Heil Reebok

          Something I hate about work is when people will call and then refuse to leave a message, as if I'm not to be trusted. I should be considered as an extension of the attorney, more or less. I also had to split up some large PDFs into about 30 little 10 MB chunks because the email I'm supposed to send them to can only handle that large of a file at a time; each has to be attached and emailed separately. Fun fun fun. It was also amusing listening to Mark and Lori brainstorming over how to defend a client accused of pushing heroin. "Was it reeeeeaaally heroin?"
          In the evening, I went to SquashBusters for the first time with Alaric. First off, I knew that the facility was on Columbus but never really though about where, and it blew my mind realizing that it's hidden directly across the street from our apartment. This is freshman year "Rebecca's exists"-level system shock. I digress. We arrived at the squash desk, where we were informed that "she has to check your shoes." A middle-aged lady came out from an office where she was watching television and gave Alaric's skate shoes a cursory glance. She then looked at my running shoes, which one of two pairs of non-dress shoes I own, and asked, "Are those the shoes you're planning on wearing?" I replied with a tentative yes, and in a hyper-patronizing tone with upward inflection, she shot back, "No..." I assumed that by "check your shoes," the guy at the desk meant trading them in for proper ones, as in a bowling alley, so I went to take one off and the woman said, "You can't play barefoot either." Apparently you need "white gumsoles" because the floors are fancy and treated and can't be scuffed, so after some grumbling we returned. This time, I wore my other shoes, which are completely falling apart and are not athletic in the slightest. After some skeptical looks, the shoe fascist commented that they were black carbon rubber and that she'd have to "test them," at which point she took them away and (presumably) rubbed them on the floor for five minutes. She returned, handed them back, said that she guessed they would work, and returned to the television. For whatever reason, some people just do not have the capacity to be polite.
          As it turns out, I'm horrid at squash. I was expecting something comparable to paddleball, that most exalted of high school P.E. activities, but was mistaken. The ball has no bounce at all, and you have to completely whip it every time to even keep the game going. It's a good thing they gave us the court all the way on the end because we were severely embarrassing ourselves, and the squash team or club (I'm not sure which) was practicing there as well. By the end, we were worn out, mildly frustrated by how difficult the game is, and I had a long floor burn on my knee from a diving save. Also, the joke was on the shoe dictator. First off, the floor was already scuffed to hell, which just goes to show that sometimes, things aren't as important as they seem. And second, my shoes did not leave marks on the court, but they did continue to disintegrate and leave tiny pieces of black rubber all over the place. The shoe person can consider it a parting gift from a disgruntled customer. Also, what on earth is a gumsole?
          Quote of the day:
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you. There's a lot of screaming in the background." - Junie