My Shit Needs a Hill

When I was growing up, my dad would come home from work and methodically go from family member to family member and scream at them. Later, my brother explained how it must be for my dad. To go to work and deal with a bunch of productive adults all day. To be their manager, and tell them to do something, and not only do they do it, but they try to do anything else they can think of that he might want done. Then to come home and deal with kids who shove the clothes on their floor into their closets after saying "I will, in the next commercial" four times. Must be frustrating as all hell.

And yet. My father really would come home, and go look at his mail in the kitchen while my mother was cooking dinner. And he'd scream at her for using the wrong pot, or using a fork to stir something in a pan, or whatever. Then scream at my brother for leaving his books near the stairs (never in front of the stairs, because we didn't do that, but just next to them). Then he'd move on to me, and scream at me for hiding from the world in bed, or scream at me for watching MTV. "Get a life!" he'd yell, while I watched Julie and Eric flirt on The Real World. Shit rolled downhill, and I was the bottom of that hill.

I am stressed out. During the last month people have been lying to me left and right. People are telling me things that don't add up. Now I may not have graduated from college, and may barely be able to read, but I'm no moron. I happen to be a fantastic liar. I don't say that to brag, I say that because as a fantastic liar, I'm very good at knowing when people are lying to me.

So why last weekend, when I was in a restaurant and told the waiter I'd like bacon "very well done, like burnt" did he try to tell me after I'd sent it back twice and he brought it a third time, that it was restaurant policy not to burn bacon? Don't lie to me. I asked why, if that was restaurant policy, he didn't say that when I ordered it burnt? Yeah, that's what I thought.

During the first week of this month, I ordered a year's worth of contact lenses, and some oranges to be sent to two different friends. None of these things arrived. The lens company left me a voice mail on Monday, saying they spoke with Jack at my leasing office who has a note on my package that he gave it to me. Umm... if he has a note on my package, then clearly I don't have it, do I? I called the leasing office today to sort this out. Meanwhile my left eye is so irritated I'm resisting the urge to claw it out of my eye socket.

The orange people claimed they sent my oranges when I called the first time. Breezily, without looking anything up. Ping! My friends are nice - they would have thanked me if they got them and I knew this. I didn't believe the orange company, so I asked what date they were delivered. Of course they couldn't provide me with a date, and when I pressed further, they'd lost my order completely. I offered to forward the e-mailed confirmation they'd sent me back to them. They assured me they'd call me tomorrow. That was last week. I've been calling them every day now, and I think they're avoiding me at this point. I'm pissed.

All this, while I'm freezing in my apartment that STILL smells like paint (as I wait impatiently for the smell to go away so I can invite Karen_S over, in the hopes she'll bring her baby, who is the happiest baby I've ever seen in my life). All this, while I'm dealing with LEL.

Oh! Let's talk about LEL for a moment if you don't mind. LEL has enthusiastically hated me for over a year now. She rolls her eyes any time I talk to her. She glares at me. She speaks to me as if I'm stupid. Just so it's clear, I don't talk to LEL about anything unrelated to business. An attorney tells me he's looking to speak with the Cowboy today and asks when he'll be in. I tell LEL, "Igor wanted to talk with Cowboy today; he was looking for him earlier." LEL's response is to say in a "you're such a fucking idiot that you make me sick" tone of voice "Cowboy won't be in today. *I'll* speak with Igor." As if I was a schmuck for not knowing Cowboy's schedule, as if I fucked up something with Igor and she's going to go sort out the mess I made.

Her attitude makes me want to smack her. Her spraying that terrible-smelling perfume makes me want to dunk her head in a toilet and flush repeatedly. I am always very professional with LEL. But I am losing it. Seriously, I am totally losing my temper. Cat Lady can see my face tighten, and she keeps encouraging me to tell on LEL to HR. She likes drama; she is trying to manipulate me into giving her some. I am not that stupid. I'm not going to HR to whine "LEL makes faces at me when I talk to her!" Because I'm not five years old anymore. You know, when it was acceptable to whine to your parents during long car trips that "Golden Boy's almost touching me!" (except it was always me, bothering him).

LEL is pissing off everyone around her. The other day, Cowboy threatened to behead her if she didn't stop shaking her head (clearly I missed something). He threatens things like that in a way that sounds joking but you know you should listen to what he's saying underneath the joke. A copy guy overheard the threat and said to LEL "I bet you've never been threatened with a be-heading before." Her response? "No, but I refuse to take it seriously since it came from an idiot." Dude, you just called your boss an idiot while at work, in front of someone you're consistently mean to. NOT SMART. No, I'm not going to tell on her for that. But really. Get some common sense, woman!

So I'm furious about many things. I come home to my empty, sub-zero apartment. Where there is nobody for me to yell at. No hill for my shit to roll down. There is nobody there, in my smelly kitchen, cooking dinner for me to eat. My anger just rolls around inside of me, having nowhere to go. So of course it turns into depression. Which explains why my chin was trembling and tears were forming when I talked to Nice Partner this morning about my cold apartment. Because I just don't have it in me anymore to fight all these things alone. I am so overwhelmed, and everyone is fighting me, instead of helping. And I need help. I need people to do their fucking jobs. I need my new contact lenses. I need my kitchen's paint smell to go away so I'll start cooking and eat something healthier than a bowl of cereal for dinner.

P.S. I seem to be having a terrible problem where I can't stop ending sentences with prepositions. At the end of each sentence I say to myself "dinner the mountain? no, okay keep going" or "down the mountain? shit, how can I reword that sentence? fuck it keep going" I keep doing this all over the place - why can't I stop?

P.P.S. Never mind about the above - I just went into Name Partner's office to get him to sign a letter and he had to figure out if "was" or "were" was appropriate for a sentence. We made a joke about how seventh grade English is so hard, and I feel better now. If a name partner can have grammar problems, then so can I. (I the mountain? no.) Though I do wish I had a secretary to help me figure these things out. Out, the mountain? No, it's good, carry on. Wait! In the mountain would be bad. Shit. Though I do wish I had a secretary to help me with these things. Things the mountain? No. All clear! Jesus fucking christ.