And then the waiter stabbed me with a steak knife.

Once upon a time (and by once upon a time, I mean this past November) I went on a cruise with my kids and about 200 family members.

Okay, 20 family members, but sometimes it seemed like more.

On one of the last nights of the trip, my girls and I decided to go, just the three of us, to one of the boat's sit-down restaurants.

By the way, that thing about putting on 15 lbs on a cruise?  Totally not a myth. There's like, never-ending buffets.  Constant eating.  The only thing that ensured that my pants still fit at the end of the trip was walking my ass roughly 5000 km back and forth across the boat over the course of the week trying to meet up and keep up with our ridiculously large group.

But I digress.

We went to the restaurant where we were waited on by a lovely, genial man who had the misfortune of being saddled with a trio of hyperactive doofuses who should probably never be allowed in public ever (that'd be us). 

A lovely, genial waiter who stabbed me with a steak knife.

As he was clearing away our plates, one of the knifes was sitting precariously on the edge of a plate and brushed my arm in passing, serrated side out.

The waiter hurriedly brushed my arm and apologized.

My oldest, misinterpreting the gesture leaned over and whispered "Mom, was he making a pass at you??"

"No!" I whispered back, checking my upper arm for signs of blood. "He got me. With the knife."

The both blinked at me.

"The waiting friggin' stabbed me with the steak knife!"

This sent the girls, who had been laughing like hyenas throughout our meal (Not gonna lie, I was feeling pretty punchy myself) into renewed fits of hysterics, because having your mother get stabbed by a steak knife is fucking hilarious.

When he came back to the table he was much more quiet and subdued. I, for some reason attributed it to the fact that we were being so loud and boisterous, and for a moment felt bad that  he probably thought we were laughing at him.

In retrospect, he was probably feeling really shitty about stabbing me.  Also, probably worried, since that's the kind of thing I guess usually gets waiters fired.

All in all, it wasn't that bad, since I wasn't bleeding or anything.

Since we weren't carrying much cash, since most gratuities and costs were covered or billed to the room, I felt bad I couldn't tip him, thinking, again that we were terrible patrons laughing at this poor dude who was trying to do his job.

But then again, he did stab me, with a steak knife.  So, maybe I don't feel so bad, after all. 

Wherein an era comes to a close, and customer service flies out the window.

So annoyed right about now.

I went to pick up the girls only to be informed that the youngest's indoor shoes, which I bought not more than two months ago, were broken and in need of replacing.  It seemed a good idea to take them back to Zellers and ask for a refund because in no universe should a pair of children's runners fall apart after two lousy months.   She never even wore them outside.

Zellers used to offer a "Kidurable" guarantee on all of their children's wear.  If they wore it out before they outgrew it, then they'd replace it.  Since I still had the receipt, I figured piece of cake.

Yeah, except that not too long ago, Zellers got bought out by Target and now all the locations are either in the process of becoming Target or, if you live in an area that is economically depressed and already has a Walmart such as we do, being liquidated and closed down.  One of the first steps was saying "effyoo" to the Kidurable guarantee.

No, wait it gets better.

So because the shoes are no longer guaranteed I have only the option of exchanging them for a new pair.  Which would be awesome, if there were more than, oh say, two pairs in the kids size available.  And two of those pairs cost about twice as much as the original pair.  We had the foresight to re-measure her feet, thankfully her feet had grown and she was up a size so this brought us up to three or four possible pairs.  That's if you count the ones in the boys section as well.  Yeah, it's safe to say they're pretty picked over in their shoe selection.

So let's recap shall we?

1. The cheap-assed shoes that lasted a mere month beyond the 30 day return period can only be exchanged.  No money back, even though logic would dictate that if I bought a shitty pair of shoes somewhere which fell apart after two months, I'd want to take my money elsewhere, perhaps somewhere the shoe selection was less shoddy and craptacular on-the-whole.
2. Had I not been able to find a suitable replacement, I'd have been stuck with the original broken pair.
3. I not only have to go through the whole pain in the ass that is children's shoe shopping a second time, I have to pay extra for the privilege since no shoes are available in the original price range.
4. Because of the exchange-only policy and the lousy fucking 'We're liquidating and oh yeah it's winter' selection of running shoes I am limited to the same shitty line of shoes.
5. This means that in two or three months time, I'm almost inevitably going to be in the exact same boat only this time Zellers will either be in total liquidation so my exchange-only selection will be even MORE limited and shitty or the whole damn store will be gone and I'll be completely shit out of luck.

