Appliances & Coffee

Earlier today, I was somewhat peeved and somewhat shocked that the cleaning lady for our office came over and asked me to make her a cup of coffee. I had to ask her to repeat herself... I wanted to get up and smack her for a minute. I was like... "yes I am Latina, yes I am a woman, yes I am the only woman in this building, but no I do not make coffee for the men I work with and I most certainly "hella" won't make not a single cup for some cleaning heifer."

But before I lost my temper and bitch slapped a woman across the room, I waited for her reply.  She said "yes yes ... I don't know how to work ya'lls coffee machine".  For one, I hate the word ya'll ... I have lived in the south for 12 years now.... and I have never used it seriously. I only use it to mock everyone else.  I am true to my California roots, I either say "you guys" or "all of you" or "your" more appropriately.  Secondly, I was annoyed that she could not figure out a simple coffee maker.  It's not the average coffee maker with the little filter thing but it's just a damn Keurig.  She could not go in there and assess the damn thing.  Water is poured into it on the left, power on button, every button labeled with words or picture icons, a handle where you pull up where the K-cups go and the big obvious space where you put your beverage container or cup.

I work in an IT office and I swear if anything comes with a manual longer than a few pages or has buttons and a digital display it becomes an IT task.  What do people do at home where I am not employed?

I am glad I am adaptable to new things.  About the only thing I have trouble with is following driving directions... I get lost all the time. That and not coming out of a week unscathed ... I always have a souvenir bruise from the week prior to remind of each time I walked into a corner, wall or door knob. Ouch.

I never got around to making her a cup of coffee ... errr um ... showing her how to make herself a cup of coffee... I was busy... that's another reason I was annoyed. I have had a very busy week and for her to just be like hey make me coffee really irked me.  I wanted to say, hey why don't you take your little butt back there and look at the mo-fo and figure it out.

Writer's Book of Days and more writing...

I am going to go through and use my Writer's Book of Days and write on my blog at least 300 to 500 words each blog post.  Hopefully it will be a good way to get me back into writing more like I used to and kick start my short story and creative writing side.  At any rate I am starting with this weeks August writing suggestion as my beginning.  The Writer's Book of Days suggests to write on the topic: The Other Side...

The Other Side

I’ve always been trying to get to the other side; the other side of anything really.  And that sometimes has led to some fun times, some odd times but mostly some very alienating sides where I just don’t feel I belong anywhere.  As a kid I was taller than most kids my age, clumsy, shy and I felt I was in no way interesting at all. 

Now looking back I laugh about how much fun I used to have when I would go out bike riding with my brother and my closest friend at the time.  We’d bike ride all over the place; the beach, the park, the mall, to eat or in no particular direction.  It took me until I was about a teenager to learn how to ride a bike. No kidding. It was awful to be that lame.  I mean what the hell was my problem right?  Now that I have a child with Asperger’s I wonder whether I have some traits that made certain things more difficult for me than other kids my age. 

That was one of the first other side’s I wanted to get over to.  I wanted to be able to do some things that other people did so effortlessly, like ride a bike and often I still feel that way now about a lot of things, like running. I finally learned to ride a bike effortlessly but then I had to master the brakes.  It took forever for me to find it a natural motion to push back on the pedals to brake.  When I had to learn to brake with hand brakes it was so hard because I had gotten so accustomed to braking with my feet. 

When I finally did think I had the hang of it, I’d always have this awful fear that I would be going too fast, brake with the front brakes and flip myself over the handle bars.  It never happened.  In fact, I got hurt on the bike more than falling off the bike.  I would constantly hit my shins with the ridged pedals of my sister’s ten-speed having perpetual bruises all over my shins. It was pretty colorful when I wore skirts or shorts.  These days I have bruises all over my legs from hitting myself with the car door or walking into things.  Sigh.  

The part about not feeling I belong haunts me in every aspect of my life. I don’t understand some social norms and the need to impress people by constantly bragging about one’s achievements, wardrobe, home and income.  I was reading about how women don’t often get promotions or raises because they aren’t willing to toot their own horn like men do.  But I hear women doing that all the time. They talk about themselves non-stop, what they do, what they want to do, what they are doing right now.  I mean I can go on FaceBook and see how much people just yada yada about themselves all day long.  Most times I just post status updates about my son, or what I am reading, or maybe my workout and when I find myself spending too much time dwelling on it I remember my bike riding days.  There’s just a balance to everything and I guess sometimes fear plays a big part in not being able to open up or shutting down.  You just need to know when to pedal and when to hit the brakes and it’s all okay.