Eartha -- Chapter 6

Holy crap!!! Three months later and I finally continue with the posting of my story. Once again, I am re-writing much of this story and now its slightly different than what I'm posting. I completely re-wrote the last scene in the book, but since that is still several chapters away it really doesn't matter at this point. So, here is the calm before the storm and I'm sure when i re-write it it will be different, but oh well. Enjoy.

Chapter 6

The next few months of school were torture for Eartha. She didn’t feel that she was allowed to speak or write to her parents often enough to make sure they were all right. She was also becoming a nuisance to some of the other students when she continually inquired about the well being of their parents as well. Most assumed she had gone insane from her vision and very few sympathized with her. Only a few of the other precognitives understood how a vision could drive you mad thinking about how you could change what you had seen. Of course, Garrick was still sticking by her side, but she wasn’t entirely sure that he believed what she had seen either. For a while everyone assumed she had just had a really bad dream until the disappearances began.
The first few went unnoticed for several weeks by most people, but Eartha knew each time one of those people disappeared. She often woke in the middle of the night feeling the terror of the person being snatched. She was almost getting used to feeling terrible all the time, but not really. She felt responsible not doing more after each vision. Each time Eartha felt another person taken she went immediately to Dr. Timmus to tell him to expect another missing person and each time she went to speak to Dr. Timmus she became more hysterical. She knew her parents were in danger and she wanted to go home. Dr. Timmus assured her that her parents had been notified and were well prepared for the worst. This did not calm Eartha in the least. She knew quite well that Dr. Timmus had warned many people and several of those people had still turned up missing or dead.
Then the night came that Eartha woke up screaming. No one could calm her or make her stop. Dr. Timmus was sent for. Before he even got to the dorm he could hear her screaming that the murders had begun. Many students had begun to gather around the other two dorm rooms as well. He didn’t bother sending them back to bed because he knew they would not obey.
Dr. Timmus was unable to calm Eartha with words and was eventually force to sedate her. Before she passed out she looked at Dr. Timmus and whispered, “They tied him to a tree.” He was unable to get any more information from Eartha since she had finally gone out, but he knew what this meant. The situation had gone from serious to dangerous with those few words. People were now dying and the only link he had been able to find was a hysterical eight year old who was only able to tell him when to start looking for bodies. The officials had even less to follow and were almost useless when it came to the investigation. The local police in each of the cities where a disappearance was discovered was making most of the progress. Without the connection of all the missing people being psychic the police were just filing them away in the missing persons file because what police force would believe Dr. Timmus if he told them they were all psychics? So far all Dr. Timmus could be thankful for was that the school year was almost over and he would be able to dedicate his summer to tracking down whoever was hunting these psychics down.

“Are you okay?” a timid voice approached her the next afternoon in the garden. She looked up to see Garrick’s worried expression looking down at her.
“Compared to what?” she whispered with a faint smile. He sat down next to her, but he couldn’t muster a smile to return. He just stared for a moment and then finally asked, “What is happening to you?”
“I didn’t know they would hurt so much,” she whispered looking away, “he never told me that they hurt.”
“What hurts?”
“The visions… I saw him die… and I could feel his… fear… his pain,” she was focusing all her energy on keeping her voice perfectly steady and for a moment she accidentally dropped her shields. Garrick’s emotions came rushing at her before she had a chance to block them. She gasped suddenly caught completely off guard by what she felt. The pain and fear that she normally absorbed from people who were upset or worried was not there. All she was receiving from Garrick was love and concern for her well being. He was upset and she felt it, but she could feel the love behind it and it was so much stronger than any negative emotions she had ever felt from anyone. Garrick didn’t seem to notice her surprise and unconsciously he reached over towards Eartha, “I’m so sorry…” he whispered and he touched her bare cheek. She pulled back out of habit and she regretted it. He pulled his hand back quickly realizing what he had just done, but she smiled to reassure him that it was okay. She didn’t know how to explain the feeling that she had just absorbed. It was the oddest sensation… she actually felt better, revived somehow. No one had ever made her feel better by touching her. It had always been a negative experience and yet, she felt stronger. Of course, she was still upset about seeing that man, but she no longer felt the exhaustion that the vision had created. She distrusted the feeling entirely and quickly decided not to tell Garrick what she felt. It was a fluke… it had to be. People drained her of energy. They didn’t give it back to her.

