Among my many hustles, I work as a personal concierge. I got into it after a friend suggested that I combine all the services I offer, plus anything else my clients might need that I'd be willing to do (big shout out to Ginger Latte) into sort of a package deal. It was weird at first because I got completely overwhelmed and decided not to do it because it would take too much startup. As soon as I decided not to do it, I got my first client. LOL.
This client is older, a business owner herself, and I just adore her. She's my perfect client because 1. She doesn't try to haggle me on pricing. She understands the value of the service I provide, and she respects and appreciates what I do. 2. She pays. ON TIME. 3. She is definitely one who I can see being a life long client because she's always busy and always has errands to run, paperwork to do, just STUFF that she finds tedious and annoying but that I love to do. 4. She almost always has hard-to-find items on her lists so it's like a scavenger hunt for me, tracking down everything. Most people hate running around from store to store, especially when it's really hot or really cold...but I love it, and i'm SO GLAD there are tons of people willing to pay me to do so. :-))
Today, after doing some light computer work at her house after she left to go to a doctor's visit, one of my errands was to go to Home Depot and buy, among other things, shipping boxes; particularly, a cardboard shipping tube. I spent hours in HD gathering all the items on my list but i could NOT find the tube. I got the run around from a few folks only to find out that they just didn't have anymore. But, I was told, Public Storage has them.
My phone does not get service AT ALL in Arlington so I couldn't get the GPS on my phone to pick up my location. I had to ride around and find the address. I lucked up on it, but the doors were locked. If I had just looked up, I would've seen the sign on the door that said "Manager will be back at *insert clock that says 3:00*" but I didn't see the sign. So, I'm yanking on the door, banging on the glass, walking around to the side of the building, talking to myself, cursing at the people I just KNOW are hiding in the back room. LOL. Now, today was a very cold day. The low temperatures, the wind, the leaves. It was just a mess trying to do anything, and there were a COUPLE of times I sent up a silent prayer of thanks to Baby Jeezus for giving me the good sense to not wear my Chaka Kahn hair today. *smh* So, I'm standing outside in the cold wind thinking these people are playing too many games with me and this tube; I need to get it and be on my way! But, I gotta wait.
I ran back to my car to wait the 8 minutes for the manager to return. While I'm waiting, a little Asian man pulls up in a minivan. I see him bundle himself up, preparing to get outta the van. He gets out, runs up to the door, FULLY expecting to swing it open and escape this treacherous wind. No haps my Korean brother. He yanked the door so hard, he stumbled back and lost his balance. *smh* Then got up, got MAD at the door for being locked and proceeded to bang on every bit of glass surrounding the office. Like me, he walked around trying to figure out why the doors were locked. No one rescued me from my stupidity so I just sat and watched to see how long it would take him to see the sign. I guess his situation was more dire than mine cuz after a few minutes, he went back to his van....only to return shortly thereafter, pick up a nearby trash can, and proceed to BANG on the glass windows and doors with the trash can.
What, Sir?
I guess he thought "oh, I know you see me out here! SOMEBODY gon come open this damn door." He stood his ass out in the cold banging on that door for about 5 minutes, til it was 3pm, then the manager came and unlocked the door. i could see them having a conversation at the door, her face was screwed up TIGHT! He ran in, and I ran in right behind him. I asked for the tube but it turns out, they were sold out. What da HELL?? Is EVERYBODY shipping Harry Potter posters for Christmas?? Hmph. She directs me to the Post Office. I don't really care for the post office, but I'm on the clock and I can't go back without this tube so I head on over.
On the way into the PO, I see a bakery called "Tiffany's Bakery" and I make a mental note to remind myself to go there and see if they have cupcakes before I leave the parking lot. I walk in and see the tubes over in the corner so I walk over and pick one up. While I'm doing this, a young Asian boy who looks like an actual skaterboi walks in, blowing smoke outta his mouth. #gag. So now, I'm behind him in line. This boy looks like he's maybe 18 or 19. He REEKS of cigarettes, and there's white flakes in his hair. You know how Asian hair is so bone straight that, when it's short, you can see right through to the scalp? Well, I could see all his thoughts and the dandruff falling outta his hair was atrocious. I'd never seen anything like it. I think I was actually looking too closely because, after a few minutes, I saw a tiny bug crawling through his hair. The only reason I felt sure it wasn't lice is that I had never seen lice in real life before, and I told myself today wasn't gonna be the first day. I imagined it was a bug that had lost its way, in the blustery wind, and gotten trapped in some follicles and was desperate to find it's way home. Besides his obvious bug problem, I took issue with this person because no sooner than I was able to position my nose in such a way that I could breathe non-polluted air from his body odor, the line would move and I would find myself standing right in the space he'd just occupied....stinkiing of his smell. I was, like, 8th in line.
