I had been sick since Friday December 24th. I originally thought it was allergies but by Monday, it was pretty clear that I had a cold or something. Thankfully, I was able to work from home from Tuesday to Thursday so I didn’t have to call in sick. It also meant that I hadn’t left the apartment since Monday.
My girlfriend Michelle and I had the day off on Friday, so she was coming over on Thursday. Having been stuck inside for so long, I was getting a little stir crazy and restless. I thought about ordering a pizza from Papa John’s and having Michelle pick it up on her way here. At the same time, I needed groceries so I figured I would just wait for her to arrive, order the pizza, get the groceries, pick up the pizza and go home. Simple.
The Great Matchmaker of Publix
We left for Publix after ordering the pizza at 7:15. The pizza would likely be ready by about 7:35. I figured we would be able to pick up the pizza at 7:45. I hadn’t really made a list of groceries and I had no idea what we were going to eat for the weekend. I was hoping the three medium pizzas would at least get us to New Year’s without having to make anything.
In the checkout line, I picked out a Pepsi because I needed a cold drink since I was out of Cokes. I then realized that I had forgotten to pick up a bag of peppermints. See, I was still sick and I wanted the mints to help my throat. Michelle tried to get me to buy actual cough drops. I explained that when I was in church back in 1986, an old woman in the pew in front of me heard me coughing and turned around to give me a cough drop. I don’t know what brand they were but they were terrible and I vowed then as a six year old that I would never have another cough drop. For some reason, Michelle thought that was silly.
I decided to go ahead and stop by CVS on the way home to pick up the bag of peppermints. We had already spent more time at Publix than I had wanted to. The girl at the checkout looked very disinterested as she scanned the items, which isn’t unique or anything. Then this bagger came in from outside and he looked excited. He started bagging my groceries and he said while smiling, “I am a great matchmaker!”
I didn’t know if he was talking to me or the cashier. Truthfully, I think he was looking between us. “I really know people. I’m a great matchmaker!” he said, at this point clearly talking to me. “Tell them, Misty.”
“Whatever you say,” Misty, the cashier replied, still disinterested. Meanwhile, I thought about how un-Misty-like she looked. Michelle later thought she looked more like a Melissa. I was leaning toward Heather.
“I am just a great matchmaker!” the bagger said again. He then offered to take the groceries out for us and I declined.
While walking out, I turned to look at Michelle to see if she recognized how odd the whole ‘matchmaker’ thing was and while looking over my left shoulder, I pushed the cart right into the door. You know how those sliding doors open? They were fully open but I plowed into the side activating the emergency exit function causing the right side of the door to fully push open. Michelle began laughing wildly and I just kept pushing the cart like nothing happened. She laughed all the way to Papa John’s.
Hello Kitty Sighting
We arrived to pick up the pizza at 8pm, which was 15 minutes later than I had expected and 25 minutes after the pizza was done. I had paid with a credit card online and expected the pick up to be a quick in and out thing. I didn’t really expect there to be a line backing up against the door. Michelle stayed in the car.
The couple at the front of the line hadn’t placed an order to be picked up and they had no idea what they wanted. “What’s on a Hawaiian pizza?” they asked. “What about a barbeque pizza?”
Here’s the thing about pizza places, especially ones that you can’t eat at like Papa John’s or Domino’s. Those places are designed to take phone calls or web orders. They have one register and can only serve one person at a time. After about five or six minutes, they settled on their order.
There were a lot of employees behind the counter and there were four that didn’t appear to be doing anything. I could see a group of three pizzas that I thought were mine (and it turned out that they were). I had the confirmation print out in my hand. I finally got the attention of one of them. I said that I was just picking up an order and had already paid. The employee said that she (meaning the cashier) would be able to help. Or in other words, ‘I’m not going to help.’
