That is my dream title. I would love to have a break from a lot of things, but I’m talking about my standard fifteen minute break at work. They give me two, morning and afternoon. I like to go out to my car and read for a bit and warm up – the office is always cold. It should be a fairly uneventful occurrence, right?
I wish! I love it when things are uneventful. Alas, my car is parked in a very busy lot with many comers and goers. Loud music and obscenities are par for the course. I’ll admit that it doesn’t take much to annoy me, but I am so uncomfortable if there is someone sitting in the car next to me. I can’t decide if that is the worst or when I am lucky enough to be next to the hot spot in the lot, the one where there is a car leaving or pulling in every four or five minutes. I won’t even start on the maintenance people and their leaf blowers.
So a peaceful break is a rare treasure. But I can’t always blame others for ruining my breaks. Sometimes I sabotage myself. Yesterday my morning break wasn’t so bad; it wasn’t bad at all until I got out of my car, locked it, and started to walk back in to the office. It took about two seconds to realize that I locked my remote inside the car. Ugh! I had my key in my hand, so why didn’t I use the key to unlock it and retrieve the remote? Enter OCD.
I could not get back in the car because I cannot touch the outside of my car without gloves or a glove substitute. Most of the time I use a folded tissue to touch the handle and open the door. A tissue is easy to hide in my hand and I can use it discreetly. If it is raining, then I have to rely on my old standby, the plastic sandwich bag, so that the water can’t soak through. But I had neither upon leaving my car. Even if I had had a way to get back in, it wouldn’t have prevented the hassle I had to go through. That is what destroyed my second break.
I went back out in the afternoon and unlocked my car, used a tissue to open the door, sat down, and closed the door. Then I got busy. I was holding my newly contaminated car key in one hand and a pack of wet wipes in the other. Yes, my key was now dirty from the lock. I took out a wipe and folded it in half with my right hand. This is the sort of skill unique to a germophobe. Who else needs to do that one-handed? I doubt few people fold them with two hands, but I like the make the most of each towelette. So up and down the metal grooves of the key went the wipes. I used four wipes, folded, for a total of eight passes. Of course, it had to be topped off with a good spray down with rubbing alcohol, a bottle of which is always nearby. I had three minutes of my break left, and a mess of used towelettes on the floor of my car. How many breaks have I spent repeatedly spraying down a finger, hand, arm, steering wheel, or who knows what? Some break!