The school became a very tense place for the last couple weeks of school. Especially for Eartha. Everyone was more frightened of her now than they ever had been before. Now, not only was she hiding what she was from everyone, but also on top of that she was predicting murders. Even for precognitives this was unusual. Most seers could not predict exact events or anything that specific. Eartha had no problem with the other students keeping their distance now. She was more focused on going home for summer vacation and she was worried about her parents. She knew there was a reason she was getting these visions. And she was positive it was personal, that this would affect her directly. She knew that whoever was attacking these people was going to go after her parents sooner or later. Somehow she felt that if she were there to watch over them they would no longer be in danger.
Her finals she rushed through and didn’t really care if she did not do very well on them. She wanted nothing more than to go home and she didn’t care about anything that was keeping her from her goal. On the final day of school when all the other students were throwing end of year parties she was locked in her room packing her bags. The next morning she was the first student out on the platform waiting for the subway that would take her back to her parents. She knew it wouldn’t even be there until eleven o’clock, but she was still waiting on the platform at seven.
Around eight o’clock she heard the first sounds of other people coming to the platform. “Why am I not surprised to find you out here?” a familiar voice asked.
“Where else would I be?” she returned. She didn’t bother turning around, Garrick knew well enough not to touch her. “Aren’t you going to eat breakfast before you go?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied.
“You do know the subway wont get here before eleven right?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Then why don’t you eat first?” he asked.
“I’m not hungry,” she said, “You know, if you want to go to breakfast there’s nothing stopping you.”
“I ate before I came up,” he said.
“Then why are you so concerned about me getting breakfast?” she snapped.
“I’m not,” he shot back, “I just don’t understand the stupidity of standing up here for the next few hours when you know you aren’t going to get out of here any quicker than the rest of us.”
“I just wanted to be away from them and this would be the quietest place to think and I won’t lose track of the time this way,” she explained.
“Whatever,” he mumbled. She heard him walk away and leave the platform. She glanced over her shoulder to see if he had gone for good. She was alone on the platform again. She felt bad now. She knew she had been rude to Garrick for no reason. He had been nothing but supportive ever since he found out exactly what she was. She considered going after him, but something kept her in her place. It was a feeling in her stomach. A fear that warned her not to get to close. Never get too close. Any friends that she had ever made in the past had disappeared and it hurt like hell every time she lost another one. If she never got close she couldn’t get hurt. She heard footsteps again and she receded into the shadows like she unconsciously always did.
“Eartha?” Garrick’s confused voice called out. She stepped back out surprised to see him back. “Oh, hiding again,” he said knowingly as he held out his hand with two good-sized muffins. “Here,” he said prompting her to take one, “Blueberry and cherry.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly taking the blueberry muffin.
“No, no.” he laughed, “They’re both for you. I told you I already ate.” He put the cherry muffin in her hand. He brushed the few stray crumbs off his hands and pants. She took a bite of the blueberry muffin and automatically began to feel guilty. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
“Why, it’s not your fault the muffins are crumbly,” he said not realizing she wasn’t talking about the muffins.
“No, I mean for being rude to you before,” she explained quickly looking away.
“Ah!” he said dismissively, “I’m used to your mood swings by now.” He grinned at her in his goofy way that told her that she hadn’t offended him at all and that he was surprised that she had even brought it up.
“So, where are you going over summer vacation?” he asked changing the subject.
“I don’t know,” she replied, “We don’t normally go anywhere. Too many people exhaust me and most entertaining places are pretty crowded in the summer. I don’t think it will be any different this summer.”
“Well that sucks,” he said lightly.
“No, it’s peaceful,” she smiled, “It’s good for me.”
“I’m going skiing,” he stated proudly.
“Ugh. Haven’t you had enough of cold weather?” she asked.
“We’ve been cooped up all year. I didn’t get to see any snow except through windows,” he reminded her.
“I’m ready to see the sun again… and my parents,” she said. A dark shadow seemed to cover her face as the thought of her parents in danger crossed her mind once again. They were home all alone with no idea how much danger they were really in. No one knew what was coming except her. They hadn’t seen what the others had done to that man… just for not joining their group. Her parents were on the list… she knew it. All these visions were some kind of warning for her. They were telling her to go to her parents and not leave them. The moment she left them they would be gone from her life forever.
“Hey,” Garrick broke in on her thoughts, “They’re gonna be fine.”
“Yeah,” she replied halfheartedly. She looked over at him and noticed he wasn’t convinced by her reply so she smiled at him. Garrick wasn’t entirely convinced by her smile either, but knowing that he could never really insist that her parents were going to be fine he didn’t say anything. Before he had a chance to lighten the conversation again the subway arrived. Neither of them had realized that a number of other students had joined them on the platform or how much time had passed.

