Ocean State Job Terror Lot

I spent this past weekend in the lovely state of CT, where the leaves were falling as fast as my serotonin levels (countdown to doomsday aka Daylight Savings: T-4 days).

My mom and I went shopping in Avon on Saturday. All day. We were almost ready to drop, but I was on a mission. A month-and-a-half-long-overdue-birthday-present mission.

Unfortunately as one of my followers I can neither reveal the gift receivers’ identity, nor can I disclose the nature of the present. Suffice it to say, it was something we thought Ocean State Job Lot might carry.
Never have I ever been so petrified of a store.

Lordy, lordy. That place is all kinds of fright-inducing. It begged the question: Why pay for a haunted house when you can go shopping at Ocean State Job Lot for free?

I feared for my life. And of course the all-around eeriness was multiplied threefold by the stormy weather. (Puh-LEASE, October! Quit letting your fright flag fly! Halloween, big deal, we get it. No need to hit us over the head with all scary, all the time. It’s tacky. Get a life, October. Shame on you.)

So yeah, it was downpouring. And it was dark (did I mention how I am dreading the advent of Daylight Savings?) And the wind was howling, obviously. Leaves were flying from branches in a hurried flurry.

It was, in short, a scene straight from a horror film - a scene so familiar because I have seen it sooooo many times. You know, that part where they pan out and show the building in the rain where the girl is about to be killed. And so yeah, I was scared before we were even inside because I knew I should be - my killer radar was up - the setting was just that good.

Just when I believed it could get no worse, I passed through the doors.

Fluorescent lights and dirty white-black-grey tiles, fine. Whatever. But the jam-packed shelves, the items on the shelves - jarred mushrooms and green beans reminiscent of rotten brown eyeballs and slimy green fingers.

Puzzles and books from the eighties. Discontinued shampoo, mousse, gel, toothpaste, detergent - all looking pathetically desolate and undoubtedly expired.

The clothes! Oh dearie me. If you’re a hunter, this is the store for you. A hunter of people, that is. For I daresay, serial killers shop for their essentials at the Lot. I surely coulda pointed out a few.

The rows of creepy Christmas decorations (minus MAJOR points, Ocean State Job Lot, for rolling out the ho-ho-ho-ness before HalloWEEN!), of “decorative” candles and bows and bags and fake trees and melamine Santa chip n’ dips. Scary, scary, scary.

But even more frightening was the man in the costume aisle picking up hooks and masks and scythes, making odd noises and shouting gibberish to himself.

I couldn’t get out of that store fast enough. Sure, it has its redeeming qualities - my mom likes that they carry Freezer-Tite (no other stores do, apparently).

And...umm...yeah, that’s about it.

But the dim lighting, the odd Costco-warehousey smell, the hodgepodge of products, the dirty floors, the people, the people, the PEOPLE. And the thunderstorm! Holy shit yo. I felt like I had entered The Twilight Zone.

And all for nothing! Ocean State Terror Lot didn’t even have the item I was looking for. But I think I learned my lesson - I surely will not be making my way back to Ocean State Job Lot for any reason. Ever. Again.

Krazy? More like PSYCHO Glue!

I am an adult. I know how to read directions. However, that does not mean that I always follow them.

Case in point: Last night’s encounter with Krazy Glue.

It’s not all my fault! I live in a society where there’s an antidote to everything. Instant gratification nation, yo. Don’t like something? Change it, fix it, get rid of it. Wham bam thank you ma’am.

However. However.

The warning label on Krazy Glue should be much more threatening. Should be highlighted in neon yellow (I would say pink, but I think that might clash with the red and green). It should read CAUTION in no less than size 20, Times New Roman font.

(I was also going to say that they should not sell the stuff to non-adults...but, like I mentioned earlier - I am, unfortunately, one of those. I forget sometimes.)

Needless to say, I should not - not ever - be allowed to use that stuff.Last night I was gluing part of a vintage ring back together. And of course in my overbearing, overeager, overcompensating clumsiness, I squeezed the crap outta that difficult-to-squeeze, tricky little tube.

And it went all over the place.

I watched it drip down the sides of the ring as I cleverly (so I thought) pinched the pieces I was gluing together with my best tweezers.

Not only did that stinky shit get all over my tweezers, IT GOT ALL OVER MY FINGERS (sorry ya can’t see it too well in the pic).

And it’s still there. The tips of both index fingers and middle fingers were covered in the crap. But little did I care, I thought I was totes in the clear - hello nail polish remover!

