The HN&S Chronicles: The Luck of the Irish

Spring break arrived in a Pinto with a bad transmission, but it's on a runaway train to OVER. How in the name of James is it Friday already?! SMH. Originally, I made tentative plans to for a trip to NYC, and my manager was kind enough to approve my time off request for this week, but my plans fell through. Who's surprised though? I was looking forward my time off even though I wouldn't be making my 4th pilgrimage to the Big Apple. I've been really exhausted from subbing and working at HN&S in the evenings, and I HAVE been putting in the work because car payments, so I thought that a week of working nowhere would be just what the doctor ordered. (I'm sorry. Are y'all sick of hearing about my car? You'll be aight.) However, after I looked at my spring break schedule on the HN&S website and saw all of those unpaid days off, I told my manager that I would work 3 days of my staycation since they're short-staffed anyway. One cashier transferred, 3 quit, 1 is on maternity leave, another got married and is honeymooning even as we speak, and one wanted to spend spring break with her kids. So there's my good deed for the month. Bless me Lord! Oh, wait you did. I won't have a short paycheck next week. Thank-you!

You know, I often wonder about fate. Take last night at HN&S, for instance. If I'd opted to keep the three vacation days I gave up, would I have met a handsome, middle-aged Irishman who thinks I'm beautiful, thinks I look 20 years younger than my 44 years, and now has my phone number? NOPE.

It all started when I accidentally pulled a customer who was waiting at another register into my line in front of him because I didn't see him. I apologized profusely and he told me how beautiful he thought I was. I said thank you and he was about to walk away when I asked him about his accent. He told me he was from Ireland,,and when he asked for my number, I gave it to him, almost without hesitation. The accent made me do it, y'all. I am WEAK for an accent, especially Caribbean, Irish, Scottish, or French. (And YES I KNOW that the Caribbean is not a country in and of itself, but the accents there all have that same lilting melody to me and I gets WEEEEEEAK when I hear one.) He covered  my hand with his--I felt some heat, y'all--and told me that he would call me.

I'm a visual person, so here's a mini-collage of some Irish actors (that I've always been a wee bit hot in the tail for) so that my visual readers can get a visual.

Nope. He doesn't look like these guys.

He doesn't look like (young) Gabriel Byrne, Robert Sheehan, or Cillian Murphy. "My" Irishman doesn't "look" like an Irishman at all. He looks like Peter Gabriel, but not from his "Sledgehammer" days, rather like Peter Gabriel if you ran into him at the Wal-Mart today... buying a sledgehammer. Yep, Great Value Peter Gabriel! HA! So handsome with beautiful blue eyes.

BINGO.

*Picking this post up 2 days later. It's hard writing a post all at one time, yall.*

He didn't call me until yesterday afternoon, when I was already formulating a "men ain't shyte" post in my head. I was on my lunchbreak when my inner Shellybird suggested that I check my messages. Sure enough, "Shamus" had called. I can't even lie. He made my day, and I've only listened to his message a bazillion times. I even let my mama hear it and she was impressed. (Probably because she is concerned about having grandcats, still a yuge possibility.) I called him back that night and we talked for half an hour and texted for a few minutes today. I had no idea how much I missed being wanted and appreciated until someone that I found attractive made me feel that way again.

My entire adult life has been a John Hughes movie.

And I know I am jumping the gun and probably 2 or 3 sherman tanks, but I just feel really good right now, and that's rare for me. I've been mooning over this guy since yesterday. At work today when business was a little slow, I just stood there staring out into space with a goofy grin on my face. I could have pulled a 12 hour shift and wouldn't have cared because I have something and someone to look forward to. I love it. Most of my teacher friends took trips for spring break. My travel plans fell through but I got a free trip on the  love train, so I'm good. (And YES, I know that last sentence was cheesy.)

Sub Adventures 8: The Hackz-n-Snotz & Mirage Men...

No sooner than I made this post on my Facebook companion page about little kids and mucous did I come down with what can only be described as the upper respiratory Hackz-n-Snotz. Hey, mock my coarse medical terminology of you will, but it's gonna be in JAMA one day. Just know that if you ever catch this, you'll find out why I gave it that name. Til then, hashtag NUFFSAID.

Now I've been taking my vitamin C gummies...half-assededly like I approach everything in my life as of late...so I haven't built up my barrier of defense against the juvenile cooties. Maybe that's why I was tuning up to do a little backup singing in Rock-n-Roll Heaven. (Thanks to 2016, they've really got a helluva band now.)

