Downtown
For eight years I worked in downtown Dallas for Mobil Oil, pre Exxon days. We referred to her as Mother Mobil and she served us well, very well. God rest her soul.
Working in a city provides infinite opportunities to people watch and become wrapped up in scary, funny, bizzare occurences. I once stopped mid conversation on the 13th floor, yelled, "Oh my god!!" ran down 13th flights to buy a hot dog from a street vendor new to the area. I'm such a spaz and a sucker for hot dogs sold under a blue and yellow umbrella.
My best friend Anna and ate lunch everyday in the underbelly of Dallas - the Crystal Court. We had the awful ability to attrack triffids, people with ailments, limps and red shoes. Downtown Dallas was ripe with women in red shoes - WTF? We would be walking through the underground tunnels and would said outloud, "Red shoes." No one knew what we were talking about, we did. There was Skip - the man with the limp - we found out he was Jewish when he walked by in a yamika - "Hey, Skip's Jewish, who knew?" The black blind man slapsticked me with his cane. I would have yelped, but held it in. The weeble - do people really still have ricketts? She did. The extreme small person. We would sit on the wall side of the Court and warn each other of traffic, "Here comes Skip." "Weeble alert." Occassionally someone would go over the top and we'd simple say, "We gotta go. Now!" We'd grab our trays and haul ass.
I smoked for many years - I'm clean today - amen! A smoke break involved going down 20 floors and finding someone who would go with you - or 3 people, let's make it a gathering! Anna and I were out front with Farrell smoking and chatting about the latest office idiocrosy - good stuff. I'm talking, waving my arms around, trying to connect with my inner Italian when I see Anna's eyes go wild. I feel someone grab my arm - I look and there is a homeless man trying to light the butt he found off of my cigarette. I just stood there, let him light it - I've been there, nicotine is like crack. I looked up and I could see the back of Anna running through the lobby. She's the smart person in the horror movie, she doesn't ask questions, she just RUN!!
Another time I was yapping on the phone with my mother. Steve from accounting came into my cube and put a post it on my desk it read, "You should look now, they're getting ready to move the body." I read the note and said into the phone, "I gotta go." A woman had jumped from the building across the street 23 floors to her death. People had opera glasses, binoculars, it was awful - I borrowed them, sadly.
Another time my friend Kevin and I were at Nordstroms trying to figure out which lip liner was right for me. Port wine - yeah boy! And we heard gun shots - we got back into Ren Tower and heard someone was shot. Port wine, not so important - we checked for bullet wounds - all good.
Superbowl '94 the Cowboys won. We were all excited because we'd have prime viewing for the parade, little did we know the parade barriers would cave in and the streets of downtown would be flooded with rioters, looters and people pulling other people from their vehicles to beat them. I remember Don calling saying, "There's a riot going on!" He was obviously panicked, but I was aware of what was happening, I was there. We finally left around 6:30pm - carrying our heels as weapons, with cops on horse back (which in Dallas was really quite cool). Not a good day.
I once ate at a Greek restaurant. The decor was remnisent of my grandmother's living room. We entered, me, Lorraine, and Anna (unfortunately for Lorraine, she had Abbott and Costello to dine with) there was no one else in there?? We started to giggle, Anna and I did - Lorraine, not so much. We made our way to the front cafeteria style buffet. The man behind the counter started to regail us with the details. I realized his name was Michele and we were done. The giggling turned into panty wetting hysterics. Lorraine got pissed and we could have never recovered. Pitiful, just pitiful. Anna ordered the gyro, we had heard something running up and down the stairs in the building. Lorraine asked Anna what kind of meat was on her gyro, she said, "It's the skin of whatever is running up and down the stairs." I peed myself!
I miss the city, I miss the insanity, I miss my friends.
Working in a city provides infinite opportunities to people watch and become wrapped up in scary, funny, bizzare occurences. I once stopped mid conversation on the 13th floor, yelled, "Oh my god!!" ran down 13th flights to buy a hot dog from a street vendor new to the area. I'm such a spaz and a sucker for hot dogs sold under a blue and yellow umbrella.
My best friend Anna and ate lunch everyday in the underbelly of Dallas - the Crystal Court. We had the awful ability to attrack triffids, people with ailments, limps and red shoes. Downtown Dallas was ripe with women in red shoes - WTF? We would be walking through the underground tunnels and would said outloud, "Red shoes." No one knew what we were talking about, we did. There was Skip - the man with the limp - we found out he was Jewish when he walked by in a yamika - "Hey, Skip's Jewish, who knew?" The black blind man slapsticked me with his cane. I would have yelped, but held it in. The weeble - do people really still have ricketts? She did. The extreme small person. We would sit on the wall side of the Court and warn each other of traffic, "Here comes Skip." "Weeble alert." Occassionally someone would go over the top and we'd simple say, "We gotta go. Now!" We'd grab our trays and haul ass.
I smoked for many years - I'm clean today - amen! A smoke break involved going down 20 floors and finding someone who would go with you - or 3 people, let's make it a gathering! Anna and I were out front with Farrell smoking and chatting about the latest office idiocrosy - good stuff. I'm talking, waving my arms around, trying to connect with my inner Italian when I see Anna's eyes go wild. I feel someone grab my arm - I look and there is a homeless man trying to light the butt he found off of my cigarette. I just stood there, let him light it - I've been there, nicotine is like crack. I looked up and I could see the back of Anna running through the lobby. She's the smart person in the horror movie, she doesn't ask questions, she just RUN!!
Another time I was yapping on the phone with my mother. Steve from accounting came into my cube and put a post it on my desk it read, "You should look now, they're getting ready to move the body." I read the note and said into the phone, "I gotta go." A woman had jumped from the building across the street 23 floors to her death. People had opera glasses, binoculars, it was awful - I borrowed them, sadly.
Another time my friend Kevin and I were at Nordstroms trying to figure out which lip liner was right for me. Port wine - yeah boy! And we heard gun shots - we got back into Ren Tower and heard someone was shot. Port wine, not so important - we checked for bullet wounds - all good.
Superbowl '94 the Cowboys won. We were all excited because we'd have prime viewing for the parade, little did we know the parade barriers would cave in and the streets of downtown would be flooded with rioters, looters and people pulling other people from their vehicles to beat them. I remember Don calling saying, "There's a riot going on!" He was obviously panicked, but I was aware of what was happening, I was there. We finally left around 6:30pm - carrying our heels as weapons, with cops on horse back (which in Dallas was really quite cool). Not a good day.
I once ate at a Greek restaurant. The decor was remnisent of my grandmother's living room. We entered, me, Lorraine, and Anna (unfortunately for Lorraine, she had Abbott and Costello to dine with) there was no one else in there?? We started to giggle, Anna and I did - Lorraine, not so much. We made our way to the front cafeteria style buffet. The man behind the counter started to regail us with the details. I realized his name was Michele and we were done. The giggling turned into panty wetting hysterics. Lorraine got pissed and we could have never recovered. Pitiful, just pitiful. Anna ordered the gyro, we had heard something running up and down the stairs in the building. Lorraine asked Anna what kind of meat was on her gyro, she said, "It's the skin of whatever is running up and down the stairs." I peed myself!
I miss the city, I miss the insanity, I miss my friends.
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