I Wanna Sling Poo

It's time like these that make me lose all semblance of being a rational human.

I'm tired of hurting, so this morning, I decided that after my class that ends at 11, I would go to the health center and see what, if anything, they can do for my neck.  I wait for an unusually long period of 15 minutes for the green bus to stop at the hub.  Meanwhile, my neck and shoulder are becoming increasingly uncomfortable from the weight of my backpack.  The bus finally arrives, and I ride it over to the health center only to find the automatic doors locked and a hastily printed sign stuck to the door informing me that the place is closed.

I can be a bit of a dinosuar when it comes to phone technology.  I have a cell phone for the sole purposes of  emergency phone calls and long distance calling.  I don't do anything more than make phone calls on it.  Hence, I don't text.  I just don't.  Additionally, there isn't anyone I care to yammer with on the phone, so I sit there on a bench, waiting for L to get out of class and come pick me up.  It's only thirty minutes, but I also discover that I've no book to read while I sit.  How in hell did that happen?  How did I get stuck somewhere with nothing to read?  Well, I could've read math or graded papers, but staring at the ground seemed like more fun at the time.
 
Normally, I could entertain myself with people-watching, but the center is almost off-campus, and so there isn't regular foot traffic.  Instead, I entertained myself by staring at the crepe myrtles, with only their bottom-most leaves remaining, and the pansies that wiggle every time the wind blows a bit.  And, I could lose myself in plant watching if it weren't for the people who kept walking up to the health center and saying, "It's closed?" like I'm the GAP gnome guarding the entry (that's a MAD TV reference). 

This woman got off the blue bus, came up to the door, and huffed out a breath.  "Even Billing is closed?" she asked. 
"It says all staff," I said.
"Well, Billing must not want their money too bad," she said and rolled her backpack toward the faculty/staff end of the facility.  I was envious of that backpack at that point, but they are just so ridiculous to me.

It's times like this that make me miss being a full-time teacher.  I could go in the faculty/staff end, and in under thirty minutes, a doctor would see me and deal with me and send me on my way.

I sighed and confirmed for the cute little girl who frowned at the door that yes, the pharmacy is closed too, as those are also health center employees.  The only one who even remotely entertained me was the guy who cleared his cruddy throat all the way to the door, spit in the cigarette bin on top of the trashcan, and then said, "Well damn.  I guess if ya sick, ya just screwed, eh?"

"Yup," I said.

After a while, a university employee on a golf cart drove up and said, "It's closed until one-thrity."
Rather than get snappy, as I wanted to, I said, "Yup."
"It's gonna be a warm one after all," she said.  Upon closer inspection, the woman has on the electric green and reflective silver coat of a traffic monitor.  What she's doing up at the health center - somewhere that parking zones aren't enforced - I have no idea.  She should be off in the commuter parking giving tickets to the people who got too drunk at the Thursday night game to drive themselves out before 8 am.  Instead, she's parked in front of me in her coat and with her legs wrapped in a blanket.  I'm sitting there in a t-shirt and wishing I had a hat.

Apparently, I didn't entertain her enough for she drove off to another part of the parking lot where she parked and sat and texted for the next thirty minutes.  Tell me, is that AL taxpayers money and student tuition and fees well-spent?  I wanted to go Sasquatch on her golf cart (that's a Jack Link's Messin' with Sasquatch reference).

By the time L picks me up, I'm hurting even more from the metal bench and my right arm is slightly sunburned.  It's times like this that make me wish I were a lesser ape, brave and crazy enough to smear poo all over the automatic doors and anyone stupid enough to keep talking to me after I look them in the eye.