Bring on The Crazy!

by CajunKate

So do you ever experience an uninterrupted expanse of time- days, maybe weeks or, for a lucky few of us, maybe a year- where you're just tripping along through life, and you find yourself lulled into this false sense of security that everything is okay and nobody is really weird and insane, and then in one day "the crazy" is just thrown at you from every direction, and all of the sudden, you're like, "Holy c**p, I forgot the whole world is full of f**king nut jobs! Wow, Universe, thanks for the not-so-gentle reminder!" Yeah, well, today was one of those days. Let us begin, shall we?

I am at Walgreens after working out with the geezers at my gym. I am tired. I look less than stellar... to put it mildly. And yet, somehow, this random lady in a car rolling through the parking lot picks me to ask for directions to the nearest Starbucks. Now, let me just say that I am NOT a person that usually gets asked for directions. I don't know why. Perhaps I emit pheromones that let people know I am a socially retarded member of the greater human community. At any rate, I guess her social retardedness radar was not operating at maximum satisfaction, jonesing as she was for a venti caramel Frappuccino. She was desperate, you see, and obviously from out of town. She began spouting off about previous directions and Amabassador Caffery Road which, in truth, she could not possibly have been further from if she had tried. In fact, I can't even imagine how she ended up where she did, oh so very far from Ambassador, but whatever. In the middle of her strident pleading (and I couldn't help but notice that this b***h had some serious issues with Starbucks' addiction judging from the TWO empty Starbucks cups that presently occupied her cupholder), enter abject poor person begging for money for her and her grandpa to get gas. Yes, for real. Walked right up on us and asked both of us for cash. The lady in the car promptly replied that she had no cash (WHAT? You're going to Starbucks, lady!), and I was so thrown off that I didn't know what to do, so I still just tried to deal with the lady in the car but, at this point, I was so addled by the unexpected appearance of crazy lady asking for gas money that I ended up telling the car lady that the only Starbucks was clear across town without mentioning that there was a CC's Coffee House across the street if she really just wanted a coffee product and not Starbucks per se. The car lady took off without so much as a thank you, at which point I realized that her abrupt departure was due to the fact that the gas money lady WAS STILL STANDING THERE! And, yes, she asked me for cash again for her and her grandpa and, if I wanted to, I could go to the gas station myself to pay for it. Uh no, I'll pass on that is what I thought to myself as I said, "Sure. Look, here's three bucks. It's all I have." Now I know, and you know, that she probably went off to buy meth or a pint of gin, but really, who am I to begrudge her the method by which she gets through this life? I use Pringles and Merlot; she may use crank. To each his own. And that was that. Although I did have to sit in my car for a few seconds and catch my breath and talk myself down with a mental Yes, that actually did just happen. You're cool. It's all good.

Ah, but the Universe was not done with me yet. Apparently, I had gone far, far too long without a dose of "the crazy." Skip forward several hours to me trudging across campus to return about-oh, I don't know- a dozen books to the library. They were heavy so to reward myself after the returning, I decided to get myself an iced coffee...from PJ's, not Starbucks. I am not choosy. But I didn't have any cash since I'd given my last three bucks to the gas lady, so I had to go to the ATM, and as I approached it, a young man approached me and earnestly said, "Excuse me, we are giving away these free DVDs that inform you about the IRS and its function as an illegal institution. Would you like one?" Well now I felt like I was involved in some unorthodox game of chance. So I said, "I see your illegal IRS, and I raise you that your DVD will immediately upload all of my personal information to the CIA upon which time I will immediately be arrested for some violation of the Patriot Act and be sent off the Guantanomo Bay. Your move, dissenter man!" But what I really said was, "No, thank you, not today." (Whaaaa? Like, maybe check with me tomorrow, and I'll have changed my mind. Here, let me give you my home number, and you can make like a Mormon and come ring my bell. We'll chat then.)

But, lo, this was not the end. After getting my iced coffee, I headed off toward my class, my mind occupied with finishing up a chapter of reading, the mountain of summaries I have left to do, the research proposal that I have to write and that I haven't even started on, when, on the exact opposite corner from IRS man, a much older man popped out at me thrusting a DVD into my face proclaiming, "Here! Watch this free DVD about the unconstitutional Federal Reserve!" Really? What I wanted to do was yell at him, "Look, you! Go get that younger version of yourself right now!" and I wanted to take both of them by their ears and fly off to Washington, D.C., and march up to Capitol Hill (yes, still clutching both of them by their respective ears) and drag them onto the Senate floor and bellow at the top of my lungs, "SEE! Do you see what happens when you let the economy slide into a recession and people start foreclosing on their homes and selling their babies' kidneys for profit?!? You make ME be accosted by nut jobs like these when all I wanna do is drink my f***ing iced coffee and stress out about school in motherf***ing peace!" Sigh.

But I didn't do that. I said, "Oh no, but thank you. Not today." And I fully expect the old and young anarchists to show up at my squalid little abode sometime tomorrow for a rousing conversation about government mind control. We'll be having Pringles and Merlot, of course.

And how was your day, fave peeps?