Thirty Four

Well, I am officially 34 years old. Gulp. No, actually....I do believe the old adage that "age is just a state of mind". And, within the past 24 hours, my state of mind has covered the water front.

My birthday began with quite the rocky start between midnight and two a.m. this morning as I spent a couple of hours being creeped out by and then subsequently disposing of a haunted chair that I brought home yesterday from the Salvation Army. At 2:30 this morning, that damned chair was on the curb and I was sleeping with my lights on. I won't go into the story here because I am well aware that lots of people deem this sort of stuff as mumbo-jumbo. But trust me, I have no doubt that the chair came with some creepy crawly connections that I didn't want in my bedroom or even on my block. By lunch time today, someone had snatched the chair off of the curb (see photo below, which I was happy to see, once developed did not reveal any floating orbs or messages written in blood).

I hope that their night is better than mine was last night. I thought of putting a note on it but wasn't sure what to say.... I do remember seeing an upholstered chair on the side of the road once with a sign that read, "Smells like cat pee. Do not pick up! "

I guess I could have tacked a note on that said, "This chair is steeped in evil. Do not pick up!"

A few people - my crazy brother and sister-in-law included - were miffed that I got rid of the chair. They said that they'd love to have had it. They also said I should have sold it on Ebay. But trust me, I didn't want that chair around another minute as evidenced by me in my gown on the side of the street this morning in the moonlight, walking away from a straight-backed chair while stopping every few seconds to look behind me to see if it was following me.

From now on - I buy strictly IKEA. Particle board, I understand has a composition that resists evil and that hoodoo that the spooks do.

The good news is that this new chair story will perhaps make the infamous "Eames Chair Incident" fade away into infamy as it should now. There's a new chair in town (somewhere...out there....trying to get back to me.....)

That chair was so sleek and modern too......

That bizarre story told , I overslept this morning. Though the minute I woke up, my eyes darted across my room to see if the chair were still gone. It was - and I happily returned to my vanity bench made from a green Rubbermaid storage container. Happily.

So, I overslept and then went into the office where one of the owners gave me something to type. It turned out that she was putting out a form letter to all of her friends and family which they could sign and send to their politicians that bans gays and lesbians from having equal rights under the law. Well, I told them that I wasn't going to do it because I was paid to do real estate dealings and this sort of thing did not fall under those guidelines nor did I want to be a party to the whole thing. It isn't something that I believe in and I would have walked out of there before I would have typed it.

Sadly to say, another lady volunteered to type it and before the end of the day, the letters were circulating around the office and people were making uninformed comments about the whole issue and filling our outgoing mail box with lots of letters to their congressmen. Five O'clock couldn't have come soon enough for me. Not since we sent unsolicited mail to little Jimmy Dickens and Porter Waggoner have I felt so down-heartened by the mail lady coming to pick up our mail.

My office is one of the most bizarre places that I have ever worked (the adult video shop in Georgia included...another story for another journal entry...or I'll tell you when you are older - whichever comes first). Among the things that I've had to put up with since working there in the past five years include:

1. Looking the broker's head for ticks.

2. Being forced to advise callers wishing to view a certain house, "Keep your eye on the rooster. DO NOT take your eye off of the rooster!" (Though this one I enjoyed a little as I liked to pretend that I was a secret agent and I was talking in code.)

3. Being forced to remind one home owner every time I called him for a viewing, "Please remember to flush the toilet before you leave the house." (His wife was a control freak with a capital "C".)

4. Put up with many misdialed calls for some snack cracker comment hotline. I can not imagine having time to call a snack cracker comment hotline. Though, once I had a misdial for a canning jar hotline and the little old lady sure did get her criticisms in on those jars before I convinced her that she had the wrong number. A little old lady with an entire spoiled batch of pickles is not a good thing. She was hoppin' mad!

5. Having the religious zealot office manager call me aside and tell me that she had the feeling that she needed to talk to me because she felt like Satan was trying to reach up and pull me down to hell. She really said that. Just like she was telling me that we needed to order more paper clips. It was that simple for her. "Hey, Kelly. You know....you're going to hell. Can you order some post-it notes?"

6. Having to sit inside a closed office for over two weeks day in and day out while they painted it with oil-based paint. No ventilation. All the windows painted shut. Dead of winter. Doors closed. They bought scented candles for us and then became obviously absent until it was done. They later called me in for a discussion and wanted to know why my voice wasn't as peppy on the phone (I couldn't feel my own throat) and told me that I needed to "perk up" or find somewhere else to work.

But....hey. It's a paycheck. And, I don't have to rent stag movies to leering gross-outs for less than minimum wage. OR work at Olan Mill's Kids again. Or sell jelly to spoiled socialites. Or act like I care about beanie babies. God save the queen.

So, for pete's sake....where was I? Oh. the birthday!

At 5:00, I had decided that the legacy of my 34th year was obviously going to be that I had turned into a furniture fearing equal rights martyr. Thankfully, things got much better in the P.M. as I was sung a birthday song that said that I had a "mighty fine caboose" (hey now!) and then got to have Indian food (yum!) and Krispy Kreme (yum again!) with two good friends. I also now own several literary puppets including one of Virginia Woolf (I'm going to make her some little rocks to put in her pockets) and a new mix CD complete with hand-made cover art. Yay!

The evening was filled with great dinner conversation which seemed to round itself out nicely as we polled each other on what we know about venereal diseases. I am quite sure that the other diners in the restaurant wondered how many times we could use the word "discharge". If they'd been smart, they would have turned it into a mighty fine drinking game. You snooze, you lose...I suppose.

And, now it is once again midnight and my birthday is done for. Sad really...but it was one I'll remember for a while to come.