Sadly, I was mistaken. Nail polish remover does not in any way make you invincible to the wrath of Krazy Glue.

What a naïve little dummy I was. Maybe it was non-acetone. But still, whateverrrr. Didn’t help one iota. My fingers felt like they had been dipped them in battery acid - I lost all sensation below the affected skin. Poor things looked like little shiny snakeskin’s.I tried scrubbing with a Dobie, a pumice stone, dish soap. I used my sad, glue-covered tweezers in an attempt to pick it off. But that stuff don’t peel. It don’t budge.

After all that poking and picking and prodding, my fingertips were fairly sore. And red. That’s when I got the brilliant idea to perform outpatient surgery on myself. To cut - with nail clippers - the glue off.

Finally - finally - something worked (...a little). But not without PAIN. I clipped a fair amount of skin off. Boy did it hurt.

And yet...the g-d glue is still spotty in some places! UGH!

It goes without saying that I will be steering very, very clear of the Krazy Glue from now on. That stuff is psycho.

Chronic Christmas Morning Jitters

A switch has been flipped. Hallelujah AMEN, I’ve finally (re)joined the ranks of the sleeping! 


Kind of.
 
 I sometimes have insomnia. And it blows. But the past few months I’ve enjoyed a delicious sleepfulness. I have somehow learned - sans aids! - how to will my melatonin forth.

It’s been pretty great. Wonderful in fact. But, per usual, all things good things must come to an end. And lately I have been experiencing something I’m calling the Christmas Morning Jitters.

I am utterly spent when the day ends at 5 o’clock. But I go to the gym. I make dinner. I go out. I read a book. I catch up on DVR, on Netflix, on magazines. I talk on the phone. I text. I blog. I run myself ragged and wish for nothing more than to curl up in my ridiculously comfy bed and sleep sleep sleep.

(I sometimes think sleep is my most favorite thing in the world. Then Ri’s charming smackdown reverberates in my ears: “You can sleep when you’re DEAD!”

This is true.)

But apparently I’s back to square one in the sleep department. Every night feels like Christmas Eve, I tell you! No matter how exhausted I am. 

It’ll be 12 a.m., say, and I want to drift away into dreamland. But oh no, wait. Actually I don’t want to. Not exactly. Who knows WHY, but I’ll excited about the next day, or there will be something else I’d rather be doing. A pastime more desirable than laying horizontal (in a G-rated way).

It’s so ironic that as soon as I’m able to pass out with little-to-no coaxing, I don’t want to. That snoozing suddenly seems so pointless. Such a drag. That I, Katie Parry, Queen of 10:30-Lights-Out Land, would rather stay awake than get me some zzzzz’s.

As the hours roll by on the fluorescent clock that lights up my apartment (my shitty broken cable box - is that an 8? a 6? no, it’s a 5), I honestly feel like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. But deep down, I know it’s not even gonna be a good Santa. It’s like I am looking forward to a drunken, polyester donning, flammable beard wearing imposter of a St. Nick!
Does this recurring phenomenon happen to anyone else? I mean, I know there is pretty much nothing super special about the coming day. And it’s not like I forgot to do something at work. I’m not going on vacation. There’s no cause for any additional anxiety (aside from the daily norm).
And yeah, I realize that the story is going to start back up on the page I left off on in my book. That my DVR can be counted on to remember where I paused a show. My Facebook page will not be deleted. No Dankes! will remain intact and live to judge another day!
And yet - I don’t want to sleep, my mind is that excited. Ain’t no sugarplums dancing in my head!

Oh no. My mind bounces like a pinball from thoughts of pseudo fictitious candy canes to stockings to the roast beast.

It cracks an incessant whip over the rest of my body, willing unrest. And, yet, this is a somewhat welcome wakefulness.

That is, of course, until the alarm goes off and the only thing me and my stupid crazy mind gets is a D-rated, sans presents & kielbasa workday.

I am crazy.

S#*tty Shuffle

Rarely do I enjoy forwards. In fact, I pretty much despise every forward ever (can you please take me off your distro? Thanks.) Not just for their content but for their sheer existence.

Who actually has the time to draw pictures solely comprised of @, #, $, %, ^, &, and * symbols. Or make up stupid questions like “What’s your favorite lunch meat?” or “If you were a crayon what color would you be?” Or write sob stories about believing in angels. Or invent hoaxes for free money.

Seriously.

