The Randomist

I Can't Feel My Face

2011-09-29T14:56:00.000-04:00

I now present to you my trip to the dentist, as told through a series of text messages and Facebook statuses.

Me: Fuuuuuuck. They’re running behind. No fix for me today. Yay. Why can’t they just handle this in one fell swoop? I hate sitting in this place with these people. 10:59am. (I was in the dental office at the Health Department… because I’m poor and they charge less.)

Me: I’m starting to feel poorer, pregnant, and less smart…. I’m a terrible person. 11:08am.

Me: These kids across from me are borderline creepy… and I think the woman with them is slow. Most of these kids are just emitting some kind of annoying pheromone. There should be an adults only day. 11:13am.

Me: This one kid seriously looks like an old man. I’d take a picture if I could. 11:15am.

Quasi-Mexican: Gross. I take it you’re off today? 11:17am.

Me: Yes. What a way to spend it. I think one of these crotchlings has shit… Something smells… My ovary just shriveled up and died. 11:18am

Me: Nope. Pretty sure it’s the mother that smells that way. 11:25am.

Quasi-Mexican: That’s just nasty. 11:36am.

Me: In all fairness, the bathroom smells like that, but it did get stronger as they passed by. I feel like I should brush my teeth like 5 more times. 11:38am.

Me: Come shoot me? 12:08pm.

Me: $183 later, my tooth is filled, my eye is numb, and I have a severely weakened tooth that is mostly made of filling. That is why it broke. Yay. 1:05pm

Heather Ray: I feel a giant blog full of hating coming on. If you can not control your crotchlings, I will punt them across the room. Being at the dentist is horrible enough without having to deal with your walking welfare checks. 2 Hours Ago.

I almost grabbed a little boy. I almost said, “Do you know what happens to little boys that don’t listen at the dentist? No? They take you to the back, strap you down, and rip your teeth out one by one while you scream.”

But what came out of my mouth was: “They’ll take you to the back, strap you down, and bring out ten little girls to kiss you all over your face.”

My self-control is phenomenal. And I probably need asshole lessons. I also kept myself from smacking a woman across the face while screaming “HEY! FAT ASS! It’s your own Goddamned fault you got knocked up! Stop telling your kid that he’s the reason your life sucks!”

Fucking. Cunt. That kid, the one who looked like Benjamin Button, asked to go home with me. I almost took him and his Depends with me.

I had to wait in that room for over an hour with those people and their shitty kids. And then the dentist, thankfully, decided to go ahead with the fillings. She also managed to stab her needle right into my nerve. Again.

I can’t feel my fucking eye, y’all.

I feel like my face looks like that mythic, noble man-beast from Beauty and the Beast, the soap opera… with Linda Hamilton. I’ve got your fucking woman, Outlander.

Now I just need her to mush my lips over my cigarette and possibly tell me when my drink is at my mouth.

Lazy Bitch

2011-09-19T23:13:00.001-04:00

I’m lazy, okay?

This whole “getting famous” thing is taking a lot fucking longer than I had initially anticipated. I’ve dreamed of fame and fortune since that long ago day when I picked up my first guitar with the plastic strings, popped the collar of my red jacket, and began to strum and swivel my hips while watching myself in the mirror.

I was five.

Okay, I have to admit that that wasn’t my initial dream. I gave up on being a fireman after a bad pull from a wishbone and I set my sights on marrying Elvis.

Then I found out he died before I was born.

And THEN I decided that I’d just BE Elvis. I feel like this is pretty fertile grounds for some kind of analysis about stalkers and psychosis and maybe people that wear other people’s skin.

Five minutes ago I had absolutely no intention of writing any of that.

The point, somewhere, is that I know that I need to be irritating the shit out of you with new blog posts, perhaps even two a days until I whip my slack ass into shape, but you know what? I’m tired. I’ve been sad. I’ve been really fucking angry.

Angry, you say? We LOVE it when you’re angry!

This is bad angry, y’all. Like, people would probably burn my house down and tell all of my secrets on the internet bad. Like, someone is going to cry and I’m probably going to relish in their tears, but that’s wrong so I won’t bad.

I’m completely cool with loner moping. I prefer loner moping to public moping and we all prefer it to blog posts about smacking your own self in the face with impotent rage moping.

(Don’t hit yourself in the face.)

(Aim for the side of the head.)

So, there’s that…

I just want to be fucking famous already. And rich. That would be good. I like that part.

But, I’m lazy and I’m tired and I’m angry and I don’t want to bring that shit to the table. I want to bring my fucking A game, y’all. I want to make you cry tears of snorty joy. I want to ruin your makeup, make you spit out your drinks, and choke on your food… but in a non-life threatening kind of way because if you’re dead you can’t read this shit anymore.

Setting all of those feelings and shit aside, I just want to say that I’m sorry for being a slack ass and for breaking the ‘cardinal rule’ of blogging by pointing out the obvious… that I haven’t posted in awhile.

That and I have news. This site, OLAP as I’ve started calling it because Oh, Look, A Paddle Boat is too long to write all of the time, is getting a face lift soon. The days of having to squint to read bright text on a dark background will be gone. It may also involve Kevin Bacon in some capacity.

We’ll also be launching a NEW blog. I can’t even keep this one updated and I’m making another one. I’m funny. This one will be a lot more interactive and reader based than the one you're currently viewing. (Although I am open to suggestions on blog topics. Too afraid to rant the fuck out of someone? Shit, I’ll do it for you. Because I like to give back.)

Heather Heartless deserves her time to shine so I’m giving it to her. In order to get this bitch up and running, I’m going to need you to send me questions.

Heatherheartless@live.com ... bitches.

They can be serious, stupid, random, or whatever. I might even answer a homework question or two if it comes to it. Just bear in mind that I’m probably going to be a complete bitch about answering it, in a sarcastic but loving kind of way, that is. Just be advised that until I get it going, you’ll have to e-mail me your questions. If you wish to remain anonymous, please say that somewhere in your e-mail. If the question is serious enough or if I feel that it would be terrible to publicly answer it in a drunken bitch fashion, I can answer it privately in a “I’m just here because I care” kind of way.

Sarcasm and the internet don’t often mix well, except when you’re expecting it, so if you send me something like “My grandma just died of leprosy and was then devoured by a colony of rabid badgers…” and you’re being completely fucking serious, you might want to mention that somewhere because, otherwise, I’m probably going to offend you. And your grandma. And that colony of rabid badgers who now have to deal with leprosy.

No one can win here.

And Then I Threw Up

2011-08-21T21:51:00.000-04:00

Okay, I have to get this out of the way before I can move on to the hilariously violent rage that I keep bottled inside of me at all times.

You guys are the most amazing fucking people I have ever had to pleasure of communicating with. Seriously. Never forget it and if anyone tells you that you aren’t, I’ll come bite their ankles off… right after I stab them in the face with a pen. It’s more fun when they run first. All of the comments have done what months of therapy and bottling could not. I feel … light… again. I feel free. I feel pretty and witty and fun. And there the moment goes.

A Brief Lesson on Grammar and Common Fucking Courtesy. Asshole.

“I stay down in Pageland.”

“Yeah, that’s where we stay.”

“Where do you stay?”

Completely ignoring the fact that ‘stay’ means that you, well, fucking STAY somewhere, as in, you don’t ever fucking leave it or it’s only for short periods of time, I’m going to point out how stupid you sound.

You stay in a mother fucking hotel.

You stay THE NIGHT at someone’s house.

You stay at the bar until it closes.

You don’t fucking stay at your place of residence. You Goddamned live there.

I stay in a state of constant rage. That’s where I stay.

No, you can not axe me. It would probably hurt and I’m going to be pretty angry about it. You can axe me a question only if I can rotary tool you the answer. This conversation is going to take awhile. I don’t care who you are, what you do, your level of success or education, or about any or all of your accomplishments in life. If you ask if you can axe me a question, I’m going to lose respect for you.

How in the Goddamn fuck do you shit on a wall?

Seriously.

Someone came out of the WOMEN’S bathroom at work today and told me that someone needed to have their ass beat. She then proceeded to tell me that someone had taken their own shit and smeared it all over the stall.

I’m assuming it was their own shit because while it’s difficult to wrap my mind around why anyone would smear their own shit on the walls of a public restroom stall, I can’t even begin to imagine why you would use someone else’s.

I had to go in the back and tell someone about it. This lead to a ten minute discussion on how it was carried out.

Did they wear gloves?

Did they at least pick it up with toilet paper?

Why would you touch shit?

Did they scoop it out of the bowl or did they just shit right into their hand?

Was it some kind of fecal Tourette’s? Like they just had a tic where they flung their poo like a monkey?

I had been cleaning the absorption pads on our printers, so my hands were covered in ink and I needed to wash them. I go into the bathroom and sick curiosity gets the better of me. Slowly I creep towards the stalls, checking them one by one, and then the smell hits me. The smell of rancid shit makes me gag like a cheap whore, y’all.

I get to the stall in question and poke my head around the corner. This is where I see the most God awful thing I have ever seen in my life and this includes going to change my nephew’s diaper and screaming, in a public restroom, “It’s in your hair! How the fuck does it get in your HAIR? OH MY GOD IT’S IN YOUR SHOES TOO!”

There is no shit smeared on the walls as I was told.

I swear to God someone snuck an elephant into the bathroom when I wasn’t looking because it is just not possible for a human to do that. There is not enough pressure in the bowels and there is not enough shit in the body to accomplish that kind of coverage.

This is the only explanation that I have for this:

Holy Christ balls on Jesus toast.

It was all over the back of the toilet seat. You know what? I’ve seen it happen before… but not like this. It was ALL over the back of it. It covered the rest of the porcelain and the thing sticking up in the back for automatic flushing. It was on the floor.

It was four feet up on the side and back walls of the stall and it went all the way down.

There was none in the bowl. None at all.

How in the holy fuck does this even happen?

No one could survive it.

No one.

They had to have died shortly after. I’m watching the news now to see if anyone’s found a shitless body in the woods.

Side note: My dad actually has Tourette's, so it'd be cool if we kept the jokes to a minimum. Or I'll stab you. In my mind. Because I have no idea where you people live.

Now For an Unfunny Change of Pace

2011-08-16T23:14:00.001-04:00

I’m coming out.

That deafening roar you just heard was 95% of everyone I’ve ever known shouting “I KNEW it!”

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not coming out of THAT closet. My sexual preferences lie where they always have, mostly in myself.

I’m coming out of what might be a scarier closet. There are certainly more skeletons in this one. It’s a door that everyone wishes would stay firmly shut, but I’m going to open it, again.

I want to stand up today and introduce myself to you. I want you to meet the real Heather Heartless. Not just the bitchy angry one, not just the one that makes you laugh, but the one I keep hidden away.

My name is Heather and I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… among other things.

On March 14, 2009, I looked out the window of the gas station where I was working and saw two men approaching on foot from the road. My very first thought, honest to God, is “They’re going to rob me.”

And they did.

Violently.

No one asked for money. No one said “This is a stickup!” No one gave me a fucking clue as to what was about to happen.

This is the first time outside of therapy, the cops, and my mother that I have ever shared the details of that day.

Two men came in and bought $20.00 worth of gas for their green SUV. They went outside to pump their gas. Two other men (the men that came from the country on foot) entered the store and went around the back aisles, browsing. I rang up a regular customer and had to fight the urge to ask him to stay with me for just a few more moments. I rang up an elderly woman that ate her dinner in our café every Sunday with her sisters.

I stared at the panic button.

The two guys that bought gas came back in. I asked one why the paint on the hood of his vehicle looked different in one spot. I said it must be the rain. They bought a soda, a twenty ounce bottle of off brand fruit punch, and a Slim Jim. Two years later and I can still remember what they bought.

The other two had made their way around to the aisle leading up to the register, looking at our drink selection.

The one I was ringing up, his name was James, asked me if I was from the area. I said “Unfortunately.”

“Why ‘unfortunately’?”

I opened the drawer to make change. He looks down the aisle and nods, a fact I didn’t remember until I was in bed that night trying to forget.

“Well, I lived in St. Louis for a --------“

That’s when it happened.

For a minute I thought that the guy rounding the counter was going to hug me. I have no idea why that even popped into my head. I was going to tell him that he had to stay on the other side of the counter and I would get whatever blunt wrap he wanted. It just seemed to happen so slowly. He was coming towards me with his arm raised and I remember turning my head to smile quizzically, and then I remember fighting.

His arm wrapped around my neck, his hand on my head, and he was pulling me backwards. I looked up to see the other two watching and then running out of the store, pausing at the door to look again.

Parts of this had to be filled in by watching surveillance videos and trying to figure out where the weird bruises came from. I couldn’t remember what happened, not all of it anyway.

As he pulled me back, I grabbed on to the open drawer of the register to hold myself up. The video shows that I lost my footing and while I was being dragged, I pulled the register off the counter and made a grab to catch it. Again, I don’t know why. The register drawer slammed into my knee and closed before crashing to the floor. The other man ran to it.

My attacker was still jerking me backwards by my neck and all I could think was “I’m going to die. I’m going to die.” I felt the hand on my head start to push as the arm holding my neck pulled. He was trying to twist my head. He was trying to break my neck. I twisted with him as he jerked my head so that I could have at least a fighting chance. I have no idea what instinct made me do that, but it probably saved my life.

When he saw that murdering someone wasn’t as easy as it looked on TV, he began to choke me. I clawed and clawed at his arm sobbing, “DON’T! DON’T! NO! PLEASE DON’T!”

He just increased the pressure and screamed “GO TO SLEEP! GO TO SLEEP!”

The video shows me flailing my arms wildly as he continued to jerk my body side to side, his arm around my neck, that hand still on my head. The other man was pulling wires out of the register after he realized he couldn’t open it.

Pleading for my life had no effect on this person. I began to fight harder, growing more and more dizzy from my air passage being restricted. I started beating at his arms yelling “FUCK YOU! LET ME THE FUCK GO! FUCKING LET ME GO! I won’t look if you let me go. I swear to God I won’t look at your face if you just leave. JUST FUCKING LEAVE!”

He stopped fighting for a second and then threw me to the ground and ran.

I managed to get up after a few seconds of stumbling and punched the panic button I had wanted to push earlier. I grabbed the phone and dialed 911 as I ran out of the store to chase them.

They were running across a field with the entire register in their hands.

This was 4:15 in the afternoon and there were people in the parking lot.

They never noticed that anything had happened.

They wouldn’t have noticed if they had succeeded in killing me.

I looked at these people and screamed “They just fucking robbed me! Go after them!”

The two that bought the Slim Jim and fruit punch, the cowards that had deserted me, were standing there staring at me. They and the couple that had been pumping gas got into their vehicles and drove off to find the two robbers who were walking down a country road with the register. Several cars passed by and no one even stopped to ask why this was going on.

After having the 911 dispatcher LAUGH at me and having to call the store owner to apologize for being robbed (the mind works in weird ways), the customers returned but all four of them were in one vehicle. Apparently my robbers carjacked the two that had run. I felt terrible that I had begged them to give chase and I hugged one of them and apologized.

Twenty minutes later, a single police officer finally showed up to let me know that they had caught them a few miles up the road. He took down my name and address in front of the two that had been carjacked.

The boss’ daughter showed up to check on me, comfort me, and give me a ride to the police station to file a report. I was put in a room with the two from the store along with their girlfriends. I apologized again and told James that he could hit me for getting his car stolen, if he wanted. I also told him that I would kill those mother fuckers if I ever had the chance. Around that time a cop walks in and says “THAT’S her?! Ma’am, come with us, we didn’t know it was you that had been robbed.”

I gave my statement to a detective that I later overheard saying “We could get them for ‘this, this, and this’, but let’s not make it anymore trouble than it has to be.”

This is where I found out that all four of them had been in on it together.

James and Derrick, the two from the green SUV had dropped off Jose and Mario down the road and were probably going to pick them up after it was over. They did this so they wouldn’t be connected to the crime. James asked me questions to distract me and then nodded his head at the other two to let them know the register was open, except I fucked that up when I dragged it with me and it closed.

They were never carjacked and were never charged with filing a false police report. James had been charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and was currently awaiting trial.

