Voenix Rising

It was a rough day. I had to deliver and set up some PCs in our Colorado Springs office.  I don’t mind the COS office or going there; it’s actually being in Colorado Springs that I hate. I always feel like I need to shower—in bleach—after spending any time there. It seems every car is plastered with little Jeebus fish or American flags or more commonly, both. The gay hate group Focus on the Family is based there. The Christianist indoctrination facility, more commonly known as the Air Force Academy, is located there. Constitution Avenue is a major thoroughfare.  In short, the whole “God-Country-Family” thing hangs in the air like a poison fog to this little freedom-lovin atheist homo (who actually has read the Constitution, no doubt unlike 99% of the people who live there).

It only took me until around 1 pm to get my work done, so after I said my goodbyes to the office manager and had her verify that everything was set up to her satisfaction, I decided to head out in search of lunch before returning to Denver.  I was in the mood for some Jack-in-the-Box tacos and knew there had to be a JIB somewhere in this overweight fast-food-on-every-corner town.  A quick Google search confirmed that and I set off.

On the way there, I encountered a big white 4×4 driven by an old man who was obviously functioning on only two or three brain cells.  He had a “CAIN 2012” sticker plastered on the rear window of the cab (along with with the usual jeebus fish and american flags on the bumper). Seriously? Herman Cain? The wannabe Groper-in-Chief? I only wish I had a voice that would carry far enough for me to yell out my window and ask the douchebag how he would feel if it was his daughter’s skirt Cain were reaching under. As expected, when the light changed, he took off pedal-to-the-metal. Three brain cells and a small penis! It was a twofer!

But back to lunch, Ben and I have had terrible luck at the three JIBs in Denver. Service is abysmally slow (even when there’s no one else in the restaurant!), orders are delivered missing items, and the people who work there just don’t seem to give a damn about any of it.  I’m not sure I’d be any different if I were in that position, but c’mon people. If corporate gets enough complaints about a store you aren’t going to be working at all. And encountering the same attitude at three different stores?  (Believe me, we’ve let Jack know how awful our experience has been.) For that reason I wasn’t holding out much hope COS would be any different.

I was pleasantly surprised. It was like a JIB in Phoenix. I placed my order and the food was ready (and hot, which is also unusual) within only a few minutes.

Fighting a burgeoning headache that started earlier that morning, I arrived back at our main office at 3 pm, giving me only an hour to get caught up on whatever tasks had been accumulating in my Inbox during the day. Thankfully it had been a pretty quiet in my absence.

Right before I left for the day, Ben texted and asked if I wanted to meet him at the Starbucks on Colorado on my way home. I texted back yes, but by the time I got there the day had just overwhelmed me and I asked if we could just go home instead. He said that was fine; he wasn’t making much headway on his paper anyway.

After a truly unremarkable dinner at the neighborhood Heidi’s where I was asked, “Do you want that hot pastrami hot or cold?” (SERIOUSLY) we walked back home and I popped a couple Advil hoping that would finally kill the headache. Since it was Friday night (yay!) I had every intention of remaining awake and getting caught up on what was stored in the TIVO. Instead, I was sound asleep on the sofa minutes later. I think I woke up around 7:30 and sleepily told Ben I was going to bed. I was out the minute my head hit the pillow and slept for the next twelve hours…