That being said, you can only imagine my sheer dismay (I do have a cynical, judgmental persona to live up to!), when I received a forward that I actually enjoyed.

Kelly, a fellow forward-loather, stipulated before sending that “Random Thoughts” was actually a pretty good one.

And I couldn’t agree more.

It was a fairly viral forward cause within days people were using the extraordinarily ordinary tidbits as their status updates. (For reals people, stop stealing thoughts and passing them off as your own just so you can have “5 People Like This” in your mini-feed.)

I wasn’t going to post any of the Randos here but feel they deserve to be shown in a more classy, sophisticated arena - ah hem - this blog. Some of my faves:

“As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.” (Me too!)

“There is a great need for sarcasm font.”

“How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?”

I digress. I’m feeling fairly ADD today, sorry. This blog could have been about how much I hate forwards, or how much I hate people posting quotes and passing them as their own, or how much I hate the Like button on Facebook.

But...drumroll please...one of these random thoughts caught my special attention:

“I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.”

I could NOT agree more. I mean, obviously I’m guilty of putting music on my iPod that I know I will never, ever listen to - simply because I want to beef up the number of songs I have.

The more songs you have the cooler you are, right? Right?

I have 4,053 songs. So I listen to the same five or so on repeat. So what. I do make valiant attempts at Shuffle every so often. Truly, I do. But when I try to branch out, I find myself skipping over songs faster than one flips through the ads in a magazine.

Oftentimes, in my exasperation and frustration, I won’t even listen to the opening notes and lyrics. I will stare at the small colored screen, right-clicking incessantly.

Skip. Skip. Skip.

Then I will wonder why I ever make Shuffle attempts (ever).
Sometimes Shuffle will hit its stride. A song will come on and I will think I’m the coolest person in the world because I had no idea it was on my pod. Shuffle can be a gold mine.

Sometimes there will be four or five great songs in a row. (OK fine, I exaggerate. I’m excited if there’s two winners.)

But then Gloria Estefan’s rendition of “Love on Layaway” will come on, dashing all my hopes and dreams of a Merry Shufflemas.

Why aren’t iPods smarter? Come on Mac! You’re so good at knowing what we want before we even know we want it! Why don’t you know what we want to LISTEN to? (Genius is OK, but not really.)
Skip. Skip. Skip.

My poor thumb pad is getting sore just thinking about all that next-clicking.

Please, Mr. Jobs. Now that you’re back on the job can you come up with a way for us to better live our lives to a Shuffle-style-soundtrack? Please?

The Terrible Tuesdays

It happens every week. Unfortunately.

The weekend comes and goes in a poof of alcohol-tinged haze. Then you’re jarred awake by “Just Another Manic Monday” and spend the first day of the work week rolling on by like a puppet on a conveyor belt.

And then.

And then. You do your laundry, watch Gossip Girl, tidy up your apartment, and hit the sack. But instead of nice Sunday-night dreams - dreams filled with Don Draper and Hank Moody - you have Tuesday evening nightmares.

You can’t even fantasize about Chuck Bass or Evan Chambers because all you can think about, all that encompasses your sad little mind, is the dread of the terrible Tuesday that lies ahead.

What is it about that stupid, insipid second day of the work week? Does anyone else feel this way? Tuesday is the most idiotic, worthless day of the week. Pointless. Senseless. Cringe-inducing.

Mondays suck because, well, it’s Monday. It’s gonna suck regardless. But once that initial alarm-clock-band-aid is ripped off, it’s somewhat smooth sailing until 5pm.

And it doesn’t hurt that there is all that good TV to look forward to!

Wednesday is Hump Day - halfway to Friday, hallelujah. Also a good night for television. It’s Ladies Night at a whole bunch of places - ah hem, Off the Wagon. AND, if you’re feeling smart, a plethora of bars host trivia on Wednesdays.

Thursday is perhaps my favorite day. There’s just one day of work left - and fortunately it’s a casual one. There’s happy hour and gallery openings galore. Or, should you choose to forego the beverages, Thursday night programming is top notch.
In fact, if it weren’t for Mad Men, I think Thursday would be my most beloved TV day. And that is saying a lot.

Friday is, well, Friday. That’s a no-brainer. The work week horizon has finally come into focus. Oh yeah. You can see it. It’s there.

Then it’s going, going, gone and you’re OFF to start the weekend.

Beer me.

Saturday and Sunday are devoted to brunching, shopping, gyming (in the very rare case that my body does not feel like it has been hit by a Mack Truck), moviegoing, museuming, park galavanting - you get the point.