The cops then sent me out into the lobby where I was cornered by the family of the boy that had tried to kill me. They wanted to know who I was, where it happened, what happened, what was going on with their baby. When I told them I didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be talking to them, they became rude and offensive. I had to ask the receptionist to take me into the back to get away from them.

Jose, the boy who robbed me, was 17 at the time and was given 100 days in juvenile detention and three years of probation, minus time served… for strong arm robbery and assault by strangulation, both of which are felonies. They never charged him with attempted murder because they couldn’t prove intent.

Mario, the stealer of the register, had seven felonies under his belt before this happened, including possession of weapons of mass destruction. He served less than a year in prison after a plea deal and was released on the one year anniversary of the robbery.

James, of the many robberies, had his sentence lessened in order to get him to plead out on his other robbery charge. Two years of probation for him.

Derrick, who was pretty much just there for the hell of it, was sentenced to two or three years probation also. I’ve not found any other criminal activity on his record… yet.

I was never contacted by the victim’s advocate. I had to call them repeatedly just to be sent a pamphlet informing me of my “rights”.

I was never given my right to testify.

I was never given my right to be told of their sentencing until five months later when I called them again.

I was never given my right to speak to the sentencing judge before he sentenced them.

I was never given my right to compensation because losing your job doesn’t count towards lost wages. Also because I didn’t have any medical bills because I couldn’t afford to go to anything but free counseling after I lost my job.

I wasn’t fired, guys. I quit. I had to.

I went back the next morning and worked in the café as a waitress because I couldn’t afford to lose the hours and I had to prove to myself that I could be there. All day long no one talked of anything but the robbery and pointed and stared at me as I walked by. The boss’ daughter finally had to tell the customers to stop asking me about it because it was killing me. The gas station was down for three days because we had to wait on a new register to be installed and get the gas company to reinstall all of our software after fixing our pumps. When you rip the cords out of a register, it fucks EVERYTHING up.

I worked at that store for nine days straight after the robbery, and then I just couldn’t anymore. I jumped every time someone came in. Every time a young black man entered the store, I froze. Every time I saw someone in a hoodie, I shrunk into myself.

I called the cops almost every day for one reason or another. I was too scared to stay there anymore. I rarely go into that place at all, even two years later. I hate it in there.

My boss was kind enough to tell the unemployment office that she had laid me off so I could draw unemployment. I did that for the better part of two years because I couldn’t face the possibility of that happening again.

Running a register is a part of my job now and I still get nervous when the drawer is open.

The very worst part of all of it is that most people believed that I was doing all of that to myself. I was making it up, dwelling on it, making it worse for myself. I couldn’t talk about it and when I started to, their eyes would glaze over. Someone actually tried to dump their problems on me five days later and when I said “I was just robbed, I don’t think this situation compares. It’s not that serious”, he said “That was like a week ago, get over it.”

Someone tried to MURDER me five days ago. No, I don’t think I’ll be fucking getting over it.

People don’t think it was that serious. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but I kind of wish that they knew exactly what it felt like to know that you’re about to die. To know what it feels like to have some stranger try to murder you for a couple hundred dollars. To know that there is nothing you can do to stop it. To know how it feels when everyone tells you that it’s no big deal, they didn’t do anything to you; suck it up, move on, just fucking get over it. To know that they don’t give one single fucking damn about you at all.

It’s better now, but it’s not gone. It probably will never be completely gone. There are things I can’t do, places I can’t go, and people that give me flashbacks that paralyze me with fear. It’s not really any fun and if I could quit being this way, I would.

I will never again know what it’s like to not constantly be afraid of everything.

There, that damned closet had too much shit in it. It needed cleaning.

To everyone that is uncomfortable after reading this, good luck with putting it all back in again. I’m sorry that you can’t deal with my feelings and shit, but whatever. I guarantee it makes me a lot more uncomfortable than it does you.

I’m sorry that you only like me when I’m funny. I’m sorry to all of my Facebook friends that it’s awkward when I express any emotion that isn’t hilariously violent rage.

I’m sorry that you’re such little people.

That being said, I'm extremely thankful to the community that I've been brought into by blogging, reading blogs, and tweeting. You guys are seriously amazing with the unflagging support you give to me and to each other.

I want to thank all of you for being just as fucked up as I am and even funnier about it.

I also want to give an epic thank you to Noa Gavin for letting me know that I will always have support when I decide to share my load and to Elizabeth Kennett who let me know that funny or not, you'll love me anyways. You guys gave me the balls to do this. Now I just hope I can honor The League and not take it down tomorrow.

And of course the biggest thanks goes to my mama, because she's my mama and she's awesome.

I did manage to get some jokes out of the situation though. I mean, who else would be in the middle of trying not to be dead and thinking "You're doing it wrong...."?

Tasteless Merchandise to Fuel My Pillow Addiction

2011-07-17T23:28:00.000-04:00

Do you want to know what I was doing while I wasn't blogging?

I was creating a Zazzle store called Mo Waffles.

Jenny Lawson is to blame for this.

Why is it named Mo Waffles? I have no fucking idea. Just like I have no idea why I created anything that I did or why Zazzle lures you in with promises of setting your own royalty rate when if you set it to 80% your t-shirts are priced to sell at $53.74.

This is a small sampling of the tasteless products I have to offer.

Goof-Off can't fix this mistake by MoWaffles
View other Tasteless T-Shirts

The front says "J/K", you know, for potential un-rapist boyfriends.

Dear Rapist by MoWaffles
See other Random T-Shirts

And because the movie Teeth freaked me out...

Vagina Ventata by MoWaffles
Become a clothing affiliate at zazzle.com

Please don't hate me...

... and go buy things.

The Five Seasons of North Carolina

2011-07-17T23:10:00.000-04:00

It is universally recognized that most places on this big green ball have four seasons.

Winter – It’s cold.

Spring – Shit grows.

Summer – Shark Week.

Fall – Shit dies.

That being said, I would like to point out that the state of North Carolina actually has five seasons each year. Some of these seasons overlap for maximum discomfort and they’re known to us by slightly different names than the aforementioned.

Season 1: Buy Milk and Bread

Seriously, winters are coming, you better be prepared. If there is even a slight chance that a single snow flake could fall from the heavens, the grocery stores are going to be packed and then emptied of everything but candy wrappers and sadness.

It is a state law that mandates that when there is a winter weather advisory, you must go buy all the milk and all the bread in all the lands. You could perish in the temperate winters of the South. We’ve seen Alive; we know how this story ends. We’re prepared to eat our neighbors if we have to.

When you live in a place where the power goes out when there is a breeze, you become accustomed to the Laura Ingalls’ brand of life. We once lost power for an entire week after a blizzard dumped three feet of snow on us in a few hours. The weather man said we’d get nothing. I’ve not trusted him and his Coke bottle glasses since.

This also happens when there is two inches of snow. The state becomes crippled by mental deficiency and the inability to drive. See that patch of ice? Wait until you’re right on top of it and then slam on your brakes. They teach it in driver’s ed.

Season 2: Oh Fuck, My Allergies

Mother Nature is a sadistic bitch. We have more species of pollen producing vegetation than should be allowed. We grew up here; we should be used to it.

We’re not.

Every single one of us is allergic to every single type of pollen there is. Then there are the chiggers, mosquitoes, bees, wasps, and all manner of bitey shit you have to contend with.

We’re all allergic to those too.

I don’t have statistics to back this up, but I’m relatively certain that we’re number one in snot production. We’re a sickly state.

Every time the season commonly referred to as “spring” rolls around, it’s like a giant allergic reaction to life. The older I get, the worse it gets. I can’t breath, my eyes itch, I look live I’ve smoked about a pound of kind bud, and my lips swell up to look like Lisa Rinna. Carolina girl’s ARE the best in the world, just not in the spring.

Season 3: Swamp Ass

There are petitions in Congress to have the name of summer officially changed to Swamp Ass. It’s like a fucking sauna down here for a quarter of the year. I could eat the air.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve just showered; you’re going to feel like a three dollar whore in July as soon as you walk outside.

It’s… moist. The only thing grosser than saying it is feeling it. It’s not sweat, it’s condensation.

You’ll constantly feel like you smell bad and you’re probably not wrong. If you’ve ever wondered what it felt like to be slimed on Nickelodeon or to walk through soup, you’ll know as soon as you go out.

It’s like walking through Mother Nature’s vagina. That sounds disgusting. It feels worse than it sounds. People from out West have said that they’d take 115 in Arizona over 90 here any day.

Season 4: Seventh Circle of Hell

This is often paired up with Swamp Ass to make you lose your will to live.

It’s 102 in the fucking shade, y’all. Eggs will fry in their shells and pool water is too hot to swim in.

You’ll start to feel a breeze and fall to your knees in thanks to God for the blessing that is about to be bestowed upon you only to realize that it feels exactly like opening an oven that’s been on all day. Our summer breezes will not make you feel fine. They’ll give you second degree burns.

When you’re outside for any amount of time, you fully expect your face to come off with your hand when you wipe away the sweat.

Imagine putting on all of your winter clothing and then getting into a tanning bed with five space heaters.

It’s like that, except you’re soaking wet and there are misting fans throughout the room.

Season 5: Oh Fuck, Floridians

Seriously. Do you people not have any leaves where you come from? Are there no leaves between Florida and North Carolina?

Yes, they change colors and it’s really pretty to look at. We just like to look at them while we drive past them at high rates of speed. There really is no need to drive eight hours just so that you can drive fifteen miles per hour down the Parkway to see nature and shit. It’s not going anywhere. Additionally, there is also no need to fucking STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMNED ROAD BECAUSE THERE ARE TREES THAT ARE NOT ACTUALLY IN THE FUCKING ROAD.

I’m tired of these mother fuckin’ leaves on these mother fuckin’ trees.

We don’t like you! Go away! Did you know that we don’t officially kick off swamp ass until one of you dies going over a waterfall? True story. Did you also know that the most commonly used phrase during the fall is “Fucking Floridiot Leafers”? That’s right, we named you.

Also, you really can’t drive.

That’s not fair. The half-backs can’t drive. For the uninformed, half-backs are the people from Connecticut that move to Florida to be warm, get too hot, and then move to North Carolina to see the fucking leaves. They’re halfway back. They need to keep going.

We live here because we like our abundance of nature and shit. We like that our nature and shit is quiet, uncrowded, and easily accessible during all five seasons except for one, the one where you decided that being an asshole while you look at fucking leaves is acceptable. Have you not seen Deliverance? I’m not saying that someone is going to sodomize you; I’m just throwing it out there for your consideration.

I Broke My Brain

2011-07-13T23:46:00.001-04:00

The last few weeks of my life have been terrible and confusing and I had to take time off from blogging to have a small nervous breakdown.

I also think that I broke my funny.

Seriously.

I hold my own well in conversation, but Jesus the shit splattered off the fan too fast for me to keep up with it. This is why I still think that I need a stenographer, you know, for those special moments. And because I’m too lazy to write any or all of it down before I forget it.

For your sake, I will be breaking the chain of events down into small portions to make it easier to digest.

Why I Tried to Make Auto Zone Employees Cry

Holy fuck balls, y’all. Is there some kind of competency test they give their applicants and only the people who fail get to work there?

The condenser fan motor on my car went out. This is the fan that cools the compressor so that you can have cold air coming out instead of blowing your shit up. I went to various used parts stores and junkyards trying to find one, but theirs were either gone or not working. Insert a lot of driving around in an un-air conditioned vehicle.

I finally order the $82 fan assembly from Auto Zone. Easier to install, but I didn’t need all of the other crap with it.

“It will be in by noon tomorrow.”

“That’s great. I’ll pick it up after work.”

I call at noon. The part isn’t in.

I call at two, still not there.

I call at four and again at six and the fucking part is still not there. This is where I demand to know why.

“It’s not ALL Fed-Ex’s fault. The manufacturer wasn’t shipping Friday because of the holiday.”

“Well fuck, that sucks, dude.”

“We’re sorry. It should be in Wednesday.”

Wednesday? WEDNESDAY?!? That’s four more days of living without conditioned air. It needs conditioning!

Monday was the Fourth of July so I had to wait until Tuesday to begin my reign of terror on the manufacturer. I was not going to stop until someone cried, I didn’t much care who as long as it wasn’t me.

I call Dorman Auto and ask them if they were open on Friday. They were. Then I ask them why they weren’t shipping if they were open.

“Ma’am, we were shipping. As long as we received your order by 4:30pm EST, it would have arrived on Saturday.”

I ordered it at 1:20pm EST.

“So, why wasn’t it shipped? I guess I need to call Auto Zone and kick someone’s ass there.”

“I guess so.”

I call Auto Zone back.

“Dorman said they were open and shipping until almost 5:00pm on Friday, so why isn’t my part here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, CHARVIS, when did you send them the order?”

“It was supposed to go out immediately.”

“Okay then. I’ll call them back and see when they received it.”

They couldn’t tell me without a PO number and the one on my receipt didn’t match anything in their files. I was told to get Auto Zone’s PO number and then call back to find out.

“Auto Zone, this is Charvis, how can I help you?”

“CHARVIS, this is condenser fan assembly here. I need your PO number.”

“Well, let me see if the part is here.”

“I didn’t ask for that, I just want your PO number,”

“Our manager says that Fed-Ex didn’t run on Saturday because of the holiday.”
“That’s funny, CHARVIS. He told me that Fed-Ex was delivering twice that day.”

“Well, they didn’t.

“CHARVIS, how exactly does Fed-Ex deliver two separate times when they’re not running?”

“That’s just what the manager told me, so they didn’t. We found your part.”

“You… Excuse me? You found my part? The part that wasn’t delivered on Saturday?”

“Yeah, it was under the wrong name.”

“CHARVIS, my receipt has the name under which it was ordered. You might want to call that person and tell them that you’re about to give their part away.”

“Well, it’s yours.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Being in the middle of a bitch fit of epic proportions, I call Fed-Ex.

“Were you guys running on Saturday?”

“Yes, we sure were. We don’t run on Sundays and holidays, but we were open on Saturday.”

“Good to know. Did you deliver to this address?”

“We’re just the retail location, so we don’t have that info. I can give you the main office number, but they might not be able to tell you.”

I called. They did. They delivered two packages to that address on that day. Two packages on a day when they weren’t operating. That’s dedication, y’all.

I’m pissed. I am pissed the fuck off. You had my part the whole fucking time and now you’re lying to me to cover your ass. Also, CHARVIS is the dumbest fucking name I’ve ever heard. It matched the person it belonged to.

I roll up in Auto Zone spitting fire, but calmly. You can’t alert your prey that you’re about to destroy it. The first person I see is CHARVIS who sees something in my eyes that frightens him. He goes to get my part and I stare him down. When he brings it back to ring it out, I demand to speak to the manager and he starts to stutter.

When manager Bill comes over, so does his handy assistant Kyle, the one that ordered that part.
“Why did this come in under a different name?”

Kyle: “Yeah, haha, I kind of messed up on that order.”

Do you see me smiling? Do you? I’m about ready to rip your fucking balls off and cram them down your throat. This isn’t a happy amusing time for me, dick wad.

I pull the manager aside and then point out every single lie he and his employees had told me over the last few days.

“Fed-Ex didn’t deliver here on Saturday.”

“Well, then I guess their records are wrong because they have it down that they delivered two separate packages here. Now, I’m not saying you’re lying, Bill, but…”

“No, no, their records are probably right. I didn’t see Fed-Ex that day.”

Mother fucker, who runs this store? For all you know the “guys in the back” could be dealing un-cut Colombian coke back there.

“Now, Bill, this wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that I don’t have a dick, would it?”

“What? NO! No, I mean half of our employees are women!”

“I’ve never seen them…”

“Uh… uh…”

I did not get the refund I had set my heart on because I couldn’t stand dealing with this jackass while his nervous employees stared at us with scared looks on their faces.

I take my part and start to walk out of the store only to be stopped by Bill.

“Are you sure that you need that part?”

“What. Did. You. Just. Say?”

“Are you sure that that’s the right part? I mean, I’d check the relays and wiring and freon before I ordered that.”

Are you fucking kidding me? You assure me that you’re not treating me like an idiot because of my tits and then you have the fucking nerve to imply that I don’t know what’s wrong with my own car?

“Seriously? I checked all of that shit before I ordered the $82 part filled with parts I didn’t actually need and that you had the whole time. I hope you never procreate.”