My October

As it turns out the month of October was extremely busy for me. It started off with Nick and I returning to the grand town of Vermilion South Dakota for..... D Days!!! Woo hoo! So exciting. D Day (for those of you fortunate enough NOT to live in Vermilion) if SDU's Homecoming week. What it boils down to is a college town of several thousands students all getting wasted and stumbling around town. No worries of drunk driving because pretty much everything is within walking distance for you to stumble to. Here is Ashley stumbling.

Most of the day we spent drinking at the apartment of my cousins Ashley and Spencer. We ate chili and chocolate/peanut butter cake (not necessarily in that order) and Ashley's dumb cat, Vic Mackey, climbed inside my book bag to take a nap. He's a lazy piece of crap as you can see. We played drunken board games and took a walk around the neighborhood. Of course at that point half the crew had disappeared or passed out and we were left with only a few people who I like to call The Lasters. Yep, that's right, I'm the only girl who can hold her liquor apparently. Shortly after this picture was taken even Nick was passed out on the loveseat. Dustin went home a little while after that leaving Spencer and me to reluctantly go to bed at well. Boo, to all you lazy drinkers.

So that was the weekend of October 13th and it was highly entertaining. I mean where else can you yell out "STD Days!" and actually get people to cheer?

A brief stop on Tuesday October 16th, Boss's Day, since I was the only person in my office to remember and buy cards and bagels for everyone. Yeah, I'm the good one.

I took three days off after that which gave me plenty of time to clean out the storage room in the basement and turn it into a makeshift bedroom for when Ashley, Spencer, Dustin and Erica came down that weekend for Hutch's big Halloween Bash. I also managed to make a lot of food those three days: cupcakes, cookies, chili cheese bean dip, lots of jello shots and my green mixture that would be my "Absinthe" at the party that weekend. I also managed to do some laundry and other boring stuff that would make me a good little house wife if I had a husband :D

So the big Halloween Bash comes next. Where I went as the Green Fairy aka the Absinthe Fairy, Nick went as Duffman, Kristi was a mechanic, Madonna was a nurse, and Hal..... well, no one really knows what Hal was supposed to be, but eventually he gave in and just accepted that everyone thought he was Willy Wonka from the newer version with Johnny Depp. My costume got plenty of praise, mostly because my 'absinthe' was a tasty concoction that everyone wanted a piece of. I got a lot of people wasted that night between my 'absinthe' and the jello shots. There was the usual drama that goes around every year and because Hutch is usually a huge asshole his skank was there. He promised she wouldn't come, but this is a Hutch promise which usually means little to nothing. I think she got the point that no one likes her when two people rang out simultaneously "The Skank?" when someone asked where she was.... she was, of course, within earshot when this happened. Plus I kept referring to her as "the wench" all night because she was so appropriately dressed as a wench. I guess you can't really argue with what you are.

