Why is it that I can always win an argument mere minutes after the closing bell has rung? Where is my sharp wit, my keen sense of my opponent, my unsoundable desire to win during the heat of battle?
For instance, I once applied to work at a Shell Station. I had told the manager who interviewed me that I was available for pretty much any shift, that I merely had to work around my school schedule. She sent me on my way and I soon received a phone call from another representative of this Shell Station, asking me about what hours I would be available to work. I gave her the same response: that I was available for pretty much any shift, that I merely had to work around my school schedule. But she insisted that I pick a shift and a backup shift. Though I was certainly willing to work the graveyard shift, since she insisted, like any sentient vertebrate would have wisely done, I chose the shift that would be easiest for me, the daytime shift, and the shift that would be the second easiest, the evening shift.
After a few days of blistering cold silence from the prestigious Shell Station, I decided to check on my hiring status. To my surprise, the manager I had interviewed with told me that they didn't want me, because I told the lady over the phone that I was scarcely available to work. They didn't want someone who says they're available for any shift, and then says they're only available for the day shift. Yet, though I knew what had happened, I was so taken aback that I couldn't respond properly. I was so shocked at being accused of misrepresenting myself. I for some reason could not make myself begin educating this woman as to how her very own trusted employee had misrepresented me. I was innocent, my friends, yet my impotent tongue jammed in the process of firing back. I simply have no idea why.
Mere moments later, however, as I was driving away from the cozy little Shell Station, I began to replay the events in my head, and I was victorious over that manager! I knew all the right things to say, and timed it all perfectly. But sadly, it was much too late for such a thing.
Another situation was when I was told that I had broken the dining room table in a house where I had previously installed a window. I moved the table three inches, three measly inches, my friends. It was an overwhelmingly uneventful three inches at that. There were no popping sounds, no cracking noises. Only the Big 870 playing loudly in the other room. I did, however, fail to put the table back. My suspicion is that the owner of the house attempted to move it himself, and this is when the breaking occurred. But it was simply too easy to blame it on the guys who installed his lovely windows. In my mind, I am positive that this is the only possible scenario. I, after all, was there. And yet, and yet, and yet, I was unable to retrieve this information from my vast memory bank during the phone conversation that ended my tenure as a window installer. My friends, I wish I knew why. The bullet doesn't get stuck in the barrel. The bullet only reaches the barrel once I am lying on the ground, riddled with holes.
|
