, so no need to re-introduce yourself to me. Is it that he thinks that I might not know from the brother intro that it's Michael, not the other brother I've never had? Or is it that he doesn't think I'd recognize the one screen name he's had since fifth grade?

The kid makes me wonder sometimes.

Thanks for Nothing

The following happened to me last Friday afternoon, when it was about 90 degrees out and I had a bad case of strep throat:

"Excuse me," I began. I always begin nicely. I really do. "I have to get this rapid strep test, the doctor just told me this, and I need to pay up here."

"Right," said the work study student. "It's $5.00."

"Okay, the thing is," and at this point, by the way, I'm completely self-deprecating and humble and nice and sorry that this is in fact, my fault, "I don't have any cash on me at the moment. So do you take credit cards?"

"No," said the work study, "but we can charge your student account."

I tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but the truth was, the only time my throat didn't feel like it wanted to die was when I was holding my breath, so I just kept doing that, but more relaxed.

"That is," continued the work study, "unless you graduated."

"I graduated," I admitted. It was like I was admitting something terrible.

"Oooooh," he breathed in sharply. "That's, umm, not good."

I seriously hope that is the last time that someone reacts like that to me telling him that I graduated from college.

"What should I do then?"

"We shouldn't even have treated you," he said.

"Oh."

"Umm, Marge? Marge?" He began looking all around for Marge.

When I saw Marge, I knew I might have some issues. There are two types of nurses. There are the nice, sweet nurses that get portrayed all the time as these blonde innocent people and then there are the matronly "I will kill you" nurses. Marge, well, with a name like Marge, you can imagine which one she was.

"What's wrong?" she asked. Bellowed.

"She graduated." Eww, gross.

"What are you doing here?"

Now, if I wasn't sick, and if I didn't need these people to help me, I might have told her what I was, in fact, doing there: trying to get some medical care, because, after all, it does say that 881 Comm Ave is the Health Services building, thus implying that services for health are being offered. I passed, though.

"I'm trying to get a strep test, the rapid one. I don't have any cash on me, which is my fault, and I need to figure out what to do so I can get the test and pay you and get better."

"But she graduated," the work study said.

"Right," I admitted. ADMITTED!

"Well, we don't help you then," said Marge.

"Okay, but the thing is, I didn't realize this. Because I just graduated in May and I'm working for the summer with the Res Life office in the dorms and I'm staying on to go to grad school in the fall, so I guess I mistakenly figured that I would still be covered, which I understand I should have looked into."

"Yes, you should have." Great, Marge. Way to work with me here.

"I know. But I didn't, and then nobody said anything when I checked in, and now it's Friday afternoon and I don't want to wait the weekend with strep without having some medicine."

"We can't all work around your schedule, hon." Smug smile. I could have slapped her, but my whole body hurt too much to move. In fact, the truth is, the more I talked, the worse I felt. It's rare when I don't even have the energy to really talk back to anyone and when it actually physically hurts to speak. So every time I tried to explain my problem, I felt like I was sicker and sicker. I began to hate 881 and BU and most of all, Marge. And if I concentrated hard enough, I really hated the work study who couldn't have just tried to deal with the problem one-on-one instead of calling Major Marge in. Anyway, Marge continued to tell me that she wasn't really supposed to help me, but she could make an exception just this ONCE, if I gave her my first born child. So I agreed.

"We do need that $5.00 though."

"Of course."

"Do you have the $5.00?"

She hated me. As much as I hated her, I could tell that she hated me. She really did.

"No. And that's my fault."

"Yes. Yes it is."

"What would you suggest I do about it?"

And this, really, is the keeper in all of this conversation: "Well, I'm not in your situation, am I? So I really don't have any suggestions for you."

Heiiinous. Completely heinous. Textbook ice queen.

"Okay, well, what do you want me to do then?"

"Pay $5.00."