The part was installed and worked beautifully. However, the air is still blowing out at just slightly cooler than the surface of the sun, but only when the car is in motion.

Then the transmission went out. No, let me clarify, the one part of the transmission that wasn’t under warranty went out and the dealership was literally the only place that could fix it because my car is a giant piece of shit and I would make mad, passionate love to the first person that set it the fuck on fire.

Deep breath.

Let it out.

Nervous breakdown is officially over.

I know I promised to deliver in small, easily digestible pieces, but once I get started… People needed to know about CHARVIS. I even say his name in all caps when speaking of him.

I usually call people Skippy or Sparky when I’m irritated with them and asserting my dominance, but I think that they’ll forevermore be known as CHARVIS.*

Tune in next time for: And That’s When He Told Me He Sold Crack…

*You’ll also be able to tell that you’re irritating the fuck out of me if I keep using your name repeatedly while addressing you.

Also, if you’re name is CHARVIS, I apologize… but seriously, you’re name isn’t great.

Eat Pray Love Makes Me Want to Kill Myself

2011-06-10T21:48:00.001-04:00

New director's cut of Eat Pray Love
comes with a complementary
noose.

I’m a little late in coming to the review game on this one, but I couldn’t hold it inside any longer.

I’ve never hidden my feelings towards to movie “Eat Pray Love”. I’ve also never truly expressed my feelings about it in such a public arena… until last night, when my rage was renewed.

The following took place on Facebook.

HCW: I never get tired of watching Eat Pray Love. :)

Heather Ray: Really? That movie made me hate Julia Roberts... and I kind of wanted to kill myself five minutes into it. I seriously would have cheered if she'd been hit by a bus at the end.

HCW: Hahaha I thought it was a very calming movie..like a "im feeling depressed so I'm gonna watch eat pray love and eat an entire carton of ice cream" movie.

Heather Ray: I can’t stand her character. Somewhere towards the end of Eat and the middle of Pray, I warmed up to her a bit, as in I didn’t want to stab her in the face quite as much as I did before, but as soon as Javier Bardem came into it, I was really hoping she’d die painfully. It was the worst two hours of my life but I kept watching it thinking that it couldn’t possibly get any worse, but it did. Julia Roberts has been ruined for me forever now. I don’t even know if I can watch My Best Friend’s Wedding without thinking YOU TOTALLY DESERVE TO BE HEARTBROKEN, HAG!

HTC: Bahahahaha.

Somewhere in the middle of that I decided to Google “Eat Pray Love makes me want to kill myself” and it lead me to one of the best reviews of that piece of contrived bullshit I’ve ever read. First off, anything called Jump Up My Ass, Lady is a winner in my book. Secondly, it’s exactly how I feel about it, but with less expletives and violence. Thirdly, I should have known that this movie was going to be a God damned nightmare when it couldn't even be bothered with basic punctuation.

I would seriously rather systematically gnaw all of the flesh from my body than have to watch this again. I felt dead inside when it was over. I wanted to sue Red Box for that $1.08 back. I wanted to sue Julia Roberts for killing every one of my dreams. Within five minutes of the movie, I hated the lead character. I had been prepared to like her since her name was Elizabeth Gilbert which reminded me of Melissa Gilbert which reminds me of Little House on the Prairie. Surely if my Kevin Bacon Brain Syndrome connected her to that cherished childhood television show, she had to be something special.

She wasn’t.

As I told HTC, I did at some point start to warm up to her a bit, but I was still holding the razor blade over my veins. I was totally going up the road with that shit too. There would be no crossing the street for attention here. I meant business.

I'm actively trying to keep any traumatic memories from that movie from popping into my head. I spent the last 140 minutes of the movie like this...

Praying to God that it would end quickly.

I wanted badly for my mother to hold me and tell me it was going to be alright, but she was doing the same thing. It was like watching a fucking train wreck, y'all. I could not look away. I don't even think I got up to pee. The urge to take it out of the DVD player and burn it was overwhelming, but I had to keep watching it because there was no way in hell that the entire movie could be that horrible. Something had to give and it had to get better. It couldn't be any worse than the beginning.

I was wrong. So, so totally wrong.

It did get worse. I was actively rooting for her to get some kind of disfiguring, bank account draining, incurable disease with a 0% chance of survival. Ebola would have been nice. Where was a carrier monkey when you needed one?

I wanted to stab myself in the fucking eyeball with a pair of scissors.

I wanted to jump into Flatliners, hand Keifer Sutherland a copy of the movie and beg him not to bring her back. Just let her go, man, and save us all the trouble. And also that even in 1990, they all looked too old to convincingly pull off medical students, especially Oliver Platt, who still looks exactly the same.

All of her dreams have been crushed.

But most of all, I wanted to go back in time and apologize to this little girl for growing up to be an idiot and also for ruining her life with that movie.

I've honestly spent a more pleasurable two hours throwing up violently from drinking a half gallon of vodka after selling my plasma. It made me yearn for the time when that thing on my ovary went all 'splodey and I wanted to die or possibly for all of the times my dad recounted his sexual exploits to me.

In summation, if I ever have the displeasure of meeting this self-indulgent, egomaniacal, bitch pigeon of a twat waffle, I'm probably going to kick her in the vagina.

P.S. Bitch Pigeon = Someone that comes out of nowhere and shits all over your life, metaphorically.

P.P.S. Blog - Eat Pray Love - Julia Roberts - Flatliners - Kevin Bacon. BAM!

Dolls Creep Me the Fuck Out, Y'all

2011-06-07T19:59:00.002-04:00

Yes, I'm still on the kick about inanimate objects that scare me shitless. When I finished the original post, I realized that I had made a huge mistake. I left out the one that scared me the most.

Dolls.

Mostly of the porcelain variety.

You have to understand a few things about me. I don't scare easily. I'm the chick everyone wants to take to a haunted attraction or horror movie because I laugh my way through them... and also because I can point out exactly where, when, and what is going to pop out at you. The success rate is roughly 95%. Paranormal Activity 2 fucked up my perfect record. Only because I thought it was safe to look directly at the screen when it was day time to them and because those cabinets were really fucking loud when they opened.

I was that weird kid that was reading 800 page Stephen King novels in elementary school. I watched Pet Semetary and IT when I was a toddler and never had an issue, which is saying a lot when you have this staring back at you.

This is totally a guy in real life.

And also because the really cute dead kid ate Herman Munster.

When we factor in that by the time I was six I had been exposed to more gore and violent death than most adults, it's surprising that I never had nightmares about any of it.

Until this came along.

I will fuck your shit up, yo.

I had nightmares for a week after watching Child's Play. I have absolutely no idea why. When it came down to a choice between a child molester that fed off of fear and killed you in your dreams, a mentally challenged, overgrown kid that drowned and now seeks revenge, a clown that would eat you, and a doll that you could just give away or burn, I don't see why the doll won. I slept with my parents for a month after watching this thinking that they'd pose more of a challenge to a two foot chunk of plastic, or, at the very least, serve as a tasty distraction while I ran away.

They were a little wary of letting me watch horror movies after that, but I finally convinced them that I could handle it and I did. Week after week I would select the most horrifying movies I could find at our local video store and I was fine with it, but I drew the line at that cymbal crashing monkey murderer movie because it just seemed like too plausible a story line to me. That could totally happen to someone, I'd seen Puppet Master.

Having regained my confidence in the "Shit That Will Kill You" area, I decided to test the doll waters once again. But this time I was prepared, I was going with the B-rated movie. How bad could it be? As it turns out, pretty damned bad. I've carried this constant fear of being murdered by dolls for going on twenty years now. I can watch Chucky today and laugh, but I won't even touch the case of this movie for fear of angering it. I present to you now, Dolly Dearest.

You're probably thinking, "Is this bitch serious? THAT has given you nightmares for twenty years?"

That's just because you haven't seen her hulk out yet.

You won't like her when she's angry... or possessed
by evil Mayan gods. Whichever.

I can't even LOOK at a doll without thinking it has ulterior motives. My worst fear (behind spider spitting fire tornadoes) is that I'll walk into a room of porcelain dolls and that one will turn its head and wink at me.

I now present to you "Creepy Ass Dolls on Parade".

Bitch, I will hunt you down and eat you.

It has baby teeth. And a sly look on its face. Nothing good can come from this.

Homeless doesn't mean harmless.

Again with the baby teeth. This one's hungry, psychotic, and evidently homeless. She also has poor oral hygiene. So, like a Komodo dragon, even if she doesn't succeed in devouring you whole, the infection from the bite will kill you. Lose/lose.

I'm dead inside.

This one seems harmless enough, but take a closer look. It's the dead eyes. They're always a give away.

I honestly just don't have any words for this one other than WHY DOES THIS EXIST?

You might find my fear of inanimate objects silly, but it's not.

Dolls are only inanimate when you're looking at them.

Sometimes I Don't Like Learning

2011-06-01T20:11:00.000-04:00

This is probably going to become a regular thing on here because I inevitably learn things that I never wanted to know on a weekly basis. I'm not talking about finding out that your parents are still having wild sexual gymnastics parties involving swings and your childhood bed, but random facts that I pick up here and there, like how there's pig skin in gummi bears. Although now that I've put the image of your parents having athletic sex in your head, what I'm learning you today is probably a lot less horrifying.

I'm a HUGE fan of learning things. I like to be smarter than everyone else and whip out my scholastic prowess at random to impress the masses. I also love to read and I do it quite frequently. I even read shampoo bottles when I'm in the bathroom when I can't quite bear to gaze upon fine Swedish home furnishings one mo' again.

However, in my educational and literary journeys, I often come across things that appear interesting, so I research them. This is usually a mistake. While doing a project on Sex in the Civil War, I decided to Google syphillis. Google Image is not your friend. I honestly had no idea that it so closely resembled leprosy of the penis... or that it would cause said appendage to fall off with little to no provocation. I do now.

Yesterday I cleaned out the front passenger seat/floorboard of my car to allow access for at least one passenger in a five passenger vehicle and I found the book I had been meaning to read for the last two months.

One doesn't typically associate Nora Roberts with horrifying images, but one would be wrong. She's my guilty pleasure that I generally try to keep people from knowing that I read. Sometimes a bitch just needs a happy ending, okay? She's also an excellent writer. I suggest you give her a try if you haven't already. Even if romance isn't your thing, the story lines in her hardcover novels are intriguing and well written. She also paints a very vivid picture.

Somewhere in the second half of the book, she has her two main characters and sprained ankle guy running from a "fire devil". This is not to be confused with an actual demon from hell, but it's close enough.

I says to myself, "Now what in the world is a fire devil? I must look this up." No, no you shouldn't.

THAT is a fire devil. It's a tornado made of fucking fire, y'all. They can grow up to a mile high and have wind speeds of 160mph. And uproot 50 foot trees. On fire. They spawn out of forest fires because apparently fires create their own weather systems.

Mother Nature has effectively merged my two greatest fears. If this shit starts shooting out spiders, I'll die. I'll just go right ahead and die and get it over with.

Yippee kay-yay, Mother Fucker.

To quote Hyperbole and A Half, they're "little pieces of death wrapped up in scary" and I'm not fucking with them.

There are just some things I'm better off not knowing about and this is one of them. Sometimes I don't like learning.

Three Inanimate Objects That Scare the Living Hell Out of Me

2011-05-23T21:21:00.000-04:00

I have a lot of fears that other people don't. I'll blame most of them on Stephen King. Trust me when I say that this is just the short list of weird and probably unfounded phobias.

Take storm drains for instance. What is there to fear about a seemingly innocuous hole in the ground? I'll tell you.

You'll just be sailing your awesome paper boat down the flood water when this fucker pops up.

"Hiya, Georgie. Aren't ya gonna say "Hello"?

Just count that boat as a loss, man, 'cause he's going to eat you.

I told you. "It" didn't make me fear clowns, but it did make me afraid of storm drains because that's where they live.

Banana Boats

Again, seemingly innocuous, but they aren't. I will NEVER ride one of these. Ever. I like watercraft, but I hate banana boats. You'll just be riding along on your yellow phallus, not a care in the world....

Hey, we're just chillin'.

You're just chillin', having a good time, looking at the camera and the next thing you know...

Dammit, Bruce! Not again!

Something is going to fucking eat you.

Closed Shower Curtains

You THINK you see where this one is going, but trust me, you don't.

My opaqueness gives you a false sense of security.

You have to pee and you walk in to find a closed shower curtain. What's behind that shower curtain, you might ask. Mildew? Rust? Hardwater buildup? Awkward feminine hygiene products? Nope. This is.

I believe in miracles. Where ya from? You sexy thang.

Trust me, you never trust hot naked chicks that show up in your bathtub out of nowhere.

Why? Because they're going to fucking eat you.

I'm starting to see a trend here. All of my weird phobias involve something eating me. I should probably talk to my shrink about that one.

Things That Irritate the Shit Out of Me

2011-05-23T18:16:00.001-04:00

The title doesn’t really leave much room for a preamble, so let’s get this party started.

Rachael Ray.

She makes me ashamed of my last name.

People who talk like Rachael Ray. I will break that fucking bottle of yummo delish EVOO all over your head, asshole. The point of an acronym in to make a short word out of a series of longer words, not to spell out the acronym. Eeevooo. Say it with me. We don’t call it N-A-S-A or S-C-U-B-A, do we?

Microsoft Word Spell Check. Only one of those sentences up there is a fragment. Also, I’m sorry that you recognize Ebonics as our official language and not English, but you’re not correct.

The fact that I can’t eat generic “fudge pops” without getting a ring of chocolate all the way around my mouth, which is exactly what I’m doing right now while trying to type this with one hand.

The fact that I type faster with my left hand than my right.

The fact that fudge pops look like shit on a stick and still manage to be appetizing.

Having to wipe chocolate ice cream from right beneath my left eye. Seriously, that’s nowhere near my mouth, how did it get there?

Having to wipe pancake batter from between my toes when I make breakfast. Again, I’m not understanding this.

People that have graduated high school and/or college and still don’t have a grasp on the English language.

People that spell ‘you’ as ‘yhu’.

People that abbreviate words when talking and/or typing. Delish, deets, preesh, presh, and vacay, or for the extremely lazy, vaca. What the fuck is a vacka? Did you feel so heartsick over the loss of being able to writ3 lyk3 dis dat yhu had 2 mak3 up n3w w3rdz?

People who think they’re rappers and are also too lazy to spell out their words. It took me a solid five minutes of saying “toma” out loud before I figured out that you were trying to say ‘tomorrow’. Also, it doesn’t have an ‘a’ in it. Neither does ‘definitely’. I defiantly spell my words correctly.

Yankees who think we’re stupid because we use language in a different way. I’m fixin’ to make me a mater sammich and you can go over yonder to hell if you don’t like it. “Yonder ain’t in no fucking dictionary.” Yes, it is, and way to throw out a double negative in the middle of harping on our dialect. Don’t like it? Go the fuck home. We don’t like your kind around these here parts anyway.

Chiggers.

I will crawl into your skin and eat your ass
from the inside out, bitches.

People who aren’t funny or talented but become famous anyway.

Bad grammar.

Misspellings.

Double negatives.

People that ineffectually try to make me feel bad about myself so that they can feel better about their own shitty lives.

Broken records.

My Hanson and Lion King CDs not working.

Having to pee.

Having to hold gas because I’m so fucking polite.

People farting in front of me.

Birds.

Ugly people with bad attitudes. God couldn’t have been so cruel as to make you ugly AND not give you a personality.

People that get mad at me because I don’t speak their language. Lo siento.

Guys who grow vaginas because their girlfriends put their balls in a box with her earrings.

Having to shave any part of my body.

Aaaand… I’m going to stop because just about everything annoys the shit out of me.

Because I'm so Badass and Efficient

2011-05-15T18:34:00.000-04:00

I like awards. I like the getting of them and I like the having of them. I've never won a trophy in my life, but I'm sorely tempted to have one made for myself because I can. That won't be happening anytime soon because I'm poor and have better things to do, like stealing awards I was never given from websites that offer them freely. I honestly feel as though I deserve each and every one of the awards TheBloggess posted on her blog today. Every. One. We'll start with inefficient efficiency.