The person in front of me finally got to the register and she was picking up an order. She must’ve been tempted by the pictures of the chicken wings and asked how long it would take for them to be added to the order. The cashier said 15-20 minutes, which seemed to be the standard answer whenever someone asked her how long it was going to take to have an order ready. The customer asked if the chicken wings were good and the cashier assured her that they were.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a waiter/waitress tell a customer something the restaurant served wasn’t good. I’ve heard that certain items were good, great, alright but I’ve never heard a server say that something was bad. Of course, you know what kind of restaurant you’re at based on the answer though. The bigger the adjective, the fancier the place. A top shelf place will say that the item you’ve asked about is ‘exquisite.’ Which is funny because I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten anything that I would describe as exquisite.
Anyway, the customer passed on the chicken wings and then paid for the order with a Hello Kitty Visa card. I’m not great with guessing ages but this woman was likely in her 40s. Going with the Hello Kitty card seems to be an odd choice. I don’t know.
It was my turn to pick up my order and it took a matter of seconds since I’d already paid. It was a bit frustrating since I had spent almost 15 minutes in line and I was able to stare at the pizzas the whole time as they slowly grew colder.
I had locked the car with the key fob and so when Michelle tried to unlock the door from inside the car, the alarm went off which made me laugh. The back seat of the car was filled with groceries so Michelle held the pizzas on her lap.
“Are you in a hurry?”
I thought about not going to CVS but I really needed the peppermints because my throat was hurting and I was coughing a lot. Michelle again stayed in the car.
A woman entered in just before me and got a cart. I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten a cart at CVS, Walgreens or Rite Aid/Eckerd before. Maybe I have. I don’t remember.
I got the 99 cent peppermints (why isn’t there a cents symbol on the keyboard. I’d use it more than I use that crazy ^ symbol that shares the six key). I didn’t want to pay in cash because I’d give up two dollars and get 98 cents back that I would just add to my collection of coins that will never be used. On the other hand, it seems silly to place it on the debit card. I’m not sure I want there to be a record of this transaction. I’d have to enter it into the checkbook, on Quicken, in my Excel budget document and in my iPhone budget app. It seems like a lot of work to put it on my debit card.
I had pulled out the card to pay and changed my mind. I gave the cashier the two dollars and she asked if I had my CVS card. I pulled it out of my wallet and handed it to her. I put the debit card where the CVS card had been. She then asked, “Are you in a hurry?” I told her that I was, which was partly true. I’m always kind of in a hurry but especially with Michelle in the car accompanying three pizzas that weren’t getting warmer.
She gave me the 98 cents and I pulled out the debit card so the CVS card could be placed back where it belonged and I left without putting the debit card back in the wallet. I threw the peppermints, my wallet and the card in the backseat.
Agent Orange Face v. The Power Bill
We got back to the apartment at about 8:30 or so and took the groceries in. The best thing about getting groceries with Michelle is having an extra person carry groceries upstairs. While we’re walking upstairs, the next door neighbor jumps out of her apartment and asks, “What is your power bill?”
This is the time to mention that I don’t know this person. I’ve never seen her before. I know she moved in a couple months earlier but I’d never met her. “What?” I asked, more surprised that she had popped out of her apartment in her pajamas than anything else.
“How much is your power bill?” I told her that it was about $100 on average (I think it’s averaged about $96 over the last 12 months). “Don’t you think that’s a little high?”
I told her that I didn’t think it was and that it was about average all things considered. I didn’t add that a) without electricity, everything else that she pays for is worthless (cable, internet, phone etc.) and b) she’s going to really hate it when the rates go up next billing cycle. She went on to tell me what the power bill was for everybody else in the building. One person has a bill of $80, one a bill of $200 and most fall somewhere in between. I mainly was thinking about how orange her face looked. I mean, she looked completely orange. If she was in the produce section, there would be some fruit calling her ‘mommy.’
After learning about the electric usage history for my neighbors, Michelle and I went into the apartment to eat a very late dinner. We both laughed at how random the night had been.
And then the moment of panic. I couldn’t find my debit card. I had my wallet and the bag of peppermints but the card must’ve fallen into the backseat somewhere. I told Michelle that I didn’t want to go back outside because I was scared that the orange girl would ask how much my power bill was again.