We all had fun regardless of the drama and the Skank because we were all wasted and my cousins were in town and still willing to drink a little more when we got back to the townhouse later that evening. Unfortunately they all wore exceedingly lame costumes which forced me to make fun of them throughout most of the night. I passed out really quick that night and still managed to wake up with the glue like glitter plastered to my face. That stuff took at least two showers to get off. I was pretty impressed.

The following and last weekend of the this fine month just so happened to be the busiest weekend of the month. Friday started off with an early departure from work to get to a wedding in Lincoln. I didn't take my camera in, but Nick got a bunch of pictures. I had somehow obtained a hole in the side of my cheek the day before making me completely miserable. Every time I opened my mouth it hurt, chewing food was painful and bordered on impossible and the pain was spreading throughout my mouth and onto my head. It didn't matter how much Advil I took I was miserable. I went back to the hotel (which was pretty cool since it was in an Embassy Suites) and went to bed with the TV on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It was a pretty pathetic night and not much better of a morning the next day. Nick was being the best boyfriend in the world about my whining and crying and after watching the truly fantastic movie Across the Universe we went to Walgreens to get something to fix my problem.

That evening we had another party to go to at Madonna's brother's house (another yearly tradition). By this time my cheek had been sufficiently numbed up and I was in a much better mood. I was lame and wore the same costume because I had put so much effort into it, but Nick went as White Goodman and Kristi was a blue fairy. Madonna and her siblings all dressed up as musicians which ranged from Beethoven to Michael Jackson to Dolly Parton.

The party didn't quite manage to live up to the Drama of a Hutch party, but it still managed to be entertaining and fun. Nick got a lot of comments on his costume which was nice for him since he took so much effort on it (you know asking his mom to sew all the pieces together). :D And yes he really did shave his facial hair to look like White Goodman's handlebar 'stach. Sad.

Sunday was the 28th and my mother's birthday. We had already decided earlier in the week that we would be unable to go out on her actual birthday due to the fact that I was going with Nick and Kristi to see Carlos Mencia who was in Omaha for the first time.

He liked our crowd so much he stayed on the stage for two hours! That's pretty awesome considering most comedians can barely come up with a hours worth of entertainment. The comedians that were with him were all fantastic too and I think at least a couple of them will soon be doing shows of their own. Fantastic. No pictures though. No one brought their camera.

On Halloween Day I had to work. Duh, it was Wednesday, obviously. That didn't stop me from dressing up. I went Emo for Halloween! Of course no one actually got that because the Emo revolution hasn't been around as long. I explained to a couple staff members that emo kids are pretty much our goth kids of old with a slightly better fashion sense. Except they apparently really enjoy having their hair in their eyes because they don't want to see the horrible-ness of the world. Don't cry emo kid!

So that was my fantastic October. And for the first time real pictures in my Blogger. Yeah, I had that one flip off picture several months back, but that doesn't count because I just found that picture on Photobucket especially for that blog. Well, let's hope that November has something to offer us that can try to match up with October :)

What is a bookshelf for, again?

I just saw a bit on the Today show that annoyed me. Oh there's a shock, something's annoying Courtney again. The bit was titled "how to decorate a bookshelf" which doesn't sound as ridiculous as it really was. It was how to place items on your book shelf to make it look as pretty as possible, which meant adding useless decorative boxes and bowls that serve absolutely no purpose. Why does this annoy me? Hmm, let me explain:

The purpose of a bookshelf is to place your books on it, right. You can order them however you see fit (I personally normally put books on my shelves according to size, but whatever you fancy is fine). What a book shelf doesn't need is useless crap that is just going to block my way to getting to my books. I don't need a bowl of potpourri sitting on some of my books that I laid sideways because they were to big to put upright. My books don't need to smell like country apples or fresh linen no matter how much i like those smells. I also don't need fabric colored boxes taking up precious book space. I have many books, all of which I would like to get to should I choose to read them again.

