on the job (or: getting paid to do nothing)

(1 Jan., 2012)

I was late to work again today (I officially give up ever trying to traverse Long Island in less time than it took for Ferdinand Magellan to circumnavigate the globe) so my punishment was to reorganize the denim walls. Just huge tall walls stocked with jeans and you have to put them all in size and colour order according to a little roadmap of cards saying what goes where. This is always time-consuming and a huge pain in the ass to do and requires you to basically tear the entire wall apart and start from scratch, especially since nobody puts sizes back where they find them. (Fair enough, though--some of them require a ladder to reach.) Most of the time we don't bother just as long as everything is at least folded but sometimes there's someone who deserves a bit of retail-equivalent hard labour and today it fell on me.

It was, as I expected, a pain in the ass. Though I don't know that it says so anywhere in my files, I am mortally terrified of heights to the point where a kitchen step-stool can make me freak out. For the most part I can deal with this just enough that it doesn't impede my day-to-day life but I am never anywhere near comfortable on ladders. I've told the managers this and politely asked for assistance from other co-workers when I DO need something that requires a ladder. If it's legitimately too much hassle to get someone else, I'll do it myself but I shake noticeably the whole time until I get my feet back on the floor. So I'm fairly sure they're all at least tangentially aware that I don't like heights and the ladder is an unsafe place to put me, but that was probably all part of the penance paid and up the ladder I had to go. And stay for quite some time because, like I said, the whole thing is a time-consuming business.

Actually, in the end I didn't really mind it. It was something to DO so I wasn't going to get in trouble for idling and isn't one of those menial tasks that requires JUUUST enough attention to make daydreaming impossible. So it wasn't that bad. Even the ladder didn't bother me too much but I expect that was more because my mind had begun to wander sufficiently far so as to make me completely oblivious to the fact that I was standing eight feet off the ground.

Weird of the day: When I went to dinner after my shift there were two young (young-ish, probably between five and eight) boys at a table near me being pretty obnoxious. It was the two boys and (I assume) their sister at one table and the parents and their friends at another, leaving the girl, who couldn't have been much more than about fourteen, to mind the boys. Who were just unbelievably annoying and didn't listen to her pleas to behave, sit down, be quiet, stop fighting. It was the worst kind of annoying, too--the kind of annoying that you can't really get openly angry about. Nothing they did was aggressively bad in a way that justifies a total stranger yelling at them, but it was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts--if they had ONLY been loud, OR fighting, OR playing with their food, it wouldn't have been so bad. But they were doing all that and more and it created a singular entity of annoyingness greater than all of it combined.

The parents were the most infuriating of all, though. They completely ignored the boys and their behaviour until it got to the point where people were staring, and then they made a few token scolding remarks--but not at the boys, at the girl. Not scolding the boys for misbehaving, scolding HER for not controlling them better! She isn't their mother!

Eventually they did do something that merited saying something. The kids started swearing. I usually have no problem with swearing in adults and teenagers provided it isn't excessive, but I am of the belief that you should at least have a compelling reason to swear. Emphasis in an anecdote, shock, or and exclamation are all good reasons to swear. Simply swearing because you feel like verbally cycling through all the dirty words you know? Not so much.

Bonus weird: This is completely racist of me to say, but I found it cruelly amusing. As they went through their list of dirty words, they actually spelled them all out loud. Like it was some Profanity Bee. Without even intending to think this, I thought, 'Well, it makes sense--they ARE Asian...'

I am a very, very bad person.

I was all set to go off at the boys for being extremely rude and inappropriate but someone else beat me to it and told the parents that they needed to be more proactive or they were never going to learn to be gentlemen.

On the plus side, though, they DID spell all the words right so they might be one of those rare vandals whose graffiti has proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Be still my heart!

fakery

(31 Dec. 2011)

I don't know if I'm weird or what but here it goes.

I actually almost exclusively prefer 'fake' jewellery.

I guess the real stuff is nice, but since I'm not a gemologist I can't really tell the difference between a decent fake and a real stone (obvious fakes are, well, obvious) but even if I can, so what? I don't care. I prefer having fake jewellery over real stuff.

