On being a loser … who ‘can’t drive’
It occurred to me that we’re all losers.
And it’s OK — we’re in good company. 🙂
I was thinking about how, when we meet someone whom we know is single and otherwise lacking a second head, we wonder why a “catch” like that simply hasn’t been caught. Like, wow, how has this seemingly perfect person remained on the market so long?
Of course, once you start dating them, you find out REAL quickly why they were left on the clearance rack, marked at a discount — or, maybe even free to good home. 🙂 And for girls like me, you can’t resist a bargain. And yet, we learn (eventually) that you get what you pay for.
Anyway, I was kind of reversing the theory and applying it to me. You see, we have a work event coming up, and we are able to invite significant others. Oh, and HAH. It’s on my birthday, nonetheless, so wouldn’t it be nice to bring like a date, if only I could unearth one?
Well, I don’t have time to go looking under rocks for my next ex, and that’s when it occurred to me that people could be looking at me, thinking, “I wonder why she’s single?” But then they talk to me for 10 minutes and realize, “Holy shit, what a loser! Run, child, for the daylight — while you still can!!!”
I guess — at my age and for as dreadfully long as I’ve been single — you just hope to happen upon another lovable geek whose beauty and value, like yours, simply wasn’t recognized by the untrained eye.
In any event, speaking of losers — or, more particularly, assholes — we have a running theory at work that there’s always one asshole on the road, and if you can’t find one, then it’s … you.
Yesterday, I was that asshole. I was in a mood and was ripping and tearing down the highways at warp speed. I have a great story out of it, though. I was pulling out of work, which involves a right turn and an immediate zip left across four lanes to make the first left turn. Some days, it’s really cake. Days like yesterday, not so much — it’s less cake than shit souffle.
So, I pulled out like a bat out of hell, but swerved in front of this grandma-type. I couldn’t make a straight shot — I zagged right and then bopped back and left to get into my turning lane. What did granny do? Pulled up beside me (nobody was behind or in front of her — she just dead-stopped in the middle of the interstate) on my passenger side and SHOOK HER FINGER, TSK-TSKING ME for cutting her off. She said out her window, “You can’t drive!”
Seriously, if it were anybody else, I would have gesticulated appropriately. But it was so fucking FUNNY that all I could do is laugh. I mean, we all know I can’t drive — no arguments there. But I’m one of the BETTER drivers in D.C. — what does she do to other people who ride the exit lanes and jump in front of you whether or not you were planning to let them merge? She’s just lucky I didn’t have a pistol in the glovebox — I can’t imagine anybody else would have laughed so heartily at her observation!
On iTunes: Avril Lavigne, “Nobody’s Home”