Meccanized

From philosophical, back to petty and trivial:

Strangers (and friends … cough *Shelly* cough) who criticize my sandwich as I am having it made, you are Meccanized.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about timing (which I have Meccanized over and over again pretty much for my whole life).

This past week in particular, there has been a lot of timing snafus — I’ve felt like Little Bobby Buttons (i.e. Benjamin Button, for those of you who aren’t a certain industry analyst who misnamed the movie) fairly frequently. Some good (narrowly avoiding getting rained on because I opted to sprint across the crosswalk rather than wait for the next light, thereby making into my office building before it started pouring) some less than good (more just-missed busses than I care to admit, hearing things in the present that I wish I had heard years ago).

It’s sad to think how many things don’t happen or don’t work out because of a few ticks around a clockface. Then again, it makes the things that do work out that much more special, because you appreciate how close you could have come to never experiencing them at all.

… but jury duty really grinds my gears. Especially the way this state conducts its juror summons. I’ve ranted a lot about this today, though, so I will simply sum up my experience:

On the plus side:

- The jury assembly room is really nice (though the chairs are horrific. I think I permanently lost an inch or two from having to hunch in them all day, and those are not inches I have to spare.).

- The instructional video went down smoothly with a big heaping spoonful of irony. 2 minutes in when the narrator said “You may not get selected for jury duty. Don’t worry — it’s nothing personal,” I started laughing pretty loudly and didn’t stop for … oh … the rest of the morning.

On the minus side:

- There is very much a social hierarchy in the land of Civic Duty not dissimilar to high school. And, also not dissimilar to high school, I was not one of the cool kids. I was working the whole time, brought my lunch instead of purchasing food, and actually asked questions of the clerks in front of the room (I’m curious about our city’s legal system … so sue me!).

- Anyone you meet while serving jury duty is a fairweather friend. A very nice 40-ish gentleman sat down next to me at the start of the day. We chatted, discussed our work and our hopes and dreams — it was very pleasant. I thought we had a real connection. They called his name and excused him, and it was like I didn’t even exist. I got a hurried and incomplete “nice to meet y…” as he gleefully fled the building. I felt so discarded.

So, all in all, an annoying thing to have to deal with but not a totally terrible experience.

And I forgot the biggest plus: the recommendations for how I could get out of serving, my favorite of which was to swallow a bunch of coins so I couldn’t make it through the metal detector at the entrance to the court house.

Jury duty, you are Meccanized.

You know what really grinds my gears?

When people say ATM Machine.  Automated Teller Machine…Machine.   Same for SCUBA gear, and The La Trattoria, but the ATM one has always annoyed me.

I heard this verbal misstep earlier today, and then had a “Oh, crap, did I just say that aloud” moment when I muttered “one too many machines” and had the man taking out cash in front of me glare in my general direction.

And I wonder why I get hit by strangers on the street.

You know what really grinds my gears?  When you slip/trip and fall on the wet pavement outside of a restaurant (and drop your groceries) and the diners inside press their sausage fingers and fat faces against the window to try to get a better look as you flounder helpless and wet to collect your food before it rolls into the street.

I was hurrying back from the store to avoid getting soaked when I had a foot malfunction on the wet pavement and ended up on my butt, on the sidewalk, in an inch of water, with my paper grocery bag (never have I hated SF’s no plastic bag law as I did in that moment) tipped over and flooding next to me.

Fortunately, a very nice homeless man who had asked me for change minutes before came over and helped me up and helped me pick up my spilled items (he was unable to salvage my pride, which by then had leaked out of my body and into the gutter on California street).  He refused to take anything but a thank you, and I would like to De-Meccanize him — for helping me and for restoring my faith in humanity.

However, wet pavement and the collection of people at the Curbside Cafe who looked on as I hit a weekend low (and the ground), you are Meccanized.

I need a hug.  And some dry pants.

Pet owners who dress up their animals grind my gears. This, however, makes me happy beyond belief (and I feel fits with the spirit of Meccanized.com quite well):

http://petswhowanttokillthemselves.com/

Enjoy!

1-25) Your “deep,” “poetic,” “revealing,” “vulnerable,” smarmy, self-important (note the lack of quotations for those last two), “insightful,” “clever” overshares.

I’ve read two articles in the last 20 minutes on this meme (one in the Times and one in Time — much prefer Time’s account) and it appalls me that it is making that much of a splash.  Yes, the Internet brings a whole new level of “we are the world”-ness to all of our lives.  Or just a whole new level of annoyance (this time without the threat of repercussions for non-compliance, a la the chain letters of my youth).

Facebook meme, you are Meccanized.  (Sadly, I know this post is going to mean a lot more tags for me over the next few days … like the time my mass e-mail asking people not to text me on my work phone was met with 15 pointless texts of “hi … whatcha thinkin’?”)

Some guy half-sat on me on the bus just now! Do people not see me?!

Maybe I should Meccanize myself for being too small (or, you know, cloaked in invisibility).

Update: I think said gentleman saw that I was typing this because he just got huffy and stood up. Passive aggressive mission accomplished!

Dear Madam,

Let me preface this by saying that I am quite certain that my diminutive stature made you think that I was undeserving of a full seat on the bus just now. However, I assure you — my legs, though smaller than most people’s, are just as tired as anyone else’s (If you prick me, do I not bleed?), and my bag is probably heavier than any other bag on the #3 bus this evening.

I had every right to occupy one full seat on my own. I am a tax-paying (and more importantly, a muni-pass holding) citizen of this great city, and my butt should be welcome in any seat without the possibility of being violated by someone else’s (namely your) butt and grocery bags.

And another thing. There were several other open seats in the front of the bus even closer to the door where you walked in than the one that I had chosen for my own. You opted to walk past those seats and sit, quite literally, on top of my lap. Thus, one can only assume that you got some sort of a power trip from taking over the personal space of a random stranger who was minding her own business, listening to her music and reading her book. That is disturbing on a whole different level. Are you the kind of person who just takes whatever she wants without question or concern? First my seat on the muni, next perhaps a child at the supermarket. It is a slippery slope, ma’am.

And I also do not appreciate the choice words you yelled at me when I asked what you were doing and (maybe not so) politely requested that you sit somewhere else. I am none of those things that you branded me, and I didn’t like the snickers that your unfair typecasting evoked from the rest of the bus-riding population.

I just hope you realize that as soon as you entered by body bubble, I was already mentally writing this blog post.

Crazy lady, you are Meccanized. And, for those of you who are concerned, I did not give up my seat — instead, I held my ground and used my debate skills from my days as a one-woman debate team to keep my seat.

I hate making them.  I hate dealing with the fallout of making them.  And I really hate the insecurity that follows making them.

And today, I got to experience all 3.  Yuck.

Rookie mistakes, you are Meccanized.

(I have cheerier things to Meccanize that will be covered in due time, but I just needed to vent.)