Rage

Saturday night should have been lovely. I had a great dinner with Ashesh and then came home to putter around the apartment and do some schoolwork. Next weekend I am going home, and I am trying to finagle a trip down to Charlottesville on Friday - a trip that requires me to get from Manhattan to Cville in an afternoon. I was looking online at a bunch of different websites - Travelocity, Amtrak, Expedia, American Airlines, and nothing was working. The train I was looking for seemed to be nonexistent; the customer service people wouldn't tell me my frequent flier password, even when I was patient and courteous as I was tranferred through outsourced customer service personnel from Mumbai to Guajrat. And on top of all that, the DVR that L had installed that very day had somehow messed up our cable signal, so the television was unwatchable and I had to miss Saturday Night Live. And, I had to prepare for a law school presentation on Sunday that I had to wear a suit for and do homework for on a Saturday night. I started getting angry.

"What the FUCK," I said. L was in the kitchen area and I was stalking around the living room, surrounded by old bills, hastily-scrawled phone numbers, useless television remote controls, and a deadening sense of rage. I hung up after talking to another bitchy old cow in customer service and was at that level of anger where you almost start crying. I was incredibly frustrated and made up a mental list of things I hated at that moment: 1) law school; 2) Amtrak; 3) American Airlines; 4) "customer" "service"; 5) outsourcing to people whose language skills are not quite up to par. "God DAMN IT," I hissed at my cellphone. "I hate this shit so much" -- my Tourette's outburst was in full swing at this point -- "fuck everything, I am SO SICK of this SHIT." I looked around at the shambles of my life and heard the heater barking and tapping crazily. "God, why is it so hot, it's the fucking WINTERTIME," I bellowed, ripping my fleece off. "It's like a FUCKING SAUNA in here!"

I'm not used to being enraged around other people. L actually didn't enjoy my outburst and left to go on a walk. I stayed behind to sulk and consider ways I might be a more considerate and less Hulk-like roommate. I turned the heat off. And now our apartment has a cute new nickname: "the fucking sauna."