What the hell!!

My day off from work finally came and I was so relieved that I didn’t have to get up early that morning. Of course in reality I had to, so I got up and helped my son got ready for school by coaxing and alternately threatening him while making his breakfast, until he got up, did his morning routine and got dressed. I knew as soon as I put him on the bus I could go back to bed. Sweet, I was so looking forward to doing that.

I’m a night owl, meaning, I will be up until one, two o’clock in the morning before going to bed and because I go to bed late, I expect to be able to sleep late in the mornings as well. Unfortunately my life is not designed that way and more often than not I have to get up and get my child off to school and then run errands while I have the day off and the time to get things done.

I had to get my laundry done; I was running out of towels, that’s how I usually know I have to get to the Laundromat. I went back to bed and set the alarm because I was determined to get some sleep. I got up quite refreshed two hours later and started packing up my laundry, got dressed, called the cab and was out the door. First, I dropped the clothes off, went and ran some other errands. On my way back I called my girlfriend and we decided to have breakfast and get caught up as we haven’t seen each other in awhile. We had breakfast, great conversation and an hour later I was on my way back to the Laundromat to start my laundering. It was a great morning so far, there was a spring in my step.

I grabbed my cup of warm coffee and walked the couple of blocks to the Laundromat. I threw the clothes in the washing machine and got it going. I sat down on one of the yellow plastic chairs, waiting for the cycle to finish when along comes a “Mr-drunk-arready-so fricking-early in the morning” middle-aged man approaching me and saying “hi beautiful how yuh doing”?
Say what?? I looked around because I just know he wasn’t talking to me! Dammit he was! He was a professional drunk, his eyes were very red, he wasn’t stumbling and he reeked! You can tell a professional drunk, they drink so much that they don’t really appear fall-down-drunk; they have a certain glazed-over look and they usually reeked of alcohol. They are able to carry on a half-decent conversation like a sober person.

He stood quite still and politely asked my name and I politely gave him an alias. He asked if I was married, told him I was. He then asked if he gave me his number, would I call him. I didn’t answer right away. I took out my mirror, a small compact I had in my handbag and took a quick look at my reflection. He stood watching me intently. My hair was in place, my lips still glossy and I looked quite decent, meaning there was no look of desperation on my face or written across my forehead…nope I was good! Satisfied, I closed the compact and told him, “hell no!”
He remarked he just had to ask and he respected my position, all the time he was talking I was trying not to breathe. He reeked of “J Wray &Nephew” white rum which led me to believe he had ‘them’ over for the previous night and an early breakfast too, which gave him confidence and he was as mellow as could be. He walked on and I reflected on why the hell he thought I would have anything to do with him. I was not the only female in the Laundromat. Good thing I have great self-esteem and thought I must’ve looked pretty amazing for him to be drawn to me like that …

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That same day I had to drop my phone off to get it configured at the dealer and was told to return in thirty minutes. I had upgraded to a new phone which I badly needed. My old phone was the butt of many cruel jokes at work. I’m pretty sure if I had left it on the lunch table overnight, I would come back to work the next day and still find it, no one wanted it, not even for free! My friend used to shake it and ask if I had to put money in to get it to work and everyone within earshot would be laughing their butts off. I went to the corner deli and ordered a cup of French-vanilla coffee and sat by the window sipping and people watching trying to pass the time and that’s when I saw her!

This woman was walking with a purpose, at a fast pace and was dressed to the nines. She wore a tight pair of jeans, snug fitting blouse, and long black hair shimmering down to her back but it was her eyes which were arresting! She had applied false lashes to her own lashes and I guess she thought bigger was indeed better because they weren’t pared down in any way shape or form to make one have to guess if she was wearing them…nope it was quite obvious. The thing was, her eyes looked as if they were waiting on the control tower to give her the ok to take off! It was as if she was wearing wings on her eyes and they were about to take off from her face to fly the friendly skies!

I’m highly amused and sat there smiling broadly while idly wondering if she didn’t look in the mirror before she left her house, and if she did, she really thought it was ok to leave her house looking like that? Wow!! Thank God for individuality because it sure gave her the right to dress any old way she chose to, but for a lack of a better word or phrase…lawd ma! Lata!