Or maybe it was my seasonal allergy attack, something that was NEVER an issue for me until adulthood. Every year, right at the change of the seasons, I come down with flu-like symptoms and head to the express med joint to get a 10ft long q-tip shoved up my septum--flu test they say--only for some peppy (if it's early) PA to chirp, "Nope, it's your allergies!". Anyone with school-age children, or under the employ of any school system anywhere already knows there are 2 places to lay blame for any case of the hackz-n-snotz (or bubble gutz for that matter) that they come down with: The changing of the seasons/allergies, ergo Jesus or those little germ factories that are our future. For this particular malady, I blame...*drumroll*...THE CHIRRENS! (I'm still praise dancing about my car, y'all.)

Since procuring a new (gently used) mode of transportation, I've been going to schools that I was afraid my old goody wouldn't get me to. Even while driving the rental and my auntie's car, I was branching out. So during that period, I made the 40 minute pilgrimage to a school I'd been avoiding until someone gave me a car. It was a half-day job, and while my students were in the computer lab slogging their way through the infamous SuccessMaker, I saw this...dude, and I think he saw me. He was tall, like over 6' and lanky with dark, curly hair. I mean, I guess. My imagination finished the job that my astigmatized eyes and last ounce of hope started because Shellybird can't see very well. I don't think he's a regular classroom teacher, maybe title I or speech therapist or a tutor, one of those employees who comes in and spirits kids away for 30 minutes or so to give them a little extra help. But I made a mental note right then to cop more assignments at this site so I could scope this dude out. My auntie warned me years ago when I was in high school and slightly more desperate than I am now (I'm simply resigned to my fate presently) that, "just because a dude looks at you doesn't mean he likes you." Well, it doesn't mean he doesn't find me attractive, right?! I think I took on another full-day assignment and I didn't see him, or I glimpsed him from a distance. (Wrangling rambunctious first graders doesn't allow a lot of time for scoping men.) That school is pretty small, which is why I figured he was just a mirage in my desert of loneliness. That's also how I wound up at that same school for 3 consecutive days a few weeks ago where the hackz-n-snotz pestilence was raging.

I got lucky on my third day at this school. As I was leaving I passed a teacher in the hallway who told me that she needed to take a day off and I should try to get the job. I did, and I saw this magical, mystical mirage man again. He is tall, but not as lanky as I had built up in my mind--not that that's a requirement--he's kind of soft through his middle, either formerly fat or getting fat. Two out of the three times that I saw him, he was wearing a teal shirt. Teal is one of my favorite colors, so that's a sign of basically, NOTHING, as I soon found out. I got a chance to swap a word with him he came to the computer lab to get a few of my students for speech therapy. Then again while I was waiting for my kids to come back from the library. I got his name and looked him up on facebook at lunch time. I figured I could message him on facebook which I did and holla that way. I did all of this going on the assumption that he is single. His facebook page is relatively private, with only one photo of himself, but no woman or kids pictured. He doesn't have a relationship status splashed all over his page either, so again, I'm assuming he's up for grabs...or maybe he's gay. I wouldn't be disappointed. I've been wanting a GBF--Gay Best Friend--for YEARS. *Okay, focus, Shellybird!* Some friends suggested I just go all in and send him a friend request. No response on either front yet, and I don't know why I added "yet". It's been 12 days since I sent the message request which has gone unread or he's exercising his right to refuse Shellybird service. The friend request is in limbo as well. That could be Karma hard at work because I can't tell you the number of ignored friend requests I have cued up in my facebook or the messages from random men that I don't respond to. Maybe my chickens have at last come home to roost. In his defense--did I really just type that?!--my hair is currently an ombre burgundy. In my facebook profile pic, I'm a (very cute if I must say so myself) ombre blonde, soooooo maybe he didn't recognize me? I don't know, y'all. What I do know is that at this point, I'm out of the notion of even trying to holla. Meeting men that I deem "my type" is rare, and when I finally do, nothing comes of it. Holla-ing has never been my thing, but after so many years alone I thought maybe, just maybe, I needed to start making some first moves. Chile, that shit don't work. Not for me, anyway, and it never has. I don't really know why I expected it to work this time.

So that's that. Shellybird's dry white season continues....