I know something undesirable is going to happen every time I put on a suit.
Today, I put on a suit. I should clarify this, however. I refuse to buy an actual suit. My foolish getup consists of a pair of black pants from JCPenney's preteen section and a tiny Ann Taylor jacket I haggled for midwinter at a consignment shop on Halsted Street. Who haggles at a consignment shop? This is my brother's store, the man behind the counter had said. I am not sure the price of these things. Twenty dollars later, this lady's got her first power piece.
I wear the cheap imitation ensemble with an awkward scarf of abalone, forced upon me by a Rotarian of local chapter 6440. I dislike suits for many reasons, one of which is I feel they say, "Today, I am going to broker a sweet power deal, then chug a Red Bull. Chug-a-chug, son!"
It should be noted, however, that Rotary meetings - of which I was a presenter this morning - involve universally inoffensive things, such as pancakes, my adorable optometrist, Dr. Agrest, and the eradication of Polio. It's just that I have to put this suit on, and I know precisely the moment it bears its power. Granted, the force field of perniciousness is likely stronger in October, the month in which clowns (terrifying) are free to roam the street like normal citizens, men wearing full face masks are allowed to touch people, and Jehovah's Witnesses tell their children that the act of putting a mini Snickers bar into a plastic pumpkin bucket is an act of Satan. I take the awful-looking thing off by 8:30 a.m., sure, but leave it sitting in my car. A regrettable decision.
On the way home, I stop in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. I've been elected to rent movies, and the video store is three businesses down.
"Now, I just don't know what's wrong with our card reader," the video clerk says. "It's not running properly."
No problem. One minute later, I am at Jewel-Osco. I buy Skittles. Skittles. I have no desire for Skittles. I think about putting them in my freezer. I wonder how they will taste frozen. Do people put Skittles in vodka? I've got this big bottle of vodka. Every time someone comes over, I say, "Please, drink this vodka!" No one drinks the vodka. So I buy the Skittles; $10 cash back for the video rentals.
Back at the video store, the clerk says, "Emily! The card reader started working while you were gone, and your card went through. We just need you to sign your receipt."
No problem! I repeat. I had the videos in my satchel the whole time anyway! Hahaha! We laugh. Clerk makes a joke about me running off with the merchandise. We laugh again. Hahaha!
Leaving the store, I skip. Who is in a hurry!? Not me! Smiling, I head back to my car. Wait ... my car ... where is my car? My car is not where I left it.
"I don't know," the man at 7-Eleven says, walking back and forth with a clipboard. "They just tow. We don't know. There is a sign outside."
"Yeah, a green Ford?" the woman at Lincoln Towing tells me on the phone. "I've got it."
Walking to Lincoln Towing in the rain, I do the math. It costs $170 to pick it up my car. I was in the video store and Jewel-Osco for a total of 10 minutes, which means that my time cost me $17.00 a minute, which is 78 times that of what Pearson Education is paying the new temp who took my job.
You gotta laugh, folks, you gotta laugh. Someone could have stolen the car, and then who knows what the suit would have done to them.
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