Warm Decompress

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a bad day. Not the worst day ever, or a terrible no good very bad day, just a a day of annoyances. My new Zune refused to charge, work was chock full o weirdos, the bank closed before I had time to cash my check, the computer at the check cashing place across the street from work went down just as I walked into the place. It was just a meh day.

On the T ride home, I ran into one of my coworkers, who was also having a meh day, and we talked outselves into a slightly better mood.

We got off at the same stop, and were walking down the street I live on, when a grizzly looking leather guy approached on a bicycle yelling "Faggots! You fucken faggot want to fuck me? No fucken faggot fucks me fucken faggot!"

Now, I know this was not directed at me, or really anyone. This was an insane man on a bicycle who was probably responding to the voices in his head. Still, I couldn't resist yelling "No one wants to fuck you, asshole!"

Not one of my better retorts, but I was just taken aback by why people like him exist. A few seconds later, my coworker headed down a side street to get to a party she was headed to. I continued homeward. And, sure enough, crazy guy on bike comes back, only this time he definitely is screaming at me.

"You fucken faggot want my ass. Can't get it you nigger loving homo." And he went on that way.

I decided if I just didn't respond this time, he'd be bored and spread his crazy somewhere else.

I was wrong.

While still in sight and hearing range, he turned around and came at me again.

There's been a lot of construction on my street for the last few months, so the guy was weaving around orange buckets screaming a very uncreative list of obscenities at me. I was angry. He was determined to make my bad day worse, so I picked up a rock from the sidewalk, and hurled it at his bike.

Now, I haven't played baseball since I was in middle school. I've never hurled a javelin, and I can't remember the last time I threw a tennis ball at a dunk tank target in order to drown a clown. But I hit that bike hard. So hard that the guy fell to the side, right hand in the dirt and construction gravel, and right leg under his bike. He yelled "Fuck!" though whether it was in pain, confusion, anger, or just generally crazy, I couldn't tell you. I then ran the rest of the way (which wasn't very far) home.

I'm not terribly proud of this action, and karma got me the next day when a big gust of wind blew a bunch of construction sand into my eye. Thus, creating a sty the size of a zeppelin.

Yesterday, at work, one of the crazy but amiable guys who always stops into our Harvard store, but never buys anything, ambled up to the counter and said "So you have diabetes, huh?"

"No."

"You've got a sty in your eye. You should have your blood sugar checked."

"I...I got a mess of sand whipped into my face by the wind the other day, and the sty started forming pretty much the next day."

"No." He said. "You've got diabetes."

While I don't know for a fact that I do or don't have diabetes, I do know for a fact that I received this sty from getting sand whipped. I felt it. I would have seen it, but there was sand in my eye. "Are you a doctor?"

"Nope, I've got a cousin who looks like you, and he has diabetes."

"Really? I have a cousin who looks like you, and he never knows what he's talking about it."

He let out one of those short, sharp laughs that people make when they're hurt, but want to pretend that they find the humor in the situation. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get personal. You should put a warm compress on it, so it will go away quicker." And he looked around for another couple of minutes before walking out without buying anything.

I spent the rest of the day looking up diabetes symptoms, and I believe that has helped confirm the fact that I have, not diabetes, but OCD.

The only symptom I have, according to their site, is irritability, which may have something to do with the vast amount of crazy people I encounter, and, foolishly, engage. See also landladies.

Today, I'm going outside, laying in the grass somewhere and reading some books. Because, hey, crazy people never hang out in parks, right?