intempestanox

You know, I used to love rainy days…really, I did! 

Until this morning…

I get up at 5 am, my shift at work starts at 8.  It takes a little over an hour by bus to get to the store, but knowing the weather and how it effects bus travel, I plan ahead like a responsible young adult, and leave the house earlier than usual.  I get to the first transit center, a park and ride area.  Now, normally, I’d continue on the same bus the entire way, but one particular chunk of the route is so inundated with construction and everyone and their pet monkey getting on the bus and crowding it for dear life, it actually takes even longer to get where you’re going.  I plan for this, too.  I get off the bus at the park and ride, planning to catch another, more direct route to the second transit center, where I can hop the first bus line (but usually an earlier route time, go figure), and continue on to work.

Generally, it takes 15-20 minutes to get to the park and ride stop.  Time it took this morning because of hellacious rains and roads flooding?  40 minutes.  Looks like the plan to leave early was a good one.   Time I arrive at the park and ride: 6:55 a.m.

I wait at the park and ride, irritated because despite having an umbrella, I STILL got soaked to the skin from the waist down.  Anyone who knows me knows two of my pet peeves are wet denim and squishy socks.  I had both.  Add that to the brisk wind, causing me to shiver in the 73 degree weather, and well, I am not a happy llama. 

Now, the connecting bus I need to catch generally shows up around 7-ish, give or take 10 minutes.  Plenty of time, right?  Riiiiight…

7:20 rolls around, I’m watching the rain start falling horizontally in sheets, and the roads continue to flood.  I’m getting a little anxious because if the roads get really bad, METRO will stop service, and I really really don’t want to be stranded anywhere, most especially at work, all the way across town from where I live.  I call my store, since we open at 7:30, and no one answers. 

Great!

I keep this up at 2 minute intervals until 7:30, at which point I call my textbook manager’s cell phone.  I don’t like that I have to call him that early and spend the first 30 seconds apologizing profusely.  I explain the situation and that I’m stranded at the transit center, with the bus being about 20 minutes late and counting.  He asks me if I’m going to attempt to go in, or if I’m going to just try and get back home.  I explain that, given the weather conditions, I have a very real fear that I may not be able to get home if I do somehow manage to make it to work.  Yes, it sucks relying on public transpo, but what can I do when I’m too poor to afford to buy and maintain a car?  (and fuck it all, I am NOT going to ride my bike in this shit!)

He tells me he understands, and my safety comes first.  I tell him I’d been trying to call the store, and he says the opening manager is caught in traffic, so she’s running late, but he’ll tell her for me.  I thank him, but note that I’m still going to keep trying to get a hold of her so she can hear it directly from me.  (I don’t say this part out loud, but this particular manager tends to get pissy when she hears things secondhand, and will no doubt write me up for not showing up/not finding someone to cover my shift.  I want to have clear records of my informing BOTH managers of inclement conditions, so if I do get written up, I can note down dates and times of calls, and what was said in each conversation.) We hang up, and now I start scouring bus schedules to see how I can get back home.

Success!  There is a bus that will drop me off across the street from my apartment complex and it’s scheduled to hit the center at 7:45.  Completely doable as it’s 7:40 by now, and I’m figuring it won’t show up until 8.

I was right.  It showed up at 8:02.  I JUST got home, when again, it usually takes 15-20 minutes to get from this center to my apartment complex.  The entire time I kept trying to call the store, so I could explain to the other manager my predicament, and still no answer, repeatedly.  My last call was about 30 seconds ago, and I finally got through.  Success!!  I explain and she’s surprisingly sympathetic.  But then, it took her 3 hours to drive to work in this mess, so yeah.  I arrange to work longer on Saturday for homecoming, and she’s appeased.  I hope.

So, in summation...it took me over 2 hours, 2 FUCKING HOURS, to make a 40 minute round trip, I got soaked to the skin, lost hours, (which hurts even more because I had to call in sick last week when I was running an inexplicable fever for some reason…), and had to slog through the river my apartment complex sidewalks have turned into, not to mention getting further soaked when assholes in cars continually played Splash the Pedestrian. 

Fuck this.  I’m going back to bed. 

August 7, 2009 
1.  I colored my hair!  It was nice to have an indulgent moment of goodness, and just give myself a treat that I’d been avoiding for so long because I couldn’t afford it.  The color was on sale, and I had a coupon, so I bought it and dyed my hair. 