Think about it--the stones are cheap so they can be made bigger, no one freaking died to mine it, they can be made in any colour and shape, and as many as you want on a single piece, they're inexpensive, AND no one will try and cut your hand off to take it from you. What's not to love? I never understood what was so inherently shitty about fake gems. What's wrong with them? They still sparkle just as nicely and honestly, the sentiment is usually the same behind someone giving someone else jewellery: 'It's pretty and so are you and it would look pretty on you.' And that's cute whether it cost $5 or $55,000. (Of course, it isn't always that way with really expensive jewellery--sometimes it's more a case of, 'Hey I spent an obscene amount of money on you without any actual thought going into what I was giving you just because I was told you would like it because you have boobies--let me put my boy-parts in your girl-parts, please. You owe me.')

I have a handful of real jewellery and most of my earrings are sterling silver (anything else irritates me until I bleed), but other than a couple of opals and amethysts, everything I own is a fake.

What's so bad about that?

spell-check, bitches

(30 Dec. 2011)

Okay, just a few things.

1. The word is 'addictive'. A-D-D-I-C-T-I-V-E. ADDICTIVE, MOTHERFUCKERS. Not 'addicting'. Addicting is indeed a word but it doesn't mean what you think it does. The word you want is 'addictive'. Use it. Or else.

2. COULDN'T. You COULDN'T care less. I couldn't care less. S/He, it, they COULDN'T care less. Not 'I could care less'. Do you ever stop and actually think about that one? I mean, ever? It makes approximately less than zero sense that way. It means 'on a scale of care to don't care there are things about which I might care less than your dog's new sweater'. Which is patently NOT the sentiment you want to communicate. I shouldn't care but this drives me crazy and always, always has.

3. The words are: could've, should've, would've. They are contractions of the words could, should, and would and the world have. They are not 'could of', 'should of', or 'would of'. No seriously, they're not. I don't care how you think it is--and every time someone uses 'of' instead of '-'ve', god kills a kitten.

If people don't start rewiring their lexeme, I might actually have no other option here but to buy a large-calibur automatic weapon.

obnoxious things fron innoccuous sources

(27 Dec. 2011)

Apparently when you spend three days nonstop throwing up and get so bad you actually throw up in your lap in the car because you know you can't make it home, it turns out you get really dehydrated. And then you faint. And then your grandpa takes you to the emergency room whether you like it or not and you have to miss two days of work and they get REALLY mad at you but can't bitch your grandpa out over the phone from the ER.

Still not 100% but at least my lap is safe.

Also really fucking annoying: people who get dogs that act COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY than that breed is known to act. (And I'm talking about shit that everyone, even non-dog-people, know--like that terriers are live-wires and boxers need to run a lot.) That in and of itself is not annoying, though. What's annoying is that, twelve years later when this dog dies, the owners get another of the same breed expecting the same freak of nature a second time and are just SHOCKED AS ALL FUCK that they got a normal one.

I DO NOT CARE THAT YOU HAD A CHOW-CHOW WHO WAS A BUNDLE OF LOVE TO EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. I DON'T CARE THAT YOU HAD A QUIET POODLE. I DON'T CARE THAT YOUR JACK RUSSEL TERRIER WAS A LAZY BEAST WHO LIKED TO SLEEP A LOT. NOR DO I CARE ABOUT YOUR LABRADOR WHO DIDN'T LIKE TO PLAY FETCH. YOU HAVE A NORMAL CHOW-CHOW OR POODLE OR JACK RUSSEL OR LABRADOR NOW, THIS IS HOW THEY ACT, FUCKING GET USED TO IT OR DO YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HOMEWORK NEXT TIME.

Seriously. I cannot tell you how many times this has happened. Right now I'm dogsitting two shelties that are just as loud as can possibly be JUST LIKE SHELTIES ARE but their owners were all agog because the last dog they had was super quiet. It's always some permutation of the same excuse: "GEE GOLLY GOSH, SCHMOOPSIE-DOO NEVER ACTED LIKE THIS IN THE NINETY YEARS WE HAD HER, TEHRE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS ONE!!"

NO, your Schmoopsie-Doo was a FUCKING WEIRDO. This is how these dogs act, you moron.

being psychic

(21 Dec. 2011)

I am psychic, but only with regard to things that don't actually offer any real benefit to me. I can't tell what numbers will come up in the state lottery and didn't foresee the stock market crash--in fact I was hardly aware of it at all until some six months later.

What my psychic powers are good for is telling when young kids are going to grow up to be hot. Which, in addition to being useless, is also mildly creepy.

