Technically, My Meta-Car Can Drive Upside Down

There's something in the air. No, it's not the last breath of the summer phoenix, the last breath of warmth before winter's chill sets in for a solid 9 or 10 fucking months, the last breath of hope until June brings the real thaw (not those pathetic thaws that April and May think will do the job in Northern Utah). Although now that I think about it, it is getting pretty damn cold here. And maybe the coming frostbite and blackened extremities are linked to what I feel compelled to type here this very day. That 'something' in the air is emotion. People be freakin' out at all times, and in all things, and in all places. So scoot up near the fireplace--if you have a laptop; if you have a desktop maybe you should invest in some leeches or witch repellent--and sit back whilst I ruminate.

I feel compelled to relate a couple of anecdotes, anecdotes that, at the time, really sucked to experience. Now that I've thought about both of them, they're actually pretty funny. Isn't it strange how that always seems to be the case? (Note to reader: the strange I meant was the fact that anecdotes seem to always happen in twos, so if you were thinking some bullshit about how time heals wounds. . . psych, bitch). Where was I? Ah, emotions.

I was working at the Customer Information Desk, or CID to the retail world's higher-ups who think that acronyms improve customer service, and a woman walked up to me. I promise this gets better; I'm just putting on my Rumination Cap, or RC. This woman was old and quite possible senile--it's so hard to tell sometimes, especially since the two tend to be synonymous. This woman, I'll call her Wrinkletits for the sake of convenience, really wanted a particular item. Wrinkletits had already been back to the appropriate department to ask for the item. However, it is not an article our store carries. Wrinkletits was notified by the employees in the department. Then they sent her up to me. They had told her that perhaps I could order it from another store. . . yeah, totally can't. In fact, it's the item's department's job to do that. So I called back to them, and they looked at me like I was crazy. Well, I assume they looked; we use regular phones. I related this tidbit to Wrinkletits. Here was her response, "Well, I really hate to tell you this, but you are engaging in false advertising. You shouldn't advertise items you don't carry. In fact, it's illegal and immoral. . . blah blah blah (continue anti-Kroger tirade for a few more minutes)." I proceeded to do absolutely nothing and say absolutely nothing, and I probably owe my job to that fact.

Technically, all of our ads include a disclaimer that says something like "all items may not be available in all stores." Technically, we don't decide which items to carry; some dude with a mahogany desk and more paid vacation than I could shake a baby at decides what we carry. Technically, although I am a very talented technical writer--I lie sometimes--and probably could produce the ad for our chain of stores--did I mention that I lie sometimes?--I had absolutely nothing to do with the printing of said advertisement. Technically, my so-called lack of morality and disdain for my civic duty to uphold the laws of fair trade were actually delusions of a disgruntled spendthrift bitch. Technically, I have shitloads of morality--I never lie--and I love my country more than I love certain other countries which shall remain nameless due to the fact that I have no desire to have a Rushdie-style fatwa issued against me or the non-burka-wearing females of my extended family.

Technically, Wrinkletits had absolutely no reason to comment to me about any of this. Technically, there's absolutely nothing I could have done to appease her ridiculous request. Technically, I had no reason to start a new paragraph two sentences prior to this one. Technically, I cared less than half an iota about Wrinkletits' situation. Technically, I have no more to say than this: sometimes, people need to calm the fuck down.

Pressing onward, now that my RC is quite comfortably grinding into my cranium, I shall now proceed with yet another tale of overemotional people. It just so happens that this event occurred merely a few hours after the encounter which I have just disclosed. It also just so happens that this little saga also involves me interacting with yet another senile old bag. Perhaps Wrinkletits is roommates with the as-yet-unnamed slag who so interrupted my playing of one of my favorite workplace games: placing the phrase 'in my pants' after the titles of any Enya songs that come to mind (Orinoco Flow, anyone?). I only make this potential-roommates suggestion because sometimes females who live together eventually find their cycles in sync . . . these ladies were both oddly emotional, and on the same day. I'm just sayin'.

Unnamed Slag walked up to the CID (do you still remember what that means?) right as I was thinking, "hmmmm. . . Wild Child? Ha ha ha! Gross!" She didn't grab my attention in the usual customer way, e.g., thumping around until I notice the presence of someone intent on ruining my day. She actually sniffed. Yes, she was in tears. Why? She had been charged 50 cents extra on each of her four Diet Cokes. The nasty cashier had perpetrated this evil upon her without her even noticing the sinister deed. Unnamed Slag had paid for her incorrectly-priced items despite the fact that each register is equipped with a screen that shows detailed information, in large print, about each and every item scanned. No doubt this payment under duress was due to the reprobate influence of the aforementioned nasty cashier. Unnamed Slag bought five items; four were charged incorrectly, yet somehow she failed to notice.

