I don't know how much longer I can take this

It's happening again. I am going to be (for the most part) serious here. It is the last day before a 3 day weekend (unless of course like me you have two jobs, in which case it is one more day of work and a one day weekend, but still...), and no one is doing any work. Me included mind you. I have no problem admitting that I have not done one damn thing today. That's what happens in an office. But its the conversations that are killing me here.

Apparently Asian (who just won't go the hell away) is down here discussing how she was watching Nickelodeon with one of her kids, and on "The Fairly OddParents", someone made some kind of reference that was pro-evolution. Repeat after me...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! For the love of Christ Almighty, are we still dealing with this shit? Quick, call the PMRC and the Coalition for Family Values and every other fringe outfit (and while you are at it, give a shout out to the ACLU, because if there is a chance to make a point of mistaking having a differing opinion than them so they can denounce you as being Un-American, they will take it). I don't like this whole "Intelligent Design", because let's call it what it is, Creationism. And let me make this clear, I believe in Creationism. But I also believe in Evolution. It's not that big of a leap. My problem is that Intelligent Design, or whatever you want to call it, is based in the Judeo-Christian theology. Muslims and Hindus and every other belief system doesn't necessarily believe that, and to teach that and not acknowledge EVERY other theological version of creation is tantamount to having a state religion. And that is not what we believe in as a country (at least that is what it says in the Owner's Manual).

So Asian says, "If they are pro-evolution, where does that put Adam and Eve?" NEWSFLASH::::::::: they can still be there. Fact of the matter is, God didn't create the sun until the 4th Day if I remember my Genesis correctly. So the first 3 Days could have been any length of time as we measure them. I am pretty sure God measures time a little differently than we do. And IMHO, God can make any day he wants lasts as long as he wants. And how is THIS for a theory. Adam was created from the clay of the Earth, correct? Couldn't "clay" in this case be the primordial ooze that birthed the single cell organisms that evolved into human beings? And since Eve came from Adam, couldn't her split be when one being became two, much like single celled organisms do now? And really, doesn't EVERYBODY come from a single celled organism running into another different single cell organism? Sperm to egg, and BINGO! Its a ZYGOTE!

I am going to ramble here and will hopefully be able to come back tomorrow after work and complete this. I do need to make a point very clear. I do not think that being created in God's image is a physical thing. God is not some man or woman walking around. God has no color. To me, being created in God's image is that we as human beings are multifaceted. We experience a range of emotions and have ranges of reactions to each emotion depending on various stimuli and scenarios. Read some Old Testement, see God's love and God's wrath and God's revenge. He creates the Earth and floods it to start over, all in Genesis. That is one hell of a delete key.

Okay, I have to wrap this up, but let me make a few bullet points to reference for tomorrow...

• female priests
• homosexuality
• prosecution from 100 yrs ago
• slavery
• Uncle David
• Pop and Grandpa Chick

There is more, but I will have to recall it and write it down tonight in between annoying "guests" at Target.

my brain hurts

I think I have officially cracked. Gone off the deep end. No more Mr. Rational Guy. It is probably due to a combination of exhaustion from my schedule and sensory overload from the bombardment of the holidays season (plural on purpose. Chanukkah and Kwanzaa both start the day after Christmas, and they are both holidays). For instance, as I was doing my closing walk/item count/inspection the other night while at Target, I walked past the Chanukkah display. As I looked at it, I swear I saw a shelf full of containers of Chanukkah Pepperoni sticks. That made me pause for a moment, because nothing says Jewish Holiday like cured and seasoned pork. Well, upon closer inspection, it turns out that it said "peppermint" sticks. But I think there is one hell of an untapped market for Channukah pepperoni sticks. Who wants to get in the ground floor for this. It could be the next Pet Rock. Of course it could also be the next Cop Rock. But life without risk is just too damn boring for me.

Secondly, I just got some stuff I ordered from a woman in the office that she was selling for her daughter (side bar - the wife and I need to start having kids soon, if for no other reason so that I can start hawking overpriced crap at people in the office. Revenge shall be mine!!!!!). I was looking at the box it came in (it is a box of different cookie doughs), and could have sworn I saw the words "fucking powder" on the box. It turns out it said "baking powder". It was clear as day. But the first time I saw it, it did NOT say "baking" on it anywhere.

