Some people

I had a meeting at 9am this morning. M was away on business last night, so it was me, the pupper and A today. Luxuriously, A slept until 7:30am. Crap, that means walking the dog, feeding us all, getting to daycare and then getting downtown in 1.5 hours. Not going to go well.

Ok, it went smoothly, at least up to that last item. Granted, I had a bit of an altercation with my sock drawer that seems to have taken pointers from M's sock drawer and started holding only one of each pair of socks. Sure, the tights can't separate both legs without me getting suspicious, but I already had my jeans on, and I wanted a pair of socks, damn it. Then I chose the slower, but less walking uphill option to the daycare. Mistake again. Finally, I missed the direct bus to downtown and had to go by bus then tram.

But wait. Once at the building where the person's office used to be, something made me worry that maybe it was no longer. I didn't even remember how to get to the old office, but my iPhone informed me that at least one person in the group was now in another building, just where I had jumped off the tram. Back up the hill. Ring the bell, confused secretary opens the door. I tell her who I'm looking for (the spouse of the person whose office I'm currently standing in), and she pauses, as if she has no idea who I'm asking about. Really? C'mon. REALLY?

Then she asks suspiciously, "Who ARE you?"

I tell her my name and that I have an appointment with said person. Already I'm 30 minutes late, and the other person coming to the meeting isn't answering her cell phone or my texts asking where the office is.

Then the secretary goes to a map on the wall to tell me the name (at this university, the building names are combinations of 3 letters each, that do NOT spell anything....I hate this system) of the building I want. Uh-huh, which helps not at all, and I know I'm going to need the street address.

I ask, perhaps brusquely, more likely desperately, "But do you have the street address?"

She recoils, arches her eyebrows, PUTS HER HAND UP IN MY FACE, and says something like "Wait!" in an offended voice.

Pow. There goes my whole internal composure. I'm being disciplined for....for what, exactly?

I immediately hate her guts, turn down my desperation and try to play nice to get my info and get out as fast as I can. "Bitch," I think. As I walk out and try to remember her stupid directions (lacking any street address, of course), I swear under my breath. Close to 45 minutes late.

And then, for the first time ever, I try to think through what just happened. I stop myself from assuming I did something wrong or rude or at all, to elicit that behavior from her. She might have just been scared that she didn't know the answer to my street address question, and confronted with a person who she thought was judging her for that, she got defensive. Not my fault. Breathe. Not. My. Fault.

I got to the right building, went down the wrong staircase, and met a janitor who asked what I was looking for. And here it all calmed down inside. He was older, calm, gentle, heard what I wanted and just said, I had to go upstairs and to the next building. In German, but he was calming enough, relaxed, that I had the mental capacity to understand what he was saying. My inner alarm bells were no longer ringing.

I found my meeting, 55 minutes late, but that is beside the point in this story. I apologized, and proceeded to be a productive contributor. Things were okay.

So thank you, Mr. Janitor, for being a calming influence in my chaotic morning. And undoing what Ms. Secretary did for me.