It’s a Monday.
So…that’s already a bad sign.
It’s a Monday.
That’s a “I need to do…” day—the day where the To-Do list is a twisting white ribbon that’s pinned by a bottle-opener magnet to your refrigerator door.
That’s a Monday.
It’s monotonous and tragic: the type of feeling that too many grey days in summer can bring. It can be evoked by just a single day of the week.
You know, if the weekdays were all siblings, all real flesh and blood individuals, Monday would be the pouty son-of-a-bitch sandwiched between his prissy-pious sister, Sunday, and the goofy, giggly Tuesday.
Monday is just, blah, right there hating everything and everyone. Goddamn pouting.
This day, for muuu-hahhh, (with a real hah at the end, phlegm and all) was a day of “have-to-do” things. Like, let’s say, my job. My post-grad, temporary job in an economy and a society that’s stagnant.
So, no, it’s not the dream I had envisioned at ten years of age watching an Indiana Jones movie through the slivers of my fingers as zombies popped from walls and I thought: “Goddamn, when I’m older and no longer a pussy this is what I wanna do.”
My thought process at ten years of age has been modified to suit my adultself conceit that while I may have been a pussy I was badass enough to use ‘goddamn’ and ‘pussy’ and to call myself out for being a bitch. I was not badass. But, alas, I was a bitch.
Back to Monday.
Hello, Monday.
I never really considered Monday to be such a terrible day. Yes, work is no fun. Yes, it blights the week by being the start of the workweek. Yes, Monday is the buzz-kill as compared to rowdy Friday and slatternly Saturday, but, hey, Monday’s another day of the whole life cycle—so whatever.
That’s generally how I viewed Monday while everyone groaned: “Whatever.”
Today—today was different. Today was a day when I stared Monday in the face and pronounced clearly and self-assuredly, not blinking, not breaking eye contact or wavering in my tone of voice.
Today I looked Monday in the face and said:
“Fuck you.”
He pouted.
He pouted, but he understood.
He understood how smartphones can be smart every-goddman-day-of-the-week when you need to Google mindless shit like “what’s in a mojito?” or “what does PAC stand for?”—“How many calories are in a French-fry?”
But on Monday, when I turned to my Motorola Android for direction, literally, to guide me the hour and fifteen minute to work in another branch of my usually five-minute office trip for an open house where I have to interview ten people for some random job in a random area of PA named after something that sounds like a nursery rhythm and this little bitch craps out on me halfway there. Halfway there when I already pay an extra $5 a month for Verizon GPS, have gently cupped Missy Motorola in my hands and entered the address with the delicate eskimo kiss of my fingertips against it’s lovingly plastic-sheeted face to keep motherfucking dirt off it’s pretty face and this, this is how it repays me?
Ten miles out of the way could be worse. Ten minutes late and it could be worse off still, but it’s just the principle of the day. It’s a Monday and this happens—any other day of the week and I have this itching feeling that everything would go as planned.
Mayhem ensues. Interviews commence; people are generally normal and un-atrocious. The day ends at a pleasant 2:30pm.
“Now,” I think, “now, I have time to finally fill my belly with something other than a banana from 6:20am.”
Motherfucking Motorola is now working, shamefaced and humbled from my cursing when I screamed: “I should have bought an IPHONE!”
Chipolte Mexican Grille is a simplistic, taste-able 0.5mi away. Bingo. Lunch. Home. A beer. Done.
Reverse, swivel, and drive. Left, U-turn, left, right, a parking lot in Chipolte. Grabbing my wallet. Glancing out of my window, ready to open my driver’s side door.
BAM—Cop.
Lights flashing; I double-take—“What the hell did I do?”
Last time a cop came in talking distance of me was three summers ago when I received an underage. $500 dollar fine. Bullshitty breathalyzer with a 0.04.
The realization that the cop didn’t make a mistake pisses me off. Then comes the overwhelming feeling to cry—pity party and accompanied by the sobby voice in my head that goes: “First my GPS and now THIS!”
I busy myself with finding my already found wallet, considering options of pretending not to know the cop is parked behind me in this parking lot because of me and proceed toward Chipolte like NBD. When he stops me, “Ma’am, you were soliciting your body…” interrupt him with a: “Whatever do you mean, officer?” Cue hand fanned across my chest with an indignant wrinkle of my nose.
The other option is to admit to being caught. I choose this—I admit, I would have never been a very good Indiana Jones. I have come to terms.
I turn toward my window meekly and am greeted by a man who justifies the cop-loving-donut theory and the first thing I take note of is his protruding belly.
He gestures for me to roll down my window.
I dutifully comply, but as it cracks to an inch I demand, “What did I do?”
He cocks his eyebrow at me, “You turned left when you were not allowed to turn left. You didn’t notice the sign with the left turn crossed out. That means you can’t turn left.”
In all honesty, no I had not noticed the “no left-turn here” sign. My mind had been on speedily getting to Chipolte before my GPS decided to stop working again.
Some may flirt their way out of a ticket, cry their way, or yell their way—I stated the obvious. I informed him I was from out of town on business—yes, I actually said “out of town on business”—and was looking for a place to stop for lunch before I went home.
Solemnly he listened, “Give me your ID, please.”
I handed it over.
I wondered how much the ticket would be. He probably believed me like I would believe Lucifer if he told me that Hell was actually based on the board game “Candyland.”
My sun was blocked out in a body-shaped shade. I turned, blinking, back toward the hefty slab of police officer, awaiting my sentence. He handed back my ID.
“Just be careful next time,” he said.
I was debating staying after my ticket was handed to me. I was physically no longer hungry, my hunger emptied out of me by stress. Embarrassment played another key factor—the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that surrounded my restaurant of choice was clearly a sure sign that everybody in that “max-seating 65” restaurant were watching and wondering.
The no-ticket scenario was not fully formulated in my mind for fear of jinxing myself into a ticket.
Ticketless, my hunger flared.
I grabbed my wallet, turned my humming Saab off (with it’s purring turbo-engine) and shouldered my door open. The cop was still parked in the lot—the nose of his car pointing directly at my bumper, forming a right angle.
I did a little wave, and nod of thanks and he waved back and I proceeded toward the glassy, people-watching friendly Chipolte.
A salad, please, everything but corn and gauc ($2 up-charge is killer). And as I was pocketing my credit card back into my wallet one brave behind-the-counter Chipoltean asked:
“Was that you who got pulled over?”
“Yuuup.”
“What did you do?”
Many things would have been perfect to say in hindsight.
He caught me soliciting myself, selling dope, streaking through the shopping mall complex.
Oh small Pennsylvanian towns.
“I made a left turn on a no left turn street.”
The excitement of the staff immediately faded and with a polite: “They just have nothing better to do, do they?” I shuffled off with my salad, called my mom and told her the story.
Five hours later you may be ok Monday, but now release your fun-ruining hold on RCN and give Eastern, PA it’s cable back.
Thank you,
C.G.
