I am a woman (scratch that my boyfriend hasn’t gotten to me yet), young lady. *pervy-giggle*

Moving on.

My friend, Jo and I got in an argument today. Our quarrel started out as a simple question. She asked me how my boyfriend treated me; it struck me as a random question not to mention that it deserved a non-of-your-business kind of answer but I figured I’d play along. I told her that my boyfriend was an evil minion of Satan himself, okay not really, but I might as well have for the ‘death-to-your-boyfriend’ attitude she gave me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, my boyfriend is one of the sweetest guys I’ve met, Jo is just the perfect extreme feminist. She refuses to do anything that might please a man in the least. She wears heavy sweaters and baggy pants even during summer, she refuses to apply one drop of make-up and denies herself and the rest of us of a fresh scent. I’m surprised she hasn’t showed up to school wearing an abaya.

Jo said that my boyfriend was abusive, macho man. She criticized me for wearing perfume, buying tight pants, and choosing the low v-necks in my closet instead of the frumpy pajama shirts. But honestly when I get ready in the morning it's more of a I wanna look like that today perspective not a I want guys to see these plump twinss...no?.

Joe said that we females have commandments to live by when we're married to them. Which really got my thinking, I figured, I would make up five simple commandments that my future husband will have to live by.

1) My wedding ring better be expensive and sparkle whenever I move, blind bystanders if possible.
2) Put up with my rants, bitch-offs, and menstrual-A-thons.
3) Tell me I'm right even if I'm not.
4) Put down the toilet seat when you're done and if you "missed" clean up!

And my most sacred one...

5) JOINT BANK ACCOUNT!

Anyway moving on to my point.

Jo said that I needed to find my self-respect because I had apparently misplaced it. And let me tell you one thing, no I haven't. I respect the feminist theory but I’m not an extremist.

I honestly wouldn’t mind being a stay at home mom, I enjoy cooking, and doing laundry is actually kind of fun but you better put that damn toilet seat down boy. Ha-ha. I want to go grocery shopping, I want to spend hours at the mall with my hubby's credit card, and I want to welcome him home after a hard day at work with a heaping plate of his favorite food.

Trust me, I'm a firm believer of female independence and I do realize that there is a social injustice towards women but come'on do you have to be as extreme as Jo? I mean, I don't want to be abused by a man but I don't want to replace those fuzzy dice hanging on my rear-view mirror with a set of rounder, "fuzzier" pair of twins.

Call me a crazy but I want to be gently overpowered by a man every once in a while...

What do you think about extreme feminism?

Everything has gone from bad to worse this week. Hopefully, since this weekend started off as not-so-bad, it’ll stay that way.

Monday morning, aside from being the start of yet another tedious school week, I missed the morning bus. I knew I was going to the moment the elevator took its merry-effing-time on its way up to my level. And then when it rose up to level 3 instead of lowering to the ground I knew I was in for it. The ladies that piled in had trash bags filled with clothes and stuffed animals. I pressed the G-button and watched the red light blink, but before the stainless-steel doors closed the ladies pressed level 2. I figured I could sprint for the bus, it is after all just across my street and around the corner, and my building is on the corner…easy!

They wobbled their way out the door like penguins. One of them smelled like fish…I tried to hold my breath but I’m no Michael Phelps. (Lets fast-forward through this.) The elevator lastly settled at ground level, the doors finally slid open and when I wrestled my way out of the lobby and into the street my bus passed by...

I got to school on time, out of breath, but on time. At school, everything was fine until the skillet in my cooking class busted a fuse. The sparks of fire made my teacher, Hoey, jump out of her wrinkled skin. I thought it was funny but I ended up making my French toast on a frying pan. They were still good but the filling made me nauseous. So, at lunch, I was picking the pineapple and wiping the warm cream cheese off the bread. After school I got home, all was going well until I had to meet my mother at the Nordahl train station, I missed the train by two seconds. She was mad, but what’s new? She picked me up and when I got in she stepped on the gas –something she does to show she’s mad– but almost crashed into a car which made her even madder. (One of these days she’s going to speed us to an impulsive death.)