I work in a photolab at my friendly neighborhood "store-mart" and I do the frowning intently at the computer screen thing to make myself appear busy when in reality, I'm really just looking for naked pictures at best and old men in speedos at worst and being pissed off that the raunchiest thing in our system is someone eating a penis cake with asymmetrical balls. As long as I have the editing box up, I can totally say I'm just enhancing someone's shitty candids from their wedding because Joe Bob's got his hand down his pants and can't you please dear God just blend that into something else, maybe a fern or a nice potted plant.

Fuckin' a right, doggy. I gladly accept this award because every time I see one of you do this, I want to punch you in the face so hard that you die. Actually, I try to reserve that anger for your/you're and there/they're/their. Which leads us to...

It's a daily battle, but I feel that I have the urges to kill mostly under control... usually. I wouldn't feel this way if it wasn't for the fact that I'm the...

Seriously, they really are. I know that your native language and the ability to make change correctly takes you to the breaking point on a daily basis, but honestly, if Darwin was right, these wouldn't be issues for you anymore. Why? Because you would have been killed in a terrible and completely avoidable accident involving an angry llama or perhaps a sleeping bear.

Just because Jonathan Taylor Thomas was able to lure a horde of angry bears back to sleep by singing softly and farting doesn't mean that you can too. While we're on the topic of natural selection failing and supreme stupidity...

I don't care if you're 18 months old or not, it is no excuse for falling down a Goddamned well and becoming famous off of it. Baby Jessica is the same age as I am and so far, I've avoid falling into gaping holes in the ground and I'm still not on the news for being smart enough to avoid this. I'm smart enough to realize that it's probably not a good idea to keep walking where there isn't any fucking ground left and I'm not a household name... yet.

I totally deserved these awards.

Getting to Know Yoouuuuu

2011-05-15T10:39:00.000-04:00

As our happy little home is slowly expanding and gaining some recognition, I thought I'd give you a peek behind the curtain to learn a little about me. My original plan was to post the overdramatic and somewhat traumatizing "100 Things About Me", but I like having followers and that list inevitably leaves people with more questions than answers.

Questions of Great Importance that I stole from The Photognazi

1. Have you ever gone to see a movie by yourself?

2. Would you rather go through a tornado or a hurricane?

3. Have you made summer vacation plans?

4. What's your favorite accessory?

5. Have you ever been thrown a surprise party?

6. Are you friends with your neighbors?

7. What's the last movie you saw in the theater?

8 What's your favorite food network show?

The Answers, which I stole from no one.

1. I have gone to see a movie by myself to escape my sister's then mother-in-law and bratty neice who were hogging all of my time with TBC, who was only a few months old. I believe it was "How to Deal" with Mandy Moore. The title seemed fitting.

2. I've been through tornadoes and hurricanes before. I once encountered six tornadoes at the same time in Ohio when I was younger. I had severe panic attacks for years every time it would storm and I still don't fully trust Ohio. If we're talking Category 1 hurricanes, I'll take those, please.

3. My summer vacation plans had initially included a week in Cabo, then it switched to a week in Nags Head, NC. When I realized that I could never afford to take a week off of work for anything, including emergency surgery, those plans shifted to "Not Killing Anyone at Store-Mart". I couldn't make it in prison where I know I'd have to trade sexual favors for cigarettes.

4. My favorite accessory is my head. I like taking it everywhere I go. I don't really get into accessories because it requires thought and that's not an area I excel in.

5. No surprise parties here. I've been thrown a party that contained such lovely surprises as: A crackhead who shaved half of his head, cried when he bled, broke a door and knocked down the hostess, and then proceeded to run up and down the highway in hysterics, the host pulling a gun, and me crying. I don't think I like surprises much anymore.

6. Hmm... Which neighbors could I be friends with? The cranky Yankee whose husband (before leaving) wanted to shoot the neighbor who shot his dog that ate the other neighbor's elderly cat and chickens? The meth heads that have housed a child molestor on and off over the years? The neighbors that did a husband swap across the street? The crazy woman that puts lipstick on the outside of her mouth? Or the people that never bring our mail over when they get it and never wave? I'm also pretty sure that I heard someone get shot last night, but that's not really a neighbor so much as someone that lives in the neighborhood. Pod people can never be overrated. I'd take a whole bushel of them right now.

7. I'm going to have to go with Easy A on this one. I don't watch many movies anymore and I resent having to pay so much to sit in a cold theater, not smoke, and then pee for twenty minutes when its over because I drank my body weight in $8.00 Coke. I'll be leaving shortly to watch Bridesmaids though.

8. Not Rachel Ray. She makes me ashamed of my last name. I'm usually a fan of Paula Deen, but being Southern, I KNOW that none of us says "y'all" that damned much. Seriously. You're killing me, Smalls. I also like Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Most of the time Food Network is like Douche Network to me. I love watching it, but someone will inevitably piss me off by throwing something disgusting into foods I love to eat. They're classics for a reason, y'all.

If you want to attempt these hard hitting questions and possibly generate a little traffic to your personal piece of paradise, head over to Mannland5 and link yourself up.

Someone Should Delete MS Paint from my Computer

2011-05-05T22:51:00.000-04:00

My Vagina is Secretly a Sassy Black Woman

2011-05-04T22:25:00.000-04:00

A moment ago I thought to myself, “If my ovaries had nuts, I’d kick them in them.” And then I realized that was too many thems. Also, that my ovaries kind of ARE my nuts.

And that I say also too much.

They’re not being terribly evil at the moment, but that “special time” isn’t so special. It’s irritating and it pisses me off. Like that saying goes, you shouldn’t trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die. Therefore, I no longer trust my vagina.

I thought I would share a few of my thoughts on menstruation with you.

1.) I think it’s a horrible joke on me that my gynecologist is attractive.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s a wonderful doctor, but I don’t think his hotness is a bonus for me. Initially, this had me wanting to clamp my legs shut and waddle out the door. Gynecologist visits are in direct violation of my “Never naked with the lights on” rule and having an attractive man see me naked under fluorescents was almost more than I could take. He makes delightfully dirty jokes while his hand is up my hoo hoo, so I won’t be replacing him any time soon. Perverse conversation while being fondled by strangers makes things easier. It’s rare for a man to make you laugh when you’re naked, so it must be treasured while it lasts. I’ve grown used to him being down there and he doesn’t make me nearly as uncomfortable as the corpsman in boot camp did. Sorry, but my vagina and I will never fully appreciate the art of the donkey punch. My experience with strange men between my legs is limited, but I’m assuming that if I can feel your watch ticking, something isn’t right here.

2.) Tampons are ridiculous.

I’m not even sure why they make regular ones and I am convinced that the “Teen” size would be better marketed as a quick fix for a nose bleed. Miss Vagine will roll her eyes at a regular tampon. I can hear her snapping her fingers and saying “Girlfriend, that might get you as far as the tampon aisle and back, but I wouldn’t push it.” I think she might secretly be a sassy black woman.

The one time I briefly considered using a Teen-pon as a stopgap, I heard the bitch laughing at me. Not just an amused chuckle mind you, but a full out belly laugh with snorting that says “Go ahead and try it. One sneeze and you’ll have to reupholster the furniture.”

I’m also confused about why OB exists. There is no applicator. There is no smooth glide action to assist you. There is a cotton ball and a string… and your hand. I’m not going to do that on a good day. That shit is an ear plug at best.

I also hate how unmistakable the sound of opening a tampon is. I just feel that everyone in the bathroom is thinking “I know you’re touching yourself inappropriately right now.”

3.) The more expensive the lingerie, the stealthier the attack.

You know how awesome those matching bra and panty sets look? Well, no one else ever will. That one pair of panties that actually make your ass AND your legs look good? They will be the first casualty of war. It could be the middle of those twenty-eight beautiful days when you assume that it’s totally safe to wear that expensive and sexy pair and out of nowhere, not a cramp, a twinge, a bloat, or a random thigh pain in sight, it happens, just the once. The next day when you’re huddled on the floor of your closet, clutching your largest and ugliest pair of granny panties to your chest in fear, it doesn’t even bother to show up. Its work is done.

4.) It doesn’t show up.

I don’t care if you haven’t gotten laid in five years, when your period doesn’t show up on time your first thought is always “OHMYGODIMPREGNANT!” How did this happen? I haven’t even looked at a penis! Maybe I picked something up from a toilet seat. This is an immaculate conception. I knew I should have pulled out of church sooner.

I’m always amazed by the fact that the first thought you have during a pregnancy scare is “I need to drink as much alcohol as humanly possible right this very second or I’m going to die.”

A missed period will turn even the staunchest atheist into a woman of Christ until her uterus stops holding her egg hostage. Our thoughts often take the same turn that Jenna Malone’s did in the movie “Saved”. “Let it be cancer. Let it be cancer. Let it be cancer.” When we’ve moved on from that, we start to curse every male that has ever had any kind of physical contact with us. “How DARE he do this to me? He did this on purpose. He has ruined my entire life.” These thoughts then go to the only place our minds were too afraid to go before, our mothers. “How am I going to tell my mama? She’s going to be so mad at me.”

We then rush out to waste our money on the revered and much feared plastic sticks of doom, also known as pregnancy tests, and settle in for the longest three minutes of our lives. When it comes up negative, we shout with jubilation. “THANK YOU, JESUS! My mama would have killed me.”

I Fully Expect Karma to Reward Me with a Petite Lap Giraffe

2011-04-01T23:39:00.003-04:00

Take a deep breath and prepare to be astounded by the amount of violent rage I keep bottled inside on a daily basis. I’m about to expose you to more of the horror that is my job at the lovely Store-Mart.

I vaguely recall mentioning the fact that we no longer offer one hour film developing. Apparently it was no longer cost effective to keep chemicals that I would gladly drink in order to never again have to deal with these people. Hell is a merrier place. Some might think I’m exaggerating, but some have never had the joy of working in retail. One hour photo, getting back to it. When people want film developed, we have them package it up as usual and drop it in a box where it gets shipped to an out lab. It takes a week to come back. A few weeks ago, I had a woman call up and ask if her rush order had made it back to the store.

CT: “My name is Cammy Trockett (Look how clever I am! You see what I did there?).”

Me: “Okay. Was it film or digital?”

CT: “It was pictures.”

Me: “I get that. This IS a photo lab. Were the pictures on film or were they digital?”

CT: “My name is Cammy Trockett.”

Me: “Okay, Miss Trockett. Were your pictures on a roll of film or did you bring in an SD card to print pictures off of your digital camera?”

CT: “Cammy Trockett.”

OH MY GOD! Is this Timmy from South Park? WHY?

Me: “Ma’am, I need to know if you dropped off a roll of film or not.”

CT: “They’re pictures. Cammy Trockett.”

Me: “I KNOW THAT! Let me look, hold on a minute.”

I rummage through both of the drawers. The one for digital prints and the one for developed film. Her pictures are not in either. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t find them. When did you send them off?”

CT: “I don’t know, it was supposed to be rushed, they sent them off yesterday.

Me: “Well, that was Wednesday. Fuji picked it up this morning, so no, they aren’t back yet. Give us a call next Tuesday or Thursday and we’ll check again.”

I honestly thought it would be over. I really, really did. My naiveté can be so cute sometimes. There are many, many things that I’m forgetting about that day. I’m pretty sure most of them have to do with copyright and print releases, the ignorant public, and the idiotic faux-togs. I need to block as much of this out of my memory as possible to protect myself from a nervous breakdown.

Cammy Trockett returned about a week ago. We had gotten her pictures back from Fuji. She seemed pleasant enough in person, aside from the slight air of meth head that her dentition was giving off and something that could either be attributed to a speech impediment or mental retardation. I’m really not sure which, but I think you know which one I’m leaning towards.

They done fucked up her pictures again, y’all. Done fucked ‘em up AGAIN!

In order to save you from the conversation we had, I’ll instead list the issues that were had with these photos and the demands that were made.

A.) The first set of pictures came back missing nine prints, but the CD was perfect.

B.) The second set of pictures came back missing four prints and the CD was missing three photos.

C.) Apparently the package you fill out to send off film is incredibly difficult to understand.

“I think that you should have an associate there to fill these out for people. It’s confusing and I really think that y’all should have to help people with these. I didn’t see anyone around, but I think y’all should have to do it.”

Redundancy: It gets shit done.

I can’t find a picture of the package, but I’m going to give you a rundown of the extremely confusing options listed.

Last Name:                                                    Telephone:
First Name:                                                   Something:

4x6 - Premium Photo Paper      Singles:                       Doubles:

4x6 – Regular Photo Paper       Singles:                        Doubles:

5x7 – Regular Photo Paper       Singles:                         Doubles:

                                                Index CD:

I know that’s a lot to take in. I understand that I’ve probably blown your minds with the complexity of our film developing options. I hope that you haven’t stroked out because of the total confusion this brings to all that view it. We should be drawn and quartered for not standing beside a giant blue mailbox with instructions on it that barely gets used because we’ve got shit to do and we trust you not to be a fucking moron.
CT: “I think you should call a manager. I want my money back and I want a gift card. I’ve had to drive up here three separate times to deal with this. What are y’all going to do about this? Call a manager.”

Me: “Ma’am, I’ll take your negatives and print out the missing pictures and I’ll burn you a new CD… all for free. The rest is up to the manager but I can’t give you a refund back here, customer service has to do that.”

I spent a good ten minutes holding her negatives up to the light trying to find her missing pictures. No manager. I then decide that I’ve wasted enough of my time and begin feeding all of her negatives into the film scanner to find them that way. Still no manager.

I fed a couple of strips in backwards and the machine yelled at me. It usually gives you an option to pass on pictures or to rotate them, but that screen flashed at me and disappeared before I could latch onto it like the safety net I’d later find out that it would have been. At last, I have found the missing pictures. The manager still hasn’t shown up, so I call for one again. Her pictures are printed out and her disc is busy burning. Eventually M manages to snag a passing manager who tells us it’s okay to give her a refund and smoothly manages to talk around her when she mentions getting a gift card.

Manager: “We could give you a five dollar gift card or we could give you all of your money back. Wouldn’t you rather have your money back?”

CT: “Well, yeah.”

She’s lavishing us with praise for fixing her problem and telling us she knows it isn’t our fault and giving us many thanks. <----- Remember this. I take her to customer service and she gets her money back, plus the eleven cent she never had to pay for a bad print. She leaves and she’s as happy as a fucking clam.

The Miley Cyrus woman from the day before ended up calling us three more times before accepting defeat and getting her CDs to take elsewhere. That added up to an additional sixty minutes of my life being wasted. I’m like a magnet for stupidity.

A few hours later, Cammy Trockett calls us. Her disc is still missing pictures. M tells her that there were a lot of pictures on there and that she’s probably just overlooking them. She then informs him that the other pictures are upside down and backwards. Total bitch fest ensues. She’s told to come back in in the morning and he’ll take a look at it. It turns out that she was referring to the CD that came back missing pictures. She wanted us to put the missing pictures on THAT CD and couldn’t for the life of her understand that you can’t burn pictures onto a CD that’s already been burnt. The crooked pictures were on the other CD because of when I loaded the film in backwards. She had all of her pictures right side up and doubles of a few that were upside down. M explained that she could rotate them on her computer at home more easily than we could do it there. She leaves.

The next day, customer service comes back to our lab with her CDs and their packages.

Me: “What does she want us to do with this?”

Customer Service: “I don’t know. She just said that she didn’t want to mess with “those people” again and for us to bring it back here.”

I look at the notes attached to the stuff. “Terry, please view pictures after made.”

Me: “Terry? Who the fuck is Terry? Do we even have an employee named Terry?”

CS: “We used to have one in personnel…”

M: “Maybe we should name the trash can ‘Terry’.”

I left the whole mess on the counter to deal with later. I showed all of it to T later. I threw away the packages and kept the CDs. The custodian came by and emptied our trash. They NEVER empty our trash. EVER.

This is how the negatives disappeared. I never saw them in there but T swears that she did. They ended up calling me at home on my day off to ask about them. Apparently, the guy in the wheel chair in customer service handled Cammy Trockett but sent someone else to give them to us without explaining anything to them. Terry works at Fuji. Terry is a very important person at Fuji. She went up the chain of command until the big guy offered to fix everything himself. She called our store and went up OUR chain of command chewing ass along the way and threatening to come in and “raise holy hell” if her shit didn’t come back right this time. Also, she wasn’t messing with the photo department anymore because we were rude and hateful. Class, do we usually lavish praise upon those that are rude and hateful?

