Checkout, revisited

I wasn't kidding about the seriousness of using the self checkout lane at the grocery store in one of my previous posts. After lugging in my $80 worth of groceries I found out that the cashier put my tomato in the same bag as my gallon of milk. The TOMATO in with the MILK. Who does that??? I can not even properly express my frustration on this matter. I may even call the Safeway store to complain. I understand that sometimes bagging mistakes happen, and that is fine. But putting a tomato in with the milk???? That's not a mistake, thats just idiotic and lazy. Honestly.

Any for the record, the tomato is completely obliterated.

Rock Out Tinkerbell

I'm watching some kind of professional figure skating show on TV because it is Sunday, the day where networks just kind of give up, and there was just a routine set to a classic rock type song. After viewing this...debacle...I can safely say that putting a skinny blonde figure skater in a tight leather jacket and those snuggly little skating pants will make him look more like a soft core gay porn star than a rough and tumble badass biker rocking out the jazz hands. I'm just saying it doesn't work.

Non-Discriminatory Shopaholicing

I love grocery shopping. While the domestic freak club is understandably low on the membership scale, I am proud to be part of its ranks. My mom doesn't understand this abnormality, and maybe in 10 years when I have additional mouths to feed besides my own (and trust me, any mouth that shares even a fraction of of my genetic makeup will require plenty of...ahem...food for nutritional purposes only) this fun weekend activity will morph into a parasitic necessity that drains the life from my very bones and turns me into one of those ladies you see on TV with frizzy hair and orange lipstick and 12 children hanging precariously from any latching on point of my body, and I will want to run myself over with the little motorized terror-cart that the geriatrics use mainly to piss us walkers off.

But since the closest I can conceive of actually having more than one mouth to feed is maybe a really super hardy houseplant that does not require any special grocery items or sunlight or frequent watering, then I will hopefully maintain my love of the grocery store for years to come.

After I have perused each isle filled with foods that have too many calories to purchase, but just enough calories to justify wistfully and lovingly caressing the packaging thereof, and after I have loaded my cart with enough cans of tuna to feed all of the late Bob Barkers spayed and neutered cats (R.I.P), and after I have scrutinized every last loaf of honey wheat bread to find the one with the latest sell-by date despite the unpleasant reality that it will somehow manage to mold in exactly three days anyway, I head to the one place in the grocery store I only simply tolerate, and not explicitly love. That is, the check out line of Sunday-rush hell.

I don't think raw egg makes a very good marinade for things like cans of ravioli or chocolate-cookie-crack-crunch-a-doodle-do ice cream, so I prefer to ring up my own groceries and bag them in a manner that does not indicate I've just preformed my own lobotomy. The self-checkout is the one place I can relive the glory days of my youth working as a cashier at the best darn little market in central Indiana, and I take my ringing and bagging speed very seriously.

Now, I know the self-checkout, just like social welfare programs, are available to anyone in the store who plans on paying for their goods. However, just like social welfare programs, there are a select few who consistently and blatantly violate their right to a better check-out experience, and they are the grocery shopping equivalent to the crack whore who keeps having babies just to get more food stamps that she will sell for her next fix. Or whatever. I'm no expert.

I had not one but two such self-checkout crack whores in front of me today, laboring slowly over their bulging carts as my frozen onions melted and started growing sprouts out of the cereal box below. The first was a large loud lady who, despite having her tween son there to dutifully help her through the check out experience, still insisted on swatting his hand out of the way as she stalled before every single freaking item to inspect the packaging. Her cart was full to the top, ladies and gentleman, and four or five people made it through the opposite line, not to mention the full service lines, before she even got half her cart unloaded. I would like to think she was checking for trans fatty acids in order to replace those items with healthier fare, but after the sixth box of Friday's appetizers passed her inspection and carefully made its way into the gaping mouth of the plastic bag, I gave up on determining her motive.

The second guy was no better. He had ransacked the produce section and was meticulously pulling out one of every type of unrecognizable vegetation that the store had in stock. He would pick up two very inedible looking clumps of something that was perhaps dug out of a hole next to a chemical plant, and place them both on the scale. Then, realizing that they were different items, he would remove one. Then, woops!, he doesn't remember what this particular bit of fiber was called so he would have to ponder it for a minute, (no joke) with his head resting pensively in his hand. On and on it went.

