It’s Friday and I’m in a bad mood. Don’t know why really. Just that I am. It actually started at work, doing Vivek’s American Express bill from October. I had done it several times before, and actually had it sent in for it’s proper authorization which was done and I thought completed. Yesterday I was given the same batch that I had done with notes from the stupid bitch who used to sit at my desk. Her calculations were wrong wrong wrong. I had mine double checked already when they asked me to reconcile the two. Pointless and very frustrating.

I sat and talked to Tom Chin about it and as I was explaining he interrupts and starts telling me about what he needed done. I continued talking not letting him interrupt which caused his volume to increase as well as mine. More frustration. I went back to my desk after hearing him out, since he wasn’t really listening to me anyway. I tidied up things as best as I could and gave my work to Carla to check yet again the same numbers she checked before. I was leaving the office early again since I told them that on Monday, I was leaving early Wednesday and Friday to see brother Frank.

I know he was sent to the rehabilitation center yesterday but the office didn’t need to know that and with the way that the day was turning out it seemed like the right thing to do, to go home early. Hell, half the office was out anyway and most of the people were leaving early themselves to get a head start on their weekends. I stopped off at Cohen’s Fashion Optical to get a pair of sunglasses on sale and they were mighty happy to help me out until I pulled out my prescription which was from 2003. It was expired and the happy face they had on was gone when I declined the eye exam, saying that I didn’t have time.

I did have time to chat with Big Jess an old Rasta pal. Good to see him and his handing me some jazz cigarettes made my day but haven’t accessed the product yet, hence my ill mood. Oh it will be all for the best once I get that going. It had better or else! Got to the bus terminal and found the bus at the gate to be standing room only so I stepped aside and waited for the next one. The next one came shortly thereafter driven by a grizzled old cranky ass bus driver who opened the back door once and then no more, preferring to yell out ‘Front do-wah (door), Front do-wah.’. No one thanked him as they got off the bus and I doubt if he cared as much.

Came home and changed my clothes and went out, hoping to get a hair cut. Too long a wait and decided to create a new old wives tale about how you should never get a hair cut if you’re in a bad mood. Then I walked to the post office after dropping off my clothes at the dry cleaners, greeted with ‘Hello Mr. Oghrh’. That’s how they pronounce my last name. I saw the UPS truck and asked if my package was there. I ordered some shirts online for my niece’s wedding. Got the tag yesterday that they missed me and I called this morning but was too late. So I have to wait until Monday. Perhaps I’ll be in a better mood by then. For now, I’m staying in and avoiding contact with everyone. I don’t want to see anyone for the rest of the day.

So happy it’s Thursday. Usual thing. Brother Frank is now in a rehabilitation unit in Saddle Brook NJ, across the street from where Frank, Brian and I once worked as well as our mother for the book publishing company. The rehabilitation unit used to be Saddle Brook Hospital where I had some stitches put into my skull after I fell out of bed and hit my head on my sister’s night table. Annemarie was traveling somewhere so I was sleeping in her bed. It was also the place where I was taken one night after shoving a clothing snap into my nostril.

I remember it was the night before my family were headed down to Wildwood Crest. I was laying in bed rather anxious about going away for four or five days to the Jersey shore. There was a loose snap on my pajamas and as I fiddled around with it it came off. So me, being me, I decided to see if it would fit in my nose and sure enough it did. And sure enough I could not get it out on my own. After a few minutes of panic and seeing my young life flash before my eyes, actually it was my life being taken from me by my parents for doing something stupid like that.

The only ones home were Frank, Annemarie and Brian. Brian and Annemarie didn’t have any idea what to do. Frank had the idea that I should inhale it so that they could catch it as it passed to my lungs by somehow reaching into the back of my throat. My parents were more than likely at the VFW getting their drink on. Annemarie probably had the sense to call up the Post 3484 and tell my mother what was going on. They soon came home finding me lying on the dining room table surrounded by my brothers and sister.

My parents got me in the car and drove me to Saddle Brook hospital where we went to the emergency room and saw a doctor. My parents told me what I had done and the doctor, quite ably got a pair of tweezers and used them to reach in and pull out the snot encrusted snap. That’ll be Fifty dollars. After that it was back to bed for me and then down the shore the next day where I more than likely got sun poisoning.

Wildwood Crest was a wonderland for me. For one, it wasn’t Lodi. There was a beach and lot’s of drunk adults behaving badly. I would hang out with other children of alcoholic parents, sponging quarters off adults to play pinball or to buy comic books somewhere. I almost wrote saving up for night time trips to the Boardwalk, but that would never happen. Money didn’t last long in my sun poisoned hands. Neither did skin.

I was friends with Joey Schaeffer who’s belly button exploded when he did a belly flop incorrectly. He spent the week with his belly button covered by surgical tape. That’s basically all I remember about Joey Schaeffer, that and when he was visiting me in Lodi, telling him that he wouldn’t be able to sing Indian Reservation by Paul Revere and the Raiders out loud since there were Native Americans around and they’d get upset and start killing people.