2.  Mom emailed me new pictures of my nephew!  He’s gotten so big!  It always makes me smile to see him, and as an added bonus, I did get to talk to him on the phone the other day, too!

3.  I heard from my best friend tonight!  We haven’t talked a lot lately, she’s been busy with moving and I…well, I’ve been a bit…off.  But it was great!  Got to chitchat with her for a while and catch up, and find out how her adorable baby is doing!  Made me realize I missed talking with her.  Yay!

August 8, 2009
1.  Woke up this morning and got a good look at my hair after it dried.  I had gotten a different brand of hair color because my usual brand didn’t have my usual color.  I got what I thought was the equivalent, but it wasn’t.  It was much darker.  My hair is that blackish/purplish color of a beautifully ripe eggplant.  After getting over the shock, I realize I kind of like it and I hope it doesn’t fade too soon.  An inadvertent change that I really like, it makes me smile.   That and I’m told I have anime hair now.  Squee!
 
2.  Mom sent me a card, one of those just because cards, letting me know I’m in her thoughts, and that she loves me and is always there for me.  That makes me smile, and feel loved.  It’s a wonderful feeling. 
 
3.  I discovered a new favorite song by accident!  A while ago I got the new(ish) 3 Doors Down album, because it had 3 or 4 songs on it I knew I liked.  Had it cued up on a playlist, and one of the other songs came on that I had never fully listened to.  It made me get up and bop/pseudo-headbang around the apartment, which is something, considering Jenn don’t dance.  I’ve played it repeatedly the last couple of days, and have yet to get tired of it.


August 9, 2009
1.  I woke up this morning, planning on going to work with a smile on my face, regardless of what happened, just to see how it would work.  My coworker said I was energetic, and it was nice, and you know what?  Work was kind of fun, even if it was a little tiring setting up a second part of the law section.  And, because I was determined to smile throughout the day, I had other people smiling back at me! It was nice to see people smile at me in turn.  It really can give you warm fuzzies.

2.  Another work related thing (Considering that’s where I spent my whole day, not too surprising, I suppose).  I had a first year law student come and ask for help, while it was thundering outside.  This knocked down our internet and ICS system.  Yaaay.  BUT, I somehow still managed to help her find her books through an interesting process I don’t care to repeat.  It involved my boss’ cell phone web browser, a 26 page list of title/authors of law books I had on hand for other reasons, and a lot of pure luck.  I still got her her books though, and she was so pleased and so thankful, she swore she’d never shop anywhere else unless she absolutely had to.  And she hoped that whenever she’s in the store, I’m there to help her because I rock.  :)

3.  I found my Trans-Siberian Orchestra CD!!!  Specifically, Beethoven’s Last Night.  I have all their albums, but thought I lost that one in a move.  Going through my software tonight, to find one of my discs for my printer, I saw a blank CD and popped it in the drive.  It’s BLN!!  Squeee!!  I absolutely LOVE Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  All of their other CDs are Christmas music, but this one isn’t, so I popped it in and bopped around to it while making dinner tonight.  Found lost, loved music.  This makes a happy Jenn.

So, this morning started out wonderfully.  There was an incident before work.  According to the police report I had to give, and the incident number, it is officially listed as an assault.  So that’s what I’ll call it.

I get off the bus at about 7:50 am, and start walking to work.  I pass a guy nod vaguely in acknowledgement as we’re on opposite sides of the sidewalk, and I scootch my bag over so it doesn’t hit him as we pass each other.

Ten seconds later he’s behind me.  With his hands on my ass.

I jump and pull away, and turn around, and basically say “Get your fucking hands off me.  Don’t you EVER touch me again.”

He smiles and reaches for me again.  I tell him to fuck off and start hustling down the street to my store, fumbling in my bag for my keys, which have my pepper spray on them, and my cell phone.    He’s coming along in the same direction, and starting to move faster.  This freaks me out so I open my phone and attempt to snap a pic of him, while calling the police, and inform him of this. (unfortunately, you cant' do both with this phone, so I failed to get a picture)  I get to the corner where my store is across the street, take one glance to make sure there’s no traffic and haul ass across the street and inside.  When I glanced back he was running in the opposite direction. I explain what happened to my manager, and she tore out of the store, to see if the guy was still on his way in, and shouted at my coworker to get me the number to the police line.  She dials it for me instead.