Eventually the produce monger and the nit picker were out of the way and I was onto mine. I still enjoyed my shopping experience, but I sure as hell whipped through my check out line fast enough to make Superman jealous.

I'm Back (no vengence)

I have obviously been somewhat lazy with the blog lately, and this time I have no clever excuse like "my power cord to my computer isn't working." Turns out that excuse was never very valid to begin with considering the problem with the power cord would fall most fittingly into the "user error" category rather than the "stupid ass technology never works anymore" category. Ahem, thats all that needs to be said about the issue sans a word to those of you who may experience power failure in the future: try pushing the cord all the way in to your computer before sending it back to the manufacturer.

I think that while I may be the "blogging type" (not to be confused with the "sad and lonely blogging type that writes her thoughts on cat food/lost love/weather patters in central Ohio), I spend so much mental energy typing up daily emails to the boyfriend and the BH/C crowd that by the time I get around to the blog I've already said it all. But when has not having anything to say ever stopped me from jabbering on, really? They didn't give me a Communications degree and then tell me to shut the hell up for nothing! No, I must honor my academic success in the only way possible for the ill-advised Comm major- I must blather on incessantly and pretend that four years of study has done something to make me a reasonable writer, even if all the evidence points to the contrary. And then I must use all my well-honed B.S. skills in my pursuit of an MBA where I still put off writing papers until the day after they are due. Thank YOU Taylor University!

While I have quite a few updates about my work situation, I am leery of posting them here for fear of the Dooce curse. Suffice it to say that thing are...different...now since the change in management and I may be looking for a...different...job soon, depending on how the old "beg for a yearly raise" song and dance pans out in a few months. But I still like my job, and I don't dread waking up on Monday mornings, and my coworkers are lovely. I really can't complain. Oh wait, strike that.

Boyfriend is on his last leg of perma-travel and I expect him home at least by the end of October. I have seen him more than expected lately, and I think we can safely give the relationship a few more months to see where things are going. :) All the travel has been hard on us, but who doesn't just love a few character-building opportunities every now and again? What's a relationship if it isn't riddled with at least one or two spots of contention, right? I mean, trouble free- psh!- who wants that!?! You would have to be delirious to request it. I'm sounding quite mad right now, aren't I? Oh lookie there, now I'm using British slang. I really must stop reading Brit blogs. They fill me with repressed angst that comes off as bad attempts at wit. I should leave that kind of thinking to those slightly-surly experts across the pond.

Moving on...hmmm. Um. Suck a duck, I knew writing that would be a thought killer.

Not for the Faint of Gut

Yesterday there was a rather irritating "know-it-all" type of person in my office who I was trying to help. She was young, probably early 20's, a bit overweight, sloppily dressed, and had an air of unwarranted arrogance about her that gave off the impression she was trying to seem older and more experienced than she actually was. I was really trying hard to get her out of my office as quickly as possible, right up until the point where I completely lost control and literally almost vomited all over her face.

What would warrant such a visceral reaction, you ask? The lady hoisted one of her chubby legs across the other one, looked down at a fresh scar amidst the prickles of unshaven hair on her calf, picked the scar off with her stubby fingernails, and ATE IT right in front of me as though it were a piece of gum. Honestly. Almost vomited.

Just Keep Paying Me

There have been some big changes at work this week and I'm not sure how I feel about them yet. My job is not in danger, but my love of my job may be at stake, and I'm not willing to give that up without a fight. I have a feeling that this quarter will be a real time of trial not only for me, but for my coworkers as well, and I'm less than enthused about the upcoming months. That being said, I will still do my job diligently and hopefully with at least a tiny shred of skill and hopefully things will at the least maintain their current level of acceptability. Come January 1st, we'll see what my paycheck looks like and if I am not pleased it may be time to test the waters outside my large-windowed, great-view office.

Please Sir...

I went to happy hour with some coworkers the other day and as I was standing there talking to my boss, some rather attractive man comes up behind me and whispers in my ear, "I think you are gorgeous," and walked away. Who knows why he did it- maybe he was being honest, maybe he was drunk, maybe he lost a bet- but whatever the reason, it was damn good to hear! That was the very first time anything like that has ever happened to me. Please sir, can I have another? :)

Row Row Row Your Ass, Scraping on the Ground...

