Anyway, this week was nuts. It’s Friday morning and I’ve worked 60 hours. I’ll be working tomorrow, too. And probably some of Sunday. This is not my pitch for Martyr of the Year, but it is one of those times I’d like to call our clients and maybe do a little bartering so they don’t all schedule due dates for major undertakings all on the same day. Hey, Bob? How’s about I see your Tuesday and raise you Thursday of next week?

In the middle of all of the crazy, the blog went down and my Inbox flooded with, “OMG. Did you get fired?” emails and hoo boy, I don’t have to tell you what that did for the dark circles already forming under my eyes. Veritable ink pots. The next day, I was driving home from work and KABLOOEY! both engine fans went out and I some quality time at the dealership – working. Oh, technology, god love ya for being such a blessing and a beast. The day after that – and here’s where the real meltdown came into play – the vacation request that I submitted so many moons ago -  the one that asked for a bit more time than I would have accrued, that I submitted anyway because the person in charge said that it could be worked out, and not to worry – was denied. Sorry, policy is policy. And the person who was in charge is no longer, so you know, tough cookies.

I cried. At work. In the parking lot.

Here’s how that vacation was supposed the work: The Dork Lord’s parents rented a beach house in Florida for the first week of October. We were all going to drive out there on Friday after work and stay until the next Saturday, making big dinners and falling asleep in the sand and drinking wine and falling asleep on floating thingies in the pool. So much falling asleep, the idea of it made me giddy. But in the end, I was four hours (you caught that, right? Four. Hours) short of having enough vacation time and policy says, no borrowing. And no taking it unpaid. If you don’t have it accrued, you don’t go. You could have knocked me over whispering, “PTO.” I just stared at my boss waiting for him to say he was kidding. Do I think I should be above policy? You betcha! Yes, I’m new. But shit like that is for eight-to-fivers. Not folks who actually need vacations so they don’t blow some sort of internal fuse and strip down to their birthday suits and scurry around the office reenacting scenes from… I don’t know… DELIVERANCE.

This week has been a hodgepodge of strange and unsettling experiences that I could otherwise have done without. I’d say I don’t believe in things like luck or jinxes, but then I would have to remind myself, “Oh, hey, remember that time you said it had been ages since you got food poisoning and then three days later, there you were, in the fetal position on the bathmat crying that you didn’t want to die in the bathroom like Elvis?” Let’s just say the week got off to really rough start, and had me questioning my belief in mysterious cosmic forces. I’m not really great at take-away lessons, though, so it’s fairly safe to assume I’ll make a similarly stupid statement about how smoothly wedding planning is going or how financially, things are looking promising and then the Universe will remind me that I’m not in charge.

Tuesday was Die Like a Celebrity Day and Wednesday found us huddled among pillows inside an interior closet while a tornado touched down a couple miles from our apartment. It was a little unnerving and a little more real than I’d have liked. Again, the Universe’s way of saying, “You’re not in charge, Toots.” I’m not sure what would have gone down should that tornado have actually chosen our home as its target – that interior closet happens to be where we keep everything heavy and or sharp edged. We are awfully clever that way.

Thursday afternoon I was standing in the lobby of our office building, which happens to be a one-story, adapted industrial building (in a predominantly industrial neighborhood) with a glass front door. I looked up from my conversation to see a massive span of feathers headed our way. A hawk. He was glorious. And chasing a blackbird. Within milliseconds, it went from Oooh, hawk! to BAM! as the blackbird hit the glass and fell to the concrete. I threw open the door and got to my knees to render aid, thinking the poor creature was probably just stunned. I realized all too soon that its neck was broken and as it gasped out its last breaths I crouched there on the cement, helplessly stroking its iridescent black breast until it stopped rising. Then I tucked it away under a hedge at the edge of the property. The sweet receptionist was worried it could have given me some bird disease. I was worried it might have broken my heart.

This morning, as I pulled into the gated parking lot at the office (it’s gated for a very good reason – the neighborhood is not exactly gentrified (see the bit about it being industrial) and our small building has been the target of looting and vandalism more times than anyone is comfortable with) I watched in the rear view mirror as a pair of folks tried to scurry in behind me. Oh HELL no, I said, shutting off the radio and reaching for my cell phone. The gate closed in time, thankfully and I got out reluctantly, prepared for a confrontation. Which they readily gave me. One wanted his ring back. I don’t have any ring, I told him. Yes, it’s right there, he pointed, right inside the gate. Let me come in and get it.

Uh, huh, why don’t I just go ahead and do that.

“How did it get there?” I asked.

“It, uh, the uh, gate took it.”

