05.01.01
We finally suckered, I mean hired, someone into working with us at the every-so-delightful Younkers Salon. His name is Ken, he's a recovering alcoholic and junkie, and I like to think of him as "The Babbler".
Imagine, you got up 2 hours earlier than normal to drive to a product knowledge/cutting class in another town, a class that you aren't even really that keen on attending, and your companion for this trip is someone with a sinus infection. Now, imagine that the sinus infection isn't the problem with this scenario so much as the incessant chatter coming out of the sinus infectee's mouth. As you turn up the radio to drown out the constant gooey snuffling and phlegmy hacking that makes you want to vomit, not to mention the incessant chatter, The Babbler continues babbling about the details of his sinus infection, only LOUDER this time so that you can still hear him over the music coming from the speakers all around you.
"Yeah, I woke up on Sunday at about 6am, and woo, I wasn't feeling so hot, so I took 2 tylenol -- god I wish they were tylenol 3's -- and a couple of benadryl -- man that stuff throws me for a loop -- and then went back to bed. I woke back up around 8, and I knew that there was no way that I was going to work like that so I called in sick. I went back to bed and tossed and turned until about noon when I got up and took some more tylenol and a couple of sniffs of flonase -- that stuff sure cleans out the pipes -- and then I decided to have a cigarette, but then I started hacking up some gross green goo and I about threw up there into the ashtray on my coffee table! Oh, hey, that reminds me, I have to take my antibiotics now! <feel free to mentally continue this conversation until he goes back to bed at 10pm, taking a couple more benadryl and tylenol, and sleeps like a log until 10am the next day.>"
And then, AND THEN, he flips down the visor, opens the vanity mirror and proceeds to examine his nostrils for boogers, tells you the details of some viscous green thing that was hanging out of his nose when he got up that morning, and then has to share that he has a big zit that is about to explode on the end of his nose.
I guess I should have known that this was going to happen when I had a client with a color processing in the dryer area (reading a magazine), Carol had a client in the dryer area processing with a color (also reading a magazine), Carol had a client in her chair(the two of them were deeply involved in a conversation), and I had a client in my chair (reading a magazine) to whom I was giving a foil highlight, all while I was NOT facing The Babbler, and he still felt compelled to stand up at the front desk and inform the lot of us that he was sure that he had a sinus infection, then describe the quality and quantity of his various nasal excretions, before complaining repeatedly that he didn't want to get up for an 8:45am doctor's appointment the next day*.
What I want to know is who the fuck was he talking to? Does he talk just to hear himself talk? Is he aware that he talks incessantly?
I've learned more about him in the past week that we've been co-workers, than I have managed to reveal to you all about myself in this entire last year, and I've told you guys a whole fucking lot.
It makes the mind reel, yet again.
*HEY, at least he GOT to see his doctor. Some of us aren't so fortunate.
I too am convinced that I may have a sinus infection, because I have a tendency to get them without really exhibiting any symptoms beyond stuff backing up into my eustachian tubes from my sinuses, and a periodically painful jawline that is tender to the touch. Plus, sometimes I can't open my mouth all the way because my face is swollen around where my jaws hinge.
So, I made an appointment to see the fine doctors at Student Health for 10am last Wednesday. I couldn't find a parking space and didn't know how to get into the other lot, so I was five minutes late for the appointment that I otherwise would have been 10 minutes early for if the woman I was waiting for to get out of the parking space wouldn't have needed to fix her hair and apply an entire faceful of cosmetics while I was impatiently waiting for her to vacate said parking space. When was the last time that you didn't have to wait at least 10 minutes in the waiting room to see the doctor, anyways?
The woman at the front counter berated me for being late, apparently informed the doctor's people that I was there, and then told me to sit down. I sat there and waited, watching every single person that came in after me get quickly ushered back to the clinical parts of the office, while I waited and waited until 11am, when I went back up to the counter to get my student ID, so that I could go home and get ready for work. The woman seemed surprised that I hadn't been seen yet, asked me who my doctor was again, punched me up on the computer, handed me my ID and said, "I'll inform the doctor that you aren't keeping your appointment."
To which I replied, "Oh, I kept my appointment. Your doctor was the one that didn't bother to keep my appointment. I'm going to work now." and then left.
I haven't gone back yet.