I just got back from an interesting day of tubing. It took me a while to pick an adjective to insert in to describe my tubular time, but I think my final decision is a good one, or at least encompasses the trip to it's fullest extent. It was fun most of the time, irritating at times, burn-y at times, but most overall it was interesting. Let me set up the scene: there were 8 of us on the trip- a married couple, a dating couple, and four non-coupled. Usually this would make for a nice mix where hopefully no one feels pressure to pair off and no one feels like the third (or 9th, as it may be) wheel. However, the dating couple sure did do everything in their power to make things as awkward as possible, including, but not limited to the girl getting quite drunk, randomly passionately making out while the rest of the group was in conversation, dry humping on a single tube, and other such affections that best be left for a more...intimate setting. I am no prude, and am myself quite liberal with the PDAs when boyfriend is around, but come on, this was ridiculous.

Perhaps what was more interesting (read: annoying) than the over the top affection was the general attitude of the girl in the couple. I've known her for a couple months, but we really aren't quite friends yet, just good acquaintances. I heard from one of her roommates that she was feeling kind of down and ignored by the people around her, so I wanted to make an effort to be more friendly. This was the main reason I went tubing, as she was the one that planned the event. Ah, and what a nice place to start on my little rant about this particular person. I have never been tubing before, so when the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at the chance as I've heard it's a fine activity for generally lounging around and goofing off while consuming tasty libations. The information about our trip was a bit slapdash at best, but that's pretty common with this group, so I did the best I could to research our location and the weather conditions and then just showed up at the appointed time.

Problem number one: this girl, the organizer and the PDAer, had no clue what in the world was going on. She was sure to have LOADS of alcohol purchased , but beyond that she was utterly inept. She didn't realize that the weather called for thunderstorms all day, or that the river was very low due to no rain this month (which is not fun when it comes to tubing), or that she had quoted everyone the wrong price by about $15. Oh well, she is a little ditsy, so I'm glad I did my research beforehand and was prepared. No big deal.

Problem number two: Homegirl is VAIN and OBNOXIOUS in all caps. Forget lowercase, she doesn't even know what that is. Let me be the first to say she is absolutely gorgeous and I would kill puppies for a living to get to look like her, but she must have insecurity issues to the max because she fished for compliments for the entire three-hour "relaxing" ride down the river in which I wanted to drown myself. There is nothing worse than a beautiful woman who makes every man within ten feet of her tell her how beautiful she is every thirty seconds, lest someone forgets. She even wore a full face of makeup, curled her hair, had on earrings and bracelets, and carried around lip gloss for a trip down a freaking river. Honestly. She insisted on bringing the lip gloss with her on the actual tubes (can't leave it in the car or else the fishies might miss seeing her glossy shiny lips) and then was upset when she got drunk and forgot to get it out of a bag of empty beer bottles and someone threw it away. Of course, she couldn't admit this was her fault. Instead, she blamed the guy that drives the van with the canoes of stealing it. That's right, a 50 year old shirtless hillbilly stole her fancy lip gloss. Sure.

And then there was the clothing discussion. Oh Lord, the clothing discussion! One of the other people on the trip is a teeny tiny girl who openly said (because someone asked) that she was 4'11 and 98 lbs. Obviously teeny tiny, but she doesn't make a big deal of it, so why should anyone else? Anyway, the tiny girl was on a time crunch and had to shower and change clothes to go to a concert after tubing. The obnoxious one says that Teeny Tiny should just shower at her place (where we all met) and borrow some of her clothes. At this point it needs to be said that while Ms. Obnoxious is beautiful, she is still a healthy size 8 at least, probably a 10. And she is pretty tall as well. Teeny Tiny made the mistake of politely refusing the offer, and then, after being prodded by Ms. Obnoxious on why she refused, she carefully and casually admitted because it is doubtful any of her clothes would fit her properly. Holy cow, you would have though she just threw pig blood on her and lit her on fire because for the next 45 minutes all we talked about was how Ms. Ob is not fat and no one thinks she is fat, and that's not what Teeny Tiny meant, and yes of course you are pretty, and no you should not loose weight, and yes, we already told you that you are pretty so stop asking.

