February 22, 2002 // 7:00 p.m. // Another day downtown

Only today am I beginning to get over an argument and my anger with my sister that led to me breaking my cell phone, my plastic CD player face case and the car door, which doesn't close with a crisp snap, but more of a clunk as if trying to shut a locked door.

My sister had asked me to take her to the mall, and reluctantly, I obliged. She told me she'd be taking the bus home, thus freeing up my afternoon. 90 minutes after dropping her off, she called to tell me to ask my dad to pick her up if on his lunch break. With the current time being 12:30, I knew his lunch break had likely ended already.

5 minutes later, she calls and asks if I can pick her up. I asked why she couldn't take the bus. She said that the buses weren't running that often and that she hadn't seen a bus in the 25 minutes she had been waiting.

My first thought was that the average length between two buses is generally 20-30 minutes. If she had waited an hour, I'd understand.

I can remember a cold night in November of 1997 when I trekked to the same mall and waited outside from 8:30 to 10:35 at night for a bus. Even during the day, buses don't run too often out there. It's exactly why she should wait before calling me.

• I've walked the 5 1/2 miles home from school on days we've had basketball practice.
• I've spent the night in my car after the battery has died six miles from home.
• And you read about what I did on Sunday.

I've only seen her a few times since she upset me yesterday. I feel bad for snapping, which is exactly why I went downtown immediately after dropping her off at home. To get away from her and out of the house.

On yesterday's trek downtown, the day got worse in little ways that can bug the hell out of me if I let them.

Every hockey jersey in my size was $104.97 rather that $99.97.

After waiting 20-30 minutes for an employee to bring out the cheaper jerseys (and one in my size) I let the only large (the closest they had to a medium) sit on the rack for literally only a few minutes when a woman snatched it up for her husband, leaving me waiting in anticipation for him to try it on, and hoping that a large would be too small for him.

And in the only lucky thing of the day, I had no one dollar bills, but $1.00 in change (plus an extra four cents.)

Continuing the tradition of seeing friends from high school downtown, yesterday I saw Miles (with a girl) as well as Mara and Hailey working at Chik-Fil-A. These two were two of the biggest antagonists in my "relationship" with T.E.N.T. I must say, they were also very supportive, even if I believe that some of the times where we would lie down and talk about my frustration with her contained ulterior motives.

As I sat down with my Coke and cheesecake behind a family decked out in Canadian Roots paraphernalia, one member dropped her crutch, prompting the child to turn around to stare at me.

"He's psycho," he said while staring at me almost nose to nose. He repeated it.

His mom said something about it being not nice, to which he responded, "Well, he (is) does! Look at his hair!"

The upside was the comment by a man who called out, "Nice afro, man! Off the hook!" Much like Veater and Britt, people are beginning to think of my hair as an afro. It's really more like a big mess of hair on my head. If it looks like an afro, fine. But it truly isn't.

I guess I'll save today for tomorrow where I ran into the last girl I kissed, a former cast member from a school play and one of just a handful of people who asked me to sign their yearbook before I asked to sign theirs.

Jason

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