wednesday and it's terrible side-kick, purple oreo.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Wednesday.
Sigh.
It's a dull, dreary, lethargic, sleepy, frustrating,
insert-your-own-derogatory-adjective-here kind of wednesday morning. I seriously think that i've been hit by a wrecked wednesday blues plague or something more terrible than that, or both.
And it's not helping that all the calls that i've answered so far, since i logged on for work at 8am, were from typical run-off-the-mill, kiasu, fucked-up rude Singaporeans who ridiculously claim,
"i never used my internet on my handphone you know, why you all charged me in my singtel bill. pls waived off. i'm not going to pay. i don't care. i will report this to the press." If i weren't afraid of losing my job, i would have match their ridiculousness and responded with a,
"madam, if it were one or two dollars, sure i will waived for you because you might have accidentally press the browser tab on your mobile and not know it. but the amount has reached up to a few hundred dollars, $102 to be exact, and you're telling me you did not use it? are you as stupid as you sound?" These people made me so ashamed to be a Singaporean.
Another frustration is with this blog skin. My dearest cousin Nasiha promptly suggested that i change the background to white cuz it's more
"cheery" and besides, she loves black but it just
"dampened her mood and made her feel gloomy" at the sight of this page. And since i loved her so much, i decided to listen for once and changed it. I liked how that white blends with the red and black, but the poster/banner that i made hastily yesterday annoyed the hell out of me. Something is horribly wrong with that banner above, and i hate that. And somehow it just makes me hate wednesdays more.
Hmmm. Some people think that mondays are bad. They delude themselves.
You can brace for a monday. Mondays are notorious. Mondays are evil and nasty and badyukky. Everybody knows that. So they're prepared. People who are about to face a new monday are among the most stoic creature on the planet. Tuesday is okay too; because it's an achievement to state that you've braved through monday, so it's a cause for celebration.
But wednesday...wednesday simply catch you off your guard. At the end of your long monday and tuesday at work or at school, you get out of the car with a confident grin, patting yourself on the back that you successfully navigated a possibly horrible day without losing any major appendages. You go to bed happy and content. But then…
WEDNESDAY happens. And you have to do it again. And this time you’re not prepared.
OH THE HORROR.
It’s only about 10:30 in the morning, but at the moment (whenever it is that we have snack in this cesspool they call a call center) existence has suddenly lost its meaning.
You ever have days like that?
I mean, there's something about this particular wenesday that just bites. I dunno why. I haven’t had any kind of bad cases at work that i haven't solved, i am not in an argument with my dearest fiancee, my supervisors are leaving me alone and not ticking me off, and manchester united is still top of the table. But strangely, there is just something about today that rubs me the wrong way.
What’s really the worst about this day is that i keep being all bitter and cynical about things that don't really matter and really aren't that bad. And my particular obsession at the moment is that wretched Purple Oreo my colleague, Devi, keeps munching.
You know.
Purple Oreos. Those things with the purple cream.
They’re weird. It’s still very obviously an Oreo. Black cookie with cream in the middle and all. But still, it doesn’t look all that appetizing. So… what’s the point of the Purple Oreo? Whose idiot idea was this?
“Hey guys. I’ve got this great idea! Why don’t we put blue and red food coloring in the next batch of cream and make Purple Oreos!
“Why.”
“Because they’ll be neato-keen looking!”
“Wow! That’s a great idea. You deserve a raise, Peter...”Sigh. Bless Peter and his heart. Whoever he is.
“Life is full of precluded possibilities.” That’s from Calvin and Hobbes. I think. And it scares me to think that cartoon comic strips made for my little nieces and nephews are having a way-too-profound dialogues. I’ve never really thought about it that hard, but it really is true. Kids these days are growing too fast. Life is getting to their head faster than Cristiano Ronaldo's dive and everything around seems a little weirder than it's supposed to be. Just like Devi's purple oreo.
Right now, i’m very strongly considering grabbing that purple oreo from her hand, crushing it under my foot, and walking out of SingTel building, cabbing over to drag my baby boy from whatever he's doing and taking him over to Downtown East to meet my baristas and do weird stuff, or back to my house to laugh and joke together, and forget completely about next call i will be picking up, and wednesdays and that stupid purple oreo.
*inhale, exhale*
But i can’t really do that. I know fully well that after Devi finish eating her oreo, i'll have to walk right back into the building and back to my desk and explained to that very difficult customer why we cannot give him a phone for free just because he's careless enough to lose it.
So i stare back at that purple oreo that has somehow now come to represent everything that’s going wrong at the moment. And I think about it some more. Of course, a yellow oreo would probably look worse, so i really should shut up and stop complaining. They just do it so that people will buy more of their product. We’re all just trying to make our way in the world. And finally I understand what this is all about.
You have to keep chugging along. Keep living, working, playing, and everything else, and occasionally come up with the strangest idea that you’ve ever had because maybe, just maybe, people that you wished you weren’t having to coexist with will like it. Maybe. And even if you don’t care, you’d better put on a happy face for the camera, because we’re all going somewhere where everybody will either be ogling at our ass, or spitting into our faces. And this stupid idea, this Purple Oreo...it's just one more step in showing that the world is revolving and evolving.
So i humbly asked Devi for one, though, she gave me two (bless her heart) and i eventually braced myself to take a bite.
It tasted pretty good actually. And i realised now how much i hate myself more than the purple oreo.
