I don't really hate children. Really I don't.

I know I’ve spoke before (at length, most likely) about the building in which I work. About how the landlady doesn’t really have her shit together, business-wise, and fails to understand that the relationship between an office tenant and the building owner should be purely professional. No, to her we are more like nieces and nephews crashing at her house for a few months. So she rules with an iron fist, in the way that only a rich, new-age, neohippie who’s never worked a day in her life can.

When she was choosing tenants for the building, she wanted to get a mix of non-profits and for-profits that were “like-minded”, so that together the building could “become a little community.” But she really doesn’t seem to have any idea that these two operations might have different standards for how office buildings should be run. The non-profits are so grateful to have clean, well-lit, spacious offices at a good price that they really don’t give a crap what happens.

Well, guess what? Those of us in it to make a few bucks (and who are paying market value for rent) aren’t so forgiving.

For example: every third Thursday, there is a mandatory “brown bag” lunch meeting that at least one person in every office must attend. We used to skip these, under the assumption that our lunch time is well, out time, but no. My bosses got yelled at, or more accurately, “had a sit-down discussion” with the owner. She was “concerned” that we didn’t “care” enough about what happens with our “neighbors” to take what little free time we have to go to these goddamn meetings.

I went to one today. The topic (I am not making this up): a slideshow of photos of an Ethiopian orphanage. Yes, the kids were cute and all, but seriously. I mean, I might have been interested at looking at five, maybe six photos. It’s a good cause, after all. But 100 pictures? 200? Let’s just say that any chance I had of caring was completely washed away by the thrilling narrative:

“Okay, now here’s the kids getting their hair washed.... Here’s my friend Jennifer putting some water on this girl’s head. They wash their hair with soap.... Okay, here’s the library... Here’s a girl who lives in Seattle now, reading a book... Here’s another girl who wants to read the book too... She’s waiting for the first girl to finish.... Now, here’s a little boy with a different book. He’s looking at the first page…” GAAAAAAH!

And it goes without saying that it was all accompanied by winsome, treacly, lonesome-singer-with-a-guitar soundtrack. Please, people. I’m glad this woman is interested in the plight of orphans in Ethiopia. That is her thing. And it’s a good thing. But it’s not my thing. Is it crazy of me to resent the landlady for forcing me to listen to people talk about their own personal interests during my free time?

No. No it is not. If it ever gets to be my turn to talk at one of these little get-togethers, I’m going to show a slide show of me going to the dog pound and looking at the dogs.

“Okay, here’s a pit bull mix. His name is Terry... Here he is going to poop. Looks like a good one... Now he’s sniffing another dog... That one’s a corgi-beagle mix. His name is Sinjin... Now Sinjin’s sniffing Terry…”

You just need to be organized.

Today I got stuck in the middle of a funeral procession. In my defense, it was they crappiest, most rag-tag funeral procession I’ve ever seen. Some people had their lights on, some had their hazards on, some had both, and a few had nothing. No little flags on the cars of course. And they couldn’t decide whether to obey all the traffic laws or none, which was confusing too. A very poor way to show respect for the deceased, if you ask me.

Where I come from, funeral processions are pretty basic, but very organized. Everyone is on board with the lights/hazards situation and recognizes the importance of hanging together as a group. It doesn’t hurt that there’s only one or two stop lights in the town, so no matter where the church and cemetery are located, very few non-processioners will be inconvenienced. It’s such a small town that at least one person in every car stopped for the procession is aware that there’s a funeral that day. Also, they know that the funeral is for Sooky Quimby’s* daughter-in-law’s cousin who died in a bad car crash on Indian Springs Road, you know, at that bend in the road near Brimstone Hill, and that it was because of a deer and not drink, and that they got a sandwich tray and a nice cake with his picture on it at the new Hannaford for afterwards at Sooky’s place, but Sooky is a little worried that the septic tank might not hold for having so many people over, as well she should – remember what happened back in ’91? Well, she should get it cleaned out more often then.

We’re a simple folk.

Now, my husband’s family in Buffalo, they really know how to do it right. Everyone gets a little flag on the car, there’s police and/or fire personnel at every intersection to block traffic between the funeral home and the cemetery and between the cemetery and the church, and if a car even THINKS of breaking up the procession by making a left, every single processioner will beep at them. Also, they’re city folk, not redneck like me, so they go to a restaurant after.

*This is a real person, who used to live down the street from me when I was real little. Once, her donkey wandered up to our house, so Mom and I walked the donkey the mile down the hill to her place. It was very exciting, I think his name was Amos. I fed him a carrot.