She told me her situation. I told her the situation based in this plane of reality. She had actually been charged correctly. The 50 cents she was 'overcharged' is normally removed from the total when 10 participating items are purchased. The signage is completely accurate; her eyesight was not. Now, I know I should have just handed over the 50 cents per item she felt she was entitled to, but I didn't. Not that I don't usually enjoy being talked down to, it just rubbed me the wrong way that day. I told her I would gladly adjust the price if she were to purchase the correct number of items. She told me that it was a ridiculous sale and that other stores would have done it for her. Plus, it was not her fault we don't carry 2-liter Caffeine Free Diet Coke in mass quantities. (Side note: it actually is her fault; a simple call to Coca-Cola would have ensured her any quantity she desired.)

Next, she removed her frequent shoppers card from her key ring and threw it at me, all the while saying, "My husband and I won't be shopping here." I didn't respond. Evidently, she felt compelled to say more. "We spend money here," she extolled. Yeah, no shit. There aren't many people who don't spend money in stores; they tend to get arrested and prosecuted for shoplifting. "A not insignificant amount of money," she noted. Double negative aside, fuck you, bitch; I don't work for tips. I probably don't need to say this, but she called a few hours later to complain about the cashier who helped her, myself, and the customer behind her who was apparently quite rude. My boss apologized profusely and proceeded to kiss this woman's puckered dirtstar for a good 10 minutes. Our customer-behavior-control spray is still in testing, so we were unable to control this rude customer's behavior. Some of our cashiers haven't been with us long enough to take note of all mishandled sale prices. Oh, and that asshole at the service desk is beyond all help and possibly psychotic. Our bad. Come back in for a price adjustment.

I really needed to get all that out. Humans have really been grating my cheese lately. Good thing I just bought bread--high-fiber, incidentally--because I am in need of a sandwich. Cheers.

Mulan's Search for Universal Truths amidst the Hoary, the Bereft of Thought and the Chimeric

My mind is a sponge. At least, that's what my preschool teacher once told me. I'm sure that if I hadn't been trying to reach that pretty dollhouse on the top shelf of the playroom--what?--I would have started weeping at the sheer profundity of her words. A sponge: capable of absorbing vast amounts of knowledge, ever growing. What she failed to mention is, however, like any other sponge, my mind gets periodically squeezed, and most of what I have recently absorbed runs down the drain mixed with pubes and dandruff.

There are times when I feel that each day I get stupider. Occasionally I'll look back at something I did in high school or my first year of college and think, "Damn!" I'll compare it to some of the drivel I've turned in more recently and think, "Damn!" See the difference? The first 'damn' is one of impressitude. The second is more of a depressed 'damn', depressed at how far my mind seems to have slipped. Weird. Maybe I cared more back in the day--yore, I like to call it. Or maybe retarded people have been slipping into my room while I sleep, siphoning off any higher-level brain function I once had.

I suppose becoming idiotic is natural; it seems very much part of the human condition. The true extent of the soaring heights of human intelligence is most visible to me while I work as a scan whore at my local grocery store. I watch people buy shit. I watch fat people buying Coke and donuts, and I wonder if they get home and claim that their problems are genetic or stem from having a thyroid just like Oprah's. I watch poor people eat better than I could ever afford to, simply because the government thinks food stamps should cover sliced organic vegetables and filet mignon. I watch as people stare at the screen and stare, certain that the simple act of not blinking will lower the prices they see. Sometimes, in a fit of Harry Potterness, they cock their heads--because sometimes staring isn't enough. If neither of those works, they'll complain to me about the 30 cents I am apparently quite intent on 'stealing' from them. After a good five years in retail, let me just say this: the customer is rarely, if ever, right.

I'd totally stop complaining here, but I'm totally me, so I'm totally going to type out an anecdote or two. The first one happened a few days ago. Check with Jesus if you're not sure on the date; he's got it in his creepy I-watch-you-sin-and-shower Hell Diary. I'd check with him but I'm already in bed and getting off my mattress atop a plank and situating myself in a prone position with my knees grinding into my hard-as-diamonds yet somehow still mildewy carpet sounds like, well, difficult right now. I'll stay in bed. Anyway, I get a lot of old people through my line, especially during the summer. Why would there be old people in a college town? Well, when all the college fucks move out for the summer, we invite old fucks--whose 'fuck' has been incubating for years in the fecund Arizona air--to temporarily take their places until the younger fucks move the fuck back up here to get drunk, study and fuck.

