some very important advice

I just spent three hours at the social security administration office.  And for your next visit, I now have some advice: don't pee yourself.  Not even a little.

I have this trouble where I attract the loud, embarrassing talker.  This very sweet but very vocal elderly woman was telling me about her granddaughter who had been in a car accident and they were replacing her rectum with flesh from her thigh.  She was so loud, and had repeated this so many times--and there's a bladder problem too, they thought it was fixed but it keeps leaking--that people were looking at me to stop the carnage.  So I left to get my laptop.  I end up sitting next to another older woman who looked over my shoulder at footage of Otto.  I was editing this little video of him.  "Oh, he's so cute," she declared, but I'm editing it for time so I keep replaying it and cutting it down.  She complains that I keep showing her the same thing and she wants to see something else.  I humor her by showing her some pictures, and then she just keeps watching.  At this point all I want to write about is this lady who's complaining I'm not entertaining her enough.  I'm missing the rectum talker.  So I close up my Mac and, mind you, in the cold molasses drip of the bureaucratic pick-a-number game, we are at D24.  It has taken an hour to get from D17, and my number isn't until D32, or the next Broncos Superbowl, whichever is first.  I have time.

I go to the bathroom.  I place my Mac on the edge of the sink.  It slips.  Now my Mac isn't just a computer.  It's my children's childhood.  It's 10,000 pictures and 5,000 songs.  It's produced videos of Quin walking and Otto rolling that stole from me entire Saturdays.  It's your phone number, your address, your likes and dislikes, because if you're reading this I probably know you.  My Mac is familiarity; the soft clicking of keys and the shiny worn spots on the spacebar segue mere flesh and blood into its silicon superiority.  Artificial intelligence?  No. It's the center of my work universe, the stick for my tetherball, where a firmly placed home row keeps me from being flung into some wide open disorganized space.  And my lord it's sexy.  So when it's in danger great sacrifices must be made. 

I make a quick move to grab it, therefore peeing on myself a little bit.

If you've ever been to the Littleton SSN office, you'll note that it's a five by five square of chairs, and it's like a classroom.  The bathroom is up front, so you walk out like you're either going to perform or teach.  After a little self-loathing I realize the severity of the situation.  And that’s the thing.  I don’t know if you’ve peed yourself lately, but it’s difficult to look at yourself and not be really very disappointed. There’s a deep, deep affliction that takes place here.  Here I am a sober, working professional who should be able to handle himself in public, yet I’m looking in the mirror at a urine stain running down my right leg.  

I needed to make a quick move.  I bolt out the door, for some reason holding my breath.  I exit carrying my laptop much like a middle school girl would her Judy Blume books, but instead of hugging it to my chest, I shield my crotch.  I go outside and I stand in the wind.  And this is good.

Meanwhile, as I dry, the people who had been at lunch or self-tanning or whatever they do when all the windows are closed, show up.  Feeling fresh and ready they lifted their blinds and actually helped some people.  I go back inside and this woman exclaims, "They called your number!!"  And in the tight bonds of the community that forms in a government waiting room, this is the kind of story people don't even want to joke about.  It’s usually only the stuff of legend, until I walk in with a moist groin and an ashen face.  I never dreamed the horror would be as severe as it is.  I asked one lady what the protocol is and she sends me to the security guard who tells me that I have to get another number.  I wonder if he wants a new rectum. 

And heads were turning.  I mean I'm the story in at least 28 households tonight.  I'm the guy who missed his number.

The guard explained that everyone thought I'd left.  That was kind of nice.  I'd been there so long most everybody kind of new me.  I was up for tribal council.

I lost D32 and ended up with D41.  I had to sit there and wait for approximately another hour.  It gave me time to work on controlling my anger.  Even though in front of me was the worst person on the planet.  She's a twenty-something-year-old attractive Latina who was with some beleaguered mother figure.  This little girl had just inherited some money and a house.  She shouted the details of her new wealth and how her grandmother and grandfather had made a huge mistake in not transferring it directly to her instead of going through some trust.  She used the word "communisty" several times to describe her ordeal in having to wait. Also, if she worked there she'd light a fire under everyone's ass.  As a matter of fact she'd fire everyone's ass!  Retards, she explained, fucking communisty retards.  When she finally left, a soft-spoken woman turned to me and rolled her eyes.  I said, 'Wow, glad she's not your daughter."  She replied, "She wouldn't be my daughter.  She'd be dead."

I wanted to say more, but I stopped and just nodded.

Comments

[jason]

How do you pronounce "communisty"? Should I ask George W.?