Evicted for Disturbing the Peace
Posted by Moose on October 6th, 2008. Filed under: My Brain Needs a Drink.Some cultures believe you only have a certain number of heartbeats before you die. Or maybe it’s a religion? Or a crazy, snake-shaking sect? Or maybe nobody believes this and I just made it up. But if the heartbeat thing is true, today took approximately seven years off my life.
First there was the mouse.
Next was the job interview. For a job interesting enough to make my heart pick up a bit of nervous speed when I thought about having to impress yet more potential employers. Unfortunately, nobody is impressed by interviewees who get themselves lost while exiting the freeway. I stayed lost for approximately 40 minutes, i.e. 30 minutes past the start time of the interview. Cue chest palpitations and sweaty palms and a keen desire to die. Or at least slam my forehead into the steering wheel until I passed out. Sheer luck was all that saved me from having to cancel the interview and move into the back room of a 7-11 where I’d eat my shoe leather and sleep in a nest of crumpled resumes.
After fighting my way home over the Bay Bridge and into a lucky parking spot, I fetched my mail. Among the political flyers and advertisements for cheap bananas was a package. My address was written in a hand that looked an awful lot like my ex-boyfriend’s. Visceral reactions included nausea and a heart that practically leapt out of my chest and onto the sidewalk, the better to hop down the street to safety on its little severed aortas. I had no idea what my ex might be sending me: Christmas ornaments I forgot when I moved? Twenty pages of bullet points describing all the things I’d done wrong? Unless it was the Meeka Dog with a red bow around her neck, I wasn’t sure I wanted it. By the time I ripped open the package and discovered it wasn’t from my ex at all, but was a nice little present from this lovely fellow, I’d practically given myself a heart attack.
Everything’s quiet in the old rib cage at the moment, which means I’m either dead or my heart made good on its threat to secede from my inhospitable torso. So if you see a heart standing on the street corner looking lost, send me an email. It’s probably mine.
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October 6th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Can I pick it up tomorrow night–say, 7pm? Near the Civic Center?
October 7th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Oh lord, being lost is one of the worst feelings so I can imagine it’s even worse when it makes you late for an interview. Eek!
October 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Funny how the most “random” things can totaly age you at least 7 years. Or 8.
October 7th, 2008 at 7:44 am
That sounds truly horrible. Maybe you’ll get the job!
October 7th, 2008 at 8:51 am
How was the interview?
October 7th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I’ve given better interviews, that’s for sure. But it wasn’t a complete disaster, where complete disaster = setting the table on fire or shrieking obscenities at my interviewer.
October 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Ah The Job Interview. One of nature’s cruelest inventions.
Before my last interview I discovered that adding a small amount (that’s important) of kahlua to some coffee helped with the internal grand mal seizures I was having. It might not be an advisable strategy prior to driving though. (The interview also went quite well, although they ended up hiring someone with 1,000 times more experience than me. Bastards.)
October 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I humbly apologize for any stress I may have inadvertently caused. In future, I will write in all caps AND draw boxcars and bindlesticks on the label so there’s no question.
I hate interviews. The last one I had was so traumatic (for NO reason) that I thought I was going to burst into flames due to the rising temperature of my skin due to acute embarrassment. The weird thing was that I a) didn’t spontaneously combust, and b) actually got the job.
October 7th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I’m feeling a heart attack coming on, just reading this!
October 7th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Which reminds me, I have a package just waiting to be dropped off for you…
October 8th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Am I alone in that whenever my heart starts flopping about in my chest just like you described, my body temperature also goes up about 20 million degrees and I’m nearly instantly sweating? My body has done that since I was in high school, and it’s admittedly not the most awesome fight or flight! response ever.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
i am queen of the chest palpitations. queen.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:55 am
That was probably the universe telling you that this would be the worst job of your life. Stay clear of it and look elsewhere! lol.