So, thanks for nothing Zellers.  If not for the bitter taste this incident has left in my mouth, I'd almost be sad to see you go.  At least your demise blessed us with this:

Oh and then in all but perhaps karmically unrelated incident I proceeded to dump the contents of the green bin on the kitchen floor.  Which was awesome.

So, how is your night?

Shoppers Drug Mart Agrees to Hold Off on Christmas Music, People Predictably Lose Their Shit, Act Like Total Assholes.

Holy crap, you guys.  A store actually listened to a customer complaint.  A CHAIN store, even.  And then, everything went to hell.  Because we can't have nice things.

I picked this up via fellow blogger Tom Megginson, who writes  at The Ethical Adman

So, I guess someone complained about Shoppers Drug Mart playing Christmas music in their stores the freaking day after Halloween and shockingly the store chain said, via their Facebook page "Okay, cool, we'll hold off"

Predictably, people are freaking out about political correctedness gone apeshit and the so-called "War On Christmas."

The store chain has stated that this is not a permanent ban -  they're just holding off citing that many people thought it was too soon.  There are a lot of Canadians who are pushing to have people and establishments hold off on putting up Christmas decorations and playing music until after November 11th, so as not to take attention away from Remembrance Day.

Can I reiterate?  NOT A PERMANENT BAN.

Holy shit, people.  I'm the first one to say that when I start hearing Christmas carols in stores when there are still dead babies on my lawn, it kind of takes some of the magic out of the season.  Give us a chance to breathe before throwing the general public into another harried holiday season.  I personally like a little chance to get excited about Christmas before I move onto being stressed as fuck about it.  So kudos to Shoppers Drug Mart for this move, says I.  If you can do something about your bloody make-up counters and their proximity to the front door, then we'll be on a roll.

Anyway, to no one's surprise, the thread has devolved into the ultimate game of War-on-Christmas bingo, complete with racist, go-back-where-you-came-from anti-immigrant sentiment.   Check out Tom's post for some of the worst offenders.  I'm thinking of getting a big old bottle of something alcoholic tonight and reading through the epic thread that has already reached over 3600 comments in the last three hours.

If you wanna take part, just take a drink everyone someone invokes the following:

• Allusion to people being 'too politically correct'
• References to a War on Christmas
• Telling non-christians to go back where they came from and ignoring the fact plenty of non-christians are born here.  Including the millions that lived here before Christians ever showed up.
• Anti-muslim comments
• Complaints about not being able to say "Merry Christmas" 
• References to "Holiday Trees"
• Putting the Christ back into Christmas
• The Grinch or Scrooge

Something tells me I'm going to be feeling rough tomorrow.

Sounds Legit...

