Ever Have to be a Bitch?

Every Once in Awhile, You Have to be ...

Have you ever gone against your grain and had to be someone you’re not?  It’s not something I’m proud of, but I did just that. I was pushed to the limit and I was a bitch.

Years ago, when I lived in Punxsutawney, I was a secretary for one of the co-owners of a mid-size company in DuBois PA —twenty miles away.  My employer was wonderful to work for and she was pleased with my work, so besides working well together we were also good friends —and I loved my job.

I loved working with everyone there, except the office manager. She was a feisty short-statured woman everyone secretly referred to as ‘Dragon Lady’.

No matter what I did, how well I did it, or how late I stayed to help if the need arose, I could not please the woman --and she’s the one who actually hired me for the position.

I wasn’t raised to treat like with like, although it was hard not to. It took everything I had to be cordial, since there were times I had to work beside her in the office.

I had been there almost a year, when we had a heavy overnight snowstorm. I lived twenty miles away in Punxsutawney with a commute full of hills and sharp curves, so with the snowstorm in mind, I left my apartment early. With on-street parking, I knew I would also have to shovel my car out before I could even leave Punxsy.

As I walked out my front door, I slipped on a sheet of ice hidden under the snow on the concrete stoop. My legs went in the air, lunch bag and purse went flying, and my butt and I landed hard on the third concrete step down. As I landed, both elbows slammed down onto the step behind me sending shock waves through both shoulders and my back.

The pain was excruciating and at first, I couldn’t move at all. My tailbone hurt like hell as did both shoulders. It was a while before I could pull myself together enough to stand and go down the rest of the steps to retrieve my purse and lunch from the snow where they landed.

It was still snowing hard as I shoveled my car out and got in. I was grateful I was able to get behind a snow plow with a salt/sand spreader on the back and I followed it the entire twenty miles to work.

Wishing I was back home and fighting the pain, I slowly went inside, took off my coat and hung it. When I turned around, there stood Dragon Lady. She immediately pointed out I was ten minutes late —-without even asking why.

When I look back, I realize what happened next was the direct result of having had a horrible day already and being in so much pain. The top of my head exploded, spilling out a year’s worth of her rudeness.

Looking her in the eye, I gathered my personal effects from my desk, slowly put my coat back on, and turned to go back out the door.

“Where do you think you’re going? YOU CAN’T LEAVE!”

“Oh REAL-LY?  WATCH me, B I T C H!”

Then as I made my way out the door, I turned to my friends and said, “I’ll miss you. Watch your backs …”

From work, I went straight to the hospital Emergency Room a few blocks away. Later, I left for my home in Punxsy knowing I had injured both shoulder rotator cuffs and cracked my coccyx (tailbone). 

There wasn’t much they could do for either of my injuries. The orthopedist said to take it easy and wait it out. The shoulders would heal to a point of being bearable as long as I didn’t overdo.  There wasn’t anything they could do for my tailbone.  I just had to let that heal as well.

For the next several weeks, I was miserable. Tylenol had become my middle name and best friend … but I welcomed a whole new sense of peace.

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