When we got to the doctor’s office –which was where we were headed– we waited for 2.5 hours before we were even given a room and a good hour for my doc to get to me. My doc –Holland– listened to my heart for five mins and they strapped me to an EKG machine. The bloody machine had the audacity to say I was completely fine but my doc said that it’s normal. That I can have a regular heartbeat now and an hour later that cannot be the case. She advised me to stay away from caffeine, Sudafed and anything that might make me too angry, too scared or too emotional.

When I got home, my mother dropped me off in front of the elevator in our parking garage. I got in the elevator and pressed level 2. When the door slid open the smell of smoke invited me into the hallway. I came around the corner thinking of the dumbass that burnt something. The top-half of the floor had gray smoke swirling about. Jokingly, I was thinking to myself, “What if it’s my apartment?” But then I remembered the image of my living room when I shut the door behind me as I left for the train station.

“No way,” I assured myself. But when I opened the door to my apartment a thick cloud of smoke rushed out. My eyes started burning and I dropped the things I carried. I watched the cloud disperse from the floor, I reached for my dying cell phone and dialed 911. The feeling of losing everything that ever meant something to me made my heart clench. It beat unevenly, slow and then fast. The firefighters arrived five minutes later. One of them asked me why I was still inside the building and pushed (slash) carried me outside into the courtyard. He sat me down and told me not to move.

It turned out that it was just smoke. The lady that lives with us left the beans on the stove…classic! We slept in a Motel that night; the smoke was still too thick to sleep through. I didn’t go to school on Tuesday.

Tuesday, I was still feeling the reverberation of the night before in my bones, and my heart wasn’t happy either.

I got my chest x-rays later that day. 

Wednesday, I went to school even though my heart was still beating out of tune. I smelled like smoke and everyone kept asking the same two questions: “Giselle, you smoke?” or “Giselle, you have a cig I can borrow?”

I got my bus pass and my newly found, good friend –Karla– accompanied me to buy something to eat at the Vistonian Plaza.  We walked back to the bus stop and I gave her my Dr. Pepper, since my heart was already bouncing madly in my chest. We sat waiting for Karla’s bus and when we got up to walk over to her stop I accidentally forgot my phone. I had gone not five yards when I noticed my phone was gone. I looked back and there it was idly on the bench. I walked toward it the same time a tattooed young man was. He picked it up and I stretched my hand out for him to hand it over, thinking he would be a gentlemen and give it to me, I took my time walking over to him. That’s when I saw him smile, turn around and sprint the opposite way of me.

Hey, I'm over here. (I felt so small.

It shocked my heart into my throat and that’s when I lost my phone. I started crying, and I wanted to chase after him but the shock of it had my heart leaping into oblivion and he looked like a gang member. Not the most sane choice.

I walked over to the movie theater across the street. I searched through my bag for loose change, I found two lone quarters. I picked up the phone, and inserted them into the machine. I dialed my mom’s cell number 9-1-7-6-3 “Please insert fifty cents for the next 15 minutes,”

WAIT, WHAT?!

It ate my money! I looked for some more money and luckily I found a crumpled up dollar bill at the bottom of my purse. I coined it and tried again. I inserted two quarters...again.

9-1-7-6 “Please insert twenty-five cents to complete your call,”

OH HELL NO!

When I finally was able to complete the call my mother didn’t answer, so, before the machine answered I hung up. My change didn’t come. What happened to the “If your call is not answered we will not charge you,” promise?  It’s stickered right on the flipping payphone!

I gave up and hunted the grounds for a quarter and I found one…in my purse. I had strip-searched my bag and all of a sudden a quarter popped its head from the little pouch lining the interior wall. “Thank you lord!”

I told her what happened and she didn’t seem as mad as I thought she would but when she picked me up she looked mad. We arrived at the doctor's and were attended immediately; silver linings can be so random.

Thursday, the one teacher that absolutely adores me got mad at me. All I did was say the "F-Word" How against sentence spicers can you be, Ruiz aka Peter Parker?   I swear he looks like him and the guy that subbed for him the Friday before looked like Super Man. English has become a trip into Marvel and DC.

Friday, my week started calming down. I got my new phone and my heart finally settled down.

Hopefully this will be the ONLY bad-bad week. Though I doubt it. (knock-on-wood) My bad weeks/days/years are just getting started.