But I did it.

Yes, it took six decades. I addressed an uncomfortable situation.

I walked right into some shit and I fucking handled that shit. I did. I handled it. I stood up for myself. I even was slightly abrasive.

I mean, in the end, I completely misread the situation, but that’s not the fucking story.

I stood up for myself. After living most of my life almost never standing up for myself. But last week? I did. On incomplete information.

The story might be me misreading the situation, but whatever.

So, last week at work was kind of stressful.

And there are new people. A lot of new people. Also, they make noise. I do not like noise. I prefer no noise or my noise. My noise is in my headphones and it is not even a little quiet, but I control all the sounds. It’s my noise. I don’t mind my noise. I hate other people’s noise. At the risk of sounding like the Rain Main, might I say that I don’t like noise at work?

Also, if you misspell noise as nose, it’s funny. I don’t like other people’s nose. Which might be true. Maybe, I don’t. But I probably like them more than my nose because my nose is kinda funny looking. 

Anyway, it was a shitty week. On Friday, I walked in to the office at 7 goddamn A.M. because that is when I get to work and two of the new people where already in my room. Until last April, when I got to work in the morning, one of my best friends on the planet would already be there. But she fucking retired. And now there are new people.

I walked in and one of them said “Well shit. And now she’s here.”

Then, they stopped talking and sat down in their respective cubicles.

I laughed a bit and said “Okay, then.”

I sat down and started my morning routine.

And then I got pissed.

Wait? What? What? 

Normally, what I would do in this situation is pretend it didn’t happen and go about my day.

Oh, it would drive me insane and I would think of a million ways to handle it, but I wouldn’t actually do anything.

I stood up, stepped to the right of my cubicle and said “Okay, so the two of you? I’m going to put my headphones on, turn the music up really loud and then you can continue the conversation you were having that is clearly none of my business.”

New person one: Oh, no. I just know you really want the door closed, but I like it open first thing in the morning, because I can hear the printer and know when my invoices are done printing.

Me:…

Me:..

Me: All I heard was “Well shit and now she’s here” and then you both stopped talking.

New Person one: I guess it did sound bad.

New Person two: It did sound kind of bad.

Me: Okay, I don’t mind if the door is open first thing in the morning. But when everyone else gets here, then dear god, it has to close. They’re so fucking loud.

Then, I told them about an article I read about scientist bringing pig cells back to life and everything was okay.

I finally stick up for myself and I was wrong. Kind of.

I mean, I don’t think my reaction was unreasonable.

Also, fuck bringing pig cells back to life.

You don’t open the tomb. You don’t read from the scary book. You don’t say a name three times while looking in a mirror and you don’t bring goddamn pig cells back to life.

This is how we get pig zombies. Do we really need pig zombies right now?

No. No we do not.

I’ll just be here in my goddamn cubicle keeping to myself.

How was your week?

I met someone last week who reminded me so much of someone.

Me.

She reminded me of me.

She didn’t look like me. We definitely had wildly different styles. She didn’t sound like me. I have no idea what kind of music she likes or if she is generally happy or how she votes. But she was still me.

My younger son, Joey, and I met my mom and my little sister in downtown Cincinnati to see an immersive Van Gogh experience.

You guys, I could tell you so much about this exhibit. If you have access to this, fucking go see it. We loved it. Goddamn amazing, trippy, and informative. But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about the woman we met in the bathroom just before we toured the Van Gogh experience.

Baby sister and I were waiting for mom to finish up in the bathroom. We used our time well.

Baby sister: I think I”m taller than you now.

Me:…

BS: I am. I’m taller.

Me: We’re old and probably both shrinking, but I’m still taller than you. I mean, I know you wish that weren’t true, but I’m taller than you.

Important to note: I am 5′ 1′. Baby sister is 5′ even. We are both basically hobbits. Which is fair because we are both weirdly hirsute. 

A woman steps out of a stall and says “Stand back to back.”

So, we did.

Strange woman who we did not know: Yeah, she’s taller.

She was referring to me. Because I’m taller. I’m like a giant. In the shire.

Me: Told you.

Our mom comes out to wash her hands. Martha is the sweetest person on the planet.

Me: Our poor mother has been listening to this for decades.