I say all this because it just so happened that there was an old dude in my line. Now, I've gotten really good at pretending to care about social niceties, so when someone chooses not to pretend to care back, I get a little peeved. Old people are really good at this. Entering their twilight years, they assume--unless they're talking to us young'uns about Depression-era moldy potato casserole or shootin' gooks in 'Nam--that they should just be curmudgeon-y turds. This older gentleman chose the turd option. He comes through my line and, instead of vocalizing his pleasure at seeing me, chooses to stick his store savings card in my face instead of using words. Now, if this is some kind of ancient greeting he learned in a peyote-induced syphilis exchange in a wigwam, then I apologize now for my rudeness to him. I had no idea of the nature of his historic salutation. At the time, however, I took his lack of verbosity as a slight against me and my tenuous treaty with etiquette. So I mumbled under my breath and scanned his stuff, taking note of particular items (some people get hemorrhoids) and crushing others (bread is surprisingly soft). I told him his total; he took out his checkbook. Surprise. As he proceeded to write the check, I sat down on the back of my register and watched. Something was most definitely amiss. But what? Oh, he was writing his damn check on that little plastic divider to keep your duplicate checks from getting a bit too duplicative.

At this point, I figured it might be nice to say something. Then I remembered that this particular patron had also had a chance in which it would have been nice to have said something. The man wasn't hard of hearing, by the way; he had plenty to say when he thought I was overcharging him and plenty of responses when I explained his wrongness. Correctly guess the outcome here and something magical will happen. The correct answer: I let him write out his entire damn check on that little plastic thing. I let him look up at me with chagrin. I let him get a glimpse of my insanely genuine empathy smile. Finally, I let him fill out another check, this time on paper. Ahhhhh, small victories.

Next: here's a little tale that I doubt even I could spin into a ridiculously overlong yarn. Here goes. Today, a man asked me for his receipt. There it is. Seems fairly innocuous, right? Well, here's the deal. When you buy something at a store, you get a receipt. The sun rises; the sun sets. Engineers build tall buildings; people fall out of them. You buy an item; you collect proof, in paper form, of your purchase. Truths of life. So when I spend each and every one of my working hours helping people buy shit and handing them receipts it's a bit insulting to be asked to do something I do literally hundreds of times per day. Honestly, my job takes one day of training to learn. There's no apprenticeship. There's no magical Cashier-Merlin to guide you. One day, someone who's worked at the store for most of her life tells you what all the little buttons on the keypad mean. The next day, you use those buttons. Factoid: I had my special training day (and my first period, er . . .) three years ago. The absolute last thing I need is someone asking me to do one of the most basic aspects of my Mcjob.

He asks for the receipt. I give it to him dazedly and respond, "Uhhhhh, we always give receipts for purchases." Eloquent, I know. He says, "Well, sometimes they don't give it to me." Mmmmmhmmmm. I've run into 'they' before. Not the general 'they' that seem to spout scientific facts and statistics. No, those of us involved in creating a world-class front end experience for our customers have a special 'they'. This 'they' is a bunch of mentally retarded, one-armed, and possibly rabid cashiers that give the rest of us a bad name. 'They' are the ones who can't distinguish between customers' orders, causing our beloved patrons to gently place dividers in front of each and every order even if there's nothing else on the belt. I guess this haphazard divider-placing would make sense if fucking ghosts had to shop for invisible merchandise. But since ghosts still remain segregated, unconstitutionally, I feel, from the general populace let me say this: DON'T put those damn dividers on my conveyor belt. I'm not one of 'them'. I can tell the goddamn difference. Wow, soapbox. . .

Wow, I really suck at being succinct. I guess the point of this receipt tale is twofold. First, don't belittle a cashier unless he/she proves he/she really deserves it he/she (just threw that last he/she in there for good measure; appease the feminists and whatnot). Second, don't toss the idiosyncrasies of 'they' upon me. 'They' tend to work at Wal-mart. I'm not some kind of Messiah for 'them', so don't act surprised if I'm somewhat less than graceful when someone tries to push 'their' sins onto me.

Ok, now I'm going to be truly concise for once, summarizing this entire post in just a few sentences. Everyone, including myself, is stupid some, or all, of the time. People are rude, and karma will give them the old prison rape--in fact, waiting for my cosmic soap to drop just after writing this post. Finally, don't belittle your scan whore while you shop or you may find your bread smashed, chips crushed, bananas bruised or, even worse, you may find that you've been typed about behind your back.

Lightning Head and the Face He Makes

I just saw the sixth Harry Potter movie again. Considering that The Half-Blood Prince is one of my least favorite of Rowling's books (nothing could surpass the shit that is Sorcerer's Stone), I was pleasantly surprised that this was one of my favorite movies of the series (Cuaron's Azkaban, come to me).