Every day of the week has something to offer except Tuesday. It is, by far, the weakest link in the seven-day-chain.

What’s the point of Tuesday? I don’t understand the need for its existence. There is nothing worse than waking up on Tuesday morning and dreading that full day of faux detention.

That feeling like you’re going to be at the dentist all day long getting cavities filled. Or that you have to spend eight hours in a candy store and can’t eat a single thing.

Yesterday wasn’t so very bad. We lucky Penguin ducks had Columbus Day off so Tuesday seemed more like Monday. I did laundry. Caught up on a bunch of DVRed shows. I make-believed it was Monday. 
 
But I am over the moon that today is Wednesday.

This week, at least, I can pretend Tuesday never happened. Sigh.

These Boots Aren't Made for Walkin'

As if packing up my summer dresses wasn’t hard enough, I actually had to break out my boots last weekend.

(Which begs another point - why the hell were overeager city-dwellers donning boots months ago? Like, August? When it was still summer? Does no one else mourn the loss of the shortest, bestest season like I do?)

I tried. I held off for as long as I could. I am still trying to hold off. Still wearing strappy sandals to work while I sheepishly avoid the eyes of the occasional omnipresent judgy fashionista.
Sadly, though, I had to cave last Thursday. Had to break out the boots. (But, a slightly redeeming factor: it was more for the sake of my outfit - not because it was too cold. Flats simply didn’t look as good with my Betty Draper-esque vintage threads!)

Perfect ensemble aside, you can only imagine my dual dismay. Not only had I been surreptitiously confronted by the confines of boots (outfit had not been planned!), said boots were in shambles. Shambles I say!

Yes, yes. We all know I’m a huge brat who walks to work (a fact which, I must say, has been kind of a relief lately - what with all these mass transportation terrorist threats. Scary!)

But pedestrianism is hard on the ole clodhoppers. This concrete jungle is unbiasedly unsympathetic toward even the toughest, most resilient of soles.

It’s really pretty unbelievable how expendable shoes are. Yesterday I said how I wished clothes were disposable so we wouldn’t have to wash them. But when it comes time to toss shoes or an undershirt, I must say that I have a more difficult time throwing out a pair of shiny metallic flats than a grubby white tank.

Damn you streets of NYC for making me part with my filthy, stinky, holed up, worn out shoes! I hate you! Parting is such sad sorrow - because, for them, there is no tomorrow!

We sullen city folk don’t have the liberty of driving everywhere like you lazy country bumpkins do. No, no. We must walk which means our shoes last but one season. So even though I don’t like trashing my cute shoesies, there is a time for everything. A time to buy and a time to toss.

And then there are boots. Boots are a different story.


It’s not like you can go around dropping $175 every year on a whim. Or at least I can’t. Shouldn’t. Can’t. Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. 


Should not.

Didn’t!

Such a good kid. However, last winter was a loooong time ago and I am very forgetful. So you can picture my puzzlement when I pulled out my fave black boots - not yet one year old - and saw a sizable hole in the heel. Toe worn nearly through. Soles rubbed thin.

I dug around for my only pair of brown boots and - surprise, surprise - heels were also worn down. How could I forget the state of my boots??

NYC! You ruiner of one-season-new boots! Of flats! Of flip flops! How I loathe you and your stupid, unyielding sidewalks!

But because I am very cents-ible these days (as we all should be! Hellooooooo horrible economy!), and because I do love both pairs of said, scuffed-up boots. And, well, seriously - because boots should not have a single-season-shelf-life (!!!!) - I did the responsible thing

Just call me recessionista! I brought both my boots to the cobbler across the street.

I managed to conjur up a timid, embarrassed grin while he judged the shit out of my boots, shaking his head, muttering some unintelligible Eastern European curses under his breath. He scolded me with his eyes. Schooled me. I felt like a child, like I had drawn all over my brand new Trapper Keeper and Mom was pissed.

But hey, $40 and four spanking new heels later, I’m in business.

Apparently you don’t have to be one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses to wear out the soles of your shoes...you just have to be one of Eight Million Prancing Pedestrians.

A Dental Floss State of Mind

What is it about kids disobeying their dentist? I mean, I suppose there is that 3% of the goody-two-shoes population that follows every rule ever to a T.
And then there’s the rest of us.

Did we think we were being badass? Rebellious? Was it because we disliked authority - via dentist and parents? Were we just plain lazy?