Okay, I think I may have almost made a telemarketer cry. I honestly, shit-you-not, just had this conversation. We'll call her Lisa.
Me: Hello?
Lisa: Hello, Mrs. Howe?
Me: Formerly, yes.
Lisa: oh, I'm sorry. I'm calling from Pristine Solutions. A few months ago you took a survey with us and we're happy to let you know that you've won a free gift with a value of $150.00
Me: okay.
Lisa: We just need to confirm your address and that you'll be home to receive your gift and answer a few questions. You still live at {redacted}, correct?
Me: For the time being, yes (that's for another post)
Lisa: Okay, someone will be by tonight around 8'clock, does that work for you?
Me: Are they going to try and get me to buy stuff?
Lisa: No, you're not under any obligation.
Me: But are they going to get me to buy stuff?
Lisa: No, we wouldn't want you to buy anything you didn't want or need.
Me: That's not what I asked. I asked if anyone is going to try and get me to buy stuff. Not being obligated to buy stuff isn't the same as not being asked to buy stuff.
Lisa: No, they're just going to ask your opinion.
Me (still skeptical): Okaaaay. So what do I get?
Lisa: It's a gift certificate valued at $150 dollars.
Me: Cool. For what?
Lisa: A business or service in your area.
Me: What kind of business or service?
Lisa: it could be any kind.
Me: You mean I get to pick what I get?
Lisa: No, you get a gift certificate.
Me: A gift certificate for what?
Lisa: $150 from a business or service in your area
Me: Yeah, but which business?
Lisa: You live in (redacted), correct?
Me: Yeah
Lisa: So, it would be a business or service near there.
Me: Yeah, but is it for a restaurant or a hairstylist or welding services? (yeah, Tess, I thought of you)
Lisa: No, it's a gift certificate. I don't understand what you're asking here.
Me: Well, I just want to know what I get for it. If you don't know, you can admit it. It's okay.
Lisa: No, it's a gift certificate. (She's clearly getting flustered, at this point. I'm starting chuckle)
Me: But a certificate for what?
Lisa: $150 for a business or service in your area. I.. I don't know what you want me to tell you.
Me: If you don't know what it's for, it's okay. You can admit it.
Lisa: Well, I don't have it, they have it. It can change from day to day.
Me: so it's a gift certificate but you don't know what for because it's always changing.
Lisa: It's not always changing.
Me: But you don't know what it is. It's okay. You can say it.
Lisa (sighing defeatedly): No.
Me: That wasn't so hard now?
So far, no one has shown. A few years ago, I received a gift of three night's hotel stay in one of about 12 different major tourist cities. Airfare wasn't included so I never ended up using it. But at the time, all I had to do was sit through a vacuum demonstration. Now, I have seen some of the demos that my parents sat through when I was kid, and I tell ya, vacuum sales men can be Wiley and vicious motherfuckers. This guy, however, was the coolest. He comes in, introduces himself, and just before he launches into his spiel he pauses (let's call him Ted)
Ted: Okay, level with me. Do you have ANY interest in buying anything from me?
Me: Honestly?
Ted: Yeah.
Me: Not. A. Chance.
Ted: I'll tell you what. I get paid regardless of whether you buy something or not, so let's not waste each other's time. Here's your gift certificate, have a lovely evening.
After that, I almost wanted to buy a vacuum. Here's to you, Awesome Ted, wherever you may be.

Five Years in the Saddle and Other Things of Varying Import...

Ah yes, so here I am again.  Two weeks since my last post and doing what I said I wouldn't do... the obligatory “I'm such a bad blogger” post, apologizing for not posting.

Meh.

I'm not really sorry.  Well, kind of.  Maybe a smidge.

But life happens, you know?  I've had lots to do and not a whole hell of a lot to say.  Or maybe lots to say, but not much time put it all in words.  And since those things distracting me from the computer are ultimately good things, I don't feel much like apologizing.  I will only ask that you bear with me and express my gratitude to those humble few of you who choose to stick around.

I've done some housekeeping here, to freshen things up a bit.  New layout and such.  It's a bit dark, I know.  I tried to avoid the light text/dark background thing but my aesthetic tastes got the best of me.  I'm a bit dark, myself.  At any rate, it's nothing compared to my newly-created Tumblr account, which I am still trying to decide on a layout for and as such is a complete and utter mess.  I'm still not sure what I'm doing there.  If you click on that link, shield your eyes.  It's pretty garish at the moment.  What can I say? I loves me some animal prints.

Today marked a grand total of five years at my current place of employment, who shall go unmentioned here for the sake of preventing embarassment should their name come into connection with my various ramblings, off-color humour, strong opinions and penchant for saying shit and fuck a lot.

But yeah, five years.  Not bad for what was supposed to be a temp job.

Fresh out of university I was faced with the ungodly task of actually trying to find a job.  Having recently attained a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (because fuck employability) attaining paid work seemed a daunting task indeed.  As I was contemplating what to do,  my sister gave me a call to let her know her workplace was looking for a temp to come in for a week and do some data entry work.

I said sure.

A day or two before I was due to start, I called her in a panic.  I had not done paid work in over four years, and previous to those three years of university and one year of maternity leave before that, I had been more or less steadily employed as a convenience store.  Office work seemed way over my head.

Quickly bringing me back down to Earth she reminded me that I was being hired without an interview or a resume.