But let me just say this:

I. FUCKING. CALLED IT.


Dakota Fanning has been in and out of movie spotlights for the last dozen years or so, but it wasn't until around 2005-2006 that she was really getting attention. About the time she starred in the remake of 'Charlotte's Web' and she was in all the newspapers and magazines as a new up-and-coming child actress, I distinctly remember having a conversation about her with a friend of mine. Now, at the time she was just plain adorable, all of eleven years old (it was filmed a year before it was released, remember) with baby teeth missing and dimples and big blue eyes. She was just as cute as a button and everyone knew it--even me, and I hate kids.

This is Dakota Fanning in 2006:




I mean seriously, what a little peach she is.

But when I was talking with a movie-obsessed friend of mine, I distinctly remember saying the following words: "Yeah, she's cute now but, seriously, give it a few years and she's gonna grow up to be a fucking knockout. Like, she'll appear in one movie as a cute little girl and then a year later in another as a total hottie."

At the time I think my friend just sort of brushed me off--well, child stars aren't exactly well known for having a long shelf-life--but right now I feel pretty vindicated.

Because THIS is Dakota Fanning today:




Holy cow.

She's not an adult yet, only about seventeen (thus turning me into a total creepoid), but my point still stands.

Dakota Fanning grew up to be a knockout.

I totally fucking called it, five years ago!

Police and How Not to Talk to Them

(18 Dec. 2011)

There are a few ways you can avoid being arrested--or, barring that, avoid being questioned if you ARE arrested.

Feign an illness. It has to be a good serious one, though--no one will let you off the hook if you just pretend to faint, but they might be a bit concerned if you pretend to have a seizure, or a heart attack, or rabies. Or anthrax. Anthrax is good, too.

Remember nothing--convince them you suffer from memory loss and conveniently forget everything. You've gotta own it though--don't just have a blank spot exactly the timeframe you're being questioned about. It's more effective if you can convince them you're missing a chunk of your memory that goes back at least a few weeks if not a few months. If possible, try selling your story by dressing completely inappropriately for the current time of year--if you turn up in Bermuda shorts and a sun hat in January, they might be willing to believe you have no idea what month it is.

Feign MENTAL illness. Again, you've gotta own it. Multiple personalities are so blase and most seasoned detectives won't believe you if you suddenly only answer to the name 'Grenadine' and pretend you're an elderly lady. Pick something slightly more obscure. Try schizotypal personality disorder, which means you have to suddenly become extremely eccentric and socially retarded. Helpful props: mismatched shoes (on the wrong feet), clashing clothing, and carry around an empty shoebox and claim it contains your spirit guide, Karl, who is an invisible green zebra the size of a guinea pig. Lift a corner of the box and speak to Karl in gibberish.

Make them so uncomfortable they no longer WANT to question you. To accomplish this you have to pull out all the stops and come out with the most radically, extremely eccentric behaviour you can think of. Talk about ludicrous beliefs (like geocentricity and the 'Reptilian' conspiracy theory), bathroom habits, disgusting and/or embarrassing fictitious medical conditions (such as the surgical procedure for performing a vasectomy--this is very useful if your interviewer happens to be a man)--especially effective is talking about sex. Weird sex--describe in pornographic detail your (legal but fictitious) sexual fetishes. Don't go with anything as normal as a foot fetish; claim to be a scat fetishist or 'looner', someone with a fetish for balloons. (Yes it exists.) If all goes well, the police will simply be way too uncomfortable to want to talk to you anymore.

Or, you can do what a 22-year-old Malaysian man did. The unidentified man already had an extensive criminal record and, in an attempt to make the officers NOT want to talk to him, shit his own pants. Bonus: it wasn't a one-off. The man apparently made a habit of soiling himself to discourage the police from getting too close.

I Plurubus Grinchum

(17 Dec. 2011)

Weird random memory time: my high school offered only French and Spanish as foreign language credits (required to graduate), but also offered Latin as an elective. (Supposedly learning Latin helped on the 'Verbal' section of the old SAT--which is actually largely complete crap because, although the grammatical and sentence structures of English are taken from Latin, the words themselves are mostly German or French in origin.)

So naturally, in order to help the students taking the Latin course, they designated a small portion of the school library for... Latin books. And I don't mean textbooks or material originally published in Latin--though they did have them--but contemporary books translated into it. Among them were 'The Giving Tree' and 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'. I remember the word 'Grinch' was changed to 'Grinchus'.

I just thought it was a bit funny, even though it does make a lot of sense to teach a new language through familiar material.