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And by "vent" I do not mean "ventriloquism."
Things started out simply enough. A book I needed at the library, and which I thought was part of the reference section, was actually on loan.
Fair enough.
Then I visited the Bank of America, and try as I might to maintain a cheery attitude, BoA seems always intent (and successful) at undermining my efforts. My teller apparently considered his keyboard an enemy, because he paused to check the screen after every key stroke. What should have been a fairly routine transaction turned into a slog. What made it worse was my needing to ask a question upon completing my transaction, so I took the final seven minutes of "our time together" to mentally compose my question in such a way as to make it clear, direct, and simple to answer.
No joy. Maybe my attempt to be clear and direct failed (though I'm generally pretty good at such things). Clearly however, the whole "simple to answer" thing just never made it out of the starting blocks.
Anyway, I decided to head over to the Baybrook area, and stopped at the Einstein bagel place along the way. At the drive-in, I ordered the "smoked salmon shmear on an 'everything' bagel" The voice at the other end of the connection confirmed my order to be "lox and cream cheese on an 'everything' bagel," a menu item that costs about 3 times as much as a bagel with a shmear (i.e., cream cheese with a soupçon of salmon flavoring in it).
As the voice informed me of the price of my order with instructions to proceed to the window to pay for and receive my sandwich, I protested, noting that my order had been misinterpreted. The back and forth went on for so long—me, insisting I wanted the lox shmear, and the person taking my order, who insisted I was ordering the full-blown lox-and-cream-cheese on a bagel—that I began to suspect, in the back of my mind, that perhaps this was being filmed on a hidden camera and this was all some kind of prank.
I canceled my order and drove away before finding out.
I eventually found my way to the Baybrook Mall, where I decided to grab a bite to eat. The Japanese place in the food mall has always been my favorite place, but apparently, the place is run by new managers, because the portion of vegetarian noodles I bought was not very appetizing at all. In fact, for the first time in my recollection, I threw my portion out after two mouthfuls of the tasteless, horrid mess.
The day has been better since. Among other things, an independent reviewer described a recent translation of mine—done for a high-profile client—as "razor-sharp." That's music to my ears.
And that's always a Good Thing™.
Things started out simply enough. A book I needed at the library, and which I thought was part of the reference section, was actually on loan.
Fair enough.
Then I visited the Bank of America, and try as I might to maintain a cheery attitude, BoA seems always intent (and successful) at undermining my efforts. My teller apparently considered his keyboard an enemy, because he paused to check the screen after every key stroke. What should have been a fairly routine transaction turned into a slog. What made it worse was my needing to ask a question upon completing my transaction, so I took the final seven minutes of "our time together" to mentally compose my question in such a way as to make it clear, direct, and simple to answer.
No joy. Maybe my attempt to be clear and direct failed (though I'm generally pretty good at such things). Clearly however, the whole "simple to answer" thing just never made it out of the starting blocks.
Anyway, I decided to head over to the Baybrook area, and stopped at the Einstein bagel place along the way. At the drive-in, I ordered the "smoked salmon shmear on an 'everything' bagel" The voice at the other end of the connection confirmed my order to be "lox and cream cheese on an 'everything' bagel," a menu item that costs about 3 times as much as a bagel with a shmear (i.e., cream cheese with a soupçon of salmon flavoring in it).
As the voice informed me of the price of my order with instructions to proceed to the window to pay for and receive my sandwich, I protested, noting that my order had been misinterpreted. The back and forth went on for so long—me, insisting I wanted the lox shmear, and the person taking my order, who insisted I was ordering the full-blown lox-and-cream-cheese on a bagel—that I began to suspect, in the back of my mind, that perhaps this was being filmed on a hidden camera and this was all some kind of prank.
I canceled my order and drove away before finding out.
I eventually found my way to the Baybrook Mall, where I decided to grab a bite to eat. The Japanese place in the food mall has always been my favorite place, but apparently, the place is run by new managers, because the portion of vegetarian noodles I bought was not very appetizing at all. In fact, for the first time in my recollection, I threw my portion out after two mouthfuls of the tasteless, horrid mess.
The day has been better since. Among other things, an independent reviewer described a recent translation of mine—done for a high-profile client—as "razor-sharp." That's music to my ears.
And that's always a Good Thing™.
