Another blow to my self-esteem

My head hurts, you guys, because I successfully caught Johanna's cold and my sinuses are jerks. Is it sinuses or sinus? I have no idea because my brains feel like they're being squished and it's just too much for me to contemplate right now.

So I'm in the perfect mindset to tell you a story is what I'm saying.

Once upon a time, like two days ago, I started planning the weekly feature I write for the newspaper, where I "spotlight" someone in the community and talk about what it is they do that makes them ... unique or special or different or ordinary or the same, really. It's like, "Who are the people in your neighborhood," only without the Muppets.

I had this one woman in mind because she's 94 and still volunteering at her previous place of employment, except it's still her place of employment, I guess, because she never left. I knew her back in the olden days when my mother worked with her, and I figured this would be a heck of a story because hello, who works at the same place for 60-plus years?

Yeah, no one.

This is EXACTLY what my desk looks like at work.

Anyway, she apparently doesn't believe in answering machines because every time I called, I got no answer even if I let it ring like 15 times. (Which is just embarrassing.) I struck out so many times I was wondering A) If this was the path to a restraining order and 2) If maybe it was time to come up with a Plan B.

But then she answered! Whew.

And I'm all, this is Trisha! I want to do a story on you! And she was like, nope. And I was all, listen, this is going to be a great, and my mom thinks so too! And she was like, don't think so, so I was all, please? I'll make it short! And she finally relented.

Because that's what I do: Bully the elderly.

She gave me, I'm not even kidding, a whole eight minutes of her time on the phone before she decided that was enough and she was through. And I was like, well, that's cool, I'll see you Thursday morning so I can take pictures.

She was not happy about that -- people generally hate the pictures more than the interview -- but she consented because hey, we'd come this far.

So Thursday morning, I waltz into her workplace and am all, hey there! And she's like, I didn't know it was you -- I'd have been nicer if I had.

That made me laugh. I made the mistake of giving her my married name, not my maiden name -- and so what if I've been a Walker for 20 years? I was a Morrissette for 23. So I guess I should have led with that.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that I am very popular and everyone knows immediately who I am whenever I introduce myself.

The end.

Oh, wait, not the end: I ended up having to interview some of the people she works with, just to bulk the story up a bit, because eight minutes ain't all that much time. Oh, and then I had these two little kids pose with her for one of the photos, and they thought they were in trouble because I forgot to tell them what we were doing, so they were very serious and scared and now I feel bad not only about bullying the elderly, but small children.

Now it's the end, because Eric wants to play Scrabble on Facebook.

Men.