It’s important to note that I didn’t really think she was going to come out again. I was just trying to be funny. I went back to the car and the card was on the backseat, just like I figured that it was.
On the way back upstairs, the neighbor opened the door again and waited for me to come to the top of the stairs. Still wearing pajamas. Still as orange as she had been three minutes earlier.
“I don’t even use my heat,” she said to me as if the original conversation had never ended. Now, we have had some pretty cold temperatures over the last month in Atlanta. It’s hard to believe that she never turned on the heat even once as the temperatures dipped into the teens several days in December (28 of 31 days in December had lows below 34 degrees).
I explained a couple of other factors that come into play with electric usage. I noted about how cold it had been and she acknowledged that maybe she had used the heat a little bit but “not for most of the month.” I then thought again about how amazingly orange she was and told her that hopefully the temperatures warm up and her power bill goes down. But I didn’t really hope that at all. I was just lying to her.
The really interesting thing that she said though was that the apartment complex has gone into foreclosure. I’m not really sure what that means and how that’s going to affect me. I know that the letterhead on a recent letter was different and that the property manager’s name was different. I also noticed that the complex had finally started having weekend hours after a year of being off weekends. And as Orange Julius noted, they had been doing more landscaping work than usual.
Pepsi Max & My Blister
I told Michelle what happened and she said that she could hear some of it. We laughed about it and started eating. I realized after drinking half my Pepsi that it was actually a Pepsi Max. It’s their version of Coke Zero. Put it this way, it tastes closer to Pepsi than Coke Zero tastes to Coke. Pepsi is sweet and Pepsi Max takes away that sweetness. It’s a bland version of Pepsi and I certainly didn’t mean to pick up that drink. Pepsi Max looks too similar to Pepsi.
I spent a disproportionate amount of time that night (and much of the weekend) staring at my blister.
Oh, I probably should’ve mentioned this before writing that last sentence: Over at Michelle’s place on Sunday December 26th, I was cleaning the frying pan after cooking bacon and it was still hot. I clean that way all the time without a problem. Well, this time, I burned my pinkie. And I don’t mean a quick touch and ‘oh that hurt’ kind of thing. It fucking hurt. I had pressed my finger hard right up against the pan. My finger began to discolor and you could see the start of a burn blister.
Michelle called her mother who advised, ‘Run the finger under cool water and cry a lot.’ So I did. Both parts of the advice.
Anyway, by Thursday, it wasn’t hurting anymore but the blister had started to raise off the skin. I don’t know how long this is going to last but I can’t stop looking at it. I drove Michelle insane this weekend because I kept talking about it and showing it to her.
A Monopoly on New Year’s Eve
Friday was New Year’s Eve. I was still pretty sick and I had wanted to go to Dairy Queen but just didn’t feel well enough to leave the house so we ate pizza all day.
At night, we played Monopoly and I learned a lot about Michelle. She’s much more competitive than I had realized. I mean, I knew she was kind of competitive but she surprised me a little. My main Monopoly strategy is to control the railroads and at least one side of the board and build houses (and hotels if I can).
Michelle was able to get three of the railroads and a monopoly on Boardwalk/Park Place. She spent most of the game with more money but I had more property and eventually she started landing on the properties with hotels and houses and went bankrupt.
Something else happened during the game but Michelle would be annoyed if I told it so I won’t. The game lasted 3 hours or so and then we watched Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve show.
Dick Clark had a stroke on December 8, 2004. He missed the 2004 show but he’s been a part of the show from 2005 on and it’s a little hard to watch. He’s 81 years old and he looks amazing but his speech is still impaired and last year he muffed the countdown a bit. But still, it just feels sad.
And yet instead, I laugh. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a nervous laughter. I feel bad about it. It really bothers Michelle. I feel bad about that too. But I can’t help it.
This year, the countdown felt very anti-climactic. We had stayed up to watch this and the countdown came and went and that was it. I don’t know. It feels like it should feel like something but it doesn’t. I’m not sure why.