“Really, Andie?  How hard do you think it's going to be?”

So my initial fears turned out be pretty unfounded.  By the end of the week it had been mentioned that I would be needing work for the summer and after being impressed by my ability to listen to and follow instructions I was asked to stay on.  Summer turned into fall and I stayed on part-time my initial plans to go back to school and upgrade my degree from a general to an honors degree fell through.  When my sister decided to leave the following winter, I figured I was pretty much in it for the long haul and moved into her cubicle.  The work was challenging and even stressful at times but I knew I liked (and still do like) all the people I worked with.  To this day, I can honestly say that I do not dislike a single one of my co-workers.  Given stories I've heard from others regarding workplace drama, that's a pretty rare thing.  I've collected a fair share of customer service stories and this last Christmas I came to a shocking realization that I'm no longer ‘the new girl’ (although learning as I went I got a lot of mileage out of that title) but actually kind of a veteran around the place.  Which kind of blows my mind.  That's what happens when you just kind of show up and never go away, which is the abridged version of this story.

In other news, my asshole cat, Simon, had his visit with the vet and has been officially rendered sterile and female cats in the area rejoiced.  Bob Barker would be proud of me.  Simon, not so much.  That's a post for another day.

G'night.

Must I always be 'The Other Woman'?

Avid readers may remember that one year less two days to this very date I had what I originally believed to be a brush with identity theft.  Thankfully the misunderstanding was a result of someone with the same name having a very similar email address to mine.

It seems that some people didn't take a minute to update their contacts list, as today I received the following email from the very same real estate agent who had emailed me almost a year ago today:

How is everything going?  Have you found another rental yet?  If you didn't let me know right away please.
[name redacted]

Excellent customer service, if I was indeed a customer.  I figured it deserved some sort of response.

Hi Maria,

We've spoken previously, almost a year to the day, in fact.  I am not the Andrea whom you seek. You're looking for another Andrea who I will assume has an email address very similar to my own.  I've never lived, owned or rented in the Toronto area, although seeing this kind of customer service, if I was considering a move to the GTA, I might consider using you as a rep.  However, a deep, abiding love for small town life, and a rather inflexible custodial agreement renders the possibility of my relocation as a highly unlikely scenario.  

Have a lovely afternoon.

Best Regards,

The Other Andrea.

 Maybe I've made a new friend.

a little bit o' twisted nostalgia

When I first started my job, I had the pleasure of working with my sister.  At that time I was doing a lot of internet research and data entry, so I'd pop my headphones on and well.. my mind had some time to wander.

Nicky was the lucky person that got to be subjected to whatever happened to cross my mind.  I just found these emails yesterday.

Remember way back when on the Y & R and either Cricket and Danny, or Cricket and Paul had their honeymoon (or some random ‘romantic getaway’) in Newark?  Did they ever clarify which Newark it was?  Because apparently there is a Newark Delaware, and a Newark, New Jersey.   Which begs the question… How effin' lame do you have to be to honeymoon in Delaware or New Jersey?  I mean if your heart is absolutely set on Jersey, at least go to Atlantic city, so you can gamble and junk.

Just my .02

I totally stand by that sentiment.

Exciting Delaware
Wayne's World at MOVIECLIPS.com

Next:

The Business development manager for M2M Imaging is HAWT.  http://www.m2mimaging.com/aboutus/profiles.html - Cameron Barnard.

P,S.  The depths of my idiocy knows no limit.  I've been driving around without a health card or drivers licence for the last week.  Why, you ask?  Because they have been in a safe at Staples, where some good Staples employee placed them after I LEFT THEM IN THE PHOTOCOPIER.  Gah, me=moron.

I checked that link.  Sadly it appears that hottie Cameron Barnard no longer works for M2M imaging.  Sad.

I wanna make dirty monkey love to my own hair today… it looks THAT good.

Well, it DID.

I think I’m in love with Mike Ness. I also think I’m becoming a country fan.  Of the old school, not the new.  Should I be disturbed?

 A lot of thoughts came to me via the hours I spent on my iPod:

I’ve tried and tried, for years to like Rage Against the Machine.  But I just don’t.

