Tag: unlikeable midnight

It wasn’t my favorite place to be – honestly, I could think of dozens of places that I’d rather be – but considering it was well past three in the morning, my options were pretty limited.  The only restaurant still open at this hour would be swarming with drunks at this time of night, and all of the fast food places were either closed or drive-thru only.  I’m not sure why any bakery would be open twenty-four hours, but the donuts were good, and I guess if the employees have to be here to start baking, you don’t really lose much by never closing.

I’d stashed my work clothes in my car, but switching them out in favor of shorts and a t-shirt wasn’t enough to prevent me from reeking of taco meat and cleaning chemicals.  It was probably my hair, absorbing sweat throughout the night underneath my hat.  Well, hopefully it wasn’t as noticeable as I thought it was.  Normally I’m not very self-conscious about my appearance, but she’s here again tonight.

It’s been almost three weeks since I moved into town.  I’ve been able to talk to a few of my friends over email, but it’s not the same.  I was hoping to meet new people, but my coworkers are just… so unlikeable.  Sure, it’s fast food, so I don’t have high hopes, but usually there’s at least one or two people who are passable humans.  And maybe during the day, there are.  But Carroll’s got me working night shifts, and you can just feel the poverty and broken dreams weighing everyone else down.  Add in the part where I don’t watch sports, and you’ve got the perfect mixture of absolutely nothing in common.

My mother suggested that I get out of the apartment more.  And she’s not wrong, but it’s easier said than done when your sleeping hours take place during everyone else’s afternoons.  I tried the coffee shops for a while, all two of them that are open past midnight, but they’re filled with different sorts of crazy.  Maybe I’m being too picky.  The bakery hasn’t been too much better, except for her.

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Commander Alexander Towncroft couldn’t sleep. And he hadn’t slept in several days. Earth’s first intergalactic embassy had the unfortunate luck to be positioned right next door to what must be the most unlikeable race on the planet, the Napli delegation. For days now, he’d heard nothing but their drums. Big drums, small drums, drums banging and bashing away outside of his walls. For three days he’d gone to work to their rhythm. And for three nights, just as he felt himself falling into sleep, they seemed to get louder just to jar him awake again. He could only be glad that they hadn’t developed a fondness for the cymbals, yet.

He laid down for what he was sure would be another fitful night, knowing that he would toss and turn and hear the drums. Even a few hours would be better than nothing. He needed to be bright and shiny for tomorrow’s big welcome ceremony with the neighbors. It was an eight hour ceremony and he needed his strength. He could muffle the sounds, but even with a dozen pillows over his head he would never be able to block out the vibrations that were coming through the walls. His head felt like someone had inflated a bouncy castle inside of it and invited the neighborhood over for a sugar-fueled jumping contest. He could almost see the primary colors of it all invading the darkness of his room, but that was probably just the hallucinations setting in.

“Bugger this,” he grumbled as he got up.

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Unlikeable. It was the same word in every rejection from a woman, on each evaluation at work, at the bottom of all my report cards in school. No matter how well I performed, my social skills were—in a word—non-existent.

God knows I tried. I read self-help books. I attended seminars. I even found a woman in New England who still taught an old-fashioned charm school, aimed at instilling budding young debutants with the social graces. And yet, though I understood how to be likable, my mind could never grasp why.

It seemed an unnecessary show—something one did to garner the approval of others. I never needed external validation. I didn’t see the need to placate those precious flowers whose feelings were hurt because I refused to coddle them. Why couldn’t they just accept facts as facts?

“Yes, Mrs. Robinson, your car is a complete piece of shit has had some engine trouble. In the past six years, you never changed the oil on time your car has had a lot of miles on it. It’s your fault. These things happen. Now you’re going to pay through the nose. We’ll see what we can do.”

I guess that’s why I like cars. They don’t get pissed when you bleed the lines. They don’t hold a grudge when you pound out a dent in the fender. They don’t take it personal when you give up on fixing them and send them to the junkyard.

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