My bookshelf is not there to please your eyes, its there to hold my books. If books aren't pleasing to your eyes just the way there are then why the hell do you have a book shelf at all? I actually need several more book shelves for all the books I have and I don't plan on squandering any of my space on a decorative misshapen bowl just to make my guest visually appeased.

In other words, kiss my butt you silly decorative bowl people!!!!

Regina Spektor

I'm not huge on concerts. In most cases I couldn't care less about seeing a person live. I usually only go to concerts if someone asks me, someone buys tickets as a gift for me, or I'm just at a bar and some random band decides to start playing and interrupts my conversation. It's not that I'm against going to concerts or anything, obviously I've been to a few, I just don't get into it as much as some people. If I have their CD or if they are on my iPod that's good enough for me. If I can sing along with them in my car I'm happy. On the other hand when I'm at a concert and the entire mass of annoyance begins to sing along with the person on stage I get pretty annoyed. I came to hear them sing, not you, asshole. On top of that you are bound to have some Sasquatch with an over-sized head and obnoxious Friends standing right in front of you. Another thing I dislike is the fact that the people who price everything at the concert halls apparently come from the future where priced have inflated to twice their normal price. A shot glass sized drink of mostly cranberry juice and very little vodka can set you back $4 to $5.... which is why I choose to go thirsty. I'd rather pass out from dehydration and sue the hall later if it comes to that. Same goes for the concert tee's. What planet do these people come from that $30 for a plain tee is reasonable? Especially when I can easily go online and get the t-shirt half priced. And who's really wants to argue with me about whether or not I got a band tee at the actual concert or not? Putting all my insanity aside for a moment I enjoyed the Regina Spektor concert this past Friday.

My roommate asked me a few weeks back if I was interested in seeing Regina Spektor at Sokal Auditorium on Friday October 5th. I said sure and immediately forgot about it. She reminded me about a week before the concert which was nice because then I didn't overlap any plans. My first course of action was to make fun of the tickets. Since she ordered them online you have to print off an e-mail ticket. It says on the ticket present this whole page to be scanned which I thought was amusing because how many people are actually cutting up their print off before they go to the concert? Seriously, guys? But they had to print it on there so I assume there is more than one moron in this world.

Next we got there only a tiny bit early and we had a chance to check out the merchandise which induced the rant about about the $30 concert tee. There weren't any specifics on the tee to warrant the high price. It's not like it said 'bad-ass concert at sokal auditorium 10/5/2007'. Nothing even close. Just an imprint of the CD cover on the front of a black or white tee. No thanks.

So, we piled into the mass in front of the stage and the opening act came on a few moments later. He was okay. Nothing note worthy. There was no back-up band for either the opening act or Regina Spektor so the opening act used his iPod for the drums and other instruments that he didn't have. He then proceeded to have a conversation with his iPod which can apparently speak. It was cute the first couple of times, but it just got annoying towards the end and a few in the crowd agreed since they decided to heckle him about it. Then he was done and we all just milled about for a half an hour waiting for the reason we all gathered together in the apparently non-air conditioned building.

I thought I had a pretty good view of the stage since I had been able to see the opening act just fine and I had a pretty good view of the piano set slightly off center. But anyone who's been to a concert knows that you are bound to get at least one asshole standing somewhere near you to ruin the whole experience for you. My roommate and I were lucky enough to get three of these special people directly in front of us. The girl to our left had so major 80s perm fro going on only secondary to the fact that her head was already massive. She was about my height, but with the frizz she was quite nicely blocking the whole stage. The special ed in the center turned out to be the most obnoxious when a moment after Regina Spektor asked people to not be so loud she started talking as loud as possible to her two friends, asking them if she thought it was a joke, because she was positive that it was just a joke. Her friends quickly pretended not to be with her and scooted in opposite directions. The third one was probably the best of the three because she was a little too far away from me to block my view or annoy me with loud talking during quiet songs.

