sometimes i wonder how my friends put up with me. you see, unfortunately, i am pretty much a tit-for-tat kind of person. it’s the way i grew up, the way my siblings and i treated each other. it’s not that we don’t like each other; in fact, we all get along very well. but all four of us (at varying levels of severity) definitely like to get our “revenge” if we feel attacked or hurt or even just annoyed.
i have discovered in recent years that even though this mannerism is usually suppressible, it is hard to erase entirely. if you reach my breaking point (the location of which is difficult to pinpoint) or say something that hits one of my nerves, there is a chance that i will snap back at you with something sarcastic or biting or just plain mean before i think to hold my tongue. i feel like this makes me a spiteful person at times. i don’t like it. but i am working on it.
last night i did something that i can’t quite qualify, except to say that it is a uniquely texas and redneck activity. i went to a bingo hall and played bingo. as in, i went with debbie and paul and debbie’s sister and brother-in-law to a large barn-like stucture that was formerly a country western dance hall and has now been reincarnated with long tables full of strange-looking people who shell out big bucks on reams of bingo cards, and quietly sit listening to a caller annouce things like “b-15…b-one-five…” and then cover the square with ink from a bingo dauber (available in many colors). yes. and i am ashamed to say that it was actually fun, despite the fact that none of us won anything.
today is george’s birthday, so we all went out to lunch, and now suddenly it’s almost coke break time. woohoo.
rotary international says they won’t let nick go to his school of choice in france because it is too close to paris. this makes me angry. but nick is writing them a letter to plead his case, and if anyone can get someone to change their mind despite their assurances that the decision is final, it’s nick.