Other examples of problem number two: She was obviously disappointed when the bus driver didn't recognize her from the last time she was there, over two months ago. Someone jokingly said something like, "Oh yes, because you and (boyfriend) are so fantastically attractive that the mental image should have been burned in his memory for all time," and she AGREED that the statement was more or less exactly what she meant. When she realized that everyone was stunned silent, she lamely tried to pretend she was joking. In addition, every time she would switch positions on the tube, she would announce in a tone of voice a bullhorn would envy that she's sooooo sorry her perfect butt was in someones (males only here!) face. And then turn to look at the guy to see if he was looking back.

Problem number three: Drunkenness. There is a reason this is a sin and that reason has never been so clear. It's not because you may inadvertently kill yourself in some kind of intoxicated stupor, it is because everyone else may want to kill you because of your intoxicated stupor. We literally had to fish her out of the water at least three times, not because she was drowning, but because she was swimming up to other groups of tubers and threatening to steal their hats. Apparently she thought this made her seem cute. It did not. It made her seem desperate for attention and annoying and it embarrassed everyone with her, especially when she loitered around the tubes of a group of 40-50 year olds flirting with the married men and trying to swim in between their circle of tubes.

And then she wouldn't stop yelling "fuck" at anyone who tried to talk to her. And then she wouldn't stop drinking to the point where we had to literally pry the bottle from her hands and empty out the beer. And the she wouldn't get out of the water when it was time to go like a 6 year old. And then she made out with her boyfriend and practically flashed the whole bus of people riding back to the main site, and there were young children on board. It was just a mess.

So I know I seem pretty bitter about this who thing, and maybe I am more personally offended than I would care to admit. I think some of it stems from the fact that I felt trapped out on the water with her and I was increasingly annoyed with each turn of the river. I realized today that I really don't like to be in social situations that I can not extract myself from if I need to, and this was one of them. And also, I am probably more than a little jealous of her. Like I said, she is beautiful, and to make matters worse, she is exactly the kind of beautiful that boyfriend likes. The kind of beautiful that I am not. This is not to say that I am not beautiful. I think that I am, but I can't even hold a candle to her. I just hate it that just because she is beautiful (oh, and did I mention that she is also a fantastic singer, which she had no problem proving) she gets to be so damn high maintenance and men will put up with it just to get to be with her. I try to be as low maintenance as womanly possible and I still have a hard time. I would never hear a compliment (actual compliment from her boyfriend: You are beautiful. Her response: What? Are you saying I'm not gorgeous?) and then twist it around a million times sideways just to get another one. She already has it all, why does she have to be so foolish?

Ok, that is all for now. I really needed to vent about that for a bit, but now that it is off my chest I am going to take a shower and wash off all this river shit before I start growing algae.

Lame Excuses, You Wanker

Just a quick update. I haven't thought much about the blog for a couple reasons. The first, and probably the instigator for the second, is that the power/charging cord for my computer decided to crap out on me in a flourish of flickering lights and sputtering attempts to hold on to its position as the most favored of all electronic power adapters. After Dell sent me the wrong cord, and Ebay sent me a non-working cord, I decided to re-investigate my power supply options while intermittently borrowing a coworkers cord that works for my old-ass computer as well. It's really a relic, and it's a wonder that he even had a compatible cord. My computer exists solely for my facebooking and photo-storage needs, so it really hasn't been that hard to keep the old girl turned off. But while I'm borrowing the cord, I might as well catch up on some things.

The other time-sucking activity I have recently devoted my slightly obsessive personality to is the reading and viewing and hanging-on-to-of-every-wording of all things Harry Potter. Boyfriend recently started listening to the books on mp3, and suggested we read/listen to them together. This, it turns out, was a really really great idea.

I read the first three books years ago when they first came out, but my Harry Potter attention span tapered off due to the lag time between releases. Boyfriend was on book 4- Goblet of Fire- but since I had already seen that movie I figured it would be sufficient to jump ahead (one of my many tragic misjudgments). I picked up the nearly 900-page Order of the Phoenix, and literally did not put it down for two days straight. I read it all in under 48 hours (which means that I did nothing but read and flip over on the couch every couple hours to prevent bed sores) and for the next week had dreams of Voldemordt, Harry, and Doby. I love Doby. It's a shame they cut him and Winky out of the movies. Lets be clear, when I say I had "dreams" I mean every possible scope of dream imaginable. Daydreams, night dreams, nightmares, thoughts, ponderings and relentless stewing over every detail of the story. I was so ridiculously obsessed by the time that I went back to book 4 that my thoughts were playing through my head with a bloody British accent. If ever there was mind control, this was it.

