Composed Elements

Sometimes my mom will give me stacks of coupons for fast food restaurants. Although she loves me very much, I don’t think she’s too concerned about my cholesterol level.

Excited about my “Get a chili cheeseburger, chili dog, and chili fries for $3″ coupon for Weinerschnizel, I rushed after work to the closest location. Standing behind me in line was a forty-something year-old man wearing shorts and work boots. This was our conversation:

HIM: Hey…do you go to that highschool over there?
ME: No. I’m done with school.
*Silence*
HIM: Are you sure you don’t go to that school?
ME: Yes, I don’t go there. I work now.
HIM: I once went to a class there. It was for computers. But what I didn’t know was that it was an ESL computer class. The teacher said that it was a really low-level computer class and we should leave if it was too slow for us. She picked up a mouse and said, “This is a mouse.” That when I thought, “This is the class for me!”

I tried to not be a jerk and totally ignore him. All I kept thinking of was that Dateline show “To Catch a Predator.” But I thought, I can be that girl, the one that doesn’t mind talking to crazy people, the one that can talk to anyone and be cool with it. So, I nodded to his ranting.

HIM: So, what do you do?
ME: I work at a public relations firm.
HIM: Ohhh, is that the one where you tell people to wear deoderant?
ME: What?
HIM: Oh wait, nevermind, that’s human resources right?
ME: Hmm, I don’t know if they tell people to put on deoderant, but yea, maybe you’re talking about human resources.

That’s when I realized, no, I can’t be that girl that will talk to anyone. I eyed the workers at Weinerschnizel, hoping they’d hurry up with my food.

HIM: Hey, before you leave, let me give you my business card. It’s just a side business that I do.

I kept thinking, drugs, drugs, please let it be drugs or something crazy. Turns out he rents out bouncy houses. The kind kids have at parties. It only added to my “To Catch a Predator” assumptions. I quickly ran away after that. I told my friend the story and she said you only hear those kinds of stories when people go to Weinerschizel.

I just found a crispy piece of paper that mysteriously landed on my desk and have been cracking it like a dried leaf for the past half hour. It was a lot of fun and yes, I am enjoying my Monday at work.

I want to dedicate this week to awkward situations, because I love documenting them, I haven’t blogged in a while and they make me giggle.

#154
As I was walking through the outside patio of a bar, one of my heels got stuck in a metal grate on the ground. Of course, without realizing it, I took my next step and my other heel also got stuck in the grate. Struggling to get out, I just groaned and called for help. I looked up to see this guy standing in front of me and all he said was, “Isn’t this an awkward situation?”

When I went to Las Vegas a couple of weekends ago, I felt like I was movin’ on up.  I felt like a baller.  I felt like…like someone out of college with a full-time job.  No, I didn’t stay at Imperial Palace this time – the poor man’s hotel that oozes with dragon ladies, opium, and all that “oriental” jazz.  (The Cheapo Vegas website describes Imperial Palace as “creepy, just like the lair of Bruce Lee’s villains!”)

This time, my friends and I stayed at the lovely Palazzo.  Oh yes, we stayed in a classy suite with only four people this time.  I got to sleep on a bed!  It was wonderful.   We had three TVs (one in the bedroom, one in the living room, and one in the bathroom).  And yes, I did watch “Blade 2″ on all the TVs at once to get surround sound.

Feeling fancy, we headed out to Moon nightclub at the Palms.  The bouncer said we would only be in line for 20 more minutes…unless we wanted to pay him $600 for eight of us to get in immediately.  We kindly declined and said we would wait the extra 20 minutes.  While we waited, we spotted a slew of celebrities.  Basketball players, football players, you name it.  The most mentionable person we saw was Shaq.  For some reason, the “Kazaam” star didn’t look very tall to me.  Some of my friends felt the same way.  Later on, we saw Joe Hahn from Linkin Park stroll up to the front of the line.  Everyone was high-fiving him.  He talked to the bouncer for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden, there were twenty of his friends that appeared behind him.  They all went into the club.  We, on the otherhand, never got in.  I guess we really did need to pay $600 to that bouncer.

We had better luck the next night.  If you stay at Palazzo or Venetian (since they’re connected), you get a free ticket to the clubs there and you get to stand in a special “pass everyone else” line.  My baller status came back.

I told my coworker about Shaq not looking very tall.  She then sent this picture to me.