My husband thinks I have the patience of a Saint.

He is wrong.

Outwardly, I have an enormous amount of patience. My employers are crazy. My husband, while very sweet, vexes me on most days especially when he calls me up and says things like, “What’s my sister’s last name?” and “Can you stop by the store and buy me some concrete?” I have two ten year old children who love to talk and thusly love to tell me absolutely everything they have ever known about or ever will know about and sometimes they just like to tell me things they might potentially know about at some point in the future. It’s extremely exhausting.

And then yesterday, when I was forced to go to Wal-Mart by my employer? I encountered the woman who shall henceforth be known as The Slowest Woman Alive, Ever (SWAE, for short). She just happened to be walking from inside Wal-Mart to the parking lot in front of Wal-Mart as I was trying to find a parking space.

Lucky me.

This is her waving to me.

SWAE, bless her heart, is about two hundred years old and appears to be holding herself up with the shopping cart. I think she was toting one of those little portable oxygen tanks along behind her. She was so slow going across the way that my son asked me at one point, quite seriously, “Is that woman dead mom?”

And for a minute, I wasn’t sure.

She wasn’t, despite the flies that were buzzing about her head and the vultures circling impatiently. She gave us a little half-wave and I knew, for the time being anyway, that she was still kicking it. (Literally, not figuratively)

Now, internally I was shrieking at this woman, “OH MY GOD, WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST GO! I COULD GET OUT, PHYSICALLY PICK YOU UP AND CARRY YOU AND YOUR FREAKING CART TO YOUR FREAKING CAR BEFORE YOU COULD WALK THERE! GOD!”

But you know what I said? Nothing.

Because I’m trying to be a nice person.

Why? I have no idea. Being a nice person mostly seems to suck.

Like when my ex-husband left me for a skank-whore with a mullet and inner thigh tattoos? I was like, “Poor guy. He’s so confused. I will do whatever I can to make sure that he’s happy and then maybe he’ll realize how much he loves me!”

See, that was like ten years ago. Now, I’d be all like, “DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT!” Because good Lord y’all. I was fighting for a man who preferred someone with tattoos on her inner thighs that she would SHOW PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T EVEN PAY HER MONEY. What was I thinking?

I was thinking that’s what you did to be nice. I didn’t really understand the difference between “nice” and “doormat” in my early years.

Now, I’m getting older and I’m still trying to be nice. I'm still learning how to be nice. I’m trying to see the good in people. I’m trying to get some good karma flowing back my way.

Mostly, though?

I’m just trying not to harm people physically or shriek at them my true feelings which always seem to include liberal use of the words, “douche”, “ass”, “douchenozzle” and “asshat”.

And it’s not easy.  

Because I’m not actually very nice.

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Tiger Lamb Girl - twins IP:84.xxx.xxx.xxx | 2008-06-23 13:26:05 We so are. (twins) Reply 0   0

Kimberly - Hee hee... IP:70.xxx.xxx.xxx | 2008-06-23 15:06:45 I'm doing the doormat to just plain nice transition too. The anger from being the doormat kind of overlaps sometimes though. Reply 0   0

Karen H. - Yeah I hear that IP:76.xxx.xxx.xxx | 2008-06-23 17:15:05 Right now? I'm on the cusp of 50, so I am like a crazed monkey on hormones and I lash out at the least thing. Today, I cried -- I CRIED, mind you, because we are trying to cut expenses (thanks to $4.45 per gallon gas) and we reduced our cable from super-duper high def all the bells and whistles cable, to basic cable, which includes maybe 13 channels, none of which are HGTV and TLC. So we were on our trip recently, and the guy in front of me reclined his seat, which bugs the holy living hell out of me, and I got so mad I smacked the top of his seat with my book! He looked back at me in astonishment and I thought my husband was going to divorce me on the spot. Yeah, I get that whole trying to be nice thing. Pretty much? I'm not. LOL Reply 1   0

CPA Mom - Triplets IP:72.xxx.xxx.xxx | 2008-06-24 19:38:34 I second what Tiger Lamb Girl said. Reply 0   0

emmak - nice ain't all that IP:69.xxx.xxx.xxx | 2008-06-30 04:30:43 I applaud you for trying to be nice. I am not nice especially when drunk. At one party I told a woman I thought her husband was one of the most obnoxious bores I had ever met. She didn't disagree with me though! Reply 1   0

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