Dedicated to all my roommates, current and former

I received a rather frantic e-mail from my former roommate, Libby, today. The gist of the email was something like a frantic “please get me my cynicism fix ASAP!” plea.

I think it’s funny that people are still looking to me for the wise voice of negativity and disparagement. Especially since Libby seems to be a degree or two less stressed now than in the summer when it was so hot that brain juices boiled and ear wax ran out of people’s ears in rivulets. No matter how hard I’ve tried to return to a sort of 3^rd grade optimistic outlook about everything, it seems I’ve got to try a wee bit harder, since after a mere week here among strangers a couple of girls already know who to talk to after they’ve watched Pippy Longstockings or have read Pollyanna.

I actually used to enjoy Pollyanna. It’s the story about a small girl who brings sunshine into a dreary household. Basically, wherever she breathed a bunch of daffodils and daisies would grow, and wherever she walked, unicorns and fairies would follow. Then she breaks a leg or something, and all the people who she profoundly touched thought she’d be crippled, but then of course she ends up being healed.

The story now annoys me exceedingly and I think it has nothing to do with her good nature. It’s more to do with the idea that she gets healed and the grand myth of good things happening to good people continues.

But anyhow. Back to Libby’s request.

It’s recently come to my attention that I will never save the world.

This cruel realization came about the same time that my cell phone for Europe, the one that Motorola decided would be brilliantly constructed out of bobbypins and finger nail trimmings from the local dump, gave out entirely. I can now only hear someone on the other line if they are bellowing into the phone as if to cover the distance between us by sheer voice power and carrying distance. There are few things I hate more than poor reception in cell phones, the few being stuck in a room with a rabid, hungry animal and when strong body odor smell permeates my space and stays there.

I hated this phone from the start. It is a flip phone, which is nice, because I’ve got a penchant for squashing keys flat, especially if the phone is in my back pocket and I sit down. In that case, when I take out my cell phone from my pants after a long day, it is nearly paper thin and can be rolled into a crepe to be served with a dollop of nutella. However, this phone has the cool function that if and when my phone decides to ring, the minute I open up the phone to see who is calling, it answers. This has led to many an awkward situation, because even though I love everyone who calls me, that doesn’t mean I necessarily want to talk to them, for one reason or another. Maybe because I’m not wearing the correct shirt, or because it’s an even day instead of an odd one.

Whatever the reason, this is one of the many things I hate about this phone. In addition to that, it is impossible to store numbers in the phone book. There are a thousand different reasons I could list as to why it should be implemented into the CIA or FBI or whatever other agency to torture prisoners for information. The long and short of it is that I am getting NOWHERE with this phone. I was so happy because I had fallen into the rhythm of my new phone. When I got the white beauty, it was a near crisis situation. I remember appealing to friends, family, and enemies for guidance on how to use this mystery machine. Now I would give anything to have it work here. I still pull it out daily and sigh mightily over its beautiful color display and cheery menu options.

With this phone, I am greeted with a bleak, dreary screen rudely demanding my PIN number whenever I have to turn it on. No wonder my grand plan to become a cheerful and optimistic person to be around is evidently failing miserably. How can I be expected to be cheery and optimistic when I have to carry around a fickle, temperamental device wherever I go because it might suddenly decide to revive itself or permanently commit suicide?

So this saga of my cell phone furthers the idea I have that bad things happen to bad people, but bad things happen to good people as well. In short, no one has a chance.