Ocean State
I think the easiest way to make myself update ye olde blog is to have some kind of immensely frustrating day that I can only cope with by making light of.
So I went to Providence, Rhode Island today because Pablo wanted to buy golf clubs and I wanted to not do anything productive. Both of us at least succeeded in that respect, and we even dragged along Colin, Tina, and Ashley for the adventure. I still take moral exception to the extreme nearness of states to one another around here. The trip from Boston to Providence took about as much time as a trip from Orange County to LA, except it involved going from one state capital to another. I trust my Californian friends recognize that there is a fundamental flaw to this concept, even if it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly is so wrong about it. It just is.
So we get Pablo’s clubs, do the dinner thang, and inexplicably, somewhere between paying for dinner and walking to the car parked around the corner, my wallet spontaneously ceases to exist. There was an extraordinarily small window of opportunity for it to vanish, and my wallet seized upon that window and never let go (scrappy little fellow, that wallet of mine). All attempts to retrace steps, ransack the car, and generally harass the hell out of the people who were then already sitting in the table we had left behind proved unsuccessful. I stopped in the Dunkin Donuts at the corner, along the path we walked from restaurant to car, to ask if anyone had turned in a wallet. I realized from the onset this was an exceedingly optimistic thing to try, but hey, why not. I was met with such a look of utter confusion from the girl behind the counter, whose eyes seemed to say, “You poor, naïve, West Coast-dwelling fool.” Two snaggletoothed thugs squawked at me from an adjacent booth in New England accents so stereotypical that I’d have to assume they were made up if New Englanders weren’t always so damn stereotypical, “That ain’t gonna happen around here, man. A wallet’s on the ground, that’s fair game.” Oh yeah, boys, this restaurant-and-bar-laden trendy area of Providence, RI is truly the hood. Life sure is tough on the streets, especially in this here Dunkin Donuts. Twits.
So as I observed on the drive home, needless to say, Rhode Island and I aren’t friends anymore. Rhode Island is not invited to my birthday party. It’s over between us. I have a box of Rhode Island’s stuff packed up and I’m gonna have a friend take it back over to its place, cause I think it’s best if we don’t really interact at all for a while.
On that ride home, I started going through that delightful process of calling the credit card company, the debit card company, the DMV, my mother, etc. As I was on the phone with Citibank to cancel my MasterCard, I realized that I could recite my whole credit card number from memory (thank you, online shopping). I was sad to think that the number now had to change, and I’d have to start all over again with a new one. You know, when something like this happens, it’s really the little things that get to you. And also the massive inconvenience.
Yes, I do realize my problems are trivial compared to those of others. But they are MY trivial problems and I will cradle them lovingly against my bosom, nurturing them into a lifetime of healthy neurosis.
So I went to Providence, Rhode Island today because Pablo wanted to buy golf clubs and I wanted to not do anything productive. Both of us at least succeeded in that respect, and we even dragged along Colin, Tina, and Ashley for the adventure. I still take moral exception to the extreme nearness of states to one another around here. The trip from Boston to Providence took about as much time as a trip from Orange County to LA, except it involved going from one state capital to another. I trust my Californian friends recognize that there is a fundamental flaw to this concept, even if it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly is so wrong about it. It just is.
So we get Pablo’s clubs, do the dinner thang, and inexplicably, somewhere between paying for dinner and walking to the car parked around the corner, my wallet spontaneously ceases to exist. There was an extraordinarily small window of opportunity for it to vanish, and my wallet seized upon that window and never let go (scrappy little fellow, that wallet of mine). All attempts to retrace steps, ransack the car, and generally harass the hell out of the people who were then already sitting in the table we had left behind proved unsuccessful. I stopped in the Dunkin Donuts at the corner, along the path we walked from restaurant to car, to ask if anyone had turned in a wallet. I realized from the onset this was an exceedingly optimistic thing to try, but hey, why not. I was met with such a look of utter confusion from the girl behind the counter, whose eyes seemed to say, “You poor, naïve, West Coast-dwelling fool.” Two snaggletoothed thugs squawked at me from an adjacent booth in New England accents so stereotypical that I’d have to assume they were made up if New Englanders weren’t always so damn stereotypical, “That ain’t gonna happen around here, man. A wallet’s on the ground, that’s fair game.” Oh yeah, boys, this restaurant-and-bar-laden trendy area of Providence, RI is truly the hood. Life sure is tough on the streets, especially in this here Dunkin Donuts. Twits.
So as I observed on the drive home, needless to say, Rhode Island and I aren’t friends anymore. Rhode Island is not invited to my birthday party. It’s over between us. I have a box of Rhode Island’s stuff packed up and I’m gonna have a friend take it back over to its place, cause I think it’s best if we don’t really interact at all for a while.
On that ride home, I started going through that delightful process of calling the credit card company, the debit card company, the DMV, my mother, etc. As I was on the phone with Citibank to cancel my MasterCard, I realized that I could recite my whole credit card number from memory (thank you, online shopping). I was sad to think that the number now had to change, and I’d have to start all over again with a new one. You know, when something like this happens, it’s really the little things that get to you. And also the massive inconvenience.
Yes, I do realize my problems are trivial compared to those of others. But they are MY trivial problems and I will cradle them lovingly against my bosom, nurturing them into a lifetime of healthy neurosis.