I could tell that she wasn't going to offer anything other than these stupid replies. If she wasn't so mean I would have called her a moron (not to her face, just in this recap), but morons aren't mean. The real catch was, it wasn't just that I was dealing with stupidity. Her replies weren't just moronic, they were also mean. If all of this wasn't directed at me, and I hadn't been so sick, I might have admired this combination in Marge. But it was and I was, and so it wasn't very admirable at all. I decided I had to just take charge with Marge.

"Okay, well, do you know if there are any ATMs right around here?"

"I'm not supposed to know that." She could really stay in character. You know those guards at Buckingham Palace, how they're not supposed to break a smile or laugh or anything and people try to torture them? I sort of wanted to reach across the counter and just poke her shoulder, to see if she'd hit the roof. Because this entire time, she'd been keeping this very even keel, which was pretty impressive. She could have taught those guards a thing or two, I bet.

"Okay. Well, I can go to CVS, and I can get some cash back." The CVS, FYI, is right aross the street. Literally thirty seconds away. "I can be back in five minutes with the five dollars. In exact change."

"Well, you can, but you'd have to go through this process all over again."

"You mean seeing the doctor?"

"Right. You'd have to check in, then you'd have to see the nurse practitioner, then you'd have to see the doctor, then you'd have to get the order to get the strep test."

"I already did that." I started to wonder whether maybe I had some very high fever.

"Yes, you did that on this visit."

"Right."

"But every time you leave and come back, it's a new visit."

"It's only five minutes! You know exactly where I'm going and why I'm going!"

Then, Mr. Work Study Wonderful, who had been quiet this entire time, probably thinking that this story would make a great weekend conversation joke, piped in helpfully, "Actually, if she came back, we probably couldn't see her because SHE ALREADY GRADUATED." I swear, I heard the little twerp starting to laugh on that one.

And the thing is, I almost laughed too. This was almost comical, except for the whole "I feel like death" thing.

"Okay, well, can I take the test and then after I get the results go to CVS?"

After a few more minutes of bargaining and begging and telling Marge that she was the most beautiful and kind goddess on the planet, I won the strep test. So I got that over with, got the results, found out I had strep, and got the prescription. So I told Marge that I would just go drop off the prescription and be back with the $5.00.

"What can I have so that I'll be sure you'll come back?" Classic. Clearly, I was trying to steal $5.00 from the university. You know what? It would have been more tempting to do that if I was personally taking $5.00 of Marge's own money.

"I'll leave my BU ID?"

"Why don't you leave your prescription?"

"But I'm going to CVS. And it takes a while, so I was just going to drop off the prescription, get the cash back, and come back here while I wait."

"Is that necessary?"

"Umm, yes."

Biiiiiiiiiig sigh. Biiiiiiiiig disappointment, me making any reasonable progress in this mess.

"Fine."

"Thank you," I said, and I hated myself for saying it.

And then, as I was walking out, she called after me: "Hey girly! You better come back with EXACT CHANGE!"

And that did it. I snapped. I had had ENOUGH.

I walked over to CVS. I gave my prescription, and then, as luck would have it, as I was waiting in line to buy a magazine with my debit card so that I could get her five dollars EXACT CHANGE, I saw that the clerk was starting to unroll a bunch of dimes.

"Actually," I stopped her, "could I get those dimes?"

"You want the cash back in dimes?"

"Five dollars' worth?"

"Umm... okay," she said, probably thinking I was some sort of complete freak who bought Us Weekly with a credit card and asked for dimes in return. But whatever.

So I took my magazine and my rolled up dimes, and I walked back across the street. And as I considered that what I was about to do was a pretty big message to send someone, and maybe I should just give her the five dollar bill I had also secured, I saw it: in the lobby, there was a sign: "ATM DOWNSTAIRS."

That was my last second thought. I unrolled all the dimes, until they were in a little pile in my hands, and I walked right up to the counter where Marge was sitting.

