package tracking

Can I just say how much I love being able to track ordered packages online? I feel so in-the-know, like I'm making the journey vicariously and rooting on the sidelines. My excitement builds with each new stop scanned into the list, the time in and out of each processing location, changing hands, getting closer and closer. Yet I marvel at how quickly my latest package has jumped from Fort Worth to Oakland. There are only 1.5 hours between the departure at Forth Worth and the arrival at Oakland, according to the tracker... The flight is 3 times that long. Hmm. Hmm. Even if the 2 hour time difference is taken into account, that's still pretty quick. These are the things I think about. This is what thrills me. Package tracking. Oooo baby. FedEx me a package. Make my day.

on the train.

I ride the train now. I have learned to run in high heels. Sitting at my desk, at 4:55 pm, I suddenly realize nothing matters more in the world than getting on the 4:59 train. On those days, the elevator invariably stops repeatedly, with most people taking it to move only one floor. I think that is a silly thing. I have come to know the low feeling one gets when one arrives at the platform just in time to see the train leave. I have been filmed by video crews while driving into the BART parking lot (really, how interesting could it be to film cars parking?), and have been filmed as I put my train card into the reader. My fame has reached another dimension, it seems...

My life is governed by the train. Going to and fro. Pulling my BART card out of my wallet over and over. 7:21 am, 4:59 pm, etc etc.

Once, a man offered me his seat. I did not take it. He looked so tired. Should I have taken it? I know not.

People snore on the train too. Probably the same people.

Upon returning at night, there is one rider (youngish man) who waits by the door and sprints out before the doors completely open in an effort to be the first one to the escalator. He doesn't always make it. He could plan ahead and place himself in the train car that would be the shortest distance from the escalator--but he doesn't. He's always slightly off.

I read on the train. It is the one truly fabulous thing about riding train, the one consolation for time lost in transit.

Another thing--every time I get off the train in the morning, coworkers pop out of nowhere. We are all on the same train but don't know it. To own the truth, I prefer it that way. I'd rather sit alone and read, which is semi-embarassing to admit. If I knew the person sitting next to me, I'd feel obliged to talk to them. Sigh.

The only joke I know

It’s true. I only know one joke. To assume I am not funny because of it (hmm, is that right? maybe it is cause and not effect), however, would be a mistake. I am funny. I say funny things. I say non-funny things in funny ways. But even were that not the case, my one joke is stupendous enough to withstand any harsh criticism of its loner status.

The Joke:

Teller of joke: Do you know what a twip is?

Tellee: No, what is it? [In my experience, this line is most often not performed to satisfaction and one is obliged to prompt the tellee to the correct response.]

Teller: A wide on a twain.

I think the source of this joke was dear mummy. Maybe.

Other jokes from my childhood I only remember vaguely. There was one joke that had to do with silverware… “a knife an a fork! a knife and a fork!” But I don’t think that was the main point of it. Then there was a joke about 10 cent oranges, about which I remember nothing else, except that they were “very very fresh.” Another had to do with a pink house and pink books with pink paper and pink words. I don’t think the pink joke was very funny.

Feel free to post these jokes if you recall them…

As a final point, which is hardly worth mentioning, I do remember a knock knock joke, but I don’t count it because knock knock jokes are excessively lame and stupid.