Today was a totally waste of a day off. My plans for today were as follows: wake up late, bum around the house in the morning, watch some TV, then maybe clean up my room a little, followed by more bumming around. My one plan for the day, it can be said, was to simply do NOTHING.Well, that plan was quickly thwarted by my Aunt, who has a knack for ruining all my plans because she assumes I have none of my own. Doing nothing might not sound like a plan to you, but it was most certainly a plan. All week I�ve been out and about, going to work, working, and then coming home from work. My average commute to San Marino is two and a half hours. My average commute to Glendale is two hours. That equals an average commute of four and a half hours to and from work. Add to this the work hours I put in and you can see that I don�t spend much time at home. I suppose you can say I spend a lot of time, but think that 80% of that time is spent sleeping and you get my drift... I don�t have much free time. So my free time is VERY precious to me. A day like today doesn�t come very often. It doesn�t come every weekend, despite what my Aunt might think.
So when she came to my room this morning at just after 10:30am to ask me when we were going to go to this mythical appliance store where we would find a replacement for our failing refrigerator for next to nothing, I wanted to scream. She has been yapping about this store for months now, and finally to shut her up I reluctantly jumped into some clothes and went with her to the store.
Ah, but things are never that easy any more. She is completely lost without a paddle these days. She �forgets� everything, and then blames her mind for what is really her not paying attention to the here and now. She is always three steps ahead, while falling on the current step she�s taking. It�s maddening. So since I don�t have a car we book it to the bus stop because the next bus was leaving in twenty minutes. We make the bus stop with only about two minutes to spare. We get off on Nordoff to make the connection to the bus that will take us to the store. Well, the next bus doesn�t show up for nearly an hour. While waiting for the bus the bus stop fills with people waiting. Finally the bus arrives, not surprisingly full of people. Only about half of the people waiting on the bus get on. Guess who the bus driver tells he can�t get on, and will have to wait for the next bus? Me. So my aunt makes it on, but I don�t. Now the whole purpose of me going was to help her get to the location because she will surly, �get lost.� Because that�s what she does. I call her cell and tell her that I�m not on the bus. We talk about whether I should just go home or whether she should just get off the bus at the next stop. I should have said the latter of those two options, because it would have saved me a lot of heartache. But, I tell her she might as well go on. I checked the nextbus tracker and it says that the next bus is coming in 15 minutes. I call her back and tell her that I�m �right behind� her, the next bus will still give me time to arrive at the store before they close at 2pm, I think. It was worth the shot to try and make it.
So she asks me, �What street should I get off on.� I tell her, �Mason.� �How far is that,� she asks. I tell her, �It�s past Tampa a bit. Just listen for Mason after you hear Tampa.� Now I say that because the buses today announce the stops as they travel.
As I�m on the bus she calls and tells me, �I got off at Tampa, which way do I go now?� I tell her, �I didn�t tell you to get off at Tampa... I said Mason.� �I forgot,� she says. Calmly I tell her, �Don�t worry, I�m on the bus now, and it isn�t long before it will reach Tampa, just go to the bus stop and get on the next bus. I�ll be on that one.� �OK,� she says. So the bus arrives at Tampa and Nordoff and of course she�s not at the bus stop. I figure maybe she�s at the next stop. Nope. The next one after that seems too far, but still I thought that she might have walked that way as well. Nope. So at that point I just gave up. I figured I would make my way to the store without her and figure things out later. So just before I arrive she calls me and says that she�s near Parthenia and Tampa. No idea where that is, but I check my cell and tell her, �OK, you�re not that far from the store,� and then I try to explain which direction to walk to a person that wouldn�t know a compass if it was staring her in the face. She mentioned rail road tracks and I simply tell her, �Go the same direction the bus was traveling.� She of course does who knows which way and ends up going the opposite direction she needed to go.
Meanwhile I arrive at the store and do some shopping. The selection wasn�t great, only two fridges that meet the criteria I was looking for. Both cost about the same, and both come in a horrible cream color. Who the fuck buys a fridge that is any color other than white? Anyways, the salesman is nice, tells me the details and I go on my merry way. My aunt, calls me again and asks where I am. I then find out she went to completely opposite direction that I told her. I tell her the details and ask her to tell me where she is. She does, and I make my way to meet her. I tell her the details of the fridges, and show her some pictures I took. The deals at the store are not that great, I tell her. I�ve seen similar refrigerators at Sears for the same price, and in white. So she buys me a meal at a Big Boy�s on Tampa, and then we make our way home. She and I split up when she decides she wants to go to a clothing store and I want to go home. I arrive at home tired and completely frustrated because instead of doing nothing I wasted my time going to a store that sucked dick. All because my aunt saw an ad and believed their stupid bullshit about prices being up to 40% off. Thank you Universe for saddling me with someone who now epitomizes the lack of competence in doing even the simplest of tasks that I see in everyone I deal with at my jobs EVERY SINGLE DAY.
I pride myself in being prepared for nearly anything that comes along. I get things done. I look at the big picture while still remembering the details. No one I know does this anymore. No one I come in contact with ever gets anything right anymore, and it sickens me.
End Communication.