First of all, I just have to gripe a small gripe about the way people gripe about unfaithful film-to-book adaptations. Venue: Facebook is not the place to complain about how that cunt of a director forgot your personal favorite scene; it's your own damn fault for not sending him an anthrax-laced letter, promising the antidote if he'll just include that one part. I purposely signed on to Facebook at about 3 in the morning the day Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out. All I had to do was hit Refresh every few minutes and I could see peoples' statuses change. Example: "Dipshit McDumbfuck is HP was pretty good and I know that they can't put everything in but they missed the most important stuff." I need you to note the authentic disregard for the 'to be' verb in that example status update. I know my shit. Then you'll have a few friends who decide to 'Like' that update, as if proving to the virtual world that you're a complete dumbass is an admirable thing to do. Next, a few dissenters will disagree, leaving comments that say, "Well, I thought it was pretty good too, but there was this one totally minute detail that they left out."

Fuck everyone. The fact that you admit your knowledge of the difference between books and films does not excuse you from being an idiot. Quite simply, film and literature are two totally different media; there is no way to make one match the other perfectly. Period. We bitch if directors don't include everything we like. We bitch if they include too much (first two movies, anyone?). Oh, and we bitch if the author tries to reinterpret the source material to actually make a book that takes hours to read fit into 90 minutes.

Here is my true gripe about the series as a whole: on page 184 of the book, Rowling mentions that one of Hermoine's hairs is slightly askew. In the corresponding part of the film, HER HAIR IS FINE! Now, I know that Yates couldn't have included every last detail, but couldn't he have put that in? That shit is pivotal! I'm just pulling your chain. My real gripe is with Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry. When he was cast at the ripe young age of . . . youth (you know I'm tired if I'm too lazy to open up a separate tab and Wiki that), I'm sure no one could have seen what an obnoxious piece of douche that would inevitably turn out to be. So I suppose I have to forgive the responsible party for that little casting hiccup. My gripe is this: in every movie, Radcliffe gets a close-up 'wonderment' shot. We, the blessed audience, get to watch as the camera moves real close to Harry's face. He looks up slowly, his eyes alight with CGI amazement, and his mouth smiles/opens in a creepy way.

Yes, we get it. Magic is fucking cool. I've thought this since I was old enough to hate my life enough to wish there were such a thing. Harry has lived in the wizarding world for, at the time Half-Blood Prince, six years. The scene I'm talking about occurs near the beginning of the film, when Dumbledore and Harry are attempting to recruit Slughorn. They enter a house which is totally trashed. Dumbledore discovers Slughorn's ruse by homoerotically licking blood from Harry's forehead. Then, Dumbledore flips a Mary Poppins and spoonful-of-sugars that room spic and span. Harry gets his wonderment shot. Can he really be amazed so easily, even now? He watched Voldemort get resurrected from a bone, some blood and a severed hand, and yet this fucker manages to be shocked when Dumbledore cleans up a room with magic. Am I just too jaded, or is his surprise just overkill? That scene didn't surprise me. It did, however, make me want a life-size Dumbledore doll to do my cleaning for me. Oh, and to have sex with. Oh yeah, I'd be first to ride Dumbledore's Elder Wand until I expelled-my-armus. Gross. But seriously. Or should I say, Severusly?

Parables from an Almond Bellwether

I figured it was about damn time to write another blog post when I realized it had been a specific period of time since I last let the wordrrhea flow from my dripping fingers.

First of all, I feel like I need to explain my previous post: that shit is inexplicable. I had been thinking about "Jabberwocky" for a while and needed to get it out of my system. Just skip over it if you need to.

Now, on to the real stuff. So grab a Kleenex or two--never hurts to be prepared--and read on.

I spent Independence Day in Chicago, the birthplace of our great nation . . . uh . . . that, or the birthplace of countless dumpster and/or crack babies. I forget which. I must say, Chicago is just like any Utah town but with two minor differences: it's big and it's fun. Exhibit A: Here in Cache Valley, our tallest building is something like 9 stories. Chicago's tallest is something over 100. See? Teensy bit bigger, but not so much that you'd really notice if they were placed ass to ass.

I'm not going to go in chronological order as I recount details of my trip. I'm going to relate stories in the order that my mind regurgitates story chunks onto my hands. This first little gem--it's not really a story, more like a sickening manifestation of the sheer splendor that is humanity--is actually one of the very last things I witnessed in the very flat state of Illinois. --Sidenote alert-- Anyone remember when the kids in elementary school would pronounce the 's' in Illinois? Didn't you just want to walk up to them wearing a headdress and whack them with a baguette and say, "It's a French transliteration of a possibly Algonquian word, you cunt! Why the fuck would you pronounce that 's'?!". Don't tell me I'm the only one who did that! I may have given the kid autism, but he sure as Hell didn't mispronounce that one again. In fact, he didn't talk a whole lot after that. . . back to the matter at hand.

