TheNew30

File Under Most Embarrassing Moments.

So I’m working at this boutique ad agency in Pasadena. I love my creative director. Funny dude. He brings in his miniature Schnauzer, Sammy, every day.

The other day, I walked into his office and saw what looked like a black shoelace on the floor by his desk.

“Sammy! What are you playing with? A shoelace?” This I said with the creative director standing next to me. I noticed he gave me a funny look, but I gave it a pass. People give me weird looks all the time.

Later that night, getting ready for bed at home, I disrobed. To discover my black bra was missing a strap. My mind tumbled back to earlier. A shoelace. A shoelace?? The look of disbelief on my boss’ face. Arggh.

Next day, my friend Lisa, who had roared at this story, went into the creative director’s office and it was still there on his floor. She grabbed it and brought it back to the office we share.

Good laugh was had by both. She wanted to keep it. Not so fast sistah! That’s from a Betsey Johnson bra! I scooped it up in a panic and stowed it in my purse.

Came home that night and went to repair my bra. Looked in my purse. The strap was gone. On the loose again. Sheesh.

Bada Bing.

There's a reason why I do my shopping on Monday mornings. Of course, when I'm employed in an ongoing kind of way, I don't get to call the shots so much. But for now, I love going into the market when the parking lot is empty and the Gelson's employees are actually happy to see you.

I got a taste of the old days this afternoon. I'm having my old friend Jonathan over (something tells me he'd like me to reword that last bit) and I needed to pick up a chicken to roast for dinner, along with a few other goodies. So it was that I haplessly pulled into the Century City mall parking lot at around 2PM on a Sunday. To discover it was a madhouse. I forgot to employ my other friend Jackie Dessy's parking Karma, and instead drove round and round the loop, several times getting stuck behind lots of peeps who were waiting for an "imminent" spot - usually someone unloading their thirty-five bags of groceries before situating their toddler in his carseat and then dealing with said toddler's tantrum, going back, digging through grocery bags to find toddler treats, etcetera, ad nauseum before finally settling in the driver's seat and dicking around with a bottle of Vitamin Water before putting the car in reverse. Arrrgggghhh. Everyone's humor was less than stellar, just let me say.

So it was in this state of mind or rather state of lack that I found myself stuck in a bit of gridlock. With the exit directly in front of me, I had to make a left to get back into the stream of parking wannabes, but there were cars entering, in front of me, and, where I would have turned left to (a)get out of the way, and (b)still be in the game, the way was blocked by two cars stacked up with the one in the front, a giant SUV - you guessed it - stubbornly sitting with his blinker on waiting for a spot to open.

Finally, after the cars had pulled forward a bit, and the cars behind me wanting to get out, I made the left. And was immediately stuck. Admittedly it wasn't one of my more brilliant moves. Now I was blocking the cars coming in, and a Jaguar that was coming toward me on my left, which had plenty of room to swing around me, stopped, clearly waiting for me to do something. Which was impossible. I was firmly blocked: couldn't go anywhere. It was all hinging on the guy in the SUV waiting for the parking spot to open and he wasn't about to give up his spot.

After nearly a full ten seconds of waiting, the woman sitting in the passenger seat of the Jag, a platinum blonde senior citizen who clearly had better things to do with her time than sit tight, and had the cha-ching to prove it, leaned out of her window and shouted at me: "Why don't you move, you stupid?"

And that's when it happened. I try so hard to live life on a spiritual plane. I don't believe in flipping people the bird; I think it's rather crass. I try to rise above. I really do. But when this bitch had to make it clear she was too important to wait for even a few seconds for a situation to resolve itself, I had no choice.

"Why don't you shut your ugly face?"

I admit I said it rather forcefully. And while it wasn't exactly a comeback worthy of Oscar Wilde, it put me on a playing field with, oh, say, Tony Soprano. The couple in the Jag were stunned. Then the woman slapped her husband's arm, as if to say, "Do something!" But that's when my friend in the SUV pulled into his parking space and whatever the guy in the Jag said in retort was completely lost because at that moment all the cars began to flow again and I left the couple in the Jag behind.

Usually when I engage with someone in a verbal altercation, it's so unpleasant. And I go around for days afterward feeling the misery of having allowed them to get under my skin. I'm way too sensitive, always have been. If someone yells at me in traffic, I immediately go to "Oh gosh, what did I do wrong?" and then, you know, you're sunk, you've got nowhere to go in that argument but down. I have a tendency to think things through, too much. And while that's good for interpersonal relationships, it's not great for dealing with the odd straggler on the street who wants to pick a fight.

But today, I didn't think. The words shot out of my mouth as fast as bullets out of Paulie Walnuts' revolver. And you know? It felt really good. Seeing the look of shock on the woman's face after she got told: priceless.

And it's hours later and you know, I thought I would feel bad by now. You know, contrite. Like, I'd need to do some kind of pennance with the universe because what I did today wasn't spiritual. But ... I don't feel so bad. Not an ounce of regret. Perhaps the whole acting without thought and doing a smackdown was, actually, some pretty big spiritual growth for someone like me. I don't know, maybe tomorrow morning I'll wake up and feel some remorse.

But I'm thinking ... not so much.