Prepoceros

Starbucks drive-thru, 9:00 Friday night. I pull up to the window with a distinctive red box in the front passenger seat.

Barista: Hey, a cookie cake! You’re gonna share that with me, right?
Natalie: Nope.
B: Ha, you were pretty quick on that one. Who’s it for?
N: My niece.
B: Is it her birthday today?
N: Yeah. I mean, it’s tomorrow.
B: How old is she?
N: She’ll be five.
B: Awwww, you’re such a sweet aunt! Hey, will you be my aunt and bring me cookie cakes? My birthday’s tomorrow, too, you know.
N: OK, but then you have to bring me one on my birthday.
B: When’s your birthday?
N: Next week.
B: Really?
N: No.

That picture on the cake is supposed to be a clown, if you can believe that. Little Ana bawled her eyes out when she saw how ugly her clown was and made me take the whole cake home with me. Sigh. It’s tough being a pretend aunt sometimes.

Some of these items weren’t technically “missing,” as I had a vague sense of where they were, but I found them nonetheless.

1. Passport
2. Contact lens case
3. Coupon for a free haircut
4. Ball of ticky-tack
5. Smashed highlighter
6. Bug spray
7. Tax paperwork from 2003
8. Harry Potter DVD (one of the two DVDs I own)
9. Sixteen cents
10. To-do list from July
11. Many, many pay stubs
12. Prescription for Paxil, unfilled
13. Hole punch
14. Sinterklaas wrapping paper
15. Extra camcorder tape
16. Old debit card
17. Velcro tabs
18. Pair of pliers
19. Miniature bottle of salad dressing
20. Sam’s harness
21. EKG printout from 2004
22. Chapstick
23. Tape measure
24. English Grammar for Students of Latin
25. Valentine’s Day card
26. Dry erase markers
27. Extra key to my car
28. Cell phone headset
29. Mathematical Association of America membership form
30. Two necklaces, two bracelets, and three earrings I’d been looking for
31. Electrical tape
32. Two boxes of dental floss
33. Fifty empty CD cases
34. iPod sleeve, pre-chewed
35. HBU student ID
36. Little book I used to keep the insurance card in
37. Insurance card, expired May 2006

I think it’s funny that I can date whole piles of clutter from only a few items. Name tag from work, old apartment key, handwritten draft of an email? March 2006. Crossword puzzle, note from Mom, chocolate bar wrapper? October 2004. Stack of recipes, appointment card from shrink, multi-page rambly monologue about how I’d accomplished nothing at the office that day and was only pretending to work until I could go home and bury my face in the carpet? June 2005. I imagine this is why people scrapbook*.

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* I don’t, but I wish I did, and I’ve often thought of making one (or several). I’m not interested in the froo-froo kind some folks make with stickers and rickrack and photos cut into whimsical shapes; I just want a place to capture a bit of representative detritus of my daily life. It’s so easy to forget the little things, you know? (Sappy sappy, yes.)

Right now. I want a cookie cake, and I want it now. Are we clear on this? The sooner a cake-sized chocolate-chip cookie with brown and white icing appears in front of me, the smaller the chance of my going berserk.

Where is the nearest mall? How late is the cookie cake place open? If they’re not open, whom do I call to make things happen? If someone were to smash the window in, how long would it take the police to get there? Do they bake the cakes fresh every day, or would there be some lying around on the counter?

Does anyone have a spare cookie cake they’re not using? I’d like to borrow it pleasethanks. It can have someone else’s name on it, or a race car or a princess or whatever, I’m not picky.

Seriously, anyone who can get a cookie cake to my door in the next half hour gets a back massage. Unless you’re creepy. Then you get twenty bucks. Either way, it’s worth your while.

Something wonderful and/or devious is afoot. Across the street from where I’m sitting, a veritable congress* of birds has gathered. I don’t speak squawk, but they’re clearly discussing plans of great import. Inter-flock politics? Dive-bombing runs? My car fears for its immaculately-maintained finish.

One entire intersection’s worth of cables and power lines is covered entirely with little black blobs separated by regular six-inch intervals, strung out like, um, birds on a wire. The nearby trees are fully occupied as well; there must be five or six hundred birds out there.