After a week of nothing but Harry Potter I decided to give it a rest- literally. It was taking hours to fall asleep at night because I couldn't get my anxious Harry Potter thoughts out of my head. I haven't read any more HP since I finished Goblet of Fire, but Half-Blooded Prince is sitting on my nightstand and I swear it calls out to me at night. But no! I will persevere. Boyfriend is only on chapter 11 of Order of the Phoenix, and I promised I would wait for him to catch up. Could this be the end of my personal integrity? I think its a worthy enough cause...

Harry Potter aside (as though that is even possible for me), I am increasingly excited about life in this city. Things with boyfriend are going really well despite him being gone so much- and there is end in sight for his travel. We've been dating a year and a half and one day exactly and the relationship is still exciting and fun and I find more things I love about him every day. Sappy much? I'll stop. The point is I'm much happier than I was a month ago, and it seems things are on the upswing, which, everyone knows, is the best part of the swinging process. Not that swinging process. Come on, get your mind outta the gutter. Geeze.

Rough Riders, the broadway musical

As usual, things have turned up not as bad as they seemed. I'm happy to announce I've made a full recovery from being a moody, sullen, PMS-y loner, and now I am restored to full health and bright thinking. The reasons for this transformation are not purely hormonal, but I suspect that has a lot to do with it. Ah, the joys of being female.

A few short days after my last post, boyfriend came home from his perma-traveling and we spent 4 days conjoined in one ugly mass of entangled limbs. As sexual as I intended this to sound (ahem...subtlety is not my forte), I should add that the entanglement was the result of me hanging desperately onto him as we hurtled down the highway perched upon his motorcycle. Nothing more relaxing that a three-day motorcycle trip, I always say, with the sooty smudges of kicked up dirt on your face, bug guts pocking your sunglasses, and the noxious perfume of the inside of an oil can circa 1985 permeating every possible permeable surface. Yes, it was lovely.

The trip was actually very fun and it was great to have a mini-adventure with boyfriend after not really seeing him for about a month. Shorty after my embarrassingly dramatic meltdown I realized that my life is good, my friends are real, and my teeny tiny check is still paying the rent. What more could I ask for?

So...Why Don't I Just Move?

Let me take a minute to describe this awful city that I live in. Upon first glance, it is charming and full of history. School children wait all year for their big trip to my front door--almost literally as I live within a few blocks of a large mall where tour buses park to let their riders terrorize my neighborhood and eat at the food court. Families plan vacations here. Foreigners make this their first stop.

However, despite being a gaudy lure for vacationers, the city I live in has very little to offer her inhabitants beyond high prices and traffic jams. The people here are very transient. This is a town full of ambitious yuppies looking to get in a few good working years and then move back to their real homes to make piles of money. The demographic is decidedly young, which being young myself, should be a good thing, but it is not. There are very few families. Even fewer children. When I go back to my cornfield I am shocked, amazed, and ridiculously annoyed by teenagers and their bad driving and rude behavior, and completely turned off by bratty 10 years olds pushing around their younger siblings in the popular chain restaurants. We don't get that here. This is mainly a city of adults. Snooty adults.

The people here are on a mission, and can't be bothered. Working a 12 hour day is the norm, and most lives consist of very little other than work, eat and sleep. Thus, people are exceedingly unfriendly. No one is interested in making friends, and even if they were, there wouldn't be time to do so. Or at least no one would admit to having time to do so, as free time is a sign of weakness, as ridiculous as that sounds. People here take a sick pride in how stressed out and haggard they are. The fewer hours of sleep they get, the more important they think they are. Everyone is looking out for themselves and their interests only. People don't smile when they pass you. They don't say hello in the hallway. No one asks about your personal life because no one really has one to speak of. This is a very lonely and isolated city.

I have noticed a distinct change in me since moving out here. I used to be funny and outgoing, willing to bring up small talk in line at the grocery store, or hold the door open for a line of strangers. Now I am withdrawn and introverted. I have lost my sense of humor even to the point where my boss has to tell me to lighten up. I don't smile much and I laugh even less. I can count on one finger how many friends I have. I would need several extra hands to count the number of people I know who are in the exact same miserable position, but have forgotten how to fix it. My passion for life has been sucked away and replaced by a drive to....well, I want to say "survive" but that's just a little to rhymey for my tastes.