Question time, folks. If Company A fucked your shit up twice, royally, and Company B gave you what you wanted with only a small, easily correctable defect, who would you send your shit back to? Not Company A.

Bitch Face Toothless McGee, the co-worker that I liked but saw changing? She asks me about it. She slides her eyes over to me and says “I heard you said you were going to throw her stuff away because she was so aggravating. All of the managers are going to want to talk to you.”

You instigating bitch. That’s probably exactly what she told them, too.

Fuji can’t make CDs without the negatives. There were no negatives. More hell was unleashed upon all. I burn her three more CDs and I finally get one to burn perfectly. For whatever unknown reason, they ship ALL of it to Fuji knowing that they can’t do a damned thing with it. When they come back, the CD that I made was gone. GONE!

I make a new CD. The index prints show that all of the pictures are perfect and right side up. I pop the new CD in and those three fuckers are still upside down. T does the same thing. Again, index prints show that all signs are go. The CD? Not so much. We made three CDs and every single one of them had three upside down pictures. Bitch could have fucking hit “Rotate” and none of this would have happened. It’s on a CD! Why does it matter if they’re upside down?

Bitch Face Toothless McGee comes in. I help a customer she was helping and she flips her shit. I explain what happened with the CDs and she goes off on me. In front of our manager.

“BFTM, what’s up?”

BFTM: “I’m fixing this shit because she don’t know what she doin’!”

Me: “Well, obviously T and M don’t either because we’ve all tried.”

I walk over to investigate.

BFTM: “What do you think you’re doing? I got this. Go on!”

Me: “Did I say anything to you?”

She’s been ignoring me for days now. If I speak to her, she turns her head away and ignores me of just walks off. She won’t help me with anything, she’s rude to me in front of customers, and when I asked a customer a question today, she goes “I’ve got her. Go on!”

What the fuck? I talked to this lady yesterday, am I not allowed to be polite to YOUR customers? Bitch, we ain’t working on commission here. She also made it a point to tell our manager how “pleased” Cammy Trockett was with the CD that SHE made her and to point out that I priced something wrong for the other lady… in front of customers, with a bitchy smirk on her face. She later tells me that because we were out of envelopes, that lady got her $60.00 worth of shit for free. Uh, negative Ghostrider. I believe you told her how stupid I was and then gave her shit to her for free so you’d look better. Just wait until management finds out about that. Oh, and about how you’ve been selling copyrighted materials to people that don’t own the copyright.

Today is April Fool’s Day and God has decided that making my life hell is a funny joke. One of our printers is smearing ink all over the photo paper, so it’s down, which means I have to change the paper in one printer every time someone wants a different sized print. I tell BFTM that the photo paper on the counter is NOT to be shredded because we need it to show Fuji when they come out to fix the machine. I tell her that that printer is to remain disabled because it’s smearing ink on shit. I come in later and she’s shredding the fucking paper and ten minutes later that printer is printing shit. “Well, Supervisor wanted everything off the counter. It messy.”

A psychic once told me that I’d be a scary person if I said everything I thought. I think she might be right. These were some of my thoughts: I want to punch you in the fucking throat until you die. I want to kill you so hard you die to death. I want to kill you, bring you back, kill you again and crucify you on your front door. That last bit might actually be ICP lyrics… That’s just a scratch on the surface of the fucking rage I feel towards this stupid woman.

I left work early because I was over my hours. I was so excited with my freedom. So excited. I get to Walgreen’s to buy my cigarettes and my card won’t work. The Goddamned magnet I have to carry at work demagnetized my card. Every penny I have to my name is stuck on this shit and I have one cigarette left. I had to go back to work where they tell me that the only way they can empty my card is by swiping it. I go get three things from the checkout line to ring up so I can get cash back on each one. The fucking card works. It worked at McDonalds. It failed again at Walgreen’s.

I get home to find out that my Medicaid Family Planning is being cancelled because I missed the date to turn in the paper work. This is what pays for my birth control. Without birth control I get hemorrhagic ovarian cysts that lead to internal bleeding, excruciating pain, and violent nausea. My French fries were half cooked and I dropped smelly tartar sauce on my shirt.

All of this is on top of the fact that I’ve re-stress fractured the ball of my foot and I have to wear my Forrest Gump Special Shoe. It’ll take me anywheya. Except to work because it’s open toed and I have to have a note from the doctor to wear it or they won’t let me work so instead I get to hobble around on the heel of my foot all day or pay $400 for someone to sell me a new $100 boot and probably take me out of work for a week or two.

Fuck my life.

I’m sorry I subjected you to all of that, but I had to get it out. I was getting to the point to where I was going to start burning churches full of orphans. Think of how many orphans you just saved!

Natural Selection Has Failed

2011-03-20T02:16:00.000-04:00

When less than an hour into your shift you have to say “Is that baby DEAD?” you know it’s not going to be a good day.

I have recently taken a job in the photo lab at a place we’ll refer to as “Store-Mart”. We no longer offer the one hour film development, but focus solely on digital prints. We do, however, still offer to develop your film at an out lab in Tennessee if you want to wait a week instead of driving across the street and paying an extra dollar to get them in an hour. We’ll be discussing this out lab shortly.

Already irritated that I’d been shorted eight hours of work this past week, I start my shift in our tiny photo lab with four buggies full of shit. Where did this shit come from? Where does it go? I need to “PI” the “OS” so I can “bin” it? I DON’T UNDERSTAND! I’m sure that your personal phone conversations kept you busy all morning so that you couldn’t stock the overstock (OS!) that wouldn’t fit on the floor anyway. I’m sorry for the inconvenience of your job, especially because I actually still like you. I see this changing. Oh, you get to go home earlier than expected? Awesome. Thanks for not telling me what needs to be done with this stuff or what the hell this new screen/program is on the computer that just suddenly showed up without any explanation (to me). I’m so much less confused now.

Random lady walks by, thrusting a box at me. “This needs to be binned for Site to Store.” Wha? Binned? Why are there bins, where are they at, and what does this have to do with me? I only go back there to pick up heavy boxes, maybe climb the shelf like a monkey to reach other boxes, and then hand them to people. There’s a shelf. There are no bins. How do I bin binless things? So many questions I have!

In the middle of this I discover that this new, unrecognizable system software has decided that this customer’s order has printed when, in fact, it has not. Enter twenty minutes of frantic clicking, cropping, un-cropping, remaking, re-processing, and printing fifteen additional copies that I didn’t need because my brain hurts. I don’t understand… My job is supposed to be mind numbingly simple. I can’t handle the stress!

When I finally figure this shit out and the program decides to actually print things instead of just saying it did, I make my way around the electronics section, looking for things to do or people to help. Enter tiny Mexican man who barely speaks English, but is incredibly polite and smiles a lot. Nothing about this man is screaming “I’M ABOUT TO RUIN YOUR ENTIRE DAY!” But that’s what he did. He handed me two copies of the same photo and tried to explain that he wanted them enlarged. I take the photos and make my way to the digital photo center, conveniently not located in the photo lab. As I’m walking, I look at these pictures. It’s a cute baby. It’s in its christening gown, just chilling in a frilly bassinet….

Wait…

OH. MY. GOD! THAT’S A DEAD BABY! That’s not a bassinet! Is that a COFFIN? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!
I continue to smile and nod at the tiny Mexican man and power walk over to a co-worker, violently thrusting the picture into his face.

Me: “D! Is that baby DEAD?!”

“Uhh… Oh my God. Maybe… Maybe it’s just a cute picture?” D says with his face contorted in horror.

“That is NOT cute. That is sad… that’s really, really sad”, says S, shaking his head and walking away.

I had to enlarge and make copies of a picture of a dead baby. A. Dead. Baby.

I understand that what I was feeling wasn’t even remotely comparable to what that man had to have felt. I get that. That is, in fact, the saddest thing I’ve had to deal with in awhile now. I can’t even imagine the pain and horror of losing a child, especially a baby. I get that that was probably one of the only pictures they had of the child. But. BUT! Was it really necessary to make me scan pictures of it? This is not what I signed on for. It’s creepy enough that people take pictures of their dead relatives, creepier still that they bring them to me to print out and copy, but this is a whole different level. No one wants to see that.

Now I kind of feel bad about complaining about my bad day. Someone always has it worse and all that jazz, but they shouldn’t bring me into it. Just sayin’.

A woman comes in with, what else, a CD full of pictures that were either from a funeral, or to be played at a funeral. She wants music on it and for it to play as a slideshow. She’s picked out songs, songs that she conveniently couldn’t remember the names of (or the artist’s names for that matter) because M told her our kiosks could put in background music if you wanted it. She decided to conveniently overlook the fact that the songs she picked were copyrighted and you need a release in order to have us burn them onto a disc… and the fact that we can’t do that anyway.

Lady: “Oh, you know that song. It’s called ‘Sissy’s Song’ or something like that.”

Me: “What kind of music is it? What genre?”

L: “You know! Sissy’s Song!”

Me: “What kind of music is it? Country? Pop? Rock? What?”

L: “It goes *insert garbled song lyrics*.”

Me: “What. Kind. Of. Music. Is. IT?”

*Blank stare*

Me: “How does it go?”

*Garbled song lyrics*

Me: “Well, without knowing what kind of music it is or how it sounds, I can’t help you.”

*Starts singing the song*

Me: “I don’t know that song.”

L: “Sure you do. I think it’s by Miley Cyrus. What is that other song she sings? Something about looking down from heaven.”

Me: “I don’t know. I don’t listen to Miley Cyrus.”

L: “It’s something about looking down from heaven.”

Is this what hell is like? I can never have these moments of my life back! You’ve ruined my entire life.

S is trying to help me help this woman. She starts writing down song titles and who she thinks sings them and decides to leave that and the CD behind so we can DO IT FOR HER! We’re not supposed to do either of those things, but living in fear of the additional twenty minutes that it will take to explain this to her, we just go with it and tell her to call back after 5:00 when M comes in because he knows more about this than we do. I also tell her that the music on the kiosks is canned music and that you can’t pick your songs, just the style of music you want. She chooses not to hear this. She called back twenty minutes later after she remembered her Miley Cyrus heaven song and I’m sure that S had to sit through another five minutes of her confusion.

I’m already an hour behind to take my break and I finally have to throw my keys at someone and make a mad dash out the door to smoke before I kill someone. The shortage of hours lead to a shortage of employees and our department(s) were severely under manned and happened to be filled with people that needed “special” assistance for at least twenty minutes for the most basic of requests.

I come back from my break and find out what “PI” means and how to scan things in for inventory only, how to box them, and what the mysterious binning was. It’s sticking shit on a shelf in case you were wondering. I return from this mission just slightly less confused because there are still two buggies full of crap that no one gave me directions on what to do with sitting there, eating up my precious and valuable floor space. I end up getting caught up with a line full of customers and someone that needs fish. Fish apparently fall under “Photo Lab” when there’s no one in Pets, which is always. I can’t find ANYONE to help this lady get her fish. She has five million questions. I spend forty-five minutes with this woman and her daughter talking about water temperatures, what fish need to be in warm water or cold, what they eat, will they eat each other, do I need this product, how about this one, how many fish can we get in this tank, how much is this going to cost, are you sure you want THOSE fish and not THESE fish, can we get the ‘suckers’ today instead of next week, can we get two ‘suckers’ instead, what do we feed them, will this fit in that, do I need a heater, are you ready to blow your fucking brains out because these fish are probably just going to die in a week anyway and you’re pulling these facts out of your ass or reading them off of the God damned stickers that are in plain sight that I could have read myself? You made me late for my break. If I could strangle these fish, I would do it, right in front of you so your kid will cry and you might experience just a small fraction of the abject misery you have subjected me to.

I finally had someone find a person that might know something about fish to come and save me. I then find out that this manager has been bitching because I’m so hard to find since I don’t stand right beside the phone and wait for them to call looking for me because I’m doing someone else’s job because you sent them home earlier and told their replacement not to show up. No, I do NOT need to carry a walkie. You could have walked fifteen feet and turned your head. I was right there. The whole time. For what felt like fifty-six years. I’m not ashamed that I handed you the net and ran. I feel like that was a positive life choice and I stand by that decision today.

When I came back from my shortened and very late break, I thought I was home free. I only had forty-five minutes left! I could all but taste my freedom!

It was not to be.

An elderly black gentleman that had previously asked me a question about a TV was still standing there almost an hour later, looking at the same damned TV and trying to figure out if it was worth it to buy the better TV with built in DVD player, or buy this craptastic off -brand one and a separate DVD player in order to save twenty dollars. Apparently in my absence, he had been helped by another associate. He found out that we didn’t have any of those televisions in stock besides the one on display, no, that one isn’t for sale, and these are the stores in the tri-county area that still had them in stock as of yesterday.

EBG: “Well, Locust had three in stock yesterday.”

Me: “Okay. Chances are good that they still have one.”

EBG: “What’s their number?”

Me: “I don’t know.” I don’t memorize telephone numbers to every Store-Mart within a 100 mile radius. I’m not a fucking automaton.

EBG: “Look it up and call them. See if they have any. They had three YESTERDAY, you need to see if they have them today.”

I break out my phone and use the Yellow Pages app to look up the number.

EBG: “Go ahead and call them.”

Me: “We’re just going to walk over to that handy-dandy phone right there because I’m not using my minutes to help you.”

I call the store, they have one left.

EBG: “Can they hold it?”

Me: “No. We can’t hold items for anyone.”

EBG: “Well, ask HIM.”

Me: “Sir, they can’t hold items either. It’s Store-Mart policy.”

EBG: “Okay then. Say, what’s the number to Albemarle?”

Me: “I don’t know that either, sir.”

EBG: “Look it up on your phone right quick.”

Me: “I’m not going to use my phone for that anymore; I’ll look it up on the computer.”

EBG: “Do they have any?”

Me: “I don’t know, I’ll ask. No, sir, they don’t have any.”

EBG: “Are you sure Locust can’t hold it for me? I’d hate to drive all the way up there and them be out.”

Me: “Sir, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to sell out before you get there if you leave now.”

EBG: “Well, go ahead and call them again and tell them I’m on my way.”

Me: “It won’t make any difference, if someone walks in and wants to buy it two seconds before you, they can’t stop them.”

EBG: “Well, just go ahead and call anyway.”

Me: “Sir, I told them you were on your way. That’s all I can do.”

EBG: “Call them anyway.”

Me: “Sir, I have to clock out now. I’m already over my shift and they don’t like for us to do that.”

EBG: “Can’t you just..”

Me: “No. I can not. The faster you leave, the faster you’ll get there and the better chance you’ll have of getting your TV.”

EBG: “Well, okay then. Are you sure you don’t want to call? No? Well, can you just have them ring up this DVD player there or do we have to do that here?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

EBG: “Can’t you have them ring it up there so I don’t have to make two purchases? Can I not pay there and take this with me now?”

Me: “Uhh…. No, no you can not. You can pay for it HERE or you can pay for it online.”

EBG: “Do you have a computer I can use to do that?”

Me: “No, no we do not.”

EBG: “How far is it to the store on Independence?"

Me: “No idea. Indian Trail isn’t that far away though.”

EBG: “No, they’re sold out too. Isn’t there a store in Weddington?”

Me: “I. Don’t. Know.”

EBG: “Can you find out?”

Me: “Sir, why don’t you just try the store in Locust? I really have to go home now and the quicker you get there, the quicker you’ll get your TV.”

The amount of money he spent on gas and the amount of my life that I’ll never get back was way more than he would have spent if he had just bought the other damned TV for twenty dollars more.

The Miley Cyrus funeral CD lady called back right as I was going to clock out. I had left her a message about an hour before explaining to her that we couldn’t use that music, we had no access to it, and that it was illegal but there were a number of video editing places in and around Charlotte. This apparently needed to be repeated to her fifteen more times before it began to sink in. Seeing that I was over my time for that day and realizing that I would probably stroke out soon and die, I had to pass her to M for further explanation of why we at Store-Mart could not assist her with this particular project. M had tested the CD and found out that it was in video format instead of individual pictures and that our machines couldn’t read, much less burn, her pictures onto a new DVD with or without music. It took fifteen more minutes to explain why we couldn’t do that and for him to name other places she could take it, apologize that there weren’t any closer, and to tell her that she needed to come pick up her CD as soon as possible before we “lost” it. It was still on the counter when I came to work twenty-four hours later.

