Thursday, February 19, 2009

Intuitions.

So you know that initial feeling you get when you first notice something or somebody strange? I used to be a firm believer in that those type of feelings are usually spot on. However, intuitions can sometimes be misleading, mainly because I have a wild imagination, and I like to look at situations through my story-teller lens, in order to make whatever is happening into a great tale to tell later on. Here are two examples of my personal intuition. One is deserving of an intuition high five and the other makes my "first guess" deserve a swift kick in the ass.

Once upon a time there was a creepy old dude (I say old meaning around 45 yrs of age) who used to come into my work all the time. The leather vest, beady eyed stare,  and shorts in the winter were in no way appealing to me. He happened to work next door at the music store and would often come in to get water or pick up borrowed music equipment, etc. Every time he made his bashful entrance, I was cordial and greeted him with my ultra cheesy waitress voice. Supposedly, this was in some way leading the man on. I didn't think this however, because I use the same voice for crippled old women, babies in strollers, and frumpy housewives, and so far none of them have come on to me in any way shape or form. But I had this gut feeling about this man named Kevin. He gave me that "ewwww, I don't really want you near me" sort of feeling. It became worse after comments he aimed towards me like, "You know what I love about you? Your smile. It's infectious." Uh sir, you are infectious, like a disease I don't want to deal with. It continued to escalate until one day he came in, and after attempting to hide in the bathroom, he took me aside and told me he had a crush on me and informed me that he was "perfectly harmless." Sure you are. Nobody clarifies that sort of thing, unless there are suspicions floating around. So he was labeled Creepy Kevin by me and some coworkers. He even wrote me a note once that said for me to pretend like none of that had happened, and later I had a delivery driver pretend to be my boyfriend. 
So that whole mess died down and he seemed to disappear because we had this concept at work that he was a little bit on the predator side, and he told another worker that he wanted everyone to stop looking at him like he was a stalker. I'm pretty sure he was avoiding us after that. However the thought of Creepy Kevin still gave me the jitters. Then one day I received a text message from an old friend of mine that used to work at the same music store, informing me that Kevin had been fired from his job being caught kissing a fourteen year old in the basement. Thanks intuition. Thank heavens I never was lured into his van with no windows. 

Now for my intuition failure. A few weeks ago at work, I heard a horn honking outside. It sounded like someone was just laying on their car horn. So Peter and I were looking out the huge glass windows to try and see the commotion. Coming down Main Street was a fire truck, blasting its horn and behind it was a bus with its emergency flashers on, occupied by a bunch of bald dudes flailing their arms out the windows. This image was so strange to me. We were absolutely puzzled at what it could possibly mean. So here was our theory; they were obviously Mexican prisoners (Peter swore on his life that they had dark skin), being transferred somewhere on a bus with faulty brakes. So the fire truck was driving in front in order to get people out of the way, because there was no stopping this mobile prison! I was stoked to tell this story to everyone I knew. So the next morning I went to my parents house for breakfast and in one breath told the entire story to my patient father. At the conclusion of my theory he just had this befuddled look on his face, as if I had just told an awful joke. He then burst out laughing and said, "Oh Madelyn. You want to know what that was? A bus full of the high school swim team (hence the baldness). They just took state and made their grand entrance into town last night. Read the paper." And for the rest of the week, he told that story to every person he came in contact with. Thanks intuition, for at least making my father see what a complete imaginative moron he has for a daughter and perhaps making him the life of his business meetings. 

So when it comes to creepy old dudes, you are probably right in your apprehensiveness. But when you convince yourself that you just saw a runaway prison bus, think again.

3 comments:

  1. hahaha you always get me with that last line!

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  2. PS: I love that when I want to leave a comment I have to type in that word to a box to submit it so the computer knows i'm not spam..but there is a button with a Handicap parking sign on it...is that supposed to be the symbol for "help me I can't read?" what happened to being Politically Correct, people?

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  3. Haha I like to end it with some biting wit, and a wink. And I know tons of handicapped people that can read. But not quite as many that read my blog.

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