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March 22, 2002
Mary Ellen and the terrible, rotten, no good day
Hey there. It's freezing outside, and the wind is howling, but my flannel pajamas and the fact that it's Friday have lifted me out of the little pool of angst I've been stewing in for the past couple of days. I've been in a foul mood since Wednesday -- the Very Bad Day the title refers to. It went like this:
Wednesday morning, on my way in to work, I stopped off at the ATM and withdrew $30. I had about $4 in my wallet, but I neglected to go to the grocery store last weekend, so I knew I'd need to but lunch that day, and I was planning to stop off at the store and pick up some dinner on my way home. Plus, I needed gum, a Diet Coke, and some cigarettes that morning. I popped into the store, took care of the immediate needs, and went on to work. The morning was uneventful, and when lunchtime rolled around, I grabbed my wallet and set off for the cafeteria next door to work. When I got there, I looked in my wallet, and... no money. Nothing in there but a few confused moths. At first, I thought I must have dropped the cash I'd had, but then I remembered that, after I'd bought my stuff that morning, I'd put the change away in the wallet, tucking it inside the folded twenty dollar bill I'd had left over. I knew I hadn't dropped it. That meant it had been stolen from my bag while I was working. Fuck. I unhappily trudged back to the ATM and took out $20 more so I could eat, and then went back to tell my boss that there were apparently sticky fingers at work in the library. She was horrified, and immediately decided that the door to the staff office, where my bag resides during the day, must have been left open, allowing a stranger to walk in and pilfer the money. I'm not sure I buy that. For one thing, the bag was hidden under a desk, behind a hard drive, not visible to anyone walking by. For another, there are plenty of thing in my bag that are worth far more than the $24-30 the thief got -- my Handspring, for example, plus my cell phone, CD player, and the 30 or so CDs that were in the bag. None of that was taken. The wallet was emptied, then put carefully back into my bag, so it looked like nothing had been disturbed. I don't think a random thief would have done that -- if someone walking by had decided my bag looked appealing, they would have ducked in and grabbed the whole thing, and taken it somewhere else to empty it. (We've had a rash of thefts lately where bags are taken into the bathrooms and emptied, then stuffed behind the toilets and such.) Besides, would a stranger take the time to stand around in the office, just a few feet away from where I was sitting, to search through my bag for my wallet? I doubt it. So, I have a strong suspicion the thief was a coworker, which stinks. I like all of my coworkers, and I consider most of them friends. I hate the thought that one of them ripped me off. Plus, what with the money problems I've had of late, I don't need to be giving money away to someone who can't keep their hands to themselves. My boss made me send an email out to everyone, warning tham to keep an eye on their stuff, so I had bunches of people wanting to talk to me about it at work. It just sucked, in general.
The rest of the day was somewhat blah -- I was pissed off about the theft (not so much the money, because it's not that big a deal, but the fact that I have to lock my bag up and give everyone the hairy eyeball now) and we seemed to have a higher-than-usual number of patrons being rude and yelling at us for no particular reason. I left work that evening determined to make myself some dinner and curl up in front of the TV, with my brain turned off, for the rest of the night. It was snowing like mad when I left, so I was drenched and cold when I got home. I put on my flannel pjs, and called my mom to bitch about my day, while putting a pot of water on to boil for spaghetti. The stove is electric, and usually takes just a couple of minutes to boil a pot of water. I got off the phone about ten minutes after putting the water on, and noticed it was barely steaming, so I picked up the pot to see if the burner was working. When I moved the pot, a large shower of sparks, followed by flames and the smell of burning plastic, shot out from under the burner. (As Josh said, that really sounds like something that would happen to a Sim. I think I reacted like a Sim too, hopping around hysterically for a few seconds, before getting it together and shutting off the burner.) Thye fire went out as soon as I turned the burner off, so that was okay, but still... not good! So what do you think I did? Call 911? The fire department? The landlady? No, I called... my mom. In Vermont. The person who was least able to help. Yeah. I'm good in a crisis, I am. "Mom! Fix it!" She, being a smart woman, told me to unplug the stove and call the landlady. I found the plug and killed the evil stove of doom, then called Patrick to get the landlady's number and called her. The stove is all fine now, apparently -- the landlady thought the burner was shot, but when I took the burner out I found a wire that was broken and badly burnt. I left the door unlocked for her, and a note warning about the wire, and when I came home last night, it was all patched up. Hurrah. I used the stove tonight, and the house isn't a smoldering wreck, so it's all good. I have a blinding fear of fire, so I'll confess to getting up and checking the stove during the night... I'm feeling a little paranoid now.
In happier news, I'll be heading to Florida with my mom in May, to visit my grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins. I'm looking forward to it -- we haven't seen them in a few years. Also, I applied for two librarian jobs yesterday, both at the same library in New Hampshire. They both sound really good, and they're in an area I like, so please, send me good luck wishes. I need a new job badly, and this would be a good step up for me.
Posted by Mary Ellen at March 22, 2002 11:17 PM