Sunday, August 17, 2008

addendum: more feet in the mouth

Meant to put this in the last entry but I was watching ER and forgot. However, it was the best one of the night, so I can't possibly leave it out =).

First, it's important to tell you that I have a crazy strong sense of smell. Actually, it's probably no stronger than most people's, but I'm really sensitive to smells, and I can almost always smell if something is there. Except sometimes I get them switched up, like, for some reason, when I smell popcorn popping, it always smell like a ham and cheese biscuit to me. No idea why. It's gonna be horrible/probably pretty humorous when I'm pregnant. I'll be walking down the bread aisle at Wal-mart (which always seems to be right near the seafood section) smelling bread mixed with fish and I'll probably just throw up right there.

Well, during the soccer game last night, I went outside and stood by the window where customers order so I could cool off. And I kept smelling what smelled like dog poop, and it was nasty. Now, earlier, some grown woman came up with her dog-child (you know those women who treat their pets like kids?) and asked for a plastic bag and I figured she needed to pick up after the dog, but I also figured it was somewhere on the other side of the stadium and didn't think any more of it. And, just saying, pets aren't allowed into the stadium. But like I said, after she took the bag I didn't think any more of it.

So there I was, standing in front of the stand and there was this horrible smell and I just couldn't contain it, so I turned to Greg was like, "GOD something smells NASTY. I keep smelling crap, I know I smell it. UGGHGHG, what is that?" And so on like that. So Greg says, "I know what it is." And, overhearing, the rewards program staff standing about twenty feet away nodded. Since I couldn't see the thing he was pointing at, he had me take x steps forward, y steps right, a little farther, a little farther, until I was standing right in front of the place that, apparently, the dog had taken a dump. About eight feet from the stand, and completely in the space where people line up.

First, that dog was tiny--fit in your purse tiny. Second, the place it had gone was like four inches wide, which is at least three inches bigger than the rest of the dog. And third, retarded woman really did not clean it up all that well. She'd, like, scraped the top layer off the grass or something, but she'd left a fair amount behind. But like I said, I am sensitive to smells, so when I walked back to the stand and could still smell it, I had to do something. So I found a cone from last year, one of those little bitty cones that people sometimes use for megaphones. Grabbed it and put it on top of the spot. Problem solved, couldn't really smell it much anymore.

Well, it gets better. There was a little three or so year old boy running around who kept trying to drive off with our golf cart. Cute kid, apart from that. And all of a sudden, I look over and Greg is laughing and pointing out the window. Little boy had the same cone, holding it to his mouth yelling through it (don't worry, it was the end that wasn't on the ground). So I ran over, the best I could without falling over from laughing, and grabbed the cone from him.

Later some staff from the athletics department cleaned it up and put dirt over it. But the smell was still there, and occasionally it was awful. Come to find out, the smartest (and most considerate) pet-owner on the planet ever had taken the half of the poop she'd picked up and put it in the trash can right next to the concession stand. The same trashcan right next to the window that the hotdogs were just inside of. Worst thing ever.

So I know sometimes I just let the worst things fall out of my mouth and I don't even know why I talk at all, but oh man I hope that woman heard me. And if nothing else, she provided a very entertaining evening =).


Anyway, I would also just like to say that several months ago, our creative writing department sent out one of their emails about different places accepting submissions, and one was a magazine calling for stories about wolflore and fairytales and that sort of thing. And it just so happened that about a month before that I'd had to write my own version of Little Red Ridinghood for my English class. It was just one of those things I'd done the night before it was due. Really straightforward, the girl wore a red jacket with a hood, she was visiting her grandma, etc. The story was cute, I guess, but had little real depth and I would never workshop it in a writing class, so I just sort of sent it in because of the coincidence and didn't really care because I know I can do a heck of a lot better and just whatever. One of those "shrug, what the heck" kinds of things.

Well, I heard back today from the editor. Now, the magazine is really small I think--the guy has a facebook and added me. And I didn't get the story in, which I expected. He said the things I thought would be issues, about it being really straightforward, etc. But he wants me to revise it for publication. Which is really cool, I'm pretty excited about it. But thing the thing I'm really, really happy about is this: the response he sent me. Whether he had flat out told me they didn't want the story or if they told me it was the most amazing thing they ever read, the fact that he sent me a personal email--and not just a few sentences. This email was five or six very long paragraphs long, full of suggestions and advice and thoughts about the story. That just amazes me. Like I said, I know it's small, so I suppose he has more time to send out personal messages like that, but the fact that he did, only that he did. I got from him as much as I would get from any professor whose job it is to do that. And I think that's wonderful. I wish all editors were/were able to be like that, and I hope that if I ever decide to become an editor that I could be that kind, and doubly so if I ever teach, which I hope to.

But right now, I'm getting dizzy again and I don't know why, so time to end the post.

cheers.

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