AROUND AND AROUND
Sunday, I had an appointment at the vet's.
Not just any vet office, but the one I worked at for four years.
I was thinking how odd it was that the male veterinary technician who walked in had no idea who I was, and treated me like any other client.
Then the doctor did the same, even though he knew quite well who he was.
I would have been tripping out about that, but instead I was distracted by two things - a conversation I just had in the lobby, and my cell phone with video I wanted to show the doctor.
When I was sitting in the room, trying to calm my two Aussies, I heard someone ask the doctor about me. The doctor asked how he knew me, and and the guy said he used to work with me at Subway.
"She left here, actually," said my old doc. "I think she is working at a research facility."
I worked at about every Subway store in College Station at one point in time, about a dozen years ago. During that time, I was a bit of a "man-eater". Not intentionally, but sort of accidentally. I had a bit of a charm about me, or maybe just a bad reputation.
When the doctor opened "door number two", I was sitting on the bench and looked up.
"Well, here she is now," he exclaims.
And I think he has no idea, really no idea, who this person is standing here.
The guy in the lobby was a man I remember as a manager at a store I briefly moonlighted at who had a crush on me at the time. I know that much, but I can't remember his name, and make small talk with him, updating him on fellow past sandwich artists.
I think he has no idea of the person I was when I worked here, nor would my doc believe the stories I am sure this man could tell, about back in the day when I was "the belle of the ball", a girl who was "never really available", but had several men on a string.
For the rest of the week, it bugs me that I can't remember this guy's name.
I ask my best friend, and her husband, who all worked at Subway during those years. "I don't remember his name," M says, "but I remember that he lo-ved you."
Yes, I remember that, being the victim of many a manager's crush. I know that, like you know facts about history, but really believing it is a different story. It seems like a movie of a story that happened to someone else, the disconnection between my past and my present.
Like standing next to the exam table that I used to be cleaning, with the doctor offering to lift my dog for me (what's this?) and asking his tech to hold them, so I don't get my nice shirt dirty, when I used to live and breath in this room. Like being handed the handouts on pain management that I watched him write and edit during the four years I practically lived at this clinic, four years of being a person this Subway fellow never knew.

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My friend, the one who wants me to change my religion, isn't speaking to me.
Or maybe I'm not speaking to him, not really talking, just brief greetings here and there.
Something happened at the Beef and Bun.
It was really nothing, but it changed my opinion of him. I saw something in him that day, last Friday, that made me realize he would never be a true friend. I saw just a touch of the dark side and I am not sure I trust him now.
I was treating my assistant to lunch, because he helped me clean my lab when it really mattered. On the way out of the parking lot, I got nervous. I asked a couple of guys who were standing there if they wanted to join us at the BBQ joint.
One, the man who prays with me, declined, but my other friend, the one who wants me to change my religion, jumps in.
"Let's go."
I tell him the whole time that I am treating my assistant to lunch because of what he did for me. I ask him if he has money, a few times.
When he get to the restaurant, he starts to get nervous about the situation, and mentions he is "stuck". He didn't realize I was meeting my assistant there, which seems really odd since I was telling him that the whole time.
First he says he doesn't want anything, and when I ask if he has money, he just looks at me.
Then he orders a baked potato and a drink. Five dollars, out of the twenty I just spent, on this payday in which I am just about broke already, after bills.
I tell him he will have to help me in the lab for that lunch, and he swears he will, up and down, as he leaves the car when we get back.
Later, a coworker hears him bragging to another guy that I "took him to lunch, too."
Then later, I hear this story. I hear that he was flashing a ten dollar bill in front of my assistant's face that morning, offering to buy him lunch if he will give the food he brought from home up that morning. Apparently he was hungry, and he had money to burn.
I ask him later why, then, if he had money, did he act like he had no way to pay for the baked potato that he wanted to order? He tells me a story about having to give his money to someone else, and his eyes shift down, around. I think he tricked me into paying for his meal as a way to brag about some kind of special relationship that doesn't exist.
As we talk, we walk outside, and a group of guys are walking to the right. Immediately, my friend starts puffing up, like a big ole gorilla, acting completely different walking with me.
"What is that" I ask him. He looks at me blankly, when I know full well he knows that I am talking about.
I see. I knew he was a dog, but now I see his fleas.
I'm not sure I want to give him that impression, nor anyone else. He has taken our friendship and added the hint of sex to it, and it makes me think he doesn't really know what it means to be a friend. I have a reputation to uphold. Not to mention, seven days later, no helping in the lab.
Now, when I see him, I just keep on walking.
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