Nicky got to be privy to some of my geological discoveries as well:

Arkansas… Copycat? 

Let’s see, first there is the spelling.  If you pronounce it how it looks, it could say “Our (pronounced ‘are’) Kansas”  It’s like they wanted to be Kansas, but it was already taken, so they decided that parcel of land would be “Our Kansas”

Now I come across a site for the Ouachita Baptist college.  Doesn’t that look like it could be pronounced like a bastardization of Wichita?  And where is Wichita? 

….

That’s right.

KANSAS.

Buncha plagiarists, I say.

 Not to mention my observations about the lovely building where we work:

I found myself in the washroom on this end of the building, and avoiding the larger stall in much the same way I avoid parking in handicapped spots.  And it occurred to me:  How odd is it to have a wheelchair stall on the upper floor of a building that is clearly not wheelchair accessible?  And I said ‘AHA! I must email Nicky…”  But once I came out of the washroom, I looked at the so-called ‘wheelchair stall’ and realizing that the door on the stall was not nearly large enough for a wheelchair to pass through.  This is not a wheelchair stall, just a case of lousy designing resulting in two average size stalls and one freakishly large one.  Curses, foiled again.

*sigh* 

 Nicky doesn't work there anymore, so I don't have her to send my random musings too.  Thank God for Twitter.

Ugh, excuse me whilst I rant a moment...

I was just going through emails for work, so I don't have a metric fuckton to go through tomorrow morning, and I gotta say, sometimes people disgust me.

Whatever happened to professionalism?  Seriously?

I'm not even talking about bad spelling and worse grammar.

I'm talking about swearing in supposedly professional correspondence.   When did this become acceptable?  Oh wait, that's right.. IT DIDN'T.

Okay, so the site I work for has a number of newsletters that go out.  When someone signs up, they have the option of opting out of them.  It's right there on the registration page, and frankly, if you're too damn lazy to make sure all your boxes are unchecked, than you deserve to have your shit spammed.

Occasionally we get an an email requesting to be manually unsubscribed, if the unsubscribe function is not working.  Mostly they are polite, some have an air of desperation ("Please, sir, make the emails stop!").

Tonight I received an email from the CEO of what I can assume is some kind of fish processing company that simply stated:

Stop sending fucking emails , you are wasting my time.

 Wow.

I have a filthy mouth with the best of them, but really?  You're sending this out into cyberspace, to others in your industry, with your name and your company name?

That's just not good business sense.

I have a file I keep at work for dealing with really difficult customers.  Basically I write out the things I'd really like to say, so I can then move on and write the nice, professional, non-snarky, non-sarcastic response.  I make sure to write my imaginary responses in Word so I don't ever accidentally send one off to the customer.  Pretty S.M.R.T, no?

Dear Sir,


We have removed you from the mailing list.  Please accept our apologies for assuming that when you signed up for fifteen different newsletters that you might actually want to receive the newsletters.  In retrospect, I guess that's pretty darn silly.  We'll stop sending you fucking emails now.  Good luck in the fish business, by the way.

Signed,
The Helpdesk.

This is one of the more pleasant ones.  I'd almost consider sending this, minus the second last sentence, because then I'd just be a hypocrite.  But I probably won't.

Who is Snoop Dogg and Why is he hanging around my dog house?

Today, over at Simple Dude in a Complex World, SD posted a blog about internet porn, which reminded me of a story from my convenience store days.

For most of my early 20's I worked off and on for a independently run Convenience store (as opposed to a chain like 7-11 or Mac's).  Our magazine rack was topped off by what was possibly the largest collection of porn to be found outside of any adults-only shop.  We also had a wide array of X-rated video-cassettes for sale, well out of reach of any young shoppers.

In SD's post he questions why anyone still buys porn when it's readily available on the internet.  I maintain that some people would rather shell out cash for DVD's than to pay someone to clean their hard-drive once a month.  Much like in real-life, the cheaper and easier porn is to acquire, the better chance of picking up a virus.

I have two stories related to the giant porno-fest that was the top-shelf of our magazine racks that stick out in my mind to this day.  One day, a girl about my own age comes in, and furtively starts checking through the tapes.  After picking one out, she approaches the counter, eyes down.  I ring it up, trying my damnedest not to smirk, but I'm kind of a child so I'm not doing a great job.

