Humans: They Aren’t So Bad (Sometimes)

How one amazing person restored my splintered faith in humanity

Let me start this by saying even though I say I hate people, really I kind of do like them, I just hate to admit it. But fine, I’ll say it, I like people. I’m the kind of person who will take a homeless guy out for a slice of pizza. I’m that annoying extrovert who knows the guy at CVS by his first name and can make the most of having to buy tampons, Lysine supplements for my cats, and cotton balls by catching up with my pal from the drug store while I’m there. So yeah, I especially like people I can talk to when I’m out running errands as long as I don’t have them all in my business, I’m good with that.

I’m the girl you want to be next to at the bar when you’re alone, and if it’s a bar in DC, I’m going to be the first to turn to you and ask about the crap you’re reading to find out what you do for a living, if you’re from DC, what you’re drinking and maybe even what you had for breakfast today.

The CEO of an organization I write for is a person I aspire to be, because he has this way of relating to people in any situation. Young, old, it doesn’t matter, people are attracted to him because he makes them feel important. That’s who I want to be, the person you want to hang out with because I make you feel special. And you are, as long as you’re not an asshole.

As a kid, I moved around a lot and never felt like I fit in, not to mention it was the 80s and we were broke so I dressed like a hand-me-down Junior Golden Girl. You think I’m joking? I’m not joking. I have proof.

So I wasn’t exactly the most popular kid in school, and that’s OK. I was weird as hell anyway and I decided at some point I was actually an alien from Jupiter. The funny part being I would grow up to be a professional connector, whatever the hell that is. Basically it means I get to be me on the Internet and sometimes in person for a living, and that’s pretty darn cool.

But let’s get back to people. Oh, people. People who “forget” to use their turn signals, people who hold me up in line because they suddenly can’t remember how to use the store’s POS system, people who threw Christmas candy at me on Christmas Day when I was working at Walgreens in high school making $6.50 an hour to put up with their shit. You know, those people. People we have to share the planet with. They are everywhere and it’s like their job is to be as obnoxious and stupid as possible. FUCKING PEOPLE!

Generally speaking, people disappoint me. Not the amazing people I choose to allow in my life — those people are awesome — but all those other people holding up traffic and generally acting like assholes.

I’m in cat rescue when I’m not writing about accounting and don’t even get me started on THOSE people, the ones who moved to Florida and dumped their 18-year-old cat at the shelter because they couldn’t be bothered to bring her with them. I have to tell you, that cat died in my bathroom, after half a week hospitalized at my vet to help her get over the cold she caught at the shelter. I have no doubt Smokey died of a broken heart, even though she found rescue and was taken in by a loving cat lady who wanted her to get better, she just never had the fight to get over it because why would she? The only family she ever knew dumped her in a hellhole after 18 years of loyalty.

After about 2 weeks, she looked up at me with her distant emerald eyes and even though she didn’t know who I was, she knew I loved her enough to try to save her life and at that moment, she respectfully asked me to let her go. She did not want to fight. She did not want to spend another 3 days at my vet’s office for fluids and steroid shots and antibiotics. She just wanted to go, and so she did very quietly overnight tucked into a warm bed wrapped up in all the love I had to offer her.

I keep meaning to bring her ashes back to New York City with me so I can put her at rest where she spent her life but I forget, usually being too busy to think of it before I get in the car and drive 7 hours to save the next cat who was let down by stupid people. THOSE people.

THOSE people. We all know them. I don’t need to explain further.

But every now and then, I am reminded of the goodness of humanity, that thing that makes my awesome friends awesome and my smart colleagues smart and makes me not throw my hands up in the air and say “fuck you guys, I’m going back to Jupiter!”

A few weeks back, I apparently dropped my beloved iPod watch. I’ve misplaced it before — rather, my cats decided it would be funny to knock it under the couch or the bed or the nightstand because HAHA what is funnier than the human hunting for her own shit while the cats stand by and smirk — but never for this long. I tore through my couch cushions, my car, every drawer and cabinet where I stuff my unopened bills. Nothing. It was gone. I just knew it.

And then the other morning, a note appeared in my apartment lobby. Just when I’d all but given up on ever seeing my iPod Nano on an IPEVO watch strap again. Turns out I got out of my car and didn’t strap the watch back on like I usually do, and my neighbor found it sitting in a puddle next to our dumpster. Then this happened:

I had my hands full with cat carriers full of kittens — having just returned home from an adoption event — but snatched up the note and ran upstairs to call. MY WATCH. I knew it. It had to be, because how many lost iPod Nanos on a watch strap could find their way to our little downtown hipster homestead?

“HEY!” I screamed the moment someone picked up the phone. “I saw your note, you have my watch! Is it blue on a black strap?” I didn’t even need to say it was full of BIRP.fm playlists with “time is an illusion” engraved on the back, nor did I need to produce the receipt from the Apple Store I only JUST shredded weeks before in a feng shui attack. But I could have done all that, and named just about every playlist if she really needed proof I was the rightful owner.