Skip to main content

A Weird Kind of Day


So, I'm not particularly superstitious, but this day has been kind of weird, and I'm not sure which way its gonna go.
                 Lunch...some random dude drops a coupon off for a restaurant that's nearby that I've never heard of.  Close by...a restaurant, so I break for lunch and head there.   Not terribly big and in a location I would've never thought to look for a restaurant so I sit down and order a sandwich:  Hawaiian Ham on sour dough.   It comes out and I eat my cole slaw (not too sweet) and then start eating my sandwich:  lettuce, tomato, mayo, pineapple, but no ham.  Seriously, no ham.  I ordered a Hawaiian Ham sandwich and they forgot the ham.   So I call my waiter over, show him the sandwich and watch as he whisks my hamless ham sandwich off.   A few minutes later, he sets down another sandwich, with ham and a new side of cole slaw and says, "Chef says lunch is on us."
                Hey free lunch.
                Day goes as planned. I talk, answer e-mail, finish up some paperwork and head out to a surprise meeting at payroll as my department representative.  Over the last 3 years, all salaries at the college have been frozen.  But last year, if the budget situation improved, the college decided that it would grant a one time  disbursement to all employees (if they were still employed by such and such a date) and had started work before February 2012).  Yippee!  Free money.  I go to the meeting, listen to payroll explain how the process worked, why they're having to give paper checks instead of direct deposit, how they got it so that everyone received the same amount (if you were full-time you got $900...no matter whether you had a lot of dependents or none at all).  After about 45 minutes of glad handing, questions, etc. we each a get a big stack of checks to take back. 
                Back at the office, we start going through the checks and the only one missing is mine.  Everyone in our department got a check but me.  No plausible explanation (no I'm not having my income garnished for delinquent child support; yes, I've been employed since 2002 and am still employed), but I don't have a check.   Ironic?  The one person who went to the meeting to pick up the checks doesn't have one.  
                We make a few phone calls and discover that as we were speaking my check was winding its way to the Westside campus (where payroll still has me located  even though I haven't worked at the Westside for 2 years).   Weird.  I rest a bit easy, plan on not spending as much money at the grocery store, and relax.  The money's coming, but probably not till next week when they figure out I'm not there anymore and drop it in the mailbox.
                Hey free money...sort of.
                End of the day, I'm hungry and against my better judgment decide I'll give Wendy's a try.   I order and specifically substitute out my fries for a side order of macaroni and cheese.  
                The front counter guy starts filling my order and puts a big order of fries on my tray. 
                I say, "I subbed out the fries with mac and cheese." 
                He nods and then says, "Don't worry.  You can have those too."
                Hey free fries....but now I'm really confused.   This has been a weird kind of day.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque

  The Map. Overview: Starting in the San Juans in Colorado, the Rio Grande "is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America" ( Texas State Historical Society ).  While the river is characterized by the area it flows through, the river from Elephant Butte Dam to the south to Cochiti Dam in the north is called the Middle Rio Grande.  And in the middle of the middle Rio Grande is the roughly 20 plus miles that flows through Albuquerque.  From an airplane, the Rio Grande is a brown ribbon bordered a green ribbon.  That green ribbon is the Bosque .  I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it.  It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to ...
3 comments
Read more

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque-the Autumnal Equinox edition

Overview:   In June, around the Summer Solstice, my wife, my dog, and I set out to hike the Albuquerque Bosque from end to end over two days .  It was well over a hundred degrees and after starting later than expected we didn't make it as far the first day as we hoped.  But we did make it. Now, three months later, around the Autumnal Equinox, we set out to do it again.  Our route was slightly different and, with the weather being a lot more pleasant, broke the day into a thirteen mile day and a five mile day:  eighteen total miles from Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the Alameda Bridge right on the border between Albuquerque and Corrales. The things we wanted to do differently this time were pretty straightforward:  1) don't get lost at the south terminus and get into the bosque sooner, and 2) walk even more on the westside.  So, the route was a follows:  we'd walk on the east side from Valle de Oro to the Rio Bravo Bridge, cro...
3 comments
Read more

"That's Scaughtland for ya!"

The United Kingdom Up at the top of that map, basically the top half, is a tiny nation with a big footprint.  With roughly the same population as Minnesota, Scotland has a land mass the size of South Carolina, yet there are more people in the United States that have Scottish and/or Scotch-Irish ancestry than live in Scotland. My family is one of those. In the course of growing up, I was indoctrinated to celebrate my Scottish ancestry (primarily by my grandmother but we'll talk about that later).      So a year ago, my wife took a trip with her mother to Japan.  I looked at the pictures that she posted, and when I'd talk to her on the phone, I noticed something.  She was happy.  This is not to say she's always unhappy, but this was different.  She was having a good time, engaged in the world, curious, and happy-like no matter what the challenge.  And traveling to Japan with her mother posed some interesting challenge...
Post a Comment
Read more