Finally, for the majority of the day, I have had the theme to Charles in Charge stuck in my head. Why? I have no earthyl idea except that I have done something to incur God's wrath, and since it can't rain frogs in the middle of the hospital, this was the next thing He thought of. I haven't seen the show, nor any mention of it, not even a reference to it in so long that I cannot remember how long it has been. There has been one Scott Baio reference recently, while discussing Arrested Development with my buddy/upstairs neighbor/tenant. But that reference not got past Chachi, if it got that far.

I must head out to work. I have to go to Bel Air tonight again (repeat after me...wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee). I want to be home by 11 so I can get a little sleep before work tomorrow, to be followed by my cousin's wedding. But I needed to share that.

Feast or Famine

Apparently I have the bug up my ass to write again. So here goes...

I hate when people call Target "tar-JAY" (soft "j"). It is not funny, and whatever irony you think exists by shopping at a value priced store and giving it a name that supposedly makes it sound haughty and expensive just doesn't exist. The only irony is that there is no irony there (oooh, mental moebius strip!). And really, it's just not funny. I don't know if it has ever been. You are the same people that called the alvation Army "Le Sal's", and Nordstrom's "Nordy's". You are all blathering idiots.

Now back to trouser socks. I really do need to know what the difference is between "trouser" socks, and socks you can buy in a 6 pack or 12 pack at Wal-Mart or Target or K-Mart or any other damn place. To me, it sounds like an excuse to charge extra for tube socks. And (gender differences and stereotypes be damned) I am willing to bet that men have never bought trouser socks. NEVER.

I have a few random thoughts that are floating in my head, so here they are in no particular order...

The Power Rangers are nothing but a pale imitation of Voltron (the lions, not the cars. But IMHO, the cars never got a fair shake. They were like Bo and Luke's cousins. Doomed from the start), with some really bad karate moves thrown in for good measure. And they have been on for what, 10 years now? Longer? No wonder kids are getting dumber.

Speaking of kids, I do not believe that time outs work. I got my ass whupped more times than I can possibly count (I am pretty sure that having to whup my ass is the reason my mother has arthritis now. All the slaps she gave me must have thrown her bones out of alignment. Especially because I learned early to clench up my butt cheeks when the whuppin started, so my mother just started whuppin harder. She probably knocked her spine out of alignment trying to make sure I got the message. And eventually I did. It took longer than expected, but still. And since my juvenile record is sealed, you will have to take my word on it). I am either for spankings or psychological warfare. My "big brother" (mentioned earlier) uses the latter. He has convinced his son that if he misbehaves, he can call the Amish to vome take him away. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a straight face the first time you hear a grown man threaten to call the Amish to take his son away if the son doesn't stop misbehaving. Thank God I was there and knew he wasn't joking (at least not as far as his son was concerned). And to see the panic in his eyes when he grabbed the phone, the boy running to his father crying "PLEASE don't call the Amish!! I'll be good!!!". I had to excuse myself and go outside and down the street so as to not ruin it by gut laughing. It works. And really, shouldn't we all be at least a little afraid of the Amish? But here is the best part. About 2 years ago, my bro and his wife bought a house in Red Lion PA. Right in the middle of Amish Country. Apparently whenever they pass one of the buggies, he sinks REAL low in his seat and whimpers a little. Of course, there is an off chance the kid will end up on a tower somewhere going all Lee Harvey Oswald on people, but as long as you don't have a beard w/out a mustache and don't wear big hats, you should be okay. He'll probably just wing you.

Dammitall, I had others, but I just got 3 phone calls in a row from patients and completely lost my train of thought. Hopefully I will get it back soon and I can finish this before I leave work today. I doubt I will have time to do anything this weekend. We shall see.

The Circle of Life, office style

Okay, here we go again. As I said last post, Asian is gone. Except for one thing, SHE WON'T LEAVE!!!!! For some reason, even though she was promoted and moved to a floor where you can actually have windows that view air and the outside world, she keeps coming back down here and spending 30 minutes to an hour or even longer chatting away. But this did lead to a brilliant conversation about "trouser socks". And I ask to you all, WHAT THE F%&* ARE TROUSER SOCKS?!?!?!?!? Why do you need to designate socks as to be worn only with "trousers"? Every time I hear the phrase trouser socks, I think trouser snake, and that is a COMPLETELY different thing.

As I typed this, she came back again. I have no reason why she is here. There is no work that she has brought down and none for her to take back up. She is just here to cluck away.

The thing that really gets me about this place is that the Circle of Life here still congregates to chirp away. Apparently we have decided to move on and discuss the odd hour that the hospital "holiday" party is starting (make sure you aren't offending anyone with your using the word "Christmas". PC bullshit). It seems to me that the prevailing thought is that 3pm is just not the right time to start the party. It should be earlier dammit!