Here is a brief description of the bit of fine pageantry I witnessed. My parents and I were sitting at the end of a ridiculously tiny terminal in Chicago's Midway Airport. I had just used the restroom (fascinating, right?), and had my first encounter with the Dyson AirBlade or whatever the fuck it is. You stick your hands in it and it dries them with super-concentrated nitrogen mixed with gamma rays or something. Shit, I've seen those things in Utah since I got back. Usually we Utahns are a little slow on the tech uptake, but apparently we take hand drying seriously.

Anyway, I got back to my waiting-a-ridiculously-long-amount-of-time-for-the-plane-to-arrive seat at gate C3. I got out my book. I had bought a book series specifically for this vacation. I tend to go book crazy every time we go on a family trip, and this one was no different. In Boston, I read Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. I sped my way through a couple of those massive tomes, thousands of pages, and still had time to see shit and complain to my sister about how long she took to get ready. Last year, on our cruise to Canada and New England, I was reading Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files. I read about 8 of those on that trip. I made my parents find a bookstore in just about every port. In fact, we went to see that bitch who wrote Anne of Green Gables' house on Prince Edward Island, but I still wasn't inspired to read stories about some Canadian ginger who did stuff. I wanted my neo-noir urban fantasy. . . yeah. Do you detect a theme here? Basically, every year I read a total shit fantasy series while on vacation. I like to read formulaic crap about magical people while I leave my native Utah to soak up as little sun as possible somewhere else. The books I chose this year, however, were total shit. And not in the good way. Oh yeah, I have chosen not to divulge what this particular series is called. It's in the Bill of Rights. I refuse to incriminate myself any further.

So here I was, pretending to read my book, looking over its top and watching people be peoplishly odd. The dear, dear folks right in front of me (why in God's name do airport waity seats face each other?) caught my eye. They were eating. Now, I enjoy eating so I figured I might get some enjoyment out of watching these peasants eat their vittles.

This is the tableau that proceeded to rape my semi-virginal eyes. An Asian couple had brought an entire goddamn chicken to the gate with them. I don't know how it happened. I thought security confiscated food like that. Chicken bombs, Osama? Thought of that? Allah just inspired me, I think. This couple had their chicken, bones and all, in a Ziploc bag which was housed in a grocery store plastic bag. I'm all for eating chicken. That is one of the few activities I used to condone without reservation. These people, however, changed my views. First, they were using their hands to eat the chicken. Yes, chicken is usually a finger food but not if your chicken is coming from the same plate or, in this case, bag as someone else's. Second, they were sucking the meat and skin off the bones, then placing the bones back in the same bag from which they were eating. No explanation about taboo status required. Third, they would dig through their own discarded bones and gristle to find their next little morsel. With their bare fucking hands. Fourth, when they had finally finished eating all the chicken that could be eaten (or so I believed), they started to pick up previously sucked bones, place said bones in their mouths and proceed to insure that each little atom of protein had been removed. They did not have a bone-marking system; by this, I mean they had absolutely no way of telling who the original patron of their current meat source was. Basically, they were sucking on each other's garbage.

At this point, I started wretching and just had to tell my parents what they were missing. I whispered to my mom, who promptly put down her book and started to stare. My dad placed his Sudoku puzzle book on his thigh and watched in horror as these people devoured their chicken like sex-crazed pirhanas. As the three of us watched, the woman left; I assume she was headed to the bathroom to purge all that chicken and life-partner saliva she had just ingested. The man (oh yeah, he had a fake leg that always stuck out at the weirdest angle) proceeded to pull one of those little flossers out of his breast pocket and use it . . . in public, the public in which I currently found myself. Fake Leg plucked at his teeth for a few minutes, making sure to use the sharp end to get out those really pesky orts. At this point, let me just say that Fake Leg was sitting directly next to a garbage can--right next to it. Once he finished flossing in an airport terminal, he put the flosser back in his pocket. Did I mention that he was sitting by a trash receptacle? Did I mention that he put a one-time-use flossything, replete with toothchickenbits, back in his pocket?

Oddly enough, the next experience Allah has prompted me to share also involves Asians. Who knew? Lightning rods, they are. My parents, my aunt, and I (yes, my aunt; she's also from Utah but, coincidentally, was also in Chicago at the time) were in Chinatown looking for cheap shit and air that smelled like fried things; we found both. Amazingly enough, we still managed to get hungry. We went to a newly remodeled restaurant to get dim sum. We ordered a shit ton of food, and it was fackin' tasty. It was the conversation that was most intriguing, though. Our table was surrounded by people speaking Chinese. Unremarkable, I thought, considering the fact that we were in Chinatown. One of my travel companions (name not divulged to prevent nunchaku attack), however, considered it odd that we didn't hear more English. So, my table compatriot starts to talk about how Chinese people think their culture is superior to the Anglo-American culture, so it's ingrained in the Chinese for generations. I suppose xenophobic opinions are all well and good--no one is free of at least a tiny bit of prejudice--but perhaps you should leave your feelings unvoiced until you get out of the area in which the people you are insulting reside in much greater numbers than average (prepositions, anyone?). For example, I chose not to wear my pillowcase on my head when I went to Obama's inauguration party. See? It's just common sense mixed with a little bit of self-preservation. Needless to say, we got out of Chinatown without getting melamine-laced Diet Coke, but things were scary for a while.

