i'm sorry

so things aren't going so well for me these days. it takes me three days to write a blog post, but then again i keep writing blog posts with pictures and long narratives and timelines and stuff.

i spend a lot of my hours just staring out the window, and some days the crazy comes and sits on me like an unfed cat an hour past dinnertime. and for a lot of complicated reasons it's best if i don't try to go to church tomorrow. and for some reasons that are complicated and related to the crazy, it only gets worse if i try not to do a thing and the only thing for it is to be away so i CAN'T go to church at home even if i stop trying NOT to do it, but it's going to be the first sunday of advent and that means something to me.

and it's going to hurt me not to be in my own choir, not to be in my own congregation, not to be with my own church family to see them light those candles, so the best i can do is to be among friends in another choir where they know me and where they're kind to me and it's three hours from home so i can't get into any trouble.

but i've had a hell of a day, you know?

so when i get to the mcdonald's i can be pretty sure i LOOK like i'm not having a good day.

it's kind of busy. not super busy, but the service is going kind of slow. i can sort of see why. there's a guy in front of me who's very talkative but doesn't seem to have quite enough  sandwiches for a picnic and hotshot drivethru guy looks like he think he could run the place by himself and counter guy looks kind of like he's been having a bad day all day and there's an irritated-looking couple, and some guys who went through he drive through and ordered sweet tea but got unsweet tea and he brings it back in and the manager doesn't just give him more of the sweet tea; the first thing she does is check the tea coming from the dispenser and then she checks what's coming out of the unsweet dispenser and she discovers with a minimum of steps that none of the dispensers anywhere in the store have sweetened tea in them and she rectifies the problem kinda speedy. everbody is polite about it.

and the woman is apologizing to everybody, and i get the impression they apologize a lot around there. i get this idea because of the suggestion/comment box on the front counter. in the corners of the computer printed sign are handwritten notes asking people to PLEASE be appropriately polite in their comments; that the staff is trying really hard to improve their service, and they would very much appreciate appropriate language in the notes left for them.

so by the time the manager gives me my burger, she has apologized to everyone else there and when it's my turn she apologizes to me for...

...that's where she breaks off and says she doesn't know what i need an apology for, but she hopes i have a nice night. i kind of laugh a litle.

and you know? it wasn't her that owed me the apology, but the apology owed me isn't forthcoming and it was just nice to hear.