“The gate took it. That’s a pretty shady story, dude. How’d that happen?” How’s about when you tried to get in and scared the bejeezus out of me, eh?

I’d always been taught that you didn’t; tips are for service folks working for other folks – the ones who don’t necessarily see windfall when the business is healthy and thriving. To the owner of an establishment you frequent quite a bit (hair dresser, facialist) you give a generous gift at say, Christmas, but you don’t tip. Sometimes, though, I think maybe I’m the only one who’s under the impression that this is actually a rule and since I don’t want to get it wrong… I tip anyway. Like, I tip my hair lady, even though she’s no longer working for a salon and she’s out on her own. I like her a whole lot and she consistently does a great job, so the rule about not tipping the owner feels… weird.

And really, the one thing I hate more than being wrong about protocol is people thinking I’m stingy. Or ignorant of the rules.

Like, once upon a time, I was given three free spa services in exchange for some publicity on the blog. The day before I went in for my third treatment, I bought a nice little card, wrote a note and put in some cash for the lady who’d done the treatments. You know, because that’s when you tip, right? At the end of a service. Anyway, when I arrived at the spa, the owner pulled me aside and said that it “might be nice if [you] thought about tipping Elizabeth.” I just stared at him. I mean, first of all, tuh-acky. Tackier than not tipping, in my mind. Secondly, tipping comes at the end. It just does. THOSE ARE THE RULES. And finally, I really, really very strongly (can I emphasize this enough?) believe that tipping should always be something done discretely. In an envelope or given through the receptionist. I mean, does the waiter stand over your table and scan the credit card receipt for your tip? God, I hope not. That’s just awkward.

Anyway, I bring this up because we’re entering the phase of The Planning & Executing of the Wedding, wherein we’ll be paying service providers, many of whom run their own show and I would like to do it the right way – tip where it’s appropriate and well-earned, and not where I’ve been made to feel guilty.

Months of these unanswered, desperately flung texts could make a girl wonder why anyone of her sex would continue to send unrequited booty calls for eighteen months (that’s totally a dude thing to do), but also, they could make a girl really, really annoyed.

The first time it happened, the Boy’s phone was in my purse. We do that. Share phones. Leave them out. Answer whichever one rings. Know each other’s passwords. It’s like peeing with the door open – it might not preserve any sort of relationship mystery but it sure saves pretense and time. Now, having the same phones meant that, when drunk and exhausted from a couple hours of pool volleyball, I grabbed the wrong cellular device from my handbag that night and wanted to know, “Who the eff is Natalie and why is she hello strangering me?”

It quickly went from there to tears. Remember, I was drunk. And not on logic.

Anyway, she’s kept it up over the year and months since, and the Boy’s policy is simply to ignore, ignore, ignore. He’s chronically non-confrontational. Unless it concerns me and the pile of shoes that collects by our front door. Or how many towels I need. Ahem. We made her a household joke until… well, until Friday night when I’d had just. about. enough, borrowed her contact information and suggested none too politely that she might want to stop propositioning my fiance.

“Relax,” came the reply.

Hoooo boy! As the Dork Lord can attest, suggesting that, in a time of emotional turmoil, I should relax produces anything but the desired outcome. Relax. It’s so dismissive and insulting. I’m pissed and I deserve to be! So that’s when I suggested, also impolitely, that she invest in a… personal satisfaction device and a pack of batteries save everyone the trouble.

I know. Crass.

The actual wording of the messages had me laughing until my sides hurt. Not because being mean to strangers is funny (heh), but because really, it’s not every day that you get to play the crazy, “Imma cut you” fiancee. No, I didn’t actually threaten to cut anyone. My threats were a little more vague and reminiscent of that waterfall scene in Last of the Mohicans. Minus the affection.

But then when I was done laughing, I felt just the tiniest bit bad. I mean, yeah, she was desperate and sad, but no real threat to my relationship with the man who is only guilty of two-timing me with trigonometry and C++ textbooks.

“I was mean to a stranger today.” I confessed to my sister what I’d done. The “relax” bit made me grind my teeth. And feel justified. RELAX.

“Yeah, Heather, relax. She didn’t realize that in the past two years he could have possibly NOT been pining over her and her magical vagina.”

I snorted.

“Also, I don’t think that counts as being mean to a *stranger*. A stranger would be the lady at the grocery store who didn’t know she was in your way, she was just trying to do her job and stock a shelf. This is a skank. Skanks aren’t strangers. Everyone knows skanks.”

“Ha! Oh, hey, unrelated, I have a pair of shoes I want to send you.”

“I’ll take ‘em!”

“They’re black. Like your soul.”