Entering a Contest & My New Friend
It was an overcast day on New Years. I felt well enough to go to Dairy Queen for lunch. Michelle had to drop off a bill and we were going to stop by Walmart and Publix. We had to go to Publix so she could get groceries for her place and also to have food for Saturday and Sunday.
At Dairy Queen, we ordered a couple combos and we were going to have Blizzards after we ate. The cashier said he would bring out the food but I didn’t trust him, so I stood at the booth that Michelle was sitting at, which drives her nuts because she doesn’t like me standing if she’s sitting. I don’t really understand it but…
The manager, a man who appeared to be from India or Pakistan, asked if we ordered two combos. I misunderstood though because he was hard to understand. I thought he asked if we ordered a number two combo. He said that because we had ordered a combo, we could fill out a ticket to be entered into a contest. I didn’t really follow what he was saying but he seemed to want us to fill out the ticket so we did. And he stood there the entire time, which seemed a little odd. He told us that the drawing would be a four, which was three hours away and I think he said we could come back up to attend the drawing. He later said that he would call us if we won.
After finished, I ordered two mini Blizzards. She had an Oreo and I had a Butterfinger Blizzard. Two things. First, it wasn’t that long ago that a small was $1.99. I’m pretty sure the small is smaller than the old small was and yet it’s 50% more expensive. I don’t like complaining about it because it makes me feel old. Nothing’s more pointless than complaining about how much something used to cost.
Second, I would’ve rather have a Reese’s Pieces Blizzard but I haven’t seen that for sale in years. I don’t understand why. Reese’s is a big deal. It’s not like those Nerds Blizzards that have been defunct for over a decade. Those probably didn’t sell all that well but you can’t convince me that people don’t like Reese’s Pieces Blizzards.
It really began to rain. I had brought an umbrella with me but I had left it in the car. Michelle’s jacket had a hood but mine did not.
After leaving Dairy Queen, we mailed the bill, went to Walmart and Publix and went back home. We were watching stuff I had on the DVR. There had been a marathon of The Larry Sanders Show, Mr. Show and Baggage. We were going back and forth between those recordings. At 3pm, my phone started ringing and it was the manager from Dairy Queen.
I went into the bedroom so that I could hear him better because I was really struggling to understand him. He said that I had won the drawing and I had won a Pillow Pet. You know, those things you see on television that look like a rolled up pillow until you pull a Velcro strap and then it ‘becomes’ a pillow.
I don’t usually win things and it seemed strange that when I finally do win something, it was a contest that I was sort of forced into entering to win a prize that’s a child’s toy. He said I could pick it up that day or the next day.
I was ambivalent about going down there at first but the more I thought about it, I really wanted to go down there on that day. Michelle wasn’t as excited about leaving at first but grew more willing the more she thought about how I’d just won a Pillow Pet. She also needed to go to Target and I wanted to go to Best Buy.
We went back to Dairy Queen and the manager seemed really happy. He went into his office to retrieve a panda Pillow pet. The cashier who had taken my order about three hours earlier pointed at me and said, “You were in here earlier!”
The manager gave the Pillow Pet but told me that he needed to keep the bag. He explained why but I couldn’t really understand him. Honestly, even when he had called me, I was only 80% sure that he was telling me that I had actually won.
The panda was EXTREMELY soft. I was thinking about letting Michelle have him but the more I held him, I decided against it. It’s a good thing I didn’t offer it to her because I would’ve had to renege. I had to tuck the panda under my jacket since it was still raining.
On the way into Target, I pressed the button the closed the umbrella but I didn’t point it down or anything, so it closed above our heads, causing all the rain on the umbrella to fall on our heads. It was pretty dumb on my part but we laughed.
We got the mail on the way back into the complex (I know mail isn’t delivered on New Years but I hadn’t gotten my mail in a couple days). My power bill arrived. I thought about making a copy of it and giving it to the Orange Jack in the Box neighbor of mine.
In Summary
So, that was my weekend. That’s how I met the greatest matchmaker in the world, won a Pillow Pet and why I’m now scared to leave me apartment because I have a neighbor obsessed with my power bill
And that’s all I have to post until a year and a half from now or whatever.
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