All of this happened in six hours. Six. Hours. Half of my day was wasted to these people. I’ve not even gotten to the out lab portion of our evening because that happened today and I’ve just wasted an additional hour agonizing over yesterday.

Tune in next time for the next chapter of our stunning saga.

Shit I Couldn't Do Again If I Tried

2011-01-19T00:59:00.001-05:00

I should get an award for the creativity of my own self-inflicted injuries. I should also be given a medal of honor for the bravery I have shown by getting out of bed every day considering the luck I have.

A quick look back through the years has left me astounded by the number of ways I’ve found to hurt myself or be hurt in ways that really shouldn’t happen.

My first clear memory is from when I was two. Now, most people don’t remember much from their toddler days and many say that I’m making it up, but I’m sure the only reason I remember it is because it probably caused severe brain damage which I now blame for everything else.

It was a cool and windy spring day. Two-year old me eyed the fold up pool chair from the front door. You know, the kind that seems to be woven from jelly bracelets and is long enough to accommodate an adult body. I wanted this chair. I wanted my tiny body on it and I wanted it bad. I scrambled out the door and wiggled my way into the perfect toddler sunning position. There was a medium-sized trampoline propped up on the porch railings, conveniently located right behind this glorious chair. This trampoline had four regular legs on it with booties on the end. One of the booties had begun to rot away from being in the wet grass and my parents moved the bouncing contraption to the porch so we wouldn’t jump it into the ground. The legs were sticking out towards the chair. These legs also had very sharp, round metal ends. It was windy. You see where this is going.

The trampoline had not moved a centimeter while the wind raged around it. Not one.

The wind stopped.

The trampoline fell.

It must have been kismet because that one bootyless, razor sharp leg found its way to the middle of my forehead where it embedded itself.

I was fine with that. I was totally and completely fine with the fact that I had just been bludgeoned with a trampoline… until I saw the blood; the 57 gallons of blood that proceeded to spew out of my face and cover my tiny little body. My screams of terror brought my parents racing out of the house to investigate. The wild mewling and the desperate thrashing I was doing to free myself let my mom know that I was still alive. My father wasn’t so sure. He had probably never faced a moment of terror so pure since the day two years before when he was going in to drunkenly cut my umbilical cord and my tiny fist darted into the path of the scissors and he was certain he’d just turned me into an amputee. He could only stare at my tiny blood soaked body in horror, sure that I was in the throes of death, as my mom raced to get a towel to stop the bleeding. They bundled me and all of our now ruined bath towels into the car to make the terrifying drive at break neck speeds to the end of our driveway. Where we stopped. And waited for my sister to get home from school. They tell me now that the school bus was coming around the corner but I’ll always believe that we wasted tens of minutes for her while the life was draining out of my body. Apparently it wasn’t as life threatening as I believed at the time because the doctor didn’t want to mar my forehead with stitches so I got butterfly bandages instead. I was the calmest near death child he had ever had the pleasure of seeing, he said. Perfect in every way I was. Little did I know that this incident would set into motion a lifetime of injuries that shouldn’t have been possible. Most people fall and hit their heads on trampolines, but no… trampolines fall and hit me in the head.

The next serious injury I remember incurring was four years later when I had mastered the art of the big kid’s bike with training wheels. I could race adults and win! I traveled at death defying speeds and amazed everyone! I could fly over potholes without a single… Wait, no, no I couldn’t. The potholes were a problem. Every six year old has the need to make everyone adore them. I wasn’t exempt from this. My sister and a neighbor girl were calmly walking along when I decided to show them how bike riding should be done. The pedals were turning as fast as they could, my tongue tucked between my teeth in optimal concentration, hands clenched on the handlebars for supreme control and I was off! Barreling past them I took one look at the pothole ahead and thought “HA! You are mine! You are no match for my greatness!”

The pothole made me its bitch.

As I was breaking the land speed record on my bike and setting my training wheels to smoking I hit the pothole and kept flying over it, except my bike wasn’t with me anymore. For what felt like three minutes of utter horror I flew through the air, watching the asphalt race up to meet me. I landed mouth first on the road and slid a good twenty feet on my face. Again with the blood pouring from my head and soaking my clothes. My twelve-year old sister threw me over her shoulder, tucked the bike under her arm like a football and sprinted to our house in a move that would leave Heisman Trophy winners breathless in awe. Miraculously, I didn’t lose a single tooth although many of them had been knocked loose. I should have pulled them out, they were baby teeth. My mom tried to bribe me with various things to let her pull them out, but I would not let her near my mouth. I had learned that lesson before. A loose tooth before that had been tied with dental floss so I could tug on it at my leisure. I must have tugged on that string for hours, hoping that the tooth would just fall out on its own so I wouldn’t have to pull it out and experience what I knew would be excruciating pain. My mom asked if she could tug on it to see how loose it was. Being proud of that loose tooth, I just grinned and walked over to her where she proceeded to take the dental floss in hand and yank it as hard as she could, taking my tooth with it. I never trusted her again after that.

My teeth were never the same after that accident. They might have been spared, but my face and hands were not. I had road rash covering my face, palms, and knuckles for weeks. That wasn’t the last time I had to be carted into the house by a blood soaked sibling after a misunderstanding between my bike, face, and pavement.

When I was about eight, my sister and I went with our aunt, granny, and small cousin to Florida for a fantastic vacation.

I now hate Florida with a fiery and violent passion.

Not only did I discover that I could fall asleep with my eyes open, but also that I walked and held full conversations in my sleep. Disconcerting, yes, but not anywhere close to what was going to happen.

We stayed in this little trailer and played gin rummy at night. It was fun times all around. When we weren’t at the beach, Celia and I scavenged the local area (back when it was safe to let children roam on their own) and looked at all the nothing that was around. Like driftwood, strange plants, and the rather large poisonous snake that chased us away from some bushes. This trip would have probably been way more enjoyable if we hadn’t arrived just a few short days after a major hurricane had blown through.

Beach Day 1: We go to Destin Beach. The surf is a bit rough but we were water babies! We gave Navy SEALs a run for their money! We had this! Granny and water phobic cousin Cait are on the beach, obviously not paying any attention to the eight and fourteen year old family members in the ocean. The water was a bit rougher than I had anticipated and it wasn’t long before I began to get tired of being knocked around by the waves, so I started to make my way back to shore. What can only be described as a rogue wave came up behind me and body slammed me into the sand. I got up, shook my hair out of my face and continued on. It seemed that the water being pulled back in was getting stronger so it made it harder to walk forward.

Does anyone know what a riptide is?

I didn’t.

But I found out.

Another rogue wave crashed on top of me, once more driving me to the ground except this time I couldn’t get back up. The harder I tried to surface, the harder the water sucked me back under. This shit was pulling me back out with it! My little head would pop up for a brief second and then I was slammed back under water again. This happened over and over again for what seemed like forever. I finally lost the will to fight it anymore and just gave up and floated while the ocean “raged” around me. Drowning is actually quite peaceful once you stop fighting it. I knew little of death at that age but I knew I wasn’t long for this life and just as I gave up any hope of surviving, I was popped out of the water onto the beach. I lay there coughing and gasping for air, thanking God I was still alive. When I sat up to look around I saw that no one had noticed. Not the lifeguard, not my sister, and definitely not my Granny. There were hundreds of people around, many of those within a few feet and no one notices the blue kid that washes up on the beach.

People wonder why I have trust issues.

Beach Day 2: No one cared that I had almost drowned without anyone noticing. We moved on to Panama City that day because the surf was a little “rough” at Destin Beach. Hurricanes don’t just make the water rough, they drag all manner of nasty, evil shit onto the beaches including but not limited to: jellyfish and Portuguese man’o’wars.

Mean, brainless invertebrates littered the beach for as far as the eye could see. There were people out there poking them with sticks and putting them in buckets to carry around. What purpose that served, I have no idea.

My aunt’s neighbor had lent us an inflatable raft and a doughnut to use at the beach. My sister grabs the raft and takes off to ride some waves, so I’m left with the measly and useless hot pink doughnut for protection. I pull the doughnut up around my waist and trek down to the surf. Everything in the water looks fine until I get a few feet out and notice these… things… floating in the water, except they kind of look like they’re coming right for me. They were moving with speed and purpose. I back out of the water after having identified them as jellyfish. Building up courage I wade back in and again those little bastards are coming right for me, but this time there are more. Just *glomp*….*glomp*…. *glomp*…

I back up, they follow. *glomp*

I wait them out and go back in. *Glomp* *glomp* I back up again *glompglompglompglomp* They’re speeding up! I turn around and run for the beach.

This continued for a good twenty minutes with no one, again, noticing my distress or terror.

I sit on the beach with Cait and Granny, watching as my clueless sister paddles about, safely ensconced in the raft that should have been mine. That’s it. I’m going in. I’m not going to let tentacled snot globs ruin my day! I head back into the water and… they’re gone. There’s not a single one in sight! Oh! Oh, happy day!
I’m just riding some waves, swimming my heart out, and having a grand old time.

And then it happens.

Out of nowhere, I feel something wrap around my upper arm. The next thing I know the most God awful pain I have ever experienced is coursing through my body. Something in the ocean is touching me and it’s trying to kill me through my arm pit! Me and the doughnut leave a wake as I fly back to the beach screaming in agony. I run over to my Granny crying and smacking my arm pit in an attempt to make it stop and she just looks at me and says “What in the world is wrong with you?”

“Jelly *sniff sniff* Jeh-je-je *sniff* Jellyfish!”

“Where?”

“It stu-stu-stu-stung m-m-m-me.”

“Oh, is that all? I can’t really help you. Maybe this spray will work.”

The pain continued to throb for a good half hour before my whimpering finally calmed down and I could relax again.

I would be okay with that if it had ended there. That would have been a good life lesson. If it glomps, you run. If it glomps after you, you don’t go back in the water. But no, it did NOT end there.

A few months later I wake up at home and my shirt slides across what little boob I had at nine years old and it HURTS! Just the shirt touching it hurts. I take my shirt off to look and my nipple is red and swollen and it looks like there’s a splinter coming out of it. Curious, and not just a little disturbed, I grab the splinter thing between my fingernails and pull it out. The pain stopped. I called my mom in to take a look at this hot mess and she’s clueless. The swelling and redness didn’t go away for a few days so we made an appointment with our family doctor. Dr. Okwara was a really large, REALLY dark guy from Africa. He comes in, we tell him what’s wrong, and then he lifts up my shirt and puts his big black paw right on my boob. All I can think is “HELP! HELP! I NEED AN ADULT!”

Wide eyed, I whip my head around to my mom and mouth “IS THIS A BAD TOUCH?!?” I’m just thinking, Oh my God, Oh my God, I’m being molested by a giant black man. She assures me that everything is kosher and he proceeds to repeat the “wax on, wax off” motion on my other boob and then to the arm pit that was traumatized by the jellyfish the previous summer. All pertinent information was relayed to the doctor and he just nods and says “She has a breast infection. It was most likely caused when the jellyfish stung her mammary gland in her arm pit.”

Wha?

Of all the places on my body that thing could have stung me, my naked arms, legs and torso, that fucking piece of sea snot managed to sting my fucking mammary gland.

Who else does this shit happen to? I mean, really. It continued off and on for a year. I finally quit telling my mom about it until after the fact because at nine, I just wasn’t ready to commit to heavy petting with my doctor.

It’s pretty sad that I’m almost on my sixth Microsoft Word page and I’m only up to the age of nine. I do believe that I’ll be picking this up later. There have been a lot of ridiculous injuries in my life and it takes time to cover them all.

If there’s a 3% or less chance of something happening, it’s going to happen to me. They say that you’re more likely to be hit by a car or struck by lightning than to be bitten by a shark. Any day now I expect to be struck by lightning, knocked into the path of a moving car, and thrown into the open mouth of a waiting shark.

Bitch, I Will Cut You

2010-11-08T01:38:00.002-05:00

Dear Jenny,

I know you’ve addressed the issue of getting stabby with co-workers, but what if it’s your boss? Alarming amounts of body hair where no woman should have any aside, this woman is a raging thunder cunt. She’s making me dislike ______ people in general. She’s literally making me racist. She’s managed to accomplish what being raised in the South could not. We have weapons at work. Bo staffs, nunchucks, and an honest to God “I will cut you bitch” sword. I’d honestly rather lather myself up in seal fat, dance provocatively in the ocean, and have my leg gnawed off by a shark than ever speak to her again. How do I control the urge to cut a bitch?

Signed,

Heather Heartless

This was posted to the now defunct Ask the Bloggess portion of The Bloggess just days before I was quit/fired. One would think that threats of violence and insults to ones furriness and heritage would warrant that, but rest assured dear readers, my ex-boss would never have seen that. That would take time and some sort of intelligence.

You see, I was fired for a medical condition, which we’ll be getting to shortly.

The defense will present to the court much evidence in the case of Random vs. Raging Thunder Cunt, a.k.a I can’t figure out why all of my employees quit after two weeks.

Exhibit A: The hiring process.

I found out about this job on Facebook at a time when I was just about to run out of money completely. I have a bankruptcy to pay off people and I can’t grow my own cigarettes. This was posing a problem. I snapped it up. I called and scheduled an “interview”. This interview consisted of me shaking her very limp hand (Danger, Will Robinson!), handing her my resume, and being hired. To be a receptionist and work with/shuttle small children/spawns of Satan/rabid wombats. With no background check. No ID required. Just, BAM! Hired. What if I was a Chester?

I drove the hour back home where I received a phone call telling me to come back in for a follow up interview. Que? Follow up after being hired? Enter most epic fail of an interview conducted by an asshole who mutters insulting things about you REALLY LOUDLY (which kind of defeats the purpose of a mutter, now doesn’t it?). Okay, we’re all set to start on Monday!

Exhibit B: The part where I find out she’ll be paying me less than minimum wage and no overtime.

That’s right. I was scheduled to work no less than 48 hours a week. FORTY. EIGHT! Which is more than 40. My weekly salary? $300 before taxes. That works out to a dollar below minimum wage there, Skippy. She even shorted me 6 hours on my first check, which was hourly. The next few checks I received were for $478. For 92 fucking hours of work! NINETY TWO!

Exhibit C: Where I found out she’s bipolar.

“The Labor Day Parade is next Saturday.”

“Uh… I don’t have to go, right?”

“No, no, you don’t have to.”

“Good, because I wasn’t planning on it.”

Fast forward to the Friday before.

“Heather, we’ll need you to do this, this, and this at the parade.”

“You said I didn’t have to go. I made plans. I’m going to be out of town.”

“Oh, well you’re expected to be at all of our events. You should know that. You need to make your plans better. You’re required to be there.”

“You said I didn’t have to be there.”

“Oh, well I changed my mind.”

*Blinks owlishly for a good minute*

She did this at least once a week to EVERY employee. Every underpaid, overworked, and abused employee.

“You said I could…”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I changed my mind.”

AND DIDN’T TELL ME?! And then got mad at ME for doing what YOU said? Drugs. You need them. She was also a fan of doing things wrong, conveniently forgetting, and then blaming me for them in front of customers that knew she did it.

Exhibit D: Where I figure out she’s really just stupid.

I understand that you’re foreign and that English is your second language. I get that. But do you have any idea how irritating it is when you CONSTANTLY put the emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle? Do you? Beginning. Bah- gin- ning. Not Beggin-ning.

“We want to put the focus on corrector building.” Corrector building? Corrector? What the fuck is corrector building? It wasn’t until after two weeks of that did I see a poster that said “Character building exercise” and put it together.

“Oh, I’m so smart!”

Five minutes later…

“How do you spell medal?”

A girl at another location quit so I was transferred over there, without forewarning, to take her place. I was always in charge of writing the e-mails, especially the ones with more than five words. That didn’t change. Except sometimes, she would sneak one out past me. This has to be my absolute favorite:

“Winters are coming and we have Crew Sweatshirts are on Clearance Sale.”