"It's not for me."
"Okay." It's none of my business, you know?
"It's my friend's birthday and we want to get him a gag gift.  My asshole friends made me buy it so they don't look like perv's."
"No worries.  That'll be [book value of VHS porn circa 2001], please"

She pays, takes the tape and skulks out.  I allow myself a bit of a giggle.  A few minutes later, the door jingles and she comes back in, beet red in the face.

"Hello, can I help you?"
"I can't fucking believe I'm asking you this...", she says, grumbling.  "Do you have anything with more lesbians?  Apparently I picked the wrong one because it doesn't have enough friggin' LESBIANS."
"I.. uh.. um.. don't really know what the um.. lesbian ratio is on any of these movies.  I haven't seen them.  Sorry."
"*sigh* it's okay.  gah. Idiots."

Goes over to shelf, grumbling to herself.  Comes back and slams another tape down on the counter and proclaims "I'm getting this one and if they don't like they can bloody well come back here and pick one themselves!!"

My other story involves a group of about 3 college aged guys that came in one day.   I smiled and giggled to myself as they were very loudly talking about the selection and I got the impression that this was another gag gift purchase.  They made no bones about being in a small-town convenience store buying porn, and I was having a hard time hiding my amusement.

Now, although I was fully aware that we had a well-stocked porn selection, I can't say I was real familiar with the specific titles we carried.  So I was totally unprepared when they came up and put this on the counter:

Source

I lost my shit, right then and there.  At that point in time I was complete unaware that Snoop Dogg had even produced porn, let alone that we had this little nugget right in our little convenience store.

I lost it.  In a completely uncompromising professional manner,  I started laughing hysterically and could not stop.  I tried to duck down behind the counter, but that was a completely pointless pursuit, so between giants gulps of air in an attempt to catch my breath, tears streaming down my face, I attempted to apologize.

"I'm sorry... hahah... I just... I mean I didn't know... SNOOP DOGG... BWAHHAHAHAH... omg.. don't mean to... *gasp* ... just didn't know... *giggle*  ....I'm so sorry.. *gasp*.... heheheheheh"

The guys, being in the jovial mood that they were, took my embarrassment from my outburst and just ran with it, feigning great indignance.

"Well, I never!"
"Where's your sense of professionalism?"
"They wouldn't have treated us like this at the Triple-X store!"

Finally I managed to catch my breath and ring them through, but I continued to giggle like an idiot for a good hour after they left.

*****************************************

In other news, my friend Sean who blogs over at SeansJeep got called last night for the lung transplant he's been waiting on.  Last update was that he had come out of surgery with no complications.  So, although he's not completely out of the woods, that is very very good news indeed.  He's got a great support system and we've all be sending our thoughts, prayers, hoodoo and whatnot out for a good recovery.

Karaokeing tonight, haven't been down to the Legion since before Christmas I believe.  Feel like having some beers and belting some tunes.  There's a coffeehouse tomorrow night as well at a local church so I'll be packing the guitar up  and playing some songs there as well.

Enjoy your weekend, all.

Consideration Blues - a rant

In the past 36 hours I've dealt with two situations that bothered me to no end, for this reason:  excessive rudeness from total strangers in situations where I was trying to be considerate.  In at least one situation, I reacted badly, and thus continued the cycle of negativity.

Where is the love, people?

Scenario one:  I'm at Edgefest this saturday, and I'm a little peckish, so I go to get a hotdog.  Now, being that this is an outdoor concert at a large venue, I'm fully prepared for the prospect of paying stupid-high prices for something as simple as a hot dog.  So I'm only a little surprised when I ask the hot dog vendor the price and he says 'five bucks'.  However, at the time he was handing another customer a sausage and said 'Sausage'.  I was not sure if he had misunderstood me, so to clarify I say "That's five for a hot dog, right?"

This guy, looks me straight in the eye with a death stare and says "Did I stutter?"  I'm absolutely taken aback. 

I'll admit, my response was not-so-eloquent.  I put my wallet back in my pocket, gave him the finger and told him to fuck himself.  But really, I'm already paying five bucks for a hot dog, I don't need a side of attitude.