Regina Spektor was absolutely fantastic. She was friendly with the crowd, but she didn't waste too much time talking between songs. She wanted to sing as much as we wanted to hear her sing. She got through quite a bit of her two CDs, but had managed to miss two of my favorite songs; Fidelity and Samson. I wasn't too upset though since I did get to hear both On the Radio and Better. There were a few songs I could have done without, but I;m sure someone else enjoyed them so I won't bitch too much on that score. Then she was leaving already. I really wasn't going to hear my two songs and that really sucked. Of course there was the encore and as long as Regina wasn't as much of a bitch as Liz Phair was (who walked out after her sent and never came back out even though people were cheering for a good 5 to 7 minutes for her) I'd get another chance of hearing one of them. She sang three more songs, but no luck and I figures that was it.... who sings a whole other set for their encore? Well, that wasn't it because finally! I heard the familiar start to Fidelity. Sweet! At least my roommate got to hear her favorite song. Then she impressed me even more with two more songs the last being my all time favorite: Samson and that made the night for me.

I bitched about massive head girl in front of me for most of the way back to the car, but felt better after I was done. And that was it. A good concert overall with my few complaints about concerts in general. I guess my annoyance boils down to that whole problem with me hating people again. Since I hate people so much it's hard for me to be in a mass of them and not get annoyed by at least one of them. Working in service related jobs made me the way I am so you can all blame yourselves if you were ever the asshole or bitch at a restaurant or retail store for people like me.

Headache

I've had a headache for over a week now. It's like my brain doesn't want to accept the recent mental blow it took so it is rebelling against me. Imagine, if you can, the worst possible news you could hear.... no, that's not right, because there is one piece of news that I can imagine that would be worse and that would be her death.... this news was about a half a step up from death though. So imagine the second worse thing you could imagine hearing and you may understand why my brain is rebelling. On top of the boarder line migraine I also felt like my chest was going to cave in. Thankfully, that feeling dissipated after the initial shock.

My headache starts just behind my right eye and then pulsates diagonally to the back left hand side of my head. If the only thing I can think of is how much my head hurts I can't dwell on less pleasant things, right? Sigh.

So, what exactly was this terrible news? I can't tell you. That's why I told you to use your imagination. So, why am I writing a blog about it if I can't even talk about it? Anyone who's a real writer wouldn't ask that question, but for all of you who are just readers just know that the way to get something out of your head and off of your heart when you are a writer is to write it out. Remember when your high school councilor told you to keep a journal and to write in it when you are frustrated or angry? Yeah, they weren't suggesting that just to annoy you. It actually works for some of us. They also suggest writing a letter to the person you are angry with with no intentions of sending it. So, let me try that:

Dear Fuck-up,
I hope you rot in hell very soon.
Sincerely,
Someone who really hates you.

Hmmm, not quite as satisfying as I'd hoped, but oh well. Hopefully my online journal will help me a little more. So, here's the other thing that has been bothering me recently. When I found this awful news out I texted a friend. I was supposed to hang out with him the next day and I was hoping we could move that day up so I could try to distract myself from the crap news I had just received. I told him what was going on and unlike the couple other people I told he wasn't the most sympathetic about my issue. You see everyone else that knows what's going on were willing to drop everything to let me talk it out. This friend insisted that he couldn't change plans with his horribly skanky ex-girlfriend who had recently come back into his life. He had no reason why he couldn't change his plans, just that it was impossible. For some dumb reason I still went over to his house and the skank was there (of course), which made it impossible for me to talk about my issue and since I hate her so much, I was just angry most of the night. Sure it got my mind off of the bad news, but it didn't make me feel any better either.