Martha: I don’t mind. I love them.

So, the woman, who settled the issue of whether or not I am taller than my sister, left the bathroom.

And then she immediately came back in.

Stranger: Look at this! I just carried this roll of toilet paper out.

Me: You are a thief. You should be in our tribe.

Stranger: Do you golf?

Me: what?

Martha: I golf.

Stranger: Once, I walked to my car and realized I still had the pin from the last hole in my hand.

I assume this is a very funny golfer joke because it made my mom laugh really hard.

The woman wore a lovely summer dress and smart shoes. Her hair was just so. We may have been the same age, but if you went by handbags and haircuts? She did a little better in life. But my hair is pretty amazing in it’s purple hue, so…

I had no idea that after we completed our tour of the Van Gogh immersive experience, we would meet up and again. And that I would realize that we might be the same person.

My mom, sister, Joey and I stopped just shy of the gift shop to discuss what we had just experienced when this happened.

Strange woman: Oh, hey! These are my new friends I made in the bathroom.

Then, she tripped over her own feet and stumbled into me. I didn’t fall, but it was a pretty substantial hit.

Me, waving to her friends: Hi! She tried to steal toilet paper and just now tried to tackle me.

Strange woman’s friends: …

Me:…

The strange woman and I shared a brief hug. Her friends may not always get who she is, but I understood her.

They all waved and walked away. Her friends looked back at me as if to say “OMG THERE ARE MORE OF YOU?????”

Of course there are. There are a lot of strangely awkward old women who have pointless arguments in public bathrooms. We say and do nonsensical things. We also trip and fall a lot. These are the people I recognize. These are the people I understand.

I mean, I at least understood the clumsy part.

I made a dessert.

I can’t tell from the video what the dessert is called, so I have named it the $100 dessert.

Because I’m getting paid for this.

Anyway, here is dessert video.

Bananas cooked.

Cake completed. I thought the cake would stick, but it didn’t. I still crumpled it though. My version didn’t look quite the same. But my version rarely does to be honest.

I more than likely would have made this dessert this weekend no matter what. But shit happened. Things transpired. Someone talked a little smack and ensured that there was no way on earth this banana dessert wouldn’t be made.

I will tell you how sure I am of this.

At this moment, it’s Tuesday evening. I have a holding place at the top of this post that says “fill in dessert part”.

I haven’t made the dessert yet. At this point, I have no idea if it will be any good or not. All I know, is unless I die or something catastrophic happens, I will be making this dessert this coming weekend.

Okay, so this is what happened. Randy and I watched the video for this dessert that doesn’t seem to actually have a name, but it looked really good and I said I was going to make it.

Well, Joey happened to be standing in the doorway. He smirked and told me that I wouldn’t make it.

Me: I’m making it.

Joey: Whatever. You’re going to forget.

Me: I’m making the fucking banana dessert.

He started laughing.

Joey: I will bet you $100. that you won’t make that dessert.

Then, he walked away.

What a sucker.

I looked at Randy and said “Does he even know who I am? Seriously?”

It will cost me under 10 bucks in ingredients to make this $100 dollar dessert.

When you read this post, I will have made the dessert and collected my earnings. As long as Joey plans to honor his bet, which he better. We raised him right.

Randy clued Joey in just now and told him he might want to pick up an extra shift at work because there is no way he isn’t going to owe me a hundred bucks.

Randy: She already wrote a blog post about it.

Joey: Whatever, she’s going to forget.

Me: NEVER!

Me: Unless I die or something catastrophic happens, this dessert is happening.

Joey: So….unless you die, right?

I love my family. I love laughing with them. I love it when they have to fork over their hard earned bar tending money.

I’m wondering what I can bet him next weekend. This could be like a part time job or something.

By the way, the cake was just terrible.

I had to spit it out. I don’t know if I left an ingredient out or maybe accidentally cooked it in Satan’s butthole or something. It tasted like chocolate flavored floor cleaner that sucks every bit of moisture from your mouth.

Seriously, I spit it out 20 minutes ago and the taste is gone, but my tongue feels sad. Like I let it down.

Definitely not worth a hundred dollars.

HAHAHAHAHA. Sucker. Nothing about the best said it had to be edible. It just had to be made.