cranky friday

07-09-10

8:42 AM

It’s 8:42 AM on a Friday morning and I am in a sour mood. Why?

1. I woke up with four (4!) new mosquito bites. Three of them itch like the Dickens and are the size and shape of bottle caps (actual caps, not the candy). The fourth is on my forehead.

2. I am out of clean laundry and had to wear all black today; our lab AC is still broken.

3. For once, I was about fifteen minutes early leaving for work. Then, I missed two busses while waiting at the stop because the line 331 drivers sidled up to the curb and then sat resolutely, doors shut, before taking off without new passengers. I was dancing in the sidewalk, arms to the sky and my bus card prominently signaling my intent. I was twelve minutes late to work (sigh).

4. As I was exiting the bus that finally let me on, a homeless man illegally boarded through the back exit door, dragging his dripping wet bag of human refuse/recycling/unknown drug paraphernalia/disease/paranoia across my bare leg.

But by far the biggest reason for my irritation and present crankiness:

5. These. Pants. Shirley bought them at Carrefour but found they were too small, so she wanted to sell them to me. Fine, but as I discovered, these capris have the comfort, charm, and free range of motion of control top pantyhose. Because the inseam is about a half-inch too short, these have a death grip on my crotch. Adding insult to injury, I noticed my fly was open. Funny, I always check for that. So I went to discreetly fix it, only to find the zipper was already in the fully upright position generally associated with zipped pants. Experimentally, I unzipped them; as expected, they stayed unzipped. Some zipping later, I found I am the proud owner of pants whose zipper splits open once zipped.

I hate to be a negative Nancy, so I will offer some advantages to being in a cranky mood:

I’ve discovered the secret of parting the throngs of people on public transportation here! Look angry, chew gum like it dumped your best friend, stomp around and glare. I think a guy gave me his seat on the bus for looking scary.

Further pros: the column I am running looks gorgeous; I am getting beautiful separation of my compounds.