I proceed to explain what happened and they promised to dispatch an officer.

A university officer shows up first, she was on her rounds in the area.  She asked what happened and I told her, starting to get a little shaky and teary when I mentioned that he reached for me a second time, because she asked “So, you’re saying it was an attempted sexual assault?”

I don’t know!  I was just freaked out because he was groping my ass and wouldn’t stop!

She took me out to her car, sat me inside and started to get all the details.  While this is happening, two other police cruisers show up.  One was another University cruiser, the other was a city cruiser.  Thankfully, one of the officers in the other cruiser is a regular.  He’s one of the cops who come in and stand as security guards during our busy season, and will occasionally stop by just to grab a drink or a snack and chat.  He’s actually been featured in a few of my stories as Awesome Cop.  It was nice to have a familiar face while I rehashed what happened.  I gave them as detailed a description as I could. Then the city police stepped in and I repeated the story once more. 

Once all the info had been taken, and it was decided that the city police would take custody of the case (since they could search more parts of the city than just the university.)  I got the little card with the incident number, title (assault), officers on the case, and their unit number.  All those happy fun details.

I then take a few minutes to go hide in the bathroom and call my mommy.  I really wanted my mommy.

I decided I’d be well enough to work my shift and did ok for the first half.  I was a little jumpy when people came in, but only a touch more than I usually am.  I took my lunch and came back up to the registers.

Then I get a phone call.  It’s one of the officers who took my report.  They had a suspect in custody, and were bringing him by in a cruiser, so I could ID him.   They pull up, guy gets out of the car and it’s not him.  I don’t know why, but that made me even shakier, and more upset.  After they left, I took another breather in the bathroom, came back out and continued working.

Then a guy comes into make copies.  He’s belligerent over the fact he has to do it himself.  He gets snarly when he finds out the machine is rather subpar and old.  And he gets snappy when he gets told he has to pay for his copies regardless, even if he thinks he shouldn’t because he doesn’t think they’re the best quality.  He snaps at me.

I burst into tears and have a mild panic attack. 

At which point, I realize I can’t stay and finish my shift.  My skin’s crawling, I’m weepy and just not in a great mood.  So I get sent home early, and on the way to the bus stop, my mom is on the phone with me, and understands when I don’t want to hang up unless I absolutely have to.  I have my keys clipped to my belt, like I normally do 99% of the time.  This morning, I threw them in my bag as I ran out the door.

I’ve been beating myself up about the fact that I didn’t have them accessible.  That I didn’t haul off and kick the guy.  But I’m 6’0, and rather hefty.  He topped me by a couple inches, and though we may have weighed the same, he was more muscle-y.  I still feel stupid.  My coworker told me she’s surprised I lasted as long as I did at work, and that she couldn’t have been as strong as I was.  She would have gone straight home.

I still feel stupid, I don’t know how to explain it.  It’s not like I was violently attacked.  I was groped.  I was startled, frightened, but I got away.  My Awesome Cop said I did the right thing, getting away and getting to a public place and getting help, but I still feel shaky.  And dumb.  Physically, I’m not hurt. (Well, I bit my lip when I was groped the first time when I was startled.  Police pointed that out.) But mentally and emotionally, I’m, to quote my grandmother, a basket case. 

It’s just one more thing that gets added to the massive weight that’s already pressing down on me, as melodramatic as it sounds.  I stopped by a free counseling center at school, and talked to a counselor.  I felt self conscious and silly, because this counselor is there to help rape and sexual assault victims, who have it a lot worse than I did.  Logically and intellectually, I know it’s stupid to feel that way, to belittle my emotions because regardless of what happened, I was technically assaulted.  Period.  I caught a bus, and came home and took a shower which has helped with the skin crawling feeling.  

And then I found out just a little bit ago my stepfather is being admitted to the hospital and I don’t know why.  My mom said she’ll call when she has more information.  So, once again.  Enough is enough is enough!!  I don’t know why all this crap is being loaded down on my family and me, but I’d like it to ease, just a little.  Between this and the frightening financial situation I find myself in, the stress and drama at work, the further stress of trying and failing to find another job, I just don’t know how much more I can take. 

I think that’s it for this rant.  I’m going to go make some tea, maybe cook something, which usually relaxes me.  Thanks for listening/reading, as the case may be.