I have more to say, but I need to escape for a moment and get away from the din of inanity.

Type at you later.

Welcome to the Middle of the Aftermath

First of all, for all of you who have been pining for my return, and that means both of you, I am in fact back. Odds are, this will be my last post until after Christmas, and the reason for that is the same reason that I haven't posted in 3 weeks or so. And that is that my jobs are kicking my ASS (insert Ian/Rodney noise here). I have been pulling 80 hour weeks since the beginning of the "holiday season", and to tell you the truth my brain has just been too damn tired to process any kind of coherent thoughts into any kind of entry. And how am I doing it now, you ask? Go ahead, ask. Thank you. Well, I actually am off the night job tonight and for some unknown reason have some semblance of mental acuity. So here we go.

I won't give you any boring details as far as Target goes. In fact, I am disappointed in just how uneventful the last month has been there. The only real excitement is that I stopped some woman from trying to do a "ticket switch". That means she pulled a barcode sticker off of an inexpensive item, in this case a $40 vacuum, and put it on a more expensive item, in this case a $500 vacuum. The suits liked that. But for the most part, people have been very cooperative with me and my need to do my job. Ho hum.

Dayside, it is officially the end of the Era of the Asian Mustard Lady. Feel free to sound whatever death knell you wish. However, in her place I have found a new muse. One that I do not deal with as directly, but still one worth monitoring and reporting on. Her name shall henceforth be known as Mother Hen. I mentioned her previously. She is the one trying to organize everything and randomly brings in treats. Yesterday, it was a cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. Yummy indeed, but sometimes I get the feeling that she is trying to fatten us all up in order to eat us, a la Hansel and Gretel. I have to keep an eye on that. Plus, she collects back scratchers and Elvis memorabilia. Hell of a combo. The Elvis stuff I can at least understand, after all Elvis was a bad ass in his day. But back scratchers? Her walls in her office (she is one of the few people in cubicle world to have real walls and a door) are covered with back scratchers hanging from push pins and nails. It's like she is a sadist, but not a mean one. I just see her conducting experiments on homeless people in the hours she is in the basement by herself (she keeps kinda weird hours), but it's hard to break someone's spirit with a Mickey Mouse Back Scratcher. I don't know.

Anyway, her current pet project is the aforementioned Secret Santa, and the offshoot of that, the Office Christmas Breakfast. Today she sent a spreadsheet to everyone so they could sign up. Maybe I am overreacting here, but it's a little too sterile that way. I am going to have to check under the bowl of oatmeal, Golden Child style.

One other thing before I wrap this up. This past Saturday, the wife and I had a party at our house. We figured it had been 5 months since we moved in, it was time to invite people over. Plus, she is in a play that ends this Sunday, but this way it was a holiday/cast party. The party went well. It seemed to be a pretty big hit. I am a little put off though, because it was my first "adult" rager. By that I mean, we had the drinking and carousing, just like my parties in college. There even wound up being a special smoking room, unbeknownst to me at the time. I went down to the basement at one point and realized that it smelled like Cheech and Chong were filming in the utility room. Oh well. No harm, no foul. And the cat we adopted (a story for another time - I will have to fill you in on the cat falling through the ceiling and breaking my nightstand that I have had since I was 12. It's a hoot. Maybe next Tuesday if I have the gumption) was much more relaxed around all the guests than we thought he would be. He just kept licking his paw and then staring at it. But with all of that, there were conversations abounding regarding people refinancing their homes and discussing techniques on what they do when their children are crying and blah blah blah. It was quite disconcerting to be sitting there and between shots of whiskey to talk about my plans for remodeling the house and the market value of the neighborhood as "the next Canton" (for you non locals, Canton is a neighborhood in Baltimore that was kind of run down, but over the last 10 years or so has experienced a renaissance and is now one of the most expensive, some would say overpriced, neighborhoods in town). And discussing this made me happy because all I could think about were rising property values and what that would mean if and when we sell the place. As I typed those last couple of sentences, I died a little. It is like the Barenaked Ladies said, "Old at being young, young at being old". That has become the description of my life.

All in all, this has been a pretty boring entry. Not nearly as funny as I would have hoped. Still, I am back, and I will do my best to post again before Christmas, or at least before New Years Day. And as always, I will try to do better next time. If I am lucky, someone at work will piss me off this week. That is always good for a chortle.

Maybe I will post pics from the wedding. Once I figure out how to post pictures that aren't saved to the hard drive.