Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Paula

As promised....

So the trip to Austin was annoying, because two of my four flights were cancelled. Cancelled, as in "oh, they decided to send your plane to New York." The return flight was harrowing, because of the overwhelming, stinging presence of jet fuel in the cabin (and doubly annoying because, even though everyone on the plane was asking about it, none of the flight crew felt compelled to offer an explanation). The conference, on the other hand, was really good, and the hotel was very nice. I used to be the biggest hotel snob, but now I get kind of giddy about clean sheets.

The best part, was that I got to see my friend Jennifer, who lives in Austin. We ate a yummy dinner at the hotel, and decided to get a drink at one of the bars near the hotel. It was still totally daylight, by the way. So we were walking and talking quietly, when this woman who was walking in front of us spun around and screamed "just go! You've ruined my life enough already!" She started screaming more and more about us ruining her life, and then threw her giant Sonic cup of something (whatever it was, it was NOT something served at Sonic!) on us. I mostly dodged it, but Jennifer got doused.

Then, this is where I learned a lesson... the woman started screaming that she was a gangster way before we were gansters. In fact, she was the original gangser. Jennifer at this point was frozen like a deer in the headlights - this was the correct thing to do. I, on the other hand, with very poor self-preservation instincts apparently, laughed. I wasn't laughing at this woman, because I actually felt kind of sad for her, but at the whole situation and the thought of Jennifer and I as gansters. Well, the woman lunged at me. She was swinging both fists and trying pretty hard to hit me. Luckily I managed to dodge the punches, but she did manage to kick me pretty hard. Later, Jennifer said she thought I was going to hit back... but I took one look at Paula's three teeth and decided I had way more to lose than she did (plus, it just didn't feel right and I didn't really fear for my safety).

Luckily, I guess she decided we were no longer worth the effort - or that she'd made her point - so she turned around and walked off (down the street, where someone hugged her...) Jennifer and I crossed the street to get her a new shirt out of her car, then decided to raid the mini bar in my hotel instead of going out. We then jaywalked across the street to get to the hotel, at which point - of course - a police officer just so happened to be riding by on his bicycle. He asked if we were okay, and we described what happened. Another cop rode up and they asked us to describe the woman.

I was about thirty seconds into my decription, when the police officers looked at each other and said "Paula!" and rode off (one of them did, as an after-though turn around and said "you don't want to press charges, do you?")

1 comment:

Jodi said...

You have GOT to be kidding me! That's insane! Who knew Austin was full of hippies AND drunks? LMAO!

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