As us Western Washingtonian's know, windstorms are nowhere near out of the ordinary. Many times a year we lose power in Seattle, and, HOUDINI, the power goes out. The power went out at Lake Forest Park while I was at school in Japanese class. Sensei let us leave early, so Charlie and I packed up and left with Nobuhiko (You should know him, unless you live in Oregon) along with Rumi and Chihiro, 2 girls who volunteered in our class. We dropped Rumi and Chihiro off at their houses, and then we took Nobuhiko over to Ryousuke's house (whom we picked up in Kenmore). So, Charlie is hungry and is looking for food. We drop by Ichiban, but the power is out. We drop by Toshi's, but everybody who wanted Ichiban was over there. The tables were all full, and no one had their food yet, so we were like, screw this! We went to McDonald's, but the drive-thru was closed and the Restaurant was full. So, we head back to my house.
Half way or so down my road, there was a sign reading "Road Closed." We figured we would keep going down the road and my neighborhood would be before where the road was closed. We were wrong. about 50 feet away from the entrance to my neighborhood, the cones and blockade was up. I saw an officer over there (yes, this is foreshadowing), so I went to ask him if we could pull up a little further, since Charlie was going to come over to my place for a few moments to take some photos of my bass.
I walk over to the closed area, and notice there is a tree, and a telephone pole, blocking the entrance to my neighborhood. No cars can get in, no cars can get out. Now, this may sound like it really sucks, and believe me, it does. But, look at it from this worse perspective: The microwave doesn't work, the stove doesn't work, and aren't able to drive out of the neighborhood to buy food from a store or restaurant that has power. Sucks, doesn't it. As I approach closer, the officer was there, and he didn't seem to happy that I was coming, because he knew that I'm another stupid person who's going to ask another stupid question. But the one thing that Officer Best Buy (yes, that's his name, read his name tag) doesn't realize, is that I'm Finger!
I walk up to Officer Best Buy, and I say, "Excuse me, I live in this neighborhood..." He looks at me the way a shotgun barel does and replies, "So?!?!" [I was really pissed off about this remark and his tone, suggesting that his situation was more inconvenient than mine. I mean, I realize how much it sucks being paid to stand around and do nothing, and a tree along with telephone pole blocking the entrance/exit to my neighborhood is of no significant essence in which to waste someone's time] I ask, "I was wondering if it would be okay to pull the car up closer to the neighborhood, with me being local access and all." "He turns around and says "I can't give you permission to park on private property, and if I let you do it, I have to let everyone else do it too!" [Since the 2,000 people population of Kenmore lives in my neighborhood and all, we wouldn't want 2,000 cars parked on the side of the road, oh wait, there are only like 15 residences in my neighborhood] So I turn around, walk back out to the car, get my backpack and head up to my house, jumping over the tree and power pole.
I got back home and listened to my portable cd player, since that's the only thing you can do when the power's out, or at least the only thing I want to do. I sit for about an hour, then I decide to go back down and check on the progress. The damn Officer Best Buy was leaving and coming back, and leaving and coming back. I think earning free money was getting boring for him. One of the times that he came back, I went over and talked to him again, actually being polite about my indifference. I said, "Excuse me again, I just wanted to say that I didn't appreciate the way you talked to me." He replies, "What are you talking about?" I say, "You made it seem like the inconvenience of you having to stand around here was worse than my inconvenience of being blocked by a tree and telephone pole in my neighborhood." He just shrugs his shoulders at me, which pisses me off. Then I said, "Why don't you go back to working Mall Security." Then I took off. He gets the Best Buy badge because with his shitty attitude, it probably rubbed off on him by being a Best Buy security guard.
So, what is the moral of this story? It is as follows: