May 2009

I woke up last Saturday in a complete daze, my mind still in an alcohol fog from the night before. I had gone to a concert or something, then drank some more afterwards and ate a lot of pizza. Something like that, typical Friday night shit. Who cares? As I usually do I immediately thought of where the hell I was the night before, and if I had anything important or even worth my time that day. Nine times out of ten on a Saturday, that answer is no. But this day was different.

This day I had a gig. Three hours of filming and taking photographs at a wedding ceremony. How and why I got this job, I won't say, but I was happy to have it. But I was in a post-drunk funk and had a couple short hours to snap out of it. It was one of those days. I rolled out of bed at noon, left the house at 2 and I was swaying.

The people around me were suddenly big and imposing. I was seriously frightened to see yuppie meatheads in their Michigan or Penn State football gear walking around Murray Hill. What was going on? I couldn't explain it. These people SCARED me. I had to get food in my system tho, and had to get batteries and stuff from a pharmacy for my camera. But I couldn't get myself to do it, to walk like everybody else on this crowded block on a Saturday with all these people I suddenly could not even get myself to even look at. I looked at them as suits in disguise. And I hate suits.

So I broke into a full-on sprint. As I ran full-speed into Duane Reade, I accidentally brushed against this girl, but with my overwhelming momentum she mistook it for a full-on charge. It wasn't and I apologized. As I began to walk towards the camera section I heard the girl and her friend rampaging, chattering, running their mouths on me:

"This guy is a fucking jerk"

"Did he seriously just do that"

"I seriously want to kill this guy".

I came back and apologized again. The chatter continued. It turns out that the pharmacy did not have the parts and batteries I needed. They told me I needed to go to another store, 2 blocks away. Just great. So I leave the store and begin walking towards the other store. Midway there, who do I pass but those same two girls. The chatter was still going strong:

"Oh, this lunatic again"

"He should only die"

I couldn't listen to this chatter a second longer. So I turned around, looked them dead in the face, and said it:

"You don't like me? I said I was sorry. What are you gonna do, SUE ME?"

The chatter continued:

"Is this guy serious"

"Uh, I'm a fucking lawyer you jerk"

Oh yeah, sure she's a lawyer. As I reached the store, I turned around and gave these two a nice long shot at my middle finger. Goodbye. As I began to search around for these camera parts, these two girls stormed into the store, and the floodgates to hell opened. One of them, a portly twentysomething woman with brown hair, went right up to my face and began yelling:

"Um, I am a lawyer, don't you ever fucking say that to me. Give me your information NOW. Who are your people? GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING INFORMATION..."

This girl was a LUNATIC.

"I will sue you for every penny you have. You are a fucking idiot and I truly hope you die. Don't you EVER think for a moment that I will not sue you."

She continued like this, on and on for five full fiery minutes. I was truly terrified. All the store employees were riveted by this scene. Keep in mind that this was a small store on a not-so-busy day, and this girl was screaming.

The only words I could muster were a weak and sincere: "I'm sorry". I could kill this girl. I wanted to smash something. But somehow, I was the bigger man. I was put in my place and I stayed there and took it like a man.

I prayed it was over. It wasn't. I closed my eyes for ten seconds and prayed that this girl was done and out of the store. She wasn't.

Her final words: "If I ever see you again you are a dead man. Nada. Broke. File a Chapter 11. Who are your people? YOU ARE A DEAD MAN." I had never seen this girl in my life before. All this, and not a word from me. I keep thinking over and over: "It's gonna blow over. She has to realize she's wasting her breath at some point." She never did. Then, Lord have mercy, she left the store, finally realizing it was a lost cause.

It took me a full twenty seconds to even breathe after this. My blood was boiling, my hair was standing on end, and I began wishing that I was anywhere but here. Then I turned around to face the shocked store employees. Like, What do you say in this situation? Some girl just came into their store to yell at you for a good five minutes. Is there really anything you can say to restore order?

I gave it my best shot: "How is everybody today? Beautiful day we got"

The clerk's answer: "Better day than yours." I tried to crack a smile, but I just couldn't. My adrenaline was pumping, my heart rate was a mile a minute, and somehow I wanted revenge on whoever makes the universe this way for me. That nameless being who can turn any random minute of any day into a living hell.

It turns out after all that, they didn't even have the camera parts I needed. They were in a bag in my closet. After all that, I didn't even need to leave the house! I walked out of that store and delivered an earth-shaking roar. I screamed so loud that Zach De La Rocha may have to move over and let me be the new official singer of Rage. A primal scream of rage, of misunderstanding, of every emotion that was boiling through my body at the time. It was one of those days when the universe hated me, the city gods did not want me to exist. What should have been one of the greatest days of the year was ruined.

It took me a full six hours to crack another smile after that. It took a full half hour for the most primitive of rage to subside. I lifted weights, jumped up and down, literally could not sit still for the next 30 minutes. I thought of all the bad things I could possibly do to this girl. Then I had a thought. From Psych class, freshman year. She is a poor soul who probably got fired or dumped or something and projects rage on others. It took me five full hours to realize this possibility, that maybe, just maybe someone in this universe was pissed off for some reason besides my existence. But once I did, it was a beautiful day. Or so I thought