Really? Like, really?

Alright, so I'm a few days late. But here's the story anyway.

I went to the copy center at the student union to get Carla's blog printed and bound a couple of weeks ago. There was too much to bind into just one book, so I got it split into 3 - divided by years. I had 2 of them bound, but thought I was missing some pages on the 3rd and took it home printed but unbound.

So I went back last week to finish the job, after realizing that I wasn't missing pages at all; the year 2008 just doesn't have any blog entries until July. All I needed was the last group of pages bound, so it should have been a quick, simple visit. But it wasn't.

When I walked in, the only woman in the copy center was sitting at the very far end of the room, her feet up on the back counter, talking on the phone. She asked whomever she was talking to to hold on a moment. Grabbing a crutch, she hobbled over to me, and I told her that I just needed these pages bound and that was all. "Sure, no problem!" she replied happily. 2 minutes later, I was on my way out the door with the book in hand and $1.25 less in my pocket.

If only.

Her real response: "Do you think you could wait, oh, like an hour for my student to get here, and then he'll do that for you? I hurt my foot real bad and I can't stand on it."

Keep in mind 2 things: 1) It takes less than 2 minutes to tape bind a book (I watched her student do it for me the week before, and all he had to do was put the pages in the machine and it did all the work), during which standing is absolutely not required. 2) She was standing in front of me to tell me this.

I don't know how long I stood there with a blank stare on my face before I managed the words "Really? You ca...really? You really can't?" I had a hard time forming complete sentences, because I was dumbfounded. I just couldn't believe the words I had just heard come out of her mouth. She was really going to stand there in front of me and ask me to wait for an hour because she couldn't stand on her foot.

I mentioned that she had somehow managed to walk over to me, to which she replied something to the effect of, "Yeah, but that's about all I can manage. I really need to sit down right now." The aggrandizement reminded me of the time that my sister walked to just outside of the door to the room my mother was in, laid down on the floor, slowly dragged herself to where she was visible by my mother, collapsed, and pathetically whispered, "Mom...I threw up. *Cough, cough.* " Oh, please.

So I responded with an attitude similar to the one with which I responded to my sister, and said, "Hmmm. Well, dramatic, yes, but unconvincing. Don't ever become an actress." And then I walked out.

It was the meanest thing I could think of.