Listen. I’m a nice person. Yes, I’m sarcastic, introverted, mildly dismissive, plagued by resting bitch face, and prone to making intimidating dragon noises at very large horses… but I really see no value in being needlessly mean to people. I tip well, I smile at strangers, I don’t get road rage, I say please and thank you, I often hashtag “#BeKind” on social media. That being said, we don’t necessarily live in a world that’s kind back, and every once in a while, the world goes a little too far. I was having a long week. Not a bad week, just long, and I decided to go relax and get my nails done. My salon of choice is still the place with the clouds. Before heading that way, I saw it was starting to rain, and I needed to change out my windshield wipers. One of my biggest pet peeves is old windshield wipers that don’t wipe the windshield. They literally have one job, it’s in their name. I installed one with no problem, and when I got to the other one I found it was broken in the package. Perfect. I went to put the old one back on, only to discover the old dry plastic had cracked and it was also broken. Perfect. I rigged it on there the best I could, while explaining the concept of a wing and prayer to the old cracked wiper. On the drive over, I noticed that people were choosing to be exceptionally rude that day. I probably got cut off a dozen times. I was tired and I felt my patience slipping away…around that time, part of the old windshield wiper committed suicide and flew away, leaving the remaining bit clinging for dear life.
The other thing I noticed on the way over was my truck seemed to be vibrating and shaking. PERFECT. The story here is simple: I paid off the truck recently. For anyone who is unaware, since NASA cut back on space travel, 90% of their resources are dedicated to helping Ford Motors sell trucks…probably. So the moment I paid off my truck, NASA satellites linked up with a chip in my truck to cause 3 things to malfunction on the exact day I received a letter from Ford offering me maximum trade-in value on my truck if only I would “Act Now!” So obviously, my back passenger window button is being slow, my advance track system malfunctioned, and my truck started “vibrating” on the way to the nail salon. Once I got there, I checked all my tires: good tread, correct amount of air, no knifes, road flares, Prius’s, or NASA missiles sticking out, so I went about my day.
My nail place seemed a little off it’s game. The water was cold, the whole place was freezing, the channel on the TV was dumb, there was an overabundance of pre-spring break sorority barbies talking about mountains and beaches… Even my favorite manicurist was off her game. This girl is the best, she will start over if she messes anything up, she works fast, does a great job, and has actually full out sprinted to beat another manicurist to the last table so I don’t have to wait. But today, she failed and we had to do the manicure in the pedicure chair. Not the worst thing ever, but it meant I had to listen to more of the sorority babble about all the little dramas plaguing their super duper interesting lives.
After a disappointing mani/pedi, I headed to Walmart, land of disappointments, to exchange my broken windshield wiper. If you’ve ever had to return something to Walmart, you’re aware that it’s a particular circle of hell only mentioned in hushed tones during ancient times, and unexplored by those with weak stomachs. I got in the one line that was open…they have 4 registers for show, but I’ve only ever seen 2 open at most. The woman running the register, bless her heart, was about 147 years old. Every two or three minutes she’d halt progress and stare blankly at a spot about 12 feet in the air, before resuming activity like nothing happened. Eventually I was the third person in line, I could practically feel the victory. The lady behind me was audibly sighing every 20 seconds and shifting from leg to leg as if that might hurry things up.
Then something amazing happened. Something only heard about in fairy tales about unicorns: a second register opened up. The man who was second in line stepped up to the new register and just like that I was second in line. I shifted to a spot in the middle of the two registers since I was next in line. All of a sudden the lady behind me walked in front of me and stood behind the man that had been in front of me. At this point, my long week came screeching to a head. My brain involuntarily switched from #BeKind to #OhNoYouF***kingDidnt. This wasn’t me any more. Someone else had taken over the gears in my brain.
Listen; I’m not small by any definition of the word, but this woman had me safely outweighed in triplicate. However, my day job with giant crazy horses has taught me body language and presence mean way more than size and words. Somewhere in the back of my head, my sanity pleaded with me to let it go, but the Walmart demon on my shoulder whispered in my ear, “you’re holding that broken windshield wiper like a sword.” It occurred to the more unreasonable side of me, that the windshield wiper was almost the same size and shape as those little plastic dividers you put on the grocery conveyor belt to divide your stuff from other people’s stuff. I reasoned if you could use them to divide groceries, you could use them to divide people too.
Without acknowledging the woman, I edged forward until I was about 12 inches in front of her. Then with a simple swivel, I shoved my sword/wiper in front of the woman, and shifted my hip in front of her. She instinctively stepped backwards to avoid the possibility of impalement. The woman then puffed up and gave me her best, “Excuuuuuse me?” look. I almost faltered but, once again relying on body language, I simply smiled at her. Now, I don’t mean a smirk, or a polite little toothless smile. I mean, a full cheese grin. There’s a saying that there’s nothing more dangerous than a silent smiling woman. This is a true statement. I smiled at this woman with a psycho smile that said more than words could. It said, I’ve been cut off one too many times today, it said I laugh in the face of danger, it said clearly I am an indescribable level of crazy, it said BACK. UP.
Then it happened, the woman shifted backwards. She averted her gaze from my rage filled, toothy display of smiling dominance and looked somewhere off into the distance pretending she was unaware of the crazy rabid wiper wielding lunatic in front of her. I took my rightful place in line and went to the next available register. My sanity was reminding me that this lady could have flattened me into a me shaped pancake and maybe I should just relax. I got my receipt and left the area before the amazon lady could change her mind about being bullied by a rain-x.
I headed home hungry and tired but feeling moderately victorious. I was almost home when NASA took a break from piloting the mars rover and hit a little red button marked, “tire disintegration.” I was traveling 60 mph on a dark bumpy road when my passenger side hit the ground. Honestly my first thought was that my axle broke or the world ended because my front end sank so abruptly to the pavement. My second thought was I was going to start a fire from the metal to asphalt sound I was hearing. I put the right side of the truck in the ditch and slammed on the breaks, coming to a stop in a gravel driveway. For a few seconds I just sat in my truck and reflected on my life choices that had led me to this moment. Maybe this was retribution for giving in to the Walmart demon, maybe it was just blind bad luck. Either way it cleared up a lot of things about why my truck had been vibrating.
I know how to change a tire so I wasn’t upset. I was impressed by how thoroughly shredded the tire was, with the steel coming out from the inside. I got to work changing the tire and discovered NASA and/or the tire shop had over-tightened or possibly welded on the last lug nut. I did my best hulk impression and tried to summon the strength of the woman from Walmart, but all I managed to do was strip the lug nut, and pull my shoulder muscle. I could hear a dog growling in the dark nearby, the gravel was digging into me, my fresh manicure was being pushed to the limits, and it took every ounce of restraint I had not to chuck my tire iron into the woods and light the truck on fire.
Eventually, Shane and our friend Zach had to come rescue me. It took some good old fashioned redneck engineering and a lot of brute force, but we got the stupid thing changed. I got home, ate my body weight in curly fries, and climbed into bed. As I tried to go to sleep the NASA funded Walmart demon left me with one little thought,”It isn’t even Friday Yet.”
Don't Call Me Sweetie 