A. I didn’t know there was more than one winter, but apparently they’re coming.

B. She thinks capitalizing words makes you want to buy things.

C. It’s like she had two completely different sentences, one raped the other, and this is their baby.

Seriously. Prepare. WINTERS ARE COMING!

Exhibit E: She made me slightly racist.

The murderous rage was building up over time, but on one single day she out did everything she had done before put together. I honestly can’t even remember what it was now, I think my rage caused me to black out for a bit and forget. She gave me a handwritten pay check. I take it to my bank. Nope, we can’t cash this without a five business day hold. I take it to the bank it’s drawn on. Nope, we can only cash this if you pay a percentage to us because it’s a business check. I go to Wal-Mart, forgetting that even though it’s a business check, it’s still a personal one as well, so no go. I’m sitting at a red light when a woman of RTC’s race wanders into the walk way. I thank God that there was a car in front of me because it took everything I had to not gun the engine and mow her down. Not because she had done anything to me, but because of what she represented. I ended up having to pay the damn fee to the bank I hate to have it cashed.

Exhibit F: The part where I ended up in the hospital.

The day I was transferred was the most glorious day of my life. I didn’t have to look at her face. I didn’t have to hear her grating voice hurling abuse and random orders that changed every five minutes. For once in my life being at work was like being on a fucking pleasure cruise. Until the next day. When she called. And called. And called some more. To tell me how to do my mind numbingly simple job and remind me to do things I had already done the day before. I know you like to think that we’re all stupid and can’t figure things out, things that I showed you a better way of doing by the way, but we’re not. This continued every. Single. Day. Over the course of a week, I had this really irritating and at times extremely painful feeling on my left side, then my back, and then my right side. That Saturday it felt better until it felt like something near my pelvis exploded and I almost cried. And yet, I continued to work. The next day the pain was so horrible that I couldn’t walk, sit, stand, cough, sneeze, or blink without screaming in agony. I did what any person would do. I ignored it. At around 3:00 am on Monday the pain became so bad that I called the ER just to make sure that it wasn’t gas. The nurse had me press my hand into my lower right quadrant and let go. I screamed. Apparently it wasn’t gas and they’d see me soon. Fast forward through the doctor repeating that, me getting shot through with dye that made me think I was peeing my pants, and a CT scan and we find out that I have a 4x2 hemorrhagic ovarian cyst that is slowly but steadily pumping blood into my abdominal cavity. INTERNAL BLEEDING!

They gave me pain killers and an antibiotic and sent me on my way. I call in and tell her all of that, that I’m on opiates, and that I can’t get in the car to drive there because it hurts so badly. Plus, I have a note from the hospital excusing me from work for two days.

“So, can you still come in and pick up the kids?”

What part of I’m on drugs, in pain, and fucking HIGH do you not understand? So no, I will not be driving an hour to work, driving around small children in a 1987 14 ton van for an hour, and driving the additional hour back home. Sorry.

That Friday I had a follow up with my gyno that I had scheduled during our weekly meeting where we accomplish nothing. Nothing like a surprise pelvic exam first thing in the morning. When I return to work I am told that I need to find a new job, but she’ll let me keep this one until I do. She was worried that between the stress of working at the other place alone, the drive I made every day, and my “issue”, that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Also that my commute was inconvenient for her. For her? MY hour long drive is inconvenient for YOU? “Is anyone helping you with this?”

“With this what? Financially? No, my parents are disabled.”

“No, no. Helping you with your issue.”

Helping me with my ovary? You’re aware that it’s an internal organ, correct? How does one help me with my ovary? I told my mom this and her reply was “What was I supposed to do, hold its hand?” “Ooh, tiny little ovary hands!” She drew a picture and everything.

The next Friday I was told I had two weeks to find a job. It ended up being a week.

Exhibit G: Where I almost ran her through with a sword.

The last few days I worked there, she was there. Every day. Every single day. This was a martial arts studio. We had weapons. WEAPONS! She was rearranging EVERYTHING in a place that she didn’t even work, to the point to where I couldn’t find ANYTHING when I needed it, when she started to move the sword around. I watched it wobble, I watched it dip; I prayed fervently that it would fall down, unsheathe itself, and stab her in the face. I would then laugh maniacally and refuse to call 911. But it didn’t. She ran her mouth on, and on, and on, and on until it became an act of will comparable to that of Jesus in the desert to keep me from taking down the sword and stabbing her to death with it. It was just sitting there, mocking me. And there was nothing I could do.

Exhibit H: Where she fired me and wanted me to keep working for free.

That’s right. You heard me. Miss Susie Sunshine didn’t understand the complexities of minimum wage laws, overtime laws, OR salary, which is what she said she paid us thinking that none of us would be smart enough to call her on it and also because she probably thought salary negated both of those things. I was out for two days with a doctor’s note, ended up working over 80 hours in that two week pay period, which I figured evened it out in the end. She paid me my regular salary for that week, which for once was legal. On my last day she calls me to say that she’s going to need me to come in for a few days next week to train a new girl. I wouldn’t be paid for this because, after all, she DID pay me for those two days I was out. SERIOUSLY?!? You FIRED me! For being in the hospital! What. The. Fuck.

The day that I was supposed to get my last check she held it from me until I drove all the way back home and picked up the uniform (which I PAID for) and the t-shirts that were given to me and brought them back to her. She swore she’d be there when I arrived, but evidently she had a stroke of unfucktardedness and left before I got there. I wasn’t going to threaten her or touch her, but I had some things to say. It ended with “Shave your fucking fat furry face”. Alliteration is a beautiful thing.

THIS is why I’d seriously rather have my leg gnawed off by a great white than ever speak to her again. I think I’d rather make sweet, sweet love to Kenny Roger’s beard, stab myself in the eye with a pen, hot iron my vagina, exchange needles, and contract gona-syphi-herpe-laids than be near her.

Do you think I showed up? No. The day I collected my last check I reported her ass to the labor board. So did the other guy she fired while he was in the hospital recovering from emergency surgery.

Also, she never changed the password to the e-mail account and apparently she can’t figure out what she told ME to change it to. But she hasn’t thought of calling me to ask what it is. I’m tempted to go in and change it to something like “SuckMyNuts”.

This concludes my novel. I’m sorry about the length and probably the lack of funny, but I had to get this out. Feel free to send me your horror stories about work.

Effie Mae Goes Banking

2010-10-19T19:51:00.000-04:00

A stunning, and yet totally not surprising, streak of lazy (and alliteration) has taken me by storm... again... and left me with no motivation to blog. The material is there (Shark bait, ooh haha!) but the will to write it has vanished. This is where the concept of Guest Blogging comes in at. I poke someone repeatedly with a stick while belting out the refrain from Oklahoma! until they give in and write things FOR me.

I lied.

It pretty much went like this:

Me: You should do a guest blog for me.

Effie Mae: Okay.

....

EM: But you'll have to post it anonymously. I don't want to get fired.

Me: Okay, I'll just call you Anonymous ___________ (Her actual name.)

EM: .... I don't think that's how it works...

So I've decided to call her Effie Mae. Her love of cast iron pans ("They're versatile. You behave and you get cornbread, you don't and you get the skillet upside the head") and refusal to travel above the Mason Dixon line makes this fitting.

Sweet Effie works at a bank and was somewhat inspired by my Adventures in Retail Hell, so she wrote this.

EM: I e-mailed you a blog, or half of one. It should be a recurring guest spot as its going to take up seven pages when I'm done.

So dear readers, without further ado, I present to you, Effie Mae.

No, I Don't Need You To Help Me Count That

... or ...

What It's Really Like To Be A Bank Teller

• "No, I don't need you to help me count that." ; "No, I'm afraid I can't add any zeroes to your deposit slip." ; and, my personal favorite, "I'm sorry, unfortunately we don't have any 'free samples' today."

I think this speaks for itself. I'll admit, it was kind of funny when I started in banking 3 years ago. It was even slightly amusing the next 342 times I heard one of these precious gems of cleverness. Now, I want to stab you. So stop already. I'm losing my ability to smile politely.

• Yes, there is a fee to cash a check at our bank if you don't have an account with us. People -- this isn't exactly a new game in town. Is it fair? Probably not. Do I agree with it? Not entirely. Which is why I make no attempt to bank where I don't bank. Here's the kicker folks... if you have a check to cash, take it to your bank. Or, we'll be more than happy to open you an account with us. Otherwise, we're gonna charge a fee. Period. If you're one of those bury-your-money-in-a-Maxwell-House-can-in-the-back-yard or hide-it-in-the-mattress-and-hope-the-house-doesn't-burn-down people, I've got nothing for you. But rest assured, these check cashing fees never fall far enough down the corporate ladder to reach our pockets, so getting pissed at us lowly tellers will do you absolutely no good. So pay the fee, take what's left of your money, and go on quietly about your day. Just sayin'.

• If you don't have an account with us, we are required to document your ID and get your thumbprint. "No, we don't need a blood sample or your first-born child", so there's no need to get sassy. It's just a thumbprint. "No, of course it's not because we think you're a criminal" (although your beady little eyes and generally suspicious demeanor might make me think otherwise).

• Deposit slips. Withdrawal slips. You will literally find hundreds of these little suckers hidden in plain sight in various convenient locations between the front door and the teller line. And yet, you will manage to bypass all of these, walk directly to me, and hand me your debit card. I wasn't aware that I had magically transformed into an ATM, since that is obviously what you have mistaken me for, but thanks for letting me know. Yes, we are here to help you with these sorts of things, and I understand completely if you don't have your account number memorized. But can you not at least write your name on there and date the damn thing? Help a sista out once in a while, ya know? My carpal tunnel thanks you in advance.

• Drive-Through etiquette. If you need a deposit slip, withdrawal slip, pen, rolled coin, 6 months' worth of statements from your 14 different accounts, or have more than 3 transactions... come inside the branch. The people behind you who are actually prepared for quick service thank you.

• More drive-through etiquette. Don't ring the bell. Brace yourselves... most days, we actually let the drive-through tellers have a lunch break. If you happen to select this hour to come to the bank, you may find the drive-through unattended. But wait! The world has not yet reversed on its axis. If you can see us, we can see you. We know you're there! If we haven't come to your aide after about 45 seconds or so, that means we're either on the phone or helping customers in the lobby who are [*gasp*] just as important as you. So don't ring the bell. And there's certainly no reason to ring it twice. There's even less of a reason if your car hasn't even come to a complete stop. Studies have shown that the number of times you choose to ring the bell to notify us of your presence is directly proportional to the time you will sit there unacknowledged as well as the time it takes to process your transaction.

• Overdraft fees. They happen to the best of us. Well, not to me, because I actually know how to balance a checkbook, but more on that later... So here's the thing. If you write a check, or have an automatic payment drafted from your account without sufficient funds to cover said item, you will incur fees. Even if we return the check unpaid (i.e., "it bounces"), you will still be charged a "Returned Item" fee even if your account is back to a positive balance. We charge fees. That's how banks stay in business. But, [**insider secret alert**] there are ways around these. Through a complex system of mathematical formulas (addition and subtraction) as well as the magic that is the internet (online banking), it is now possible to know how much money you have at any given time before gallivanting off to spend it... all by balancing your checkbook. Who knew?

Let's not misunderstand here... some days I do love my job. In all fairness, those days are usually Saturday, Sunday, and federal holidays... but you know...

Of Course I Have a Fork in My Hand

2010-10-12T20:18:00.000-04:00

There came a point in my life where I found myself lying in bed in the middle of the day, eating a danish, and crying over Cupcake Wars.

That was last week.

Two days ago I found myself lying in bed in the middle of the day again. No danish this time, Oprah instead of Food Network, and I’m crying because Paula Deen walks onto the stage with a plate full of cookies. I can’t say that I’m overly emotional about food, there was a back story to these events, and after all, I’m not a complete waste of space yet. The winner of the war between the cakes in cups induced tears not because of the sheer beauty of the cupcakes themselves, but because I really wanted that woman to win damn it and she did and it was beautiful and the charity director who was judging was crying and the woman was crying and I was crying. Oprah had a little boy that loved to cook in honor of his twin that died from a brain tumor at the age of nine and Paula Deen was his hero.

It’s not an every day occurrence that I find myself in bed in the middle of the day, although it happens more than I would like, and it’s definitely not every day that I find myself openly weeping over baked goods on television. This however should have been some kind of turning point in my life, it very well may turn out that way, but it hasn’t happened yet. It was just last week after all.

Several things came together to lead me to the point where I felt I needed to pour my little fat girl’s heart out on paper, or screen if you will. I am considered fat by skinny people and skinny by fat people. There is no whining for the chubby girls and there is no solace. There is no group that we fit into except with each other and we don’t like each other very much because there can be no fat friend when we’re all the same size. No one of us looks any better solely because we are next to each other. I have chubby friends that have fat friends because the fat friend makes them look smaller by comparison. I have skinny friends that have collection of us in varying shapes and sizes for the same reason. The only way the fat friend can come out ahead is if the skinny friend is ugly, and those of us that are homely have no chance at all.

Another factor that played into this “sudden” realization of self was a trailer for the film version of “Eat, Pray, Love.” Well, of course you’re on a “no carb left behind” experiment, you’re a stomach virus away from sudden death there, Karen Carpenter. Oh, the joy of having an unlimited cash flow that enables you to travel around the world “discovering yourself”, eating everything in sight, and sleeping with strange men with horribly faked accents. This story is not empowering. Poor women are not empowered by the “trust fund baby” like journey of a beautiful, well off woman in her prime. This train of thought took my ADD riddled mind on a journey of epic proportions and no passport was needed. Rich women who have always been rich try to empower the poor that have always been poor. Lower class people do not want to hear how you’ve managed to keep and grow your money when they can’t find any to begin with. Overweight women do not want to have a slew of skinny bitches showing them how to tone up and KEEP in shape when our shape changes every time we move.

The third and probably not even final contributing factor was a picture that was taken of me at a friend’s bridal shower. I’m standing behind a counter, a plate of fruit in one hand, a fork in the other and because I was slouching and my shirt was not suited for my body and because my bra fat was poking out I noticed several discernible but small rolls, some of them were possibly wrinkles in my shirt, but do we really think about that when all we see is “Oh my God, why did you post that to my Facebook, you nasty freaking hag?” The picture isn’t even bad. I won’t say that it’s terribly flattering but I have definitely seen worse. It actually made me laugh out loud and I decided to post a comment that said, “Of course I have a fork in my hand.” Well, of course I did.

I’m not an anxious eater, I’m rarely an over eater, and there are many, many days where I barely eat at all. I used to have a problem with eating when I was bored because I had nothing better to do. That lovely little problem is starting to crop back up. I mean Jesus; I’ve been unemployed for over a year, I have to have hobbies. I quit drinking soda a few months ago because I wanted to keep the teeth I have for as long as I possibly can and switched to water with the occasional Coke when dining out or when thirst was about to kill me and water wasn’t cutting it. I miraculously, quickly, and without any effort on my part managed to drop between 10-20 pounds.

There is a common misconception among the thin that all fat people must want to lose weight because, well, they’re fat. This does not hold true. There are many, many overweight people that are perfectly content with their sizes and shapes, many that feel beautiful in spite or even BECAUSE of their size and shape. You can be fat and healthy. You can be fat and happy. I’ve always been fond of the saying “I’d rather be fat and happy than skinny and miserable.” Do you know why these quotes exist? Because they are true. I can’t say that I’m ecstatic about my size and shape because I’m not. I FEEL fat, I feel gross, and I feel… bulgy, but damn my ass looks good in that pair of jeans. There is nothing worse than feeling like a misshapen sack of wet flour except looking like one, which I often feel that I do. Yes, I want to lose weight but I don’t want to lose it badly enough to do anything about it at this particular moment in time. I’m not a huge fan of exercise as it requires me to get off of Facebook and… move…

I sometimes find myself jealous over women that are larger than me. Yes, larger. Why? Because these women are gorgeous, they’re usually much better looking than their skinny counterparts, they have this air of supreme confidence, and their bodies are proportioned exactly right for their height. This is where the lumpy sack of wet flour comes in at. When I gain weight it is not evenly distributed. It goes one place and then it goes another, often with mixed results. I have skinny parts on my body and I have some really disgustingly odd shaped parts on my body. I have unsightly bulges that are not at all uniform with the rest of my body. That’s why I call myself fat. I have fat, I possess more than my height and the BMI charts dictate that I should have and I would be completely fine with this if it would just calm the fuck down and even out somewhere. Even my fat cells have ADD.

