guarantee

The internet is freaking slow joke right now and my hand hurts.

My hand hurt at about this time last year. I remember at this time last year I was aggravated beyond belief. I thought my right hand would never have feeling again. I thought any chance I had to be creative was completely gone (not to mention any chance I had to do just about ANYTHING useful). That didn't happen though. I got better. Life went on, more or less just fine.

68 days ago, while at work, I spoke to a customer on the phone who ruined my day. Apparently things didn't quite go as planned with her. She had been GUARANTEED something and that something hadn't been delivered. She was right to be upset. What she didn't understand is that despite broken promises made by someone else, it didn't give me the power to move time and space. No, the fact that something was GUARANTEED somehow meant that I would be arriving at her place in New York City within the next 20 minutes to appease her.

Since this particular problem could not be resolved in our known universe, it ran a bit long. So long, in fact that it cut into my real life plans. I'm still bugged by this person I had to associate with. Obviously, it wasn't just a day she ruined. I actually think there's a chance that things would be better now without being sidelined so bad by this one person.

Who knows how much that one event affected things. Probably not much. I want to blame it all on something like that. It feels like such a thing was against my destiny. Perhaps it was in my fate to be there -- but destiny or fate don't matter.

There's a line in Can't Hardly Wait (so many people hate that movie btw (probably because so many people are girls and girls hate Jennifer Love Hewitt)) where Jenna Elfman says "fate can only take you so far, but then it's actually up to you." As lowbrow and as unfavorable that movie is with the critics and the masses, that line has always resonated with me.

I never liked the use of fate as a literary (and by extension, real-life) tool. If everything's fated, our personal victories and tragedies are meaningless. At the same time, I can't argue that I've been blessed with opportunity. As fate would have it, opportunity presents itself 95% of the way -- as if fate opened the door, but the rest was up to me.

I don't do 5%. However my hand feels, whoever I come across, whatever happens good or bad -- I'm still the same funny, anxious, petty, absolutely terrible person. That's a GUARANTEE.

My hand hurts.