Then a week goes by and I don't here from this so called friend. At this point I've revealed my problem to three other people. My boyfriend, my real best friend, and my boss. Three people that won't talk about it to anyone else and that will sympathize and help distract me. My boss I also told because I needed a few days off because of the issue. When I got back from my time off I realized I hadn't heard from my other friend since I had told him. This kind of pissed me off, but I didn't realize how much until the next day when this friend texted me. TO BORROW A BOOK. Not to ask my how things were going or if I'd heard anything new, nope. He wanted to borrow a book. Nice. So I let him have it. I told him that I regretted telling him about my problems because he obviously cared more about his skanky girlfriend who treated him like shit all the time than a friend who was there for him when his world fell apart.

I haven't spoken to him since the last text yesterday afternoon. I told him that luckily for him my phone was dying and I couldn't talk to him anymore. He hasn't tried to get a hold of me since then which really doesn't help his case. Let me be a little more fair and give you his excuse for not calling. He said it made him angry to think about it and he was waiting for me to bring it up again.

Gee, that's a good excuse.... I guess. My boss said that I could call her anytime, day or night. My best friend cried with me and offered all the assistance she could (which I had to decline because she wasn't supposed to actually know) and my boyfriend tried to distract me from thinking about it, but was very sympathetic about it at the same time. These are the reactions that people should give when something really crappy happens.... but I guess his feeling about the situation far outweighed mine. How selfish of me to not think about how this would affect him.

Sigh. Well, that helped with my issue with my friend. I got it off my chest if nothing else. Angry texts don't really get across the emotions of a good blog :D I didn't really expect to feel better about the real issue at hand after writing this blog (since I can't say anything definitive). That relief should come, in part, in a couple of days when it will be somewhat resolved.... and hopefully someone will be going to prison. It won't remedy what was done, but it will help knowing it won't happen again.

Okay, I'm done with my cryptic bullshit. You can go back to living your lives now.

Time to Clean Out the Ears.... Again

Yet another commercial I misheard.....

It was for Ford and it was talking about how they are always here for us and they have good safety ratings.... blah, blah, blah.....

At the end of the commercial there is a father/son moment. The kid looks like he's about 20, but they are attempting to play him off as 16. The father holds out the key to the kid and says, "You drive." and the kid looks all shocked and says, "Are you kidding me?"

Of course that's not what I heard. What I heard was, "Are you shitting me?" which would probably be more accurate with today's teenagers, but not likely to be on a commercial. So I jerked my head up and stared for a moment at the TV and again wondered, why don't they just put more reality in commercials? I can guarantee more people would remember that stupid commercial if the kid actually had said, "Are you shitting me?"

A Child's Logic

Everyday I use the symbol "@" when I'm filling out appointment cards for patients as they leave. Not because it really saves me much time but because I like the way it looks. I mean, how long does it really take to cross a "t" as opposed to putting a little circle around your "a"? Plus it reminds me of when i was a little kid. Odd, right?

Well, everyone has seen the symbol since they were able to read the keys on a keyboard, whether your first keyboard was a computer or a typewriter you could always see the little "@" above the number two. As a child I always assumed I knew what this symbol meant because only one thing really meant sense. It had to mean AROUND (a-round... as in "a" with a little round circle around it). What the hell else would possible make sense? Plus I always saw it on appointment cards, much like the ones I write out for patients. "Dentist appt. 7/24 @ 12:00" That makes sense, right? No one shows up right at 12:00. You either show up a few minutes early or a few minutes late, but it's AROUND 12:00. That was my child's logic.

I don't know when I found out that it actually meant AT, but I know I was disappointed. AT makes no sense. It's not like AT is a long word that you really need to shorten up is it? It's two letters, for Christ's sake! Even though I know what it really means I still like to think of it as meaning around instead of at. Besides how many of our patients actually show up AT their scheduled time? Oh, around two a month.... and it's usually a fluke. They were running late and just barely managed to show up on time. It's never on purpose, I promise.

That's all. I don't know why I felt the need to post this in a blog, but at least it's not just another boring old chapter in my now obsolete story :P