Whatever the cause, the time for not listening to our dentist (and parents) has come and gone.

No more excuses.

Floss. Your. Teeth.

I was one of the lazies. Super laze, in fact. I didn’t want to floss my teeth every night.
I feel kinda gross admitting it now, but I’d only break out the Glide (mint flavored, floss of choice), once a month - if that. Or if there was something stuck. Which pretty much only happened anytime I ate anything corn-related (what is it about that stupid kernel??)

Actually I feel disgusting admitting that. Boy oh boy.

But I’m telling you - from one former non-flosser to another: You just gotta own it. Own that laziness, that abhorrence of authority. Shake, shake, shake that feeling of not wanting to do something because someone told you to.

Get over it. Totes O.I. por favor. Cause there be creatures living up in there. For reals (to the left, to the left).

Now, don’t worry - I’m not getting ahead of myself here or anything. I’m not ready to say “Yes” to Oral-ffice hygiene. 

But I shall henceforth be an ardent advocate for flossing.

I daresay I’d shout, “YES, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!” to le flosse.

It’s not because I’m an “adult” now. Nor is it because I want to prevent cavities (I’ll eat a bag-o-Sour Patches before I go to sleep...after I floss).

No. These petty excuses pale in comparison.

What really gets me in a flossing state of mind is the knowledge that I’ll be excavating those white mountains of shit.

Seriously, they accumulate at an alarmingly accelerative speed! Unstoppable. And unacceptable.

G-ROSS.

The human mouth is 98 degrees. There are over 600 types of bacteria (I love you Wiki!). Add to that mix cigarette smoke, alcohol, pickle juice. New (and old) bits of chewed food. Throw in some dental plaque. And voilà! You have a steaming cauldron of hearty halitosis.

Ugh. That stuff’s toxic man. Like, refuse pile stinky. Sewage plant stinky. Rotting meat stinky. And that’s your mouth! Your pretty little kisser! Why don’t we all feel the need to treat it with the utmost respect?

Fewer than 12% of Americanos floss on a daily basis. I know, I know. It does tack on a few more minutes to the nightly routine. But just think about all the snowy piles of gook you’re clearing out of there.

Do yourself a favor. And all the rest of us: Jump on that gingivitis-preventing bandwagon.
Floss. Your. Teeth.

I’m Pickin’ Up Bad Vibrations

Get your head outta the gutter, yo! ‘Tain’t those kind of vibrations.

Oh no. ‘Tis a far, far more loathsome kind: The vibrating alarm.

Never did I ever think this would be a No Dankes! topic. Who would?

I suppose I am partly to blame. Shame on me for getting too familiar with a vibrating wake up call. But you see, a few months ago my regular radio alarm failed to go off. And I failed to wake up. Hence, failed to make it to work by 9 o’clock. 
Unacceptable!

Enter: iPhone. Each and every night since that most fateful morn, I’ve set myself two alarms. Clock radio and iPhone. 



Now. I abhor phones dinging every time a text arrives. To abate any contribution of text-arrival-noise-pollution, I set my cell exclusively to vibrate. Same thing for phone calls. And so that sadly translates into alarm clocks, too.

When my very own Apple brand Bell Tower starts chiming at 8:12 a.m., it also starts vibrating (such a multitasker, that iPhone!) This vibrating buzz-iness can be pretty goddamn loud, especially when your ears (like mine) are super sensitive.

You know how those perfumery peeps are called “Noses”? Well if I were known by a sense, my spectacular nickname would be “Ears”.

Whew, that was a long-winded introduction – alas I suppose you’ve grown to expect that from me…otherwise why are you reading this?  
day, I didn’t go out boozing Friday night. Thus I was enjoying a superpower-sober-sleep Saturday morning – not passed the hell out as usual while my body worked through its surplus of barley and hops.
Because of this, my sleep was a far cry from any sort of R.E.M. My snooze was so light, I daresay even a quiet breath could have awoken me.

But there were no breaths. No loud music. No car alarms, even. Nope. What did, in fact, wake me up was nothing other than someone else’s phone alarm vibrating. Yup.

