Gut reactions.
Your first instinct.
Think before you speak.
I am so guilty of this, yet another reason to thank God for sending me Karen who is the exact opposite in this regard.
I took a trip up to my marijuana dispensary just north of Dayton. It is a short ten-minute drive. They are not the most efficient group and I was waiting like all the other “patients.”
We were all getting a little impatient at the inefficiency of this particular organization.
I finally make it up to the counter, and this skinny young dude is helping me. Up to this point everyone is cool, realizing this bunch are swamped out of their capabilities.
As the employee leaves my station to retrieve my “medicine,” I hear this booming voice bellowing from behind me. I didn’t even turn back, and when this guy started being rude, I joked, “Hell, there’s four of us (counting the other three “budtenders”), let’s shut this loser up. We can take him.”
Evidently, that was not the thing to say, because there was a look of sheer terror on the three employees’ faces.
All I heard was “You dumb sons-of-bitches better get me my damn weed no…..”
And before he could even finish the word, this absolute stud of a security cop had jumped from behind the counter, pinned this guy down, and removed a pistol from this dumbass.
Teaching me once again, always look before you shoot off your big yap, because, all it takes is a security guard that had waved off too many workouts, relying on his fading college physique to carry him.
Not this dude.
Boy was fast as lightning, and he knocked this would-be thief out with one punch. I don’t mean out, like he was hearing a hundred clocks go off in his head type of out; I mean lights out.
Smelling salts.
Three times.
Hard slap (like I always wanted to slap my sister).
I drove home and torched a bowl in his honor (like I need a reason).
So, we are sitting on our couch and I am doing absolutely nothing at all, but watch sitcoms one after the other, the lamer the better. After about three months of it, she was reaching breaking point.
It came when she came into the room just as I was joining in on the theme song from Family Matters. I couldn’t have picked a lamer show in her opinion. The topper came when Laura gave Steve a peck on the cheek and I joined in with the studio audience ooooooooooooh….
“That’s it! Out of the house! I don’t care what you do or where you go, but your residency on this couch is over, Urkel.”
I thought that a bit rude, actually.
This was still in the days with the classified ads where people would get jobs.
I saw an ad for a Finance Counselor, and decided, with all my different jobs, education and experience, I could get this job. I only held a dealer’s license in the 80’s for a Wall Street firm.
“What? You never did this before, don’t even waste their time with an interview. I’m sorry, she said. I just wanted you off the couch.”
Oh no, I wasn’t letting this go.
She didn’t think I could get a job, did she?
I sat down at the interview table with three young ladies, two of which were babes, and the third was the most gregarious and talkative.
In my working career I never had to go through an interview process, more like a contract negotiation, so my knee-jerk reaction was to tell the absolute, 100% truth.
So I did.
Interviewer #1” Why do you want to work here?”
Me: “I don’t actually. You just had the biggest ad.”
Interviewer #2 “What is your motivation for obtaining this position?”.
Me: “To get my wife off my back. She is tired of me smoking pot and watching sitcoms all day, so here I am.”
The trio were jolted, but showed big smiles outwardly.
I wasn’t worried.
I just didn’t want Karen to be right.
I asked if I could just show up part-time to get the old ball and chain off my back, and the three again looked at each other in disbelief.
I recounted my interview to the old ball and chain, and she tried consoling me with a “well, at least you tried’ which really chafed my ass.
One hour after I arrived home, I was extended an offer to work at the online university.
You should have seen the look I gave the old ball and chain.
Stay well.
Mark's Playhouse 