As for species, they’re…black. With feathers. I’m not an ornithologist. There are two kinds of birds that I can see: most are medium-sized and black, but about a quarter are smaller and grayer. Perhaps they’re male and female of the same species. Yeah, that makes sense.

Self, what’s the point of having a camcorder if you never bring it anywhere?

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* I think the most common plural for birds of indeterminate species is congregation, but according to Merriam-Webster, my use of veritable means I’m speaking** metaphorically, so nyah.

** I find myself reluctant to change this to “writing” or “typing,” even though that’s what I’m doing. All language is speech on some level, I think, even when rendered in ink/electrons.

Okay, so we had a few false starts, but now I can say with confidence that Fall has arrived. How do I know?

First, my fingers are going numb* as I type this, even though I’m wearing a sweater, two other shirts, long pants, socks, and real shoes. (In all fairness, it’s sixty-something outside and would be quite pleasant if it weren’t for this goshdarn breeze.)

Second, and more importantly, yesterday I got out of my car and was foolish enough to touch the car door with my bare hand, whereupon I was viciously attacked by a discharge of static electricity. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before, but I HATE electrical shocks. The tingle, the grating feeling—it’s difficult to imagine a more uncomfortable sensation.

When we played around with circuits in high school physics lab, I was the sourpuss who was NOT AMUSED by the game of complete-the-circuit-through-your-classmate’s-arm. Other people in the class seemed to *want* to touch the Van de Graaff generator. I can’t fathom why anyone would want to torture themselves so, but to each his own.

As a result of this extreme distate for small amounts of electricity running through my body, I spend four or five months out of every year living in constant fear of metal objects. Door handles, metal chairs, and light poles lurk around every corner, waiting to pounce as soon as my naked flesh accidentally brushes up against them.

When I lived out in the desert that is Southern California, I was menaced by static electricity every day of the year. The doorknob to our room shocked me EVERY SINGLE TIME I touched it. Torture. Thank jebus for precious, precious humidity.

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* It would be nice, I think, if the numbing of one’s extremities were a gradual process: full feeling, less feeling, barely any, none. But no. Instead, between feeling and numbness there is PAIN. Whose idea was this?

Somewhere in my apartment there is a list of phone numbers I had printed out of my old phone when I so gracefully broke the display with my ass a few months ago. I used to keep this list under the sofa because that’s where I found it one day, and why not? Safe, convenient, out of the way, all good.

But tonight, now that I need one of those numbers, the list is no longer under the couch, nor is it in any of the other obvious places (under the coffee table, under the electric keyboard, under the papasan chair). Sam denies knowledge of the list’s whereabouts.

Anybody seen it? Couple pieces of paper, numbers printed on them. If you do, lemme know. Thanks much.

Large middle-aged man to two fashionably-attired young women, as the three are trying to pass through the Starbucks door in opposing directions: “No no, you go first. Y’all are getting out of the rain, and I’m going out into it. Besides, if I went out first I wouldn’t be able to admire your beauty.”

MEN. What’s wrong with them? I know, I know, not all men are creepy. I feel bad for the nice guys out there whose good gender is sullied by the ickiness of a few (many) individuals. Still, gah.

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P.S. Third post today, plus one long one in draft form. Can you tell it’s paper-writing time?

I’m at Starbucks right now working on a Medieval Lit paper. Ok, right NOW I’m only “working,” since clearly I’m not writing about Beowulf at this very moment. Except…no, now I’m meta-writing about Beowulf, in that I’m writing about writing about Beowulf. But when I wrote THAT, I was really meta-meta-writing about Beowulf. Ha, finally, a true statement. Dork.

Houston had some fairly dramatic flooding last night on account of all the rain yesterday, and the storms don’t show much sign of letting up before tomorrow. An hour ago I was tempted to run home and grab my camcorder, but I convinced myself that I ought to stay here and work. The swirling rain and wind are pretty spectacular right now, and I’m regretting that decision. Stupid priorities. Sheesh.