My parents aren't the most spry of people these days, so instead of going out at night and tearing it up, after dinner we would usually sit in our hotel room and play cards. We brought along a card game, Quiddler, that is somewhat like Phase 10, except for the main goal is to create words. My parents are extremely formiddable word people. They seriously read the dictionary for fun. They're always doing really advanced crossoword puzzles and using really long words in normal conversation. But sometimes Quiddler just screws you over. You never have more than a few cards, and it is quite possible to get either all consonants or all vowels or a really shitty mixture of both. If you don't make words, however, your cards count against you. My father and I had just put our words down onto the table. My mom sat, looking forlornly between our words and her as yet unplayed hand. Suddenly, Allah inspired her and she put down a word: 'wank'. Repeat: 'wank'. I looked at her word and tried not to laugh. She knew more words than I did, so I figured she knew a non-dirty definition; she didn't. My dad stared at the 'wank' for a minute. I asked him if there was a nice definition for it. He proceeded to tell me that it meant 'to masturbate.' I looked up like a deer caught wanking in the headlights. Apparently, he didn't hear the 'nice' requirement of the definition I sought. Of course I knew the dirty definition of the word, since I am a fan of both British slang and . . . nevermind.

My mother, however, was shocked that she had used such a dirty word. I rather enjoyed it, but she did not think it was funny at all. She decided to take fewer points and use the word 'wan' instead. How very boring.

So there are three little stories about my recent trip to Chicago. I guess it goes without saying that we ate deep-dish pizza and looked at tall buildings and went to the theatre. We definitely did all that stuff, and it was quite grand. I just felt like these experiences just had to be shared. And there are morals to be gleaned from each. I'm like a modern Aesop. Fuck yeah.

Jabberleafy

It wasn't quite brillig. I had decided to wander the streets of Logan, and I had decided to do my ambling late at night. I've always considered myself to be a somewhat nocturnal creature. The beamish light of the sun is like acid to already red skin. The midday heat is enough to gimble my erstwhile thoughts.

I had been gallumphing about for perhaps an hour, maybe more. Sprinklers burbled water onto the turf. They gyred to moisten each blade of grass. Earlier, I had walked by a gas station--open 24 hours--thinking I just might obtain a snicker-snack. I was hungry as a rath, you see. The only food that truly qualifies as a snack is junk food, so I considered my options there. I chortled at the thought of paying two dollars for a box of Dots. I left the gas station, wending my way far from the strangely ominous lights casting their blinding fury over the road. Frumious, I headed back to my frabjous abode.

The tulgey darkness enveloped me. The only lights I could see came from the small screen of my iPod and the green glow of the semaphore at the intersection near my apartment. I paused for a moment; I could see something moving. Was it some manxome opponent lying in wait--a Bandersnatch crouching low, ready to ambush me and steal my three dollars? Or was it perhaps a Jubjub bird cowering in the slithy patch of bushes in front of which I was about to perambulate?

At this point, I must say that I do not condone moving toward a strange figure, especially if it is dark outside. However, I was curious, a suitable excuse for silly behavior. I walked toward the silent, moving thing. It looked mimsy, mournful, as if it were digging in the ground, looking for a friend who had passed on. I briefly considered that this thing may have been a tove in search of his sundial. I continued to move closer to this . . . thing. Did it have a beak? Claws? Eyes? I couldn't tell.

It seemed to look at me, yet it seemed to pay me no mind. It shivered and quaked. I turned down the volume of my music in case the creature outgrabe. It didn't. It continued silently with its work. From across the street, a minor, narrow street (at that distance, I should have been able to tell what I was seeing), I peered at it. Its identity still eluded me. From this distance, mome, locked in the swollen darkness, my sense of unease grew. . . I had no vorpal blade with which to defend myself.

Still, I crossed the streat, positively determined to procure the identity of this intrusion into my nightly stroll. The little white light from the traffic signal beckoned me forward. I got to the sidewalk and realized what it was I had been afraid of for nearly two city blocks: a bush.

There would be no "Calloohs!" to celebrate victory over my foe. There would be no "Callays!" to signal my triumphant return home. There was no Jabberleaf, no beast's head to carry back. I walked home, happy to find it nestled peacefully in the wabe, and went to sleep.