"Five dollars," I said, laying all the dimes out and hearing the clankity clankity clankity cllllankity of them hitting the counter. "Exact change."

It's rare, I've found, that moments of vindication feel as good as you hope they do. This one, though, felt magnificent - strep and all. Of course, I can probably never go back to health services, which might come back later to get me, because they have my file and all, but you know what? I don't care.

End of the Day Notes

You know what kills me? I have all these ideas for pet peeves, and then the moment someone asks me, I can't think of any. It's ridiculous. For instance, what really gets me is when someone doesn't pay attention to something and then they ask you what they missed while whatever was happening is still going on, causing you to miss more. This always drives me insane. My dad does this at movies. He'll fall asleep and then wake up at this really big moment and he'll ask me to recount what he's missed for the last twenty minutes. Then he gets very annoyed when I give him a look and sigh and all. So I always give in and explain what's happening, and then he watches for about two seconds, and then he falls asleep again. This would be bad enough if it was a rented movie, but the guy does this in the movie theaters. Sometimes I have to nudge him to get him to wake up because he's seriously out and people are starting to wonder whether they should get the movie attendant.

This reminds me that I recently saw in Loews that they now have these little kiosks that they roll into the theater during that downtime before shows and try to get people to buy snacks. This is ingenious. Now, lazy people can go right in, sit down, and buy food in the theater. Whoever thought of this ought to have a huge job with a huge salary.

On the other end of the spectrum, I've encountered some morons this week. This Sunday, I was at Dunkin Donuts to get some coffee before work. The line was getting pretty out of hand, and this woman at the counter decided that this would be an appropriate time to debate the merits of a jelly donut versus a chocolate sprinkled donut. Which one should she get? Now, here's the thing: at Dunkin Donuts, a jelly donut is a jelly donut and a sprinkled donut is a sprinkled donut. It's not like at a restaurant where you can ask, "So, is your spaghetti sauce spicy or is it plain or is it chunky with tomatoes?" You get the idea. Well, this woman was like, "So, your jelly donuts, what, umm, kind of jelly is in them?"

I swear, this is the response from the employee: "Cold."

Very helpful. We have a braintrust working together here, obviously. We spent the next five minutes listening to various descriptions of what kind of jelly is in their jelly donuts - "raspberryish" "sort of strawberry?" and "red" - and then she asked if she could get a sample. Thank god the answer was no, because I probably would have hit the freakin roof. Can you imagine? A donut costs, what, a dollar? And she wants A SAMPLE?!? Is it really that hard to figure out what's in a jelly donut? It's this sugary jelly plus cake, lady.

Apparently, though, this woman thought Dunkies was running an organic healthfood shop, because after all this, she pulls out the showstopper: "I was looking to get jelly one because at least that has some fruit in it, but I guess I better just go with the chocolate donut with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles, because I don't know whether there's real fruit in the jelly one."

Umm, hello, Lardselle? I could have told you that there's no fruit in the jelly donut. Good grief. These types of people must have been Reagan's intended audience back when he decided to try to make ketchup count as a vegetable. And people wonder why Americans are viewed as complete lards.

Let's Do Lunch?

I had this entire few paragraphs typed out about how I'm going to go to see the filming of this movie in Boston. They've got Martin Scorcese and Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio and my personal favorite, Jack Nicholson, in town for the next three weeks to do some filming on location. I was going to go to see Jack Nicholson act in person, but then I realized that would be a gargantuan disappointment because about a zillion other people have the same exact idea. So, instead, I'm going to go watch the zillion other people watch Jack Nicholson. My bet is about half of them are there to meet the actors, so I'm wondering how they'll react when they realize their dreams of becoming best friends with Matt, Leo, and Jack are going to fail miserably. Larry David, on Curb Your Enthusiasm, had this whole routine about this kind of thing. On an episode a while back, his neighbor wanted to meet Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Larry was like, "Why? Does he think that she'll invite him to lunch and they'll be best friends?!" And you know, that's the truth. If you meet a famous person, that famous person doesn't care, so why do people still go out of their way just to meet someone like Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio? Do they really think Leo's gonna be like, "Oh, my supermodel girlfriend Gisele? I don't need her. I'll take this average dumpy person instead who probably has a great personality."

