After Work

Despite my incompetence the first time around, they let me drive the forklift at work again yesterday. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. I didn't hit anything this time, but I noticed that I have really lame depth perception re: telling if the forks are an inch or a foot off the floor. I obviously need to play more video games and work on that. That's the only thing I drive, so many people have stepped forward to give me rides home from work, which is really awesome of them. Sometimes they'll be like "I need to get gas real quick; is that all right?" or "I'm going to grab some food real quick; is that all right?" or something to that effect and of course it's always all right. One evening one of them was like, "I need to pick up my husband on the way; is that all right?" and I was amused because what kind of a question is that? What was I going to say, "No, it's not all right, I forbid it"? If it ever comes up again I'm going to say that just for kicks, but this time around I didn't and that was that.

So when time came to leave I got in the middle of her van and she said "You can sit in the front" and I said "We're getting your husband, aren't we? I just assumed you would rather sit next to him" and she laughed because apparently that was funny. She said she felt like a chauffeur but she seemed more like a mom, honestly, seeing as we were in a van and all. I felt like she should be taking me to soccer practice even though I've never been in soccer practice because I've never been on a soccer team. She then decided to just take me home before she got her husband, so that was whatever. But when she decided the same thing the next wing, I wondered aloud whether he knew that I existed and whether he would be upset if he did. I already have one neighbor who hates me because he thought his wife was flirting with me even though she wasn't (a story recounted here), and as hilarious as that is to me, making it a regular thing doesn't seem like a good idea. Some people are so insecure.

​Jocelyn usually takes me home on Fridays and last week she mentioned she had a date right after work, which was weird because I often forget that anyone goes on dates because hardly anyone ever talks about it. Yay for not being at BYU. I inquired about it and learned that there was some institute activity that I hadn't heard about because I hadn't been to institute in a few weeks due to always being at work. In the past I would have been involved in planning and setting it up. She described it as some kind of "sports night", and I don't much care about sports but I try to go to all the institute activities even if only for a while, so I said she could just take me there and I'd slip away and do my own thing. She went and colored in the lobby while I wandered around looking at the various activities, and I saw her a couple times still in the lobby sans date, and I didn't want to get involved and create awkwardness but I figured I could ask about it later and if he'd stood her up I would hurt him.

More notably, it began to dawn on me that there were a lot of couples around. Like, a lot. In fact, in the Mario Kart room I observed that of the twenty other people present, all twenty were paired off. ​One of these things is not like the others. One of these things doesn't belong. It was like prom all over again. ​How strange, I thought, ​has the institute really been stressing this sort of thing in the last couple weeks? In my peripheral vision I noticed one of the teachers approaching and looking, insofar as I could determine, not very happy. The last person who approached me like that was the security guard who kicked me out of Temple Square, so I thought something similar was about to happen, but he stopped and just stood a few feet away for a while and contributed to my discomfort. I would have liked to play Mario Kart but that would have created an odd number so I just went home.

Wandering through campus for unrelated reasons the next day, I spotted the poster for the event and noticed that it was titled "Date Night". A little detail that Jocelyn forgot to mention. Had I known that, I wouldn't have bothered going, but with the way things turned out I am rather amused at my own little accidental act of rebellion. And fortunately Jocelyn's date did show up, just fifty minutes late, so I didn't have to hurt anyone either. This story didn't take as long to tell as I thought it would, but I guess it will have to do.

Dj Mangoo - Eurodancer

I once listened to this on repeat about twenty times. Clearly I need help. This video is pretty cool too, despite its terrible quality. It makes you wonder how often this kind of stuff happens without a camera fortuitously capturing it.