Careful what you wish for and other musings

I know what you are asking me right now, and no I am not really your father, and I do not owe you 20-some or more years of birthday and Christmas presents. Also, you are wondering why there is a picture of a JabberJaws bobblehead at the top of this post. Well, it is because Asian's desk is being filled by old JabberJaws herself. In fact, she moved in on Friday, and I am already preparing my temporary insanity defense. The only thing staving off the execution immediately following the three day weekend is that she only works 2-3 days a week, so she isn't here today. But she will be tomorrow, and whether she knows it or not, she better thank God for the 5 day waiting list here in Maryland. Now don't get me wrong, Asian had her faults (I know I do too, but in the world of my blog it is never my fault. Delusion in binary, thank you very much), but there were bright sides to her too. And it was easy to pick on her and tease her, because she kept opening the door for me to slap her down. Approximately 75% of the time she would get the joke. Okay, closer to 50%, but 25% of the time she would laugh along so she wouldn't look stupid. JabberJaws is definitely over 60, probably closer to 65, and she talks CONSTANTLY. She talks to herself while highlighting a spreadsheet, making noise the entire time she is not inhaling. I wish I was exaggerating when I say that, but good old Anonymous (a coworker down here in the land of the Mole People, and quite possibly the only one besides me who has any real sense of the inanity of this place) will back me up after I tell her about this post and she reads it, right Anon?

Now if talking were the be all and end all, I could probably work around it. Lord knows I like the sound of my own voice too (one of the main reasons I continue this exercise in futility known as blogging is because as I type I get to hear myself speaking the words in my head. No ego here. Nope). The problem is that she will float to the wall of your cubicle and lean on the low part of it and talk about EVERY DAMN THING IN HER LIFE. I do not care one iota about her husband's problems with planter's warts. Really. I think I have mentioned her before, so you probably have at least a general idea.

But this is what will eventually drive me to go all Michael Douglas in Falling Down (another great movie that if you haven't seen you REALLY should. Dark, but funny, and excellent performances all around the movie) on her. The casual touching. I am not overly touchy feely, and I have not been for quite some time. Twice she has given me the "Stand next to you shoulder to shoulder and put my arm around you and give you a combination hug and back rub" thing. That would be bad enough, if she wasn't doing it while I was seated and therefore I have her breasts almost shoved in my face. Like two floppy pouches of powdered milk. Not my idea of fun. And that isn't the worst. She has only done this once, and the only reason she has the chance to do it again is because I was too stunned to snap her wrist in half when she did this to me. She PATTED ME ON THE HEAD. And not just one or two pats. Nope, she patted me like I was a flipping Golden Retriever who just fetched her the stick. It is quite possibly the most condescending thing that has ever happened to me, at least in an office setting. And I will NOT tolerate it again. No sir.

So I will keep you up to date on when she finally pushes me over the edge. If my loyal readers want to get a betting pool of some sort going, I am going to give the over/under at 3 weeks from tomorrow, January 18th. All other bets, the how, with what, where (basically think Clue, only with a real candlestick) I will leave up to the oddsmakers in Vegas. I am pretty sure they will take bets on this.

Now to the other thing that takes too much of my time. Target. Here's some things I have been noticing lately...

1. Now that the holiday season is over, I am again a profiling, racist asshole for wanting to check receipts of things like $1000 t.v sets and looking into bags of people who set the door alarm off. There was an uneasy truce during the Christmas shopping season, as people were more expectant of being double checked. That moratorium has ended, and the party has begun anew.

2. It is my understanding that unless you bring in the receipt or a gift receipt and you want to do an exchange, you have to get merchanise of the same value from the same area. That is pretty much standard for retail. Now my position of Target Protection Specialist (fancy way of saying polyester clad laughing stock for teenage punks who's parents pay for private school) requires me to spend the vast majority of my time standing by the main entrance, which is right next to Guest Services (in Target you are not a "customer", you are a "guest". How many focus groups did they go through to come up with THAT little bit of inspired marketing?). Since I am right next to the return area, I get to see what most people are getting for their exchanges. I see a lot of clothes, some movies and cd's, the usual stuff. There is one thing, however, that is really confusing me. I have seen an inordinate amount of people, women all of them, coming up to Guest Services, and they are exchanging for tampons and pads. Which leads me to wonder, did I miss something? I know it is hard to shop for women, but really. And if you can't figure out what size SKIRT they wear...

Seriously, I need this explained to me. If this is really what you want for Christmas, I will go to Costco and stock you the hell up. Would I be embarassed about buying Tampax and Always? Possibly, but any hesitation I feel would be immediately tempered with the knowledge that I don't have to stop in Kay Jewelers on the way home. And I KNOW you will get some good usage out of this gift, and I will have the satisfaction of knowing I contributed to your life in a very meaningful way. I think I am going to have to put together a gift basket of sanitary napkins and tampons. Throw in a bag of Hershey's Kisses for the week before the visit from Aunt Flo and I cannot find a negative here. We could even push a few tampons out and make them look like flowers. No red roses though...

I am extremely lucky that my wife is a geek (an incredibly hot geek with a great body and also a brain, but a geek nonetheless). My Christmas shopping consisted of picking up the Narnia game for her PS2, which I got her for Christmas either last year or the year before. She was LITERALLY bouncing around the room for about 15 minutes. She looked like Tigger with tits.

And just so you know, I am actively seeking new daytime employment. My goal is to find one job that pays enough to leave the night job. I have a few irons in the fire, and more on the way. I can only hope that my next office, wherever it is and whenever I move there, will have enough interesting characters to comment on. Otherwise I might have to start forming opinions on a regular basis. And that is too much work right now.