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An Adventure in Frustration

Go on! Step On Me!
In my writing class, we were recently instructed to write for 20 minutes about an emotion to see what we came up with. We were told that we would inevitably come up with a story beginning, middle and end. My husband found my foray into frustration amusing, and for anyone, who has forgotten their wallet after ordering food, you will understand my predicament. Please bear in mind that this experience was also replete with embarrassment, but that was not the subject.



Frustration happens so fast, rising to the surface when your expectations don’t pan out. Depending on the day, that surge of irritation can easily be exacerbated by a little noise, a misplaced word or a thoughtless gesture that any other time might go unnoticed. Anyone who does not give full reign to their frustration, particularly in public, should be commended with a pat on the back, an Atta girl or You showed’em.

I would have appreciated any one of those gestures just a day earlier.

I’d decided to have sushi for lunch, eat in Jarry Park and saunter home 45 minutes later to return to work. I picked up my phone, grabbed my purse, checked for my bank card and keys, and headed out the door. After ordering my sushi, which was made in front of me, I reached for my bank card, but couldn’t find it. I offered a credit card, but no. "Just cash or debit," said the man at the counter in his crisp white apron and hideous hairnet, not the owner who knew me, but his unsmiling cousin.

I rifled through my purse. No money of course. And then decided to go home and look for my card. "Could you hold that for me," I said. "I just have to run home and grab my bank card." Slightly miffed, I pushed the door to leave and was immediately struck by glaring sunlight. I walked home slightly embarrassed, but reminded myself that at least I was getting some fresh air. At home, I searched for the bank card only to find it in my back pocket with my phone. I scratched my head. I had no recollection of putting it there. Then I went to wash my hands. I’d been out the previous evening and had heard numerous stories of bouts of flu, vomiting, and its related aches and pains.

I stepped out the door again heading back, thinking of fresh sushi with a squeeze of lime and a cold glass of mineral water. As the man at the counter handed me my lunch I reached into my purse, but yet again my bank card was not there. To make matters worse, the man at the counter sucked on the toothpick between his teeth as he waited, not once but three times. Each tslll ratcheted my annoyance up to full blown frustration. "Fuck," I said looking through my purse for the second time. Then I heard a snigger from the kitchen worker. As a regular customer, the owner would have said, "Drop by later and pay me" but the cousin with his Ruth Buzzi hairnet was not feeling particularly generous. He just sucked again, tslll. My irritation gathered momentum forcing its way up to my shoulders and immobilizing my jaw. My sushi lunch was not to be.


"I guess I won’t be having it today after all," I offered forcing a smile before running out the door.

I walked home with my face in a knot, but relieved that I didn’t have to hear El Sucko one more fucking time. My bank card was on the counter in the bathroom. I made a salad and told myself that the Interact terminal at the sushi shop was probably crawling with influenza germs multiplying by the second, and fortunately, I hadn’t come into contact with it, saving me and my family from a weekend of misery.




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