thank you notes 4/6
i'm thankful that the package from amazon that was supposed to be delivered yesterday was not delivered yesterday (i'm thankful for my hope that it will be delivered today). i'm thankful that i put on my shoes and walked around the perimeter of the house to make sure the person who made the delivery hadn't just put it somewhere else like it said to do on the ups website, even though i was sure that the package wouldn't be there. i'm thankful that i didn't urgently need any of the items from the package (even if i had been looking forward to them) and thankful for the nice customer service person on the phone, v, who helped me make a record of my undelivered but marked as delivered package. i'm thankful for the weird rhythmic background sound in our call that was like a creepy form of beatboxing which i think from spy movies was maybe a sign of the call being recorded. i'm thankful as a customer service person to be nice to other customer service people and thankful that being a customer service person has made me feel less anxious and self-conscious about talking on the phone to other customer service people than i was when i was younger. i'm thankful that my calls at work aren't monitored or recorded (though i'm thankful for the faculty member who used to have his office near me and who would, if i was floundering or giving out incorrect information on the phone, quickly write down the right answer on a post-it note and bring it over to me). i'm thankful, finally, that my package was not delivered yesterday if only for the beginning of the email i got from amazon customer service after i got off the phone, which read: "Hello, I'm sorry to hear your Haribo Gummi Candy Gold-Bears, 5-Pound Bag didn't arrive by the guaranteed delivery." i'm thankful to be reminded that many of my problems are not really problems, even when i let them feel like problems.
i'm thankful that yesterday afternoon i had a bad interaction with a master's student who i normally have lovely bantery chats with. i'm thankful that she told me she couldn't get into the graduate student office and thankful at her smile when i leapt up gleefully and said i could help her out. i'm thankful that she thanked me for my help and we went to my manager's office for the spare key and thankful for the moment, when she reached out her hand for the key, and i told her, "oh, no, i'll go with you--i can let you in, but i can't give you the key." i'm thankful how she immediately looked down and began walking away from me and how her voice, when she spoke, had dropped several semitones and hsharp edges. i'm thankful to see (if i want to be uncharitable, as i first felt in the moment) the other side of people that you sometimes get when you don't give them exactly what they want or (if i want to be more charitable, which i normally do), the physical manifestation of her feeling vulnerable and embarrassed to have asked me something and gotten turned down. i'm thankful she told me that she had checked out the key before from my boss several times before, that it hadn't been an issue, that she really needed, and thankful that i paused to consider it and then just said "ok, i don't really care" and gave her the key. i'm thankful that this was fine and that i probably should've just done it from the start since it wasn't a big deal and i don't really care about the rules very much, but also thankful to have asserted myself and said "no" at first, which is something that can be hard to do in customer service even though sometimes that.
i'm thankful that i ran into the student this morning and it seemed we were back to our normal pleasant banter. i'm thankful that in conversation she revealed to me that this cool old abandoned mill on the south side of town which d and i thought we were trespassing on when we found it with our bikes is actually a public park space where they are holding a local beer festival in a few weeks. i'm thankful that at the end of our conversation, she asked me, as she has several times in the past few weeks, if i have yet bought or am going to buy my ticket for the departmental awards show at the country club this friday. i'm thankful that i didn't tell her the truth, which is that while i like the people i work with (some of them very much) and can occasionally be talked into the occasional happy hour or holiday party, i very much do not want to spend my friday night (and especially not to force my introverted wife to spend her friday night) at a boring departmental awards show at the country club (and definitely do not want to spend $40 to buy tickets to do it)—i'm thankful i didn't say that, because even if it was true it would have been a rude thing to say.
i'm thankful that instead of that, i said, "i'm not allowed at the country club anymore" and gave her a mysterious look. i'm thankful that i intended this as a joke but that, maybe because of our interaction the previous day, she didn't laugh and seemed to think i was being dead serious and looked at me in a new way and started to inquire excitedly about how i had gotten banned from the country club. i'm thankful that instead of saying anything else, i made the motion of closing my mouth, locking my lips shut, and throwing away the key. i'm thankful to imagine that someone could think someone as boring as me could do something as interesting as get banned from a country club.
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