I'll close this up with an example from today of the sheer unfriendliness and unwillingness to engage another person that is so common in this city. For the record, I have seen this happen more than is natural, and I myself have done it as well.

The scene: two people are on a narrow sidewalk lined on either side by bushes. It's a beautiful day and neither person appears to be rushed. The two approach each other. Both have their heads up, backs straight and noses held firmly in the air. They can see that there won't be room for both to pass at the same time. Instead of one person politely smiling and stepping aside with (heaven forbid!) a smile and a hello, both people speed up and literally run themselves into the bushes, scattering pine needles and mulch instead of being courteous. The whole time neither party makes eye contact, as that would be like admitting you have seen the other person and are willing to acknowledge their existence. Neither can be bothered to be friendly.

And that is what it is like here. We would rather rub elbows with the landscaping than try to be real human beings.

A Pathetic Introduction

I am bored. I live in a city far away from my family. I left home over two years ago after college. I thought I didn't want to stay in a cornfield. I thought I wanted to see the world. I thought I wanted to make it on my own. And I was right. For a minute.

I've lived in this town for going on three years. The first year was fun. I had a handful of friends, a job that barely paid the rent, and I learned to be a grown up. I did all the things that I previously wondered how my parents managed to do. I paid my taxes. I found a doctor. I set up my utilities and bought furniture. Ok, fine, I didn't actually buy furniture. I'm still using the stuff I had in college. But everything else really did happen. Any day now I'll have real furniture.

Last night I had what some might consider an anxiety attack coupled with PMS and a plague of sadness. This is the first time (ok, second time, but whose counting...) that this has happened, and I'm worried it may lead to depression, despite my attempts to tell myself that it is a healthy expression of bottled up emotions. The scene looked something like this: me, rocking back and forth on my couch, hair a mess, mascara running, choking out to God that I want to go home. And then there was the crying. I happen to catch my reflection for a second while the cry was occurring and it temporarily cracked me up. It was hideous. I had the bulbous red nose, pale face, shiny streaks of black running down my cheeks to meet up with the streams of snot moistening my upper lip. I'm an ugly crier. Which was, in the midst of my temporarily insane laughter, the thought that brought me back to tears. No one loves the ugly crier. I am, obviously, despite all the evidence to the contrary, at this particular moment, irrevocably unlovable.

Keep in mind here, I was suffering from PMS. Drama akin to that of an angst-filled confused goth teen is to be expected. Don't judge.

A few hours later, after several long and passionate, gut churning talks with absolutely no one, I calmed down and fell asleep. Today I feel fine, if still a little lonely.

I don't know what came over me last night. Raise your hand if you know this is a lie. When I moved from the cornfields to the new big city, I left behind my family. At the time, I thought this was a GREAT idea. Granted, I loved my family, but I was the child that was destined for something else. I remember my mom even casually mentioning one day at dinner that I would be the child that would skip town as soon as I had my degree in my hands and never look back. At the time I couldn't fathom believing her, but her prophesy was right. I moved away exactly one week after graduation.

It turns out that the people I left are the people I need. I have never loved my family so much as I love them now, at this very minute. Each day I spend being on my own makes me wish I had them here to smother me and drive me crazy and annoy the hell out of me. I'm jealous that my sister has to go on double dates with my parents. I'm raked with sadness when I call my mom and she is out with "the family." I don't remind her that I'm part of the family too. My dad lays out at the pool with my little sister and her boyfriend. I want that to be me, and honestly, what sane 20-something wants to have a pool party with their dad?

My family members are the best people ever. My sisters and I can laugh for hours. And not just a polite chuckle. When we get together we laugh from the gut. We laugh so hard that sounds don't come out. People outside my family don't understand it. Most think we are weird. This would be true.

So in conclusion, I'm sad because I am still living in this expensive, lonely, cold and anonymous city and I LONG for home. I long for the cornfields and the laughter and the built-in-friends that still live there and for native English speaking fast food employees. I have nine months left on my awful lease here in this city. In nine months and one day I will be back where I belong.