Pay station flirtation

The date: Feb 12, 2013. The time: 8:55 am. The rush: Rehearsal starting in 5 minutes.

Yesterday was a strange one. Sleeping didn’t go well, and waking up only got worse. The boyfriend startled me awake in an angry frenzy. For some odd reason he was convinced that I’d  turned his alarm clock off and thus was responsible for his being late to an important day at work, and also probably for the sun’s inevitable explosion.

And no, he wasn’t right. I didn’t turn it off, I hadn’t even gotten the chance yet since it was only 5:30…. meaning his alarm wouldn’t be going off for another 20 minutes. Yeah, thanks for the extra early wake up, honey bunches. Seems such a silly thing,  but somehow that didn’t stop his delirium from pissing me right off and escalating us into a fight before we’d even been awake for 3 minutes.

The fight didn’t last long, in case you were wondering. When finally the fatigued confusion wore off, and we had the sense to digest the facts accurately -being that he thought it was an hour later than it actually was- and that he was being a completely unreasonable jerk (could be that I’m the only one who agreed to this last point), we made up and life continued.

But that story isn’t the point of this post…  I just wanted to give some background information into my state of mind before getting into the juicy story that’s coming up…

….ahem… (why are you still reading this).

Okay, so I’m over tired, didn’t sleep well, and had a strange wake up. Tuesday mornings are my early rehearsal day, we start at 9 (this is pretty intense if you’re me). So I drive in, somewhat on the late side (but not doing too bad), and manage to get a good parking spot. I walk hurriedly up to the lobby of the parkade where there are two pay stations to use. Unfortunately, both are only just occupied by one guy and one girl who happened to beat me there by a mere fraction of a second.

So I’m waiting patiently and checking on the time since I know I have somewhere to be very shortly. The time: 8:55 am. As I wait seemingly patiently, the buddy at pay station 1 decides that now is a GREAT time to go on a flirt fest with girl at pay station 2. So as I stand there waiting, I am listening to an agonizing attempt at flirtation, and some of the worst sounding small talk that I have EVER heard in my entire life. I was feeling pretty bad for the girl, and the guy, but still I stood there politely waiting to use the machine to pay.

The time: 8:57 am. The guy has finished punching in his license plate number and now has his ticket. But he is too occupied with flirting to move his ass away from in front of the machine. So I am now just an invisible spectator being hindered from my task because this guy feels the need to embarrass himself so early in the morning. I’m thinking to myself, oh my god, is he going to get out of the way so I can get my ticket?, as I think this I just get more annoyed. Time is ticking and I’m not about to be late for this guy’s horrendous timing choices. I have no choice but to interrupt.

“So…” I begin, I think it’s the first time they have noticed my presence, “Can I use the machine now?”

Buddy whips around as if I have just appeared from the dust. “Huh, what?” he says with stupidity.

And I am even more annoyed at his oblivion.

I repeat myself. “Can I use the machine now? Or do you need to keep standing there a little longer?”

The girl at the other station bursts out laughing and the guy is now looking totally deflated and embarrassed. He moves away in confusion and mumbles “oh, huh, sorry” before bee-lining it to the door.

So to the guy who flirted at the pay station: I’m sorry that I embarrassed you. And even more sorry that you are a terrible flirt.

But that’s just how it rolls when I have no sleep and no time to edit my words.