At 6 a.m. on the dot, I was awakened by a nasty bout of incessant, repetitive, alarmingly loud (well, to my sensitive ears at least) alarm clock vibrations. Like the phone was just chillin on the floor next door and it wanted to send its signals through the wooden floorboards to torture me. The worst part is, I don’t even know if it was on the floor. It was somewhere. I heard its buzz through walls, through concrete, through brick – I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where it was coming from.There I was, tossing and turning, with a phantom vibration annoying the bejesus out of me. 6:16, :26, :36, :46. I was sleepily wide awake.For an HOUR it went off. And worst of all, the vibrations weren’t even. They suffered from some sort of arrhythmia. No joke! They were all over the place. Sure, they occurred every other second or so, but to my sleep-addled-perfectionist mind they were unbearably unsymmetrical.
I walked down in the hall in my nightgown and sleep mask. I stomped on the floor and banged on the walls and ceiling. I ate canned frosting with my finger out of sheer frustration.

I was beyond stressed and depressed and tired and pissed. I felt like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, like people were slowly and methodically trying to drive me mad. Except I’m no actress and my sober Saturday morning was no movie.I sandwiched my head between two pillows, turned my air conditioner on high. I screamed as loud as I possibly good to TURN THE ALARM OFF. I cried. I was actually happy when I heard the garbage trucks rolling down the street. Anything to distract my ears from the interminable whirring that was occurring somewhere thisclose. But where, I did not know.

The arrhythmia confused me, tricked me into thinking it was finished. I got pumped when the vibrations skipped a few beats, I could drift peacefully off to sleep for an hour before my movie marathon! But no. Then they started up again.

One. Full. Hour. Later. They stopped completely. My sanity was barely salvaged. If these cruel and unusual vibrations find their way to my ears anytime soon, I don’t know what will happen.

Little Miss Forgetful

Everyone always jokes about how forgetful I am - and have always been. But of course I can’t remember funny examples of things I can’t remember.
My friend Sarah is the antithesis of me. She remembers what we were wearing at a restaurant we went to three years ago. And what we ate. Sick.

I’ve learned to just smile and nod. Smile and nod.

My memory is so bad I can’t recall what I wore to work last week. What I did this past weekend (well I guess that can be construed as legit).

Growing up, my mother was constantly yelling at me to do things before I forgot - to put something near the door so I’d remember it in the morning, to pack my bag while I was thinking about it.

After twenty-six years of nagging, you would think I’d of learned to follow her advice.

But noooooooooo.

My lossage is snowballing out of control. For reals. And this little deteriorating memory-o-mine came to an ugly climax last week.
I, bad kid that I am, have been to the gym about three times the past three weeks. (Hey, I was on summer vaca!)

But September 1st, the second New Year, marked a necessary revisit to some resolutions. Like: Work out! And so...I dragged myself to the gym. Ugh.

After ellipticizing (a girl’s workout of choice, obvi), I booked it back to the locker room to grab my bags and go. I had somewhere to be!
I don’t know what happened next. I think I might have blocked it from my mind because it was so scarring (or perhaps I just forgot!) You see, when I threw down my book, towel, iPod, water bottle, and tried to open my locker, I couldn’t for the life of me remember my combination.

38-10-22. No. 36-22-10. No. 22-10-38. No. I started to panic.

I knew there was a 30-something, a 20-something and a 10 in there but could not, could NOT seem to conjure up that all-important but extremely trivial little combo. All I wanted was to free my belongings from their smelly locker cell!

Tears brimmed my eyes, threatening further embarrassment. First I couldn’t remember my combination, then I was going cry about it? Really Katie? Really?

I decided to take a breather. I went out back to the stretching area, sat on a mat, put on some Beethoven, and tried to relax. Tried to coax those stupid, insignificant numbers of great significance back into my brain.
Unfortunately I, like my mother before me, am incapable of relaxing. My brain is a goddamn pinball machine, constantly darting and pinging around from one incoherent thought to the next no matter how hard I try to quiet it.

Ten minutes later, I moped back to the locker room, having failed to extract the combo from the swamp that was is my anxious-memory-loss-Alzheimer’s-onset-ridden mind.

But this only made matters worse! Those elusive numbers would not present themselves. And so, finally, I called the front desk. And they brought in the clippers.

I hid my face in shame as a girl a foot shorter than me wrestled with ginormous, twenty-four-inch long lock-clipping shears.

Miraculously, my stupid lock survived its thrashing. It lived to lock another day! And, always one for that poignant, ironic moment - I remembered the combination an hour later.

38-21-10. So close yet so far!

Needless to say, my confidence in my non-existent memory has officially been reduced to a not-so-healthy zilch. Zippo. Zero. Nada.
This week I shall invest in the fancier line of locks - the kind you can program.

At least I don’t think I can forget my birthday...