Wednesday, April 7, 2010

A Novel About Nothing

I’m downtown right now, at the TABC department, waiting to get OK-ed for a liquor license. It’s in a federal building, so there are a bunch of weird people here. You have to get ID-ed to come in, then wear a badge in order to get around. They have job fairs here all the time for ex convicts and the likes. Anyway, I’m in the lobby waiting to get called and there’s this chick in front of me. She’s Jamaican and older, awesome accent,and her voice is raspy and whispery, big hair, cheetah print dress on, necklace with what look like animal teeth. She walks up to the middle of the lobby, takes off her shoes; no, just kinda kicks them off, and puts her purse down in the middle and starts rummaging through it. She takes out her paperwork and goes up to the counter. She just leaves everything in the middle! I find that interesting. The shoes, not a big deal, but her purse? Just wide open, wallet is freaking sticking out. Sounds like she's applying for a liquor license too. She just finished and walked back put her shoes on, I look at her and smile because she’s interesting. She smiles back and says, “Some peepuh ignorant! I’m ready to go home and showah!” I guess I don’t have much to blog about. I’m just super bored waiting around, so I'm just writing about whatever to keep myself busy. Sorry for your suffering!

The Federal Building is not where I usually go to get permitting done for work, which is more near midtown. It’s deep downtown so the parking really sucks. Last time I was here I paid twenty stinking dollars to park in a lot that was a million blocks away. Luckily this time I found some street parking. I had to parallel park, but it was on a one-way street so the spot was on my left. That’s kind of counter-intuitive since I usually back in to parking spots going towards the right. Man, this post is REALLY getting interesting. What I’m trying to get at is that I hate when boys think girls can’t drive. And I wish I was on that episode of Tosh.O where he tested women on parallel parking.

Man, I wish they had free wi-fi all over Houston, or at least downtown. I could be so much more entertained if I had the world at my fingertips. Sucks for Philip because his work hasn’t had Internet for the past two days. I feel detached because I haven’t been chatting with him about what we usually chat about, which is really nothing.

Oh my gosh… still waiting. There’s a cute baby sitting next to me. You think parents get annoyed when strangers want to play with their babies? I can never tell when it’s ok. But I like to play with babies and kids all the time. That’s why it was cool teaching “gymnastics” with Chris back in the day. You just played with 3 year olds all day long. The only sucky part was putting the equipment away. I loathed it. When I first started that job, I was embarrassed because we had to lead the kids in group exercise. I felt weird the first times I did it and I felt even weirder watching Coach Robbie teach it to me (he is the owner of the gymnastics program. I want to talk about him later). The worst one was the donkey kicks. Butterfly stretches weren’t so bad because at least butterflies don’t make sounds. I remember making a cheat sheet because I couldn’t remember all the darn animals I was supposed to act like. I’m pro now though. Hee haw, Hee haw.

You know how in book and movies, when they portray a character so well, you’re like, “Damn! I KNOW that guy.” And because you know that guy, it’s funny to you? Well, Coach Robbie is Ned Flanders. He’s better looking and not as dorky, but everything else is uncanny. He has got to be the nicest man in the world, but that’s weird to me. He’s so nice and wholesome that I always felt weird talking to him; like I have to watch everything I say and only bring up things about Disney movies, his kids and the weather. Oh man, we talked about the weather A LOT. Painful. Maybe that’s why I hated putting up the equipment so much; because it was one on one time, lugging equipment while making small talk. One day when we were putting up mats, he told me about his wonderful morning. He said (this is summarized), "After I dropped the kiddos off (he has FIVE kids) this morning, I walked back to the van and looked inside and saw a ladybug flying around in there. I caught it and let the darned thing go! I'm going to have to remember to tell the kiddos about that one!" It really made his morning. I could tell. Oh, and for Christmas he bought me a book about how to be a good Christian. Then he invited me over for bible study. Nice guy.

Jess

4 comments:

  1. Hee Haw, Hee Haw. That's fun to say in your head

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  2. Yes. There's another one too. Point your toes and say, "ARROWS!" Point them up and say "BOWS." (low voice for "bows", high for "arrows")

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  3. Did you mean point your toes down and say Arrows?

    Did Coach Robbie ever say "Okely Dokely"?

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  4. that first dunkeytower wasn't me, me as in the real dunkeytower, please stand up

    i finally read it, and you have to bring your chin in for hee, then bring it out for haw

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