IN PLAIN ENGLISH: I was walking around Logan. I walked to a gas station to get some food but changed my mind. I was walking back home when I saw this creepy-ass thing in front of me. I'm not usually prone to ridiculous flights of fancy, but this thing freaked me the fuck out. It was moving, but I couldn't tell if it was human, or even alive. Perhaps stupidly, I kept moving toward it. Even a few feet from it, I wasn't sure what it was. Finally, I realized it was a bush. However, I'm pretty sure it was a bush possessed by Satan himself. That bush made an impression. I saw it a few days ago, and I can still see it in my head now. I haven't been so weirded out in a long time. So there it is. Oh, and I ripped off a bunch of words from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," the poem, not his. . . uh. . . other Jabberwocky.

Slugboy and Your Wanton Mother's Libidinous Journey into the Carnal, Licentious World of Molluskan Coitus

There is a strange man sleeping on my sofa. There is a fat, slug-like man sleeping on my sofa. I'm not sure when he got here or exactly how he managed to drag his slug-like body the 10 laborious feet from the door to my fucking sofa. Now, I've only sat on that sofa once; there tend to be people--ewwwww--congregating around it much of the time. Still though, I like to think of it as my sofa.

The air in my room has been growing decidedly stale over the past few days. Whether that fact can be chalked up to the ever-increasing pile of dirty laundry or my general lack of hygiene is anyone's guess, but I decided to remedy one of these. I decided to bathe my clothes and not my body.

I separated my clothes into two piles: whites and non-whites. I'm sure Nelson Mandela would disapprove, but apartheid in a laundry setting is a good thing. After all, it keeps the whites from getting corrupted by the inferior darker clothing. I loaded the whites into my laundry bag, a bag made from my dad's fat pants (not fat pants in the Subway Jared sense; these pants are now too small), left the seclusion of my room and ventured out into the wilds of my apartment where, at any moment, I may be accosted by someone who wants to have a "conversation."

I turned on the kitchen light. I didn't need to; I usually only walk around my apartment under the cover of darkness, so I know the place pretty damn well. But I turned the light on anyway. I was grabbing the key to the laundry room when I looked over at the couch. There, sprawled upon my couch, without a layer of plastic between his cottage cheese legs and the upholstery, was the slug-person. I'm not usually frightened by sleeping people, but this was an exception. I jumped a bit. He looked at me, accusingly, I thought--must have interrupted a wet dream. I used my special wordless greeting smile (I use that one a lot at work). He rubbed at his bleary cow-eyes and I vacated the apartment, fat-pants bag of superior linens in tow.

My laundry happened. When I got back to the apartment, I discovered that this fine chap had turned the light off. Whoa. . . not okay. First of all: my apartment. If I turn the light on, it stays on until I turn it off or the Rapture, whichever comes first. Second of all: mucus trail. I have no problem with Slugboy McWetdream walking around outside. This unseasonable June rain we've been getting should wash away the slimy trail he leaves behind. But is it too much to ask for this human/gastropod hybrid to limit his movement around my apartment? I realize now that the couch is beyond help; I just won't sit on it ever again. But to turn the kitchen light off requires substantial carpet-walking upon. Irrationally, I had been hoping that Slugboy's only carpet-sliding would be from door to couch. My mistake. I may have to get a Rug Doctor.

I am currently sitting on my bed in my room. I can hear Slugboy snoring. How very attractive. I believe earlier I mentioned that it is my scientific opinion that the individual sleeping on my sofa is currently experiencing a wet dream. Since he is a slug and I am a Wikipedia addict, I have decided to include a short section about slug sex dreams:

Slugs are hermaphrodites, having both female and male reproductive organs.

Once a slug has located a mate, they encircle each other and sperm is exchanged through their protruded genitalia. A few days later around 30 eggs are laid into a hole in the ground, or beneath the cover of objects such as fallen log.

A commonly seen practice among many slugs is apophallation. The penis of these species is curled like a cork-screw and often becomes entangled in their mate's genitalia in the process of exchanging sperm. When all else fails, apophallation allows the slugs to separate themselves by one or both of the slugs chewing off the other's penis. Once its penis has been removed, a slug is still able to mate subsequently, but using only the female parts of its reproductive system.

Fascinating, no? The thought of an sluggily erotic, apophallic dream occurring anywhere near the vicinity of my apartment, not to mention inside it, is enough to make me want to toss some table salt on this fucker and watch him bubble and die. But I won't. And who says I'm not a good host?

No Need for Angel Wings

When I use the word "interesting", it's usually in a fairly unequivocal sense. As in: Oh, the Burj Dubai is that tall? How interesting. Or: You thought Elizabeth Smart's dad was so annoying that you secretly prayed she'd never be found? Me too; how interesting.

