Trying Day #5

As I speak, the smoke detector alarm has gone off for the eighth time.  Each alarm cycle--I have timed--goes on a painful wailing siren for five minutes.  Be generous and sprinkle two to four minutes of "grace" between each punk cycle, and what you get is a long, painfully drawn out affair of listening to a deafening siren in the dead of the night.  All, yes, at the expense of some punk kid trying to prove his virility through wailing through the thin midnight air.

Yes.  Happy Halloween, everyone.

What a way to spend the night after a tiring ten, no, twelve (!) hour day shuttling between tournament office and the courts, taking, processing pictures, and servicing player/parents.  Couple that with late meals, low glucose levels, and having to deal with an overly pompous, big, B.O. infested fat man, who thinks he is the world.  What do you get?

Stress on the back and overload. 

Well, quite so. 

This fat a** was the main co-sponsor for the tournament, besides the Academy.  He is ugly, smelly, and very touchy feel-ly.  In particular, while my boss, Alexandra leaned over to speak to me over the table in front of me, he took the opportunity to wrap his hand around the curve of her back, and let it stay there.  I was shocked, my eyes trailed from her gaze to his non-nonchalant face, and it told me he was just taking advantage of the situation.  And that he wanted it.

Later, as I showed him some work, he tried to get funny by draping his arm around the back of my chair (too close for comfort), and then reaching over and placing his hand on my shoulder---half-squeezing, half man-handling it (way too close for comfort).  I shifted my body away as suddenly has he leaned over to touch me, and jerked my chair in so that his fat-ass lazy arm had to move away.  I think I made myself painfully clear that I don't stand for this shit.

I asked Alex after that if I could tell him straight up not to touch me, at all.  And she said "Yes, yes!  Of course."  But then as quickly as she said it, she also went on to diffuse it with the excuse that he was Italian and that "Italian men are like that.  (Pause).  Well, not all, but yes."  She then went on to share her experiences with Italian transport (yes, very relevant) and how the problems she encountered (tardiness, unprofessionalism, etc.) were just the way Italians worked.  "Oh really?"  I asked, surprised.  "That happens to me in Spain too!"

Seriously speaking, though.  I saw where she was coming from, but still found it quite disappointing that she was trying to diffuse my discomfort so quickly, especially as I sought her out, as subordinate-boss, and also as woman-woman.

So I went back to sit on my green plastic chair (again), brooding (double again).  When the brilliant thought hit me. 

"God,"  I prayed. "If he touches me again, please strike him down with lightening or do something terrible to him."  The bible always talks about how God protects the righteous, and if ever a time was to exercise this, it was now.  I hope he has a heart attack tomorrow (FIRST), and then gets saved by Christ (later).  Haha : P