I was so focused on the guy in front of me I almost missed the gang of misfits populating the post office today. First, there was the Asian clerk standing behind the counter. Hair, bomb. Makeup, bomb. Straight faced, perfect bone structure, soft spoken. She was helping an elderly lady who couldn't decide which stamps to buy. Right now, it's funny. But earlier, not so much.
Old Lady: See I'm trying to figure out which stamps I wanna get for my grandson, he lives in Phoenix, see. How many stamps do you have?
Clerk: How many do you need, ma'am?
OL: Well, how many do you have?
Clerk: Ma'am, this is the post office. I have as many as you could ever need. How many do you need?
OL: Well let me see all the ones you have.
Clerk: Ma'am, I have thousands and thousands of stamps. Tell me what you need...!
OL: Well just pull out a few of them so I can see what you have.
The clerk pulls out like 5 sheets of stamps. The lady holds each sheet up to the light, turns them this way and that, lays them all down, spreads them out, stops to take a phone call IN HER LOUDEST OUTSIDE VOICE, then proceeds to tell a personal story about why she likes each stamp. Keep in mind, there are only two clerks working today...which leads me to....
The other clerk was a Black woman. What I remember about her was that she had a total of about 6 teeth up top, and most of them were in the back of her mouth. She had one in the front. And a full mustache. And had the damn nerve to be chewing gum. And she wore her hair in a mushroom but the front had this weird Cameron Diaz a la "There's Something About Mary" sperm spike that would NOT lay flat on her head in the front. No one else remarked on it, so I didn't say anything either. Plus, she was humming "Killing Me Softly", which I just found WAY too easy to comment on so I just #passed. I figured I was probably just hatin cuz though she looks like she played an extra in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe", that heffa probably got better medical benefits than I'll see in this entire lifetime. Well, aight then, you gon' head, Lauren Grill, witcha 1 front toof and your scary yellow jaundiced eyes.
Next was a lady in front of the Asian guy in front of me. She too was Asian. The first thing I noticed about her was that her eyebrows were tatted on in that once-black-now-faded-blue ink that I find so repulsive. She wore some BAD ASS sunglasses and the cutest little fuzzy hat, though. I thought all was cool til I saw that she had on white flare leg jeans, some black clogs with white stitching, and this huMONGOUS shiny navy blue puffy coat. Maybe the color wasn't navy blue. It was the same blue as her eyebrows, like this dull faded darkish blue...and it was shiny as hell. It was like...hmmm....like she was a member of the cast of The Real Housewives of Koreatown and today's episode was a recreation of the Mo' Money, Mo' Problems video. For those of you who have no idea what that is, feel free to check out one of the #fail videos that Diddy hoped you'd forgotten about here.
It may seem like I'm going kinda hard on this one lady, but she was also talking on her cell phone reallllly loudly, which annoyed me, so I didn't feel bad about it. I swear I tried to get a picture of it because I knew no words of mine would do her appearance any justice but I couldn't get the shutter to silence enough to take the picture discreetly. *sigh*
On my way out, A Pimp Named Slickback walked in wearing his granddaddy's brown Easter suit, so I had to make moves up outta there. You'll be happy to know that, as I left the building, the wind pushed the door closed faster than I could get out and it clipped my foot and I tripped and almost fell and busted my ass on the sidewalk. God don't like ugly. *smh*
I stopped in that bakery when I lfet too, but they didn't have cupcakes. Turns out it was a Latin-inspired bakery that only made latin-based sweets. I found that so odd because it was called Tiffany's, and had I known it was Latin only, I'd have skipped it. I mean, the name was "Tiffany's". Nothing to clue me in to its Latin heritage. It wasn't El Tiffany's, or El Tiffania's, or even El Panaderia. Just...Tiffany's. I was pissed when I left, I had my mouth READY for a cupcake.
Hmph!
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