irritation

It started with a scooter.  

The campus has a service – with Lyft, I think – to provide electric scooters to rent to get around campus. I’ve never used them since I’m rarely in that much of a hurry and I know how to walk.  Always seemed lazy to me.  Even lazier though are the scooter riders who, when confronted with an un-scooterable obstacle, will simply abandon the scooter right where they stop.   Usually blocking stairs.    

There was a scooter across the sidewalk right at the top of the stairs while I was walking from my car to my office.  I walked around it – irritated at whomever had been so lazy and unthinking of other people to just leave it in the way.

From there it was a 2 hour long meeting.  And for my small part of the project, it could have been an email with an attached PDF of documentation.   A short email, at that.

But, no, it was a meeting in person.  I did fold a lot of paper, but also took notes so it would look like I was paying attention.

Then it was lunch time and the drive home had really aggressive drivers.  More so than usual or maybe I was just hungry.  I did quite a bit of swearing. 

An amazon delivery driver was blocking part of the street and from the other direction a lawn service truck was blocking the other side.  I managed to get past, but it was close.  Also, as I was leaving, I righted our knocked over trash can.  The garbage truck had knocked it over that morning, but not picked it up.  We’ll have to wait a week and try again. 

I stopped at Burger King to get lunch and it was chaos.  Angry and impatient people, slow service, no ice and then no lids.  The hold up was a door dasher with a huge order who seemingly abandoned the whole order just before they brought over the last bag.  A huge waste.  There was also a traffic jam in the parking lot – another door dasher blocking one lane and a lawn service truck and trailer blocking the other.

I had to loop the parking deck twice to find a space when I got back to campus.

Then back in the office and eating my lunch, trying to type emails to keep up while hurriedly chewing my food.  The nuggets tasted..off.

As the afternoon wore on, a loud voice started to intrude over my headphones and music – and the endless ads, but that’s nothing new.

I went to my window and realized it was a megaphone voice coming from outside.

Since it didn’t seem to be stopping, I got up and went outside to check.  It turned out to be a fraternity doing some kind of fundraiser recruiting thing.  I pointed out where my office was and asked if they would turn it down a bit.   I sounded more polite than I felt.

On my way back to the office I passed a table with Communist USA, a guy with a tally board asking “is god a person?” – who was near the ubiquitous Jehovah’s Witness folks. 

All day long, one irritation after another. I’ve got a problem with grinding my teeth at night and I was starting to do that during that day as well. 

And yet.

I wasn’t in an accident and the parking space I eventually found was convenient.

The meeting was pointless, but I got to talk to a coworker I hadn’t seen in a while.

My lunch order was correct.  And the dogs were happy to see me.  Also, my manually done yard looked nicer than the ones the services did.

The megaphone guys did turn things down and no one from the tables really bothered me. 

And I was somewhat productive in the office, all things considered.

I managed, even with all the irritations, to get through the day.  

I have a good job, people that love me, a safe home, and a full belly.  And soon, I’ll head to a comfortable bed for a solid night’s sleep. 

It wasn’t a perfect day.  Or even really a good one. 

But it wasn’t that bad, either.