The mother of one of my friends has a saying; it goes as follows “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Bitch, have you ever eaten a Big Mac? Cheesecake? Mother fuckin’ deep fried Oreos? I didn’t THINK so because if you had you would know that there are endless stores of things that most definitely taste better than skinny feels. Think about your lover(s) here… I bet that rack of ribs probably tasted a hell of a lot better than ramming his pelvis into your razor sharp hip bones last night. It is a primal urge for men to want to “conquer” their mates, which generally leads to cervical annihilation and a lot of unfortunate pounding. Men fantasize about making that pounding happen with supermodels but they’re also afraid that they might break them. Men secretly want a woman that’s built like a brick shit house because the big bad wolf can’t blow the damn thing down no matter how hard he, uh, huffs and puffs.

Adventures in Retail Hell Part 2

2010-10-12T20:00:00.001-04:00

More happy work related topics. Please welcome our next guest: Mr. or Mrs. Oh boy am I clever. I hate this person. I want to kill them. At the very least, stab them in the eye with a pair of scissors.

You’ve all been to a store at some point recently where they have to mark your money with what I like to call my “secret decoder pen”, or as the rest of the world calls them, counterfeit pens. They poke your money and if it stays yellow, or light brown, you’re good to go, if it turns black, you become Big Bertha’s Prison Bitch.

Side note, these pens do not work. It told me, yes, the pen turned its head and said plain as day “Hey, it’s real, come on, believe me. Would I lie to you?” Yes, yes you would magic pen. So anyways, magical talking decoder pen told me that this rather odd looking fifty dollar bill was real. It said the same thing to my manager. The bank however, did not agree.

But I digress.

Boss man told me that I had to start marking EVERYTHING except one dollar bills because there is no way to tell if they are fake. (Who would waste the time? “Woo hoo! I bet that stripper/waitress is gonna be real pissed off tomorrow.” Way to stick it to the Coca-Cola man!) So five dollar bills and up got poked and checked for a water mark before I can accept them.

Well, Mr. or Mrs. Oh boy am I clever, comes into the store, and assumes at least fifty new identities a day.

Me: Hey, how y’all doin’ today?

Clever: Purty good, you?

Me: Spiffy

I ring up merchandise, give them their total, they take out bills of any denomination, except ones. I take out secret decoder pen and mark their money. This is where my day takes a nosedive.

Clever: Oh… I just made that this morning (last night, today, last week, a little while ago…they’re exchangeable here.)

Now, if you’ve never heard this before, you’re probably thinking that it’s kind of funny, and a little clever, perhaps even ballsy. This is where you are wrong, and where I also envy you for your innocence in this matter. The first fifteen times I heard it, I could laugh. The second fifteen, I could force a laugh. The next hundred, I pasted on a slightly amused smile that says “It’s really not funny, and I can’t even force myself to laugh, so I’m just smiling to keep from hurting you’re feelings.” After that, I could only glare, which is what I’ve been doing the 1,254,349 times since then. So here’s the thing… You’re not clever. And I’m going to give you the rules about saying the dreaded statement. The only time it is acceptable to say “oh, I just made that….whenever” is this:

The store you are in has just opened its doors to the public for the very first time, and you are the very first customer and your cashier has never worked a register or done any sort of work with the public and money before. THEN you can say it, but only once, and never again. If someone has beat you to it, I am sorry, but you must forfeit your sacred right to be a stupid fucking asshole.

So Mr. or Mrs. Oh boy am I clever, this is for you.

You are not clever, it is not funny, I am a humorous and fun loving person, I love stupid jokes and I can’t even force myself to SMILE at you, in fact it is all I can do to keep from beating your head into the counter. So stop saying it, I hate you. All cashiers hate you. I want to post this at my register:

Attention Customers:

Due to recent attempts to use counterfeit money in this store, we at * place I work* will no longer tolerate jokes about making and/or distributing fake currency.

If the jokes continue you will be given a choice of actions we can take.

1. Cashier reserves the right to refuse your business. She can and will slam the drawer, throw all the change you so lovingly laid down piece by piece on the counter instead of her hand back at you to pick up and scream at you to get the fuck out.

2. We can call the local, state, and federal authorities to investigate. Meaning: We can detain you at the store while they investigate every piece of money you currently possess, your checkbook, your wallet, your credit cards, all accounts connected to these items, your car, your home, and possibly various orifices on your body, all with out the luxury of Vaseline. In short, we will turn your life upside down and leave you to clean up the wreckage. Counterfeit money is a federal offense and is not to be taken lightly. Wish you’d never even opened your mouth now?

3. I can and will stab you in the fucking eye with a pair of scissors.

I personally vote for number three. It just seems so much more satisfying. But once again, you are not clever, IT is not clever, it wasn’t clever two minutes ago when that guy said it, it wasn’t clever five hundred times ago either.

I have two different things I want to try out on these people.

1. “I’m very interested in statistics, and I have calculated that you are the forty-third person to say that to me… this hour alone. Now, we get, on average, around six hundred customers a day, would you care to do the math and figure out how many times I have to hear some “clever” person say that to me?

2. “CONGRATULATIONS! You’re the millionth customer to say that to me THIS WEEK! You’re about as clever as the dialogue in a low budget porn flick, your prize is: feeling like the dumb ass that you really are, now get the fuck out my store and don’t come back until I think I can see you and not kill you.”

I mentioned something above about putting change on the counter.

It puts me into a murderous rage.

Your total is $7.96.

You lay the bills on the counter… this is fine.

For the rest of it, you decide to pay with dimes, nickels, and pennies, which is also fine. But what is not so fine is the fact that even though you see my hand sitting right there beside yours, palm up and waiting, even though you see me scrambling to pick up the penny you just laid down so my hand will be readily available for you to put the rest of the change in it, you see me constantly moving my hand under the hand that is distributing change AND YOU STILL LAY IT ON THE FUCKING COUNTER!

It’s like the damned tango or something, I have no idea what is going on in these people’s minds at the time. They must be mentally deficient or something. They’re mostly old, but still, geriatric is not a disability. I pick up the change and put it into my hand, and then I move that hand under the one that is putting the change down, RIGHT UNDER IT! So what do they do?!?

They move their hand away from it to lay the change on the counter, which means, I have to go and pick the shit up piece by piece. AAAGGGHHH!!!!!! It drives me fucking crazy. I hate when people do this, I really, really, really just want to kill them. Mostly, just strangle them for a while, while banging their head into hard objects and shaking them.

Murderous rage. You people play a dangerous game.

They put it WHERE?!?

2010-08-02T12:21:00.001-04:00

I need therapy.

I need a lot of it.

And I need it now.

All of my life my parents have been telling me things I never, ever, EVER wanted to know about. Other people seem to do this as well but it’s never as disturbing as someone telling you how good (or bad) one of your parents is in bed.

I KNOW that I am not a miracle of God. I KNOW that I wasn’t the product of an immaculate conception; but I REALLY REALLY REALLY like to think that I was. Can’t you say that you found me in a cabbage patch? Can I not be one of those magical babies that were air mailed from God via carrier stork? These are the things that children need to hear, not, “He wasn’t very well endowed… if you know what I mean” (this isn’t about anyone in particular, by the way). OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!

I do not want to flip through old family photos and reminisce about the picture where there’s a dildo sitting on the table beside my step-father! Where did it come from? WHY WAS IT EVEN THERE?!?

Five year olds tend to have a lot of questions when you send them to get the mail and an hour later you find them sitting in a corner, a look of sheer horror on their face, while they flip through an Adam & Eve catalogue.

I had “the talk” when I was seven. I knew what penetration was and that it wasn’t required in order to conceive. I had to use my little brain that was full of Power Rangers and genetically enhanced crime fighting sharks and turtles and Care Bears to try to figure out the complexities of things like “pre-cum”, “just the tip”, “sperm”, and “OH MY GOD, they put it WHERE?!?” instead of wondering why Stacey in the Babysitter’s Club seemed like such a slut and why dorky Mary Anne had the hot boyfriend who probably spent way too much time with small children on a regular basis. (I’m pretty sure the Asian one was a stoner, who else has 15 hidden stashes of candy in several different locations across town. And who was watching THESE kids?)

I blame the movie “Milk Money” for that one. Who knew that a quick screen shot of porn in the background would lead to so many life altering discoveries? Who else started to “bloom early” and had their mother ask them if they had any hair down there yet? WHO?!?

I have inadvertently seen each of my parents and step-father naked more than once in my life. It’s traumatizing as a child and it was traumatizing when I got up to go to the bathroom and saw the moon reflecting off of my step-dad’s lily white ass as he tried (too late) to plaster his front into the cabinet where he had been foraging for food naked. WHO DOES THAT? To this day I don’t like to touch anything at waist level in this house.

People don’t seem to realize that little pitchers have ginormous and bat-like radar ears that hear every single thing you (and they) didn’t want them to hear. Seriously Mom, I’m like five feet away. Stage whispers don’t work and I know how to spell. “I can hang on for more than an 8 second ride.” Fuck. My. Tiny. Life.

Ever walked in on your parents having sex? Ever woken up in a hotel room to your parents having sex in the next bed? Ever been forced to give up your bed for company and sleep on a hard ass pallet on the floor beside your parent’s ancient, squeaky, creaky brass bed while they were going at it? You know how to stop that? Wake up in the morning, sleepily rub your eyes and ask “Mommy, what’s a pussy?” I never had to give up my bed again.

“Your mama used to like it rough.” “Your mom…. (Insert variety of disgusting sexual proclivities)”. “We used to have sex all the time.” “If I could get it up…” *Grabs boob* *Grabs ass* *Grabs crotch* *Grabs own crotch* “Oh, honey, he just says those things because he knows it bothers you.” Fuck yes it bothers me! YOU’RE MY MOM!!! And he’s… *insert vague hand gesture*... him…

My dad though… my dad takes the fucking cake here. From an early age I have refused to sleep in his bed when visiting. By the time I was 9 he had figured out why and would make a point of informing me that he had washed the sheets that day and they were clean and not to worry about it. Fuck yo sheets. This bed has been tainted. This bed has seen so much action that I fear that sleeping in it alone would constitute as an act of incest in some states.

My dad is a self-proclaimed man whore. He takes his job seriously and he likes to tell me about it. I’m not exactly glad that our definitions of “graphic detail” do not match. I’m afraid that his idea of graphic detail would include instructional videos, a pamphlet, and personal testimonials from people who have tried out the product.

I never really wanted to know what an Eiffel Tower was, much less that you’ve experienced it with a person that shall remain nameless. I don’t want to know what you’d do to that bartender, that waitress, or that homeless lady on the corner. I don’t want to know what you’ve already done to them. I don’t need to know the side effects of your blood pressure medication or how insatiable your “lady friends” are. And I definitely do not want to know positions, smells, sounds, toys, and about what you have in your glove box!

Facebook has recently taken this to a new level. I always said I wouldn’t add my parents or many close relatives because I post things I either don’t care to have them know about or don’t care to explain. Oh boy, it turned out I didn’t need to worry about it on my end. Over our family vacation (where I learned the length and girth of my cousin’s penis from his girlfriend and where my dad went skinny dipping with them and my sister’s 19 year old friend) I had to add my dad on Facebook because I had taken pictures he wanted to be tagged in. I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to add him, and I will now present to you four of those reasons. I will not be editing these.

1. “Here's my day. Iy started out wonderful had a 9am bottie call. God bless those Rutherford County women!”

2. “So i stopped the leak washed my ex G friends trike i've been rideing 4 a month so i can take it back 2morro and 4 the first time in 3 months its frigging RAINING I guess i should stoped after the bootie call1 I'm just to old 4 all this shit.” (YES YOU ARE!!!!)

3. Good night all the day has finally taken it's toll and i'm done! On the bright side so there's another Booty call 4 2morro....................”

4. I'm takeing a lady friend to my x girlfriends for dinner hmmm I wonder how this is going to play out?

Why are you turning your Facebook into a Penthouse Forum?!? WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!? Oh God, I think I just threw up in my mouth again.

I feel like I need to take you to the free clinic and never touch you again unless I’m wearing a body condom. At this point you’ve traumatized me so much that I’m pretty sure my children are going to come out messed up.

I’ve not even written about the really good stuff either. I’ve been sworn to secrecy. One more status old man, one more, and it’s ALL going in the book. Even the thing you said you’d disown me for telling people about. If you don’t want anyone else to know then why in God’s name did you decide that your youngest daughter should be your target audience? I know that alcohol loosens the tongue but there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to erase that mental image from my mind! Nothing will ever kill this pain, nothing.

You're Stupid and I Want to Punch You in the Face Part 3

2010-04-15T20:02:00.000-04:00

There are many things in this world that drive me into a violent rage. One of those things is stupid people. Stupid people account for the majority of my stress. They can’t drive, speak, or write well, but insist on doing those things as frequently as possible and in my general vicinity.

I don’t claim to be smarter than everyone else, just the vast majority of everyone else. Ever since I learned to read, I’ve been in love with language. There are so many ways to use and abuse it. I’ve been a human dictionary and spell check for most of my life, and I am rarely wrong. Don’t let those old spelling bee videos fool you; I tend to choke under that kind of pressure.

I need to get some things out of the way here. I tend to overlook a LOT of things because I am Southern and I happen to live in the South. We speak a little differently down here. I’m actually guilty of saying “It’n it” instead of “isn’t it”. But there are things that I absolutely can NOT stand. These things will send me into a murderous rage faster than cutting me off in traffic, which is eerily fast and not to be tried if you value your life.

1. Knowed… is not a word. I take that back, NODE is a word, as in, your lymph node, but KNOWED is not. I believe you were looking for “knew” or quite possibly, “known”. Also, you ain’t been knowing nothing, Jack. Did someone learn this to you? Have you teached it to someone else?

2. Onliest. FAIL! You fail at freaking life! “He’s the onliest one that knowed about it.” Seriously? You literally deserve to be put down like an injured horse.

3. “Every since I was little”. No. NONONONONONONONOOOO! Not every. There is no “every since” unless you are referring to “every SENSE”. Ever since. EVER. EVER. EVER!!!!

4. “I slammed on brakes”. You slammed on brake’s what? What thing of brakes did you slam on? No, honey chile’, you slammed on THE brakes. THE BRAKES! That is what you slammed on.

Ok then.

The word “definitely” does not have an “a” in it. Look it up. Sound it out. Def. In. It. Lee. Not, Def. In. Ate. Lee. Don’t eat Lee, he did nothing to you. It is finite, which means there are a limited amount of things it could be, and when you add in “De” to it, it means, that is it brother. That. Is. It. It is definite.

Welp. Welp? Do you mean whelp? Whelp is the offspring of a mammal, a young person, or the tooth of a sprocket wheel. I have seen “welp” used in reference to the word “well” and also as an alternative to the word “welt”, as in hives or itchy bumps. WELL! It may SOUND like people in the South say “Weeeelp”, but that’s not what they’re saying. They stretch the word out into two or more syllables and their mouths kind of make a pop at the end.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, if you keep putting an “a” in it I will shoot you tomorrow. The sun will come out. I don’t know where this trend started or if it’s just pure, unadulterated fucktard in full swing. “Tomarrow” is NOT a word. There’s a squiggly little red line under it right now that agrees with me. Sure, it has the “ma” sound in it, but so does “Momma”, which is the correct spelling of that word. I buck that rule and stick to “mama”. Please, PLEASE stop spelling it that way!

I used a big word in my last post that may have looked misspelled, but rest assured it wasn’t.

Complementary means that something is, well, complementary… like room service, a continental breakfast, or a fruit basket. It’s just something that is added in when you purchase something else, like a hotel room.

Complimentary on the other hand, means to compliment, to say something nice. Complimentary is flattering.

A and An.

A: A single of something; a trout, a bass, a smack, a lot, a ton, a group of people.

An: An means roughly the same thing, except you use “an” when the word begins with a vowel OR a vowel SOUND. So when you reference an hour, even though it begins with a consonant, you need to use “an” because the word is pronounced “our” which means it starts with a vowel sound. A minute – an hour.