Scenario Two:  I'm driving through Victoria Harbour, on the way home from my parents place, and there's a ... hrm... gentleman on a bike riding along the road. He has a number of cleaning supplies strapped across his bike, so it's basically like following a large letter "T".  I'm going to need more space than normal to pass this guy.  However, I'm travelling up Albert street, approaching the crest of the hill, where there's only a three-way stop (the opposing traffic has no stop sign) and I can't see what is coming in the opposite direction, due to the steepness of the hill.  So I decide to stay behind the cycler, until I have a safe place to pass, as like I mentioned, he's fairly far out on the road, and he's got all this stuff strapped to his bike.

Before we hit the stop sign, however, he pulls onto the curb, so I have room to pass.  Because my windows are open, I wave and yell 'Thanks' as I pass to the guy for letting me pass.  However, he's also yelling something, that is not terribly discernible, I'm 90% sure contained the word fuck.

Pardon me, sir, for not wanting to hit either you or an oncoming car.  If I ruined your day by NOT whizzing by you and knocking you off your bike or sending you careening into a ditch, please accept my sincerest apologies.

Seriously, what is wrong with people?

Oh and to add to this, today while on the Livechat at work, a guy from Pakistan told me to fuck off when I said "I'm sorry sir, I don't understand the question."

Nice.

Screaming lunchbags, Stolen bikes, pennies from heaven

This is not my morning.  I got half of this written out and I hit the back button somehow, and it ate the beginnings of my post.  Anyway, I can only chalk it up to a combination of work stress, money woes and sexual frustration as the cause for the dreams that haunted my sleep and woke me with a feeling of foreboding in the pit of my stomach.

Act 1, Scene 1.
I am at work, and the phone rings.  I pick it up and a man on the other end begins ranting and raving, asking why his ad is on hold, and he wants it released now, now, right-friggin-now.  Calmly I ask him for his email or the ad  number, so I can bring up the ad.  He gets as far as 'LV...' and then his voice becomes distorted.  He's screaming so loud that I can no longer hear him.  I repeat myself a number of times, trying to assure him that I'm happy to help, but he continues screaming and shouting.  On my end I'm going "I see sir... If you could... I understand..." but I keep getting cut off.  My boss comes out to see what is going on, and I put the raver on speakerphone so that Ken can see what I am dealing with.

He stands there and listens to the guy, and I try again to say "Sir, I cannot help you if you don't give me the ad number" and he screams "FINE FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!" at which point my boss nods and says 'Hang up'.

I hang up, but it hasn't stopped the screaming and yelling.  It gets to the point where the phone is dancing and shaking and moving around the desk.  I grab the phone, rip it from the desk and fling it into my lunch bag in an effort to contain it.  Now me, my boss and two to three other co-workers are sitting on the floor watching my lunch bag dance around the floor, spewing muffled obscenities.  As it's violence increases, I start to become afraid.  I force myself awake.
Act 2, Scene 1.
I am in London visiting Melissa.  We decide to go to McDonalds, and there we meet up with Eric (the friend from the Hamilton blog, not Melissa's husband).  He's got his mountain bike and we decide to take turns riding it.  Mel gets on, and takes a spin around the block, then decides to take the bus home, telling me she will meet me later.

As I awkwardly attempt to get on this huge monstrosity of a bike (keeping in mind that Eric's about 8-10 inches taller than me), he tells me to wait, that he's gotta go do something first.  I say "well, why don't I go for my ride while you're doing whatever it is?" and he says "No, just wait, I wanna watch, I just gotta do something first".

So I sit down in the McDonalds with the bike, and as I'm waiting, so begins monsoon season in London Ontario.  It's raining so hard that I can see that within minutes, the streets are ankle deep in water, and it's just torrential downpours.  I talk to some elderly ladies for a while, before I give up on Eric and decide to take the bus back to Melissa's, where she makes dinner and we shoot the shit.
Act 2, Scene 2
It is 2am in the morning, and I wake up at Melissa's house, realizing that I left my friend's $2K mountain bike at the McDonalds, unlocked, unchained, and I feel horrible.  I decide I can't wait until morning to take the bus, I have to take a taxi there at 2 in the morning, on the offchance that no one has stolen it.  I wake up Melissa, because I have realized that:

A) I don't know the cab number
B) I dont' know Melissa's Address
C) I don't know where the McDonalds is.