Next up--brace yourself--I'm going to use "interesting" in an entirely different manner. Today, Tuesday, June 16, 2009 was interesting. The "interesting" I mean here translates roughly to "sucky and/or boring."

I always approach my days off work with a certain no-nonsense "I'm gonna entertain myself in ways that are both scintillating and productive" attitude. Hmmmm. . . that sounds oddly dirty. Ribald connotations notwithstanding (as if scintillating my product was a worthwhile free day activity anyway), I feel like I've wasted my day if I laze around watching Buffy or playing Xenosaga all day.

Within the first ten or so minutes of waking up, however, I should have assumed that today was going to be singularly unproductive, an especially embarrassing entry into the canon of my awesome life. Why? Despite my uncharacteristic awakening at 10 AM--a personal summertime record--I decided that leaving my room to eat breakfast was a silly idea. Wasteful portent number one. Screw wholesome breakfasts in their buttholes! I thought to myself. What else are days off for? I proceeded to anally penetrate the idea of something healthy and/or delicious and reached for my trusty box of granola bars. Trusty? Yeah, I've had these for about two years, and they've always been there for me.

I munched my granola bar, simultaneously wondering if the little brown bits in it were supposed to be chocolate and contemplating how to proverbially break a champagne bottle on my glorious day. I think I mentioned earlier that I usually try to avoid Xenosaga on days in which I plan to be productive. Well, I'm close to beating it, I reasoned. Doesn't get more productive than finishing a turn-based Japanese RPG that I've already devoted about 50 hours of my life to, right? Wasteful portent number two. I popped that summbitch into my trusty PS2 and picked up my wireless controller. Trusty? Well, no actually. My trusty PS2 was a piece of shit; this one is the replacement. . .

About 3 minutes into playing, I got into a fight with a couple of fucking robots that were. . . beyond my abilities. They kept dodging my attacks. Oh pussyfeathers! I thought, this is pretty darn hard. Look at that! I just had an inoffensive thought! Guess today isn't a total waste. Well, my mind may have had a relatively calm reaction to the virtual ass kicking, but my hand had a different idea. At this point, my wireless controller went sailing into the wall opposite me (I really should use the wired one if there is any chance for meltdown), and it broke open. One of the batteries rolled under my door.

Now, if I had really been gunning for a productive day, I should have gone for a bit of rage counseling. Why, just last week I got an insanely strong urge to play Pokemon--I'm not a pedophile, I swear--but had something of a gaming snafu and ended up breaking my Nintendo DS. Word to the wise: if any of your media equipment has a clamshell design (ie cell phone, Nintendo DS), keep in mind that it's only supposed to fold one way. How was I supposed to know that? I'll make sure to remember that tidbit in the future.

Needless to say, karma decided that I was to keep my no-Xenosaga-on-productive-days pledge, because that gaming session ended rather quickly.

Fast forward a few hours. The worst thing about waking up during this whole AM thing is trying to fit in lunch. I much prefer waking up and BAM! it's lunchtime. But no, I just had to stop sleeping in the morning. Well, I can always finish my book, I thought. That's pretty damn productive. So, I leafed through my book until I found something I hadn't yet read (bookmarks are for fuckers) and plopped down on my bed. I kept looking at my clock to see if it was lunchtime. Wasteful portent number three. After a couple hours, I couldn't handle the stress anymore and took an early midday meal. It must have been 1:30 or something . . . like I said, early.

Here's a confession that's sure to surprise: I didn't finish my book.

I got back from my burritogasmic lunch and decided to finally tackle my computer issues. I had tried the night before, but luckily I realized in time that my laptop has a clamshell design. Voila. A little self control and I'm not computer-shopping today. w00t. Basically, my internet hasn't been working. Aside from sheer laziness--the nearest internet-able computer is blocks away--this is the prime reason I haven't been super faithful with this whole blog thing. To my millions of readers: I'm sorry. I'm sure the reason for the lack of public outcry was tied to to the shock about that dude from American Idol being gay (who knew?) or the fact that Jon and Kate plus 8 may soon become Divorced Jon and Kate plus Marginalized and Exploited for Fame and Financial Gain 8. . . or that one plane crash or whatever.

I finally managed to get my internet up and running like a black man on the Underground Railroad. It's fairly glorious. Now I know how disconnected all those people in Third World countries must feel. Yes, I'm quite certain I sympathize with their plight. In fact, the next time my Human Resources Manager at work asks if I want to donate a portion of my paycheck to United Way, I will calmly consider it and politely decline instead of telling her to go shove her copious ass onto a training manual.

So, my children, I have returned. I have recrudesced after a time of electronic death. And look, you haven't even been burned or smashed by holy rocks. Watch out, though. My Second Coming was mild, but if you're reading this, the next one on the cosmic docket might not be so pleasant.