Umm, no.

Anyway, so I'm going to go and report back on what these people are doing and seeing how they think they're gonna rope one of these guys into being their friend/torrid love affair/husband. I'm just curious which girls think they're Angelina Jolie in a Target tube top. Just for kicks.

Rant-o-Rama

It's been a while since my last rant. So it's time.

There's this policy at the School of Ed that the only restrooms on the first floor are closed because the preschool wants it that way. This has made me angry for about ten months. I pretty much fume every time I walk by the little preschool on my way upstairs or downstairs, becuase nobody can go into the first floor, main floor restroom. Here is why I get so angry, bullet-point style:
- The preschool is not always in session, and yet, the first floor bathroom is ALWAYS closed.
- The preschool, which is this state of the art facility nicer than most people's apartments, has its own bathrooms built into it. The reason that they closed the restrooms isn't so that the kiddies can use it, it's so that nobody walks by and disturbs their day or causes any safety concerns. Give me a break. They have about fifteen million adults milling around there all day. Nobody's getting stolen. If not because of the insane supervision, at least because if you've ever been around the kids that go to this preschool, you'll see that you wouldn't even want any of them.
- And last, and most annoying, last I checked, people paid $40,000 to attend a university here at BU. None of these little four year old wonders are paying $40,000, and yet, they have control of the first floor! I cannot believe that nobody has done anything, even though everyone's complained. I'm going to start calling these little rodents "sir" and "ma'am" when I see them, just to get the point across.

My fuming has little effect. I saw this when the following conversation took place, which inspired this rant:

I had decided to take the polite approach and just ask if I could use the first floor restroom, since the preschool wasn't in session at the moment and I was first floor staff.

"Oh no," said the woman in charge of the building, "it's for the preschool."

"Right," I said. I realized, as I continued, that I just wasn't backing down. I'd had ENOUGH. "The thing is, the preschool's not in session right now."

"Well, there's a bathroom on the second floor."

"Yeah, but there's one right down the hall, like ten feet from here."

"It's for the preschool."

"Which isn't in session."

"It's still for the preschool."

"So, even though there's a perfectly good restroom on the main floor of the building ten feet away, and there's not a four year old in the building right now, the bathroom is still closed, so people have to go two flights up?"

"There might be a four year old in the building, we don't know that."

"Okay, you win."

There are about a billion things I would have rather said to her, all with multiple expletives, but I didn't say them and I won't write them because my dad reads this now and he'd probably have a huge fit if I wrote any swears about anybody in this. So that's it. But the point is, these people are all morons.

The thing is, my job today is to figure out who has proven that he or she should be able to come into the country for grad school. I was pretty surprised when my boss told me that's my job today, because that seems like something that should require some expertise in some sort of financial area, but apparently not. I'm not sure how comfortable little Jin Yan out in the Philippinnes would feel when she realizes that in between figuring out whether she can come into the country, I'm writing a rant. I wouldn't feel too good. I mean hey, if I'm in a bad mood, maybe Miss Yan can hold off for another year until she finds a bank statement in a different color ink, for all I care. When I said, "Okay, you win," to that woman, it took all of my restraint not to add, "but Jin Yan's not coming over!" Not that she would have gotten the joke, but I don't need anyone asking any questions.

Back to my dad for a minute. He's a lawyer and always thinking about how I can get in trouble for everything, so obviously the above is a joke. I don't really make big decisions about whether an international student has proven his or her financial worth and can be admitted to the country and the school.

Wait, actually, I do.

But I don't make the decision based on my mood.

I do, however, make the decision in between rant paragraphs, which may explain two things: why the rant is rather choppy, and b., why it's been a good fifteen minutes between clearing Jin Yan and Lin Yin.