EDIT (3:11) — The power just blinked off a couple times. I’m plugging in my computer to suck up all that precious electron juice while I still can. Upside: I bet if the power conks out here they’ll need help eating some of those pastries and whatnot out of the cooler.

EDIT2 (3:45) — On second thought, I have no surge protector. This is possibly a bad plan. Must write paper. Will risk it.

My internet went out for about an hour and only just now came back on. Earlier this evening I ate eight chocolate-covered cherries. My parents are repainting their kitchen. I need to get my wisdom teeth out sometime soon. I am currently in possession of three working phones (and one dead one) but only one phone number. The “side” of sweet potatoes at Tommy Bahama is both enormous and too sweet. The Bayou City Art Festival was rained out today, or at least I assume it was, as it rained all day long. I played pool this weekend for the first time in a couple years; it made me want to smoke (never have, probably never will). Starbucks did not have an espresso brownie for me today. Last night I dreamt I spoke Russian.

This evening I had a 6:30 tutoring lesson in a part of town that’s a pain to get to during rush hour. I got out of class at 3:30, so I figured I’d drive out there early and spend that extra hour or two at a Barnes & Noble or someplace instead of in traffic.

As I left the apartment this morning I decided against taking my laptop. I got a little twitchy thinking about spending two hours in a place with wireless access that I couldn’t use, but my computer’s pretty heavy, and I was sure I could find something non-interwebby with which to occupy myself for a while—a book, say. I walked out the door with one last wistful backwards glance, hoping I wouldn’t regret leaving my baby behind.

Fast-forward to 4:00-ish in the afternoon. I’ve just gotten on the freeway heading out of town when my phone dies. Dies as in dead. Gone, broken, unresponsive. While I was talking on it, even. I stare at it for a second, mind reeling, and…OMGWTFBBQ. My phone. My phone is dead. I have no phone. No phone AND no internet. You mean…you mean I’ll have to survive out in this wilderness for the next five hours ON MY WITS ALONE?! What do I look like, a friggin’ Boy Scout?

What if my car breaks down? What if my tutoring student tries to call me? What if I get really really lost? Or kidnapped? What if I see a funny bumper sticker and I have to share it with someone RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND?

After I calmed down a bit, my first thought was, “Wow, this is hilarious. I ought to tell somebody.” But no! I couldn’t! Second thought: “Oh man, I gotta blog this.” But I couldn’t do that either*! For several miles I seriously considered going home (which would have added at least an extra hour to my commute) just so I could, I dunno, make sure the internet was holding itself together without me. (Turns out it was. Phew!)

The bright side of my involuntary disconnectedness is that I was freed from the obligation of finding a wifi-equipped establishment in which to kill time. Instead I ate at Fuddruckers for the first time in three years (and proved a couple theorems for tomorrow’s Analysis class while I ate), then hit up the Old Navy outlet next door. Not a bad afternoon, all in all.

The funny thing was that from time to time the sense of “loss” I felt from not having a working phone or an internet connection bled over to things I don’t normally miss. Why didn’t I bring any socks? Where’s my toothbrush? Why is there no chocolate in my car? How have I managed to get through this whole day without a blue pen? Strange.

After all that, I finally got to the student’s house, only to find that she wasn’t there and had forgotten to cancel the lesson. Oops!

So I went home. Three hours older, but with a full tummy and some new clothes. Pretty fair trade.

My phone, by the way, was only temporarily out of commission. I figured that what had killed it was my talking on it while walking through the rain to my car, so I took it apart (as far as I could) and left it in my car to dry while I shopped. As I pulled out of the student’s neighborhood on my way home I put the phone back together, and, after a few false starts, it worked again! Hallelujah! I even had two whole messages, which is about as many as I usually get in a week.

Are you as dependent on your cell phone as I am? Could you cope if it died unexpectedly? I, um, totally coped. See, coming home would’ve been not-coping. But I was tough. I stuck it out. I coped. Hoo-ah.

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* Instead I began composing this post in my head and continued as the evening progressed. I almost went to bed without typing it up (note the late hour), but I knew if I didn’t post this today I wouldn’t post it tomorrow, either. Or the next day. Or ever. Which is how most things in life go, you know?