She's taking her time, and I'm contemplating how to tell my friend that I let his pride and joy get stolen, at the same time wondering just where the hell he went, anyway.  Then I am awoken by the cat.

Act 3, Scene 1
I'm at what I think is my parent's back yard, but it actually looks like the backyard of my ex-brother-in-law Curly's old place, and is located across from MSS where Ranville's live.  They are having some kind of children's party, and there are balloons and kids everywhere.  The girls are running around, and there are adults showing up with their kids.  I see two guys that I went to high school with, Adam and Dan, and I go up and give them hugs, tell Dan long time no see, and when I go to hug Adam he whispers to me 'you are looking amazing' and I tell him he doesn't look so bad himself.  Cleaned up, dressed nicely, etc.  I decide this is interesting, I'm sticking around for a while. 

Kids are running and playing.  I start to realize that the girls are horribly late for school, but decide oh well, it won't hurt them to pull them out for a day, they are having so much fun.  I have also realized however, that I haven't shown up for work, and haven't called or anything, and it's getting on 3-4 in the afternoon.

Act 3, Scene 2.
So it seems that this event my parents have held is a kind of fundraiser for the less fortunate, and somehow my friend Amber and I have won the two grand prizes.  I'm presented with a book full of checks for varying amounts, and I say "well this will definitely hold me over if I get fired for not showing up today".  We're both pretty much blown away.  I ponder the ethics of winning the prize when my parents ran the event, but eventually shrug it off and go to the bathroom.

Inside the house is some kind of converted mobile home.  The floor under the bathroom is rotting away and I have to step lightly to avoid falling through the floor.  I pull down my pants, and at that moment, I fall through the floor and manage to pee all over myself.  *sigh*
Phone rings, I'm awake.  And dry, thank god.

Inspiration strikes... in the kneecaps.. with a tire iron.

It feels good to paint again. I've said before, whether I have any talent or not remains to be seen, but it's keeps the brain sane and the fingers nimble.

It's been a few months since I've had any luck even starting, let alone finishing any works. The last one that has been dancing around in my mind was beginning to aggravate yours truly, as all preliminary sketches inevitable met their fate in the bottom of the wastebasket, victims of my inability to match pictures in my head to what ends up on paper -- an inevitability that leads me to lament that again, I have found a hobby in which I have a mediocre talent. Oh, to be a prodigy at some pursuit or another. But no, in artistic endeavours I tend to hover in the range of 'Okay' to 'Pretty good', sometimes finding myself in the territory of 'halfway decent'.

But anyway, so I decided to do away with the preliminary sketch portion of the show, as all it seemed to accomplish was furthering my awareness of my lack of proportioning skills. I jumped to the canvas, and just starting flinging color at it, and it's turning out well, *almost* the way I want it. The paint eventually became too thick for any smaller detail work, but the gist is there, and I can finish the details at a later date. Par for the course when working in acrylics, I suppose. Layer, layer, layer.

It feels pretty damn splendid to sit here, with my hair dishevelled, picking acrylic paint from my arms and legs, and to look with wonder at the ever growing blotches of random color on what has become my 'Painting/Hairdying/whatnot' shirt

Maybe when I'm done this one, I'll post a pic. Meh, maybe not. We'll see.

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On a side note, one thing about my job that makes me laugh is that I get to see the attempts by HR at some companies to make the job more fun and interesting.

Case in Point: A biotech company out of Victoria BC holds an annual conference for it's employees called... wait for it, you're gonna love this... Genopalooza.

I laughed. I couldn't help but picture a bunch of research scientists (who I don't doubt many are probably a total riot) running around screaming 'GENE SYNTHESIS, FUCK YEAH!!' And then planning to go smoke a fattie after the keynote on Ion Chromatography.

There's a Compilation CD available in the conference 'Swag Bags' as well as cartoons created by staff. I nearly peed. This, of course, begs the question... What kind of music goes on a CD inspired by Genetic research? If it's out there, I want a copy. This should be good.