Names, of course, have been changed, but honestly, I bet that somewhere in my stack there's at least one Jin Yan and Lin Yin.

While I'm ranting, I would also like to take this opportunity to rant about my move to my new room a few nights ago. I've been living out of a box for the past three weeks, with piles of clothes on my bed designating "clean," "passable," "negotiable," and "definitely not clean," which makes me pretty upset every single morning when I have to face my life. So, I was finally ready to move into my permanent (and by permanent, I mean two-month) room, and I got all my crap packed up and into a cart, and then I went to my new room. My anger level at having to move all the time was pretty steady at "furious," without much change.

That all changed when I saw my new quarters. First, I saw that the losers before me had put up contact paper all over the place. This wouldn't bother me except that the contact paper didn't match and it was a horrendous pale yellow checkerboard pattern on one side with a bright yellow sunflower pattern on the opposite side. Whoever thought that either paper would add anything except more ugly to the room is out of her mind. My annoyance at the ugliness was forgotten when I looked down and saw that there was a huge carpet discoloration, followed by a bunch of random crap that nobody had bothered to vacuum. I looked around and realized that this room hadn't been cleaned probably since the Yankees last won a world series (DIG!) and this made my anger level skyrocket to absolutely seething. I would have thrown my flip flop except I was too nervous that my barefoot would land on my disgusting floor. It's a pretty sad scene when you don't want to unpack your garbage can because you're afraid of what it might touch on the carpet in your room.

My room situation would make me angry enough, but then I had this whole water fiasco. I spent about fifteen minutes looking for enough change to buy two waters, one for me and one for my friend. When I finally found enough change, I saw that the water machine was off, so I walked all the way across the floor to the other water machine and put in my $1.25, only to find that the machine ate the money and gave me no water, so in the end, for $2.50 and unfathomable amounts of aggravation, I got one bottle of fake flavored water from the only machine that was working, and by the night's end, I was arguably catatonic.

And you know what? I'm not done yet. Last week, the waitress didn't bring water to our table even though we asked her at least fifteen times and water's the easiest thing to ask for in a restaurant. The mailroom lost my mail twice this week and told me it was my fault. At a store on Newbury Street, the woman didn't understand the concept of online ordering - NEWBURY STREET! Tom Cruise is driving me insane with his antics and telling everyone that he's the source of all wisdom; I missed the "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" Red Sox edition even though I had it marked on my calendar (leave me alone); the dining hall ran out of soft serve vanilla frozen yogurt on the hottest day of the year so far; some woman just called me to ask how to rush her application even though she hasn't applied or taken the GREs or MATs and doesn't want to in the next month; the Red Sox haven't been consistent, Manny hasn't been hitting, Francona's been making questionable decisions, and the bullpen makes me want to shoot myself.

And, the bullshit continues, because today I was in line at lunch and two people cut us. One person at least had the decency to look over apologetically with that stupid pigshit half-smile like, "Sorry I'm an asshole" but the other person just looked straight ahead as though she had no idea where she was until the sandwich person magically asked, "Can I help you?" and then she knew EXACTLY where she was and what she wanted. I didn't even care that I was staring right at her. Staring isn't even the right word. I was openly glaring. And you know what kills me the most about all this? This type of person doesn't even care that you're glaring. And really, when it comes down to it, who really does care that you're glaring? So what, I'm glaring at her. She's got her sandwich and she didn't have to wait and I'm the one stuck standing there, just glaring like a total loser.

You know, those elementary kids really had something when they basically blackballed any kid who cut in line. If you were fat or stupid or even ugly, you could still have friends. But if you smelled or if you cut in line, you were alone. And you know what, that's really how it should be.

See, if I thought that that stupid preschool was teaching their kids these types of important things, I wouldn't mind going around them and upstairs and downstairs. But they're not and so I do and that's just how it is.