Unbelievable! J. Crew was having a sale on shirts (which I needed a couple more of for winter to give my few work sweaters a break) and the skirt I was lusting after was also miraculously on sale as well. PLUS I had a $50 gift certificate that I got from my health insurance company for completing a bunch of health challenges they do throughout the year so I could afford them. Obviously I had to take advantage, n’est pas?
An artist's rendering of a suspicious individual seen in the area about the same time as me. What a cooincidences, huh?
Not as easy as it first appeared! This sale closed at midnight over the weekend and I (ridiculous creature that I am) of course forgot the gift certificate in my work desk. Which meant a late night weekend gallop to the office, fetchingly attired in an old shirt, flannel pajama pants, mad hair, thick socks, and heeled shoes because they were the closest thing to hand as I rushed out the door. Accompianied by J.’s fond head shakes and sighs of, “You’re a nuggins.” His “adorable” nickname for me when I’m doing something particularly silly (I’m not so fond of it).
But apart from the slight craziness I exhibited, all was well! I ordered my things happily and went to bed at peace.
This morning I woke up to a shiny online coupon in my inbox advertising 20% off one’s total order. Which means had I waited 24 hours (and was psychic), I could have gotten my order for over half off.
“The reward for a job well done, is usually a harder job.”
-Lois McMaster Bujold
For all of my supervisors’ shifting and sorting in order to keep me steadily busy (which, by the way, is absolutely impossible with police work: you’re either swamped or drooling on your keyboard while the minutes laugh at you as they snail on by) I still managed to finish my jobs months ahead of schedule and can now apparently recommence drooling undisturbed.
Obviously, I’m having another bout of feeling frustrated by my job. They come and go. Each attack gets less vitriolic and more resigned, but the feeling still boomerangs, and probably will continue doing so until J.’s done with school and we move, I finally toss off all restraints and throw myself into writing professionally (bankrupting and starving us both in the process), or until I succumb to the idea that resistance to my fate is futile (never!).
I make this go away. You're welcome.
If ever I’m not outrageously busy, somebody wanders by and makes snarky comments about how they’re paying me and Hennessy to sit on our bums and do nothing. Regardless of the fact that I do all of the department’s customer service, or whatever it’s referred to in police work, maintain all department records, do all the mindless projects they dump on my desk simply because they don’t want to do them, keep the office clean, maintain all of their schedules, have attended all the trainings and obtained all the certifications, skills, and accesses they’ve required of me, manage all our 150 student employees, work with courts, lawyers, and insurance companies constantly, and still do their bloody laundry three days a week! I’ve also identified and fixed procedural problems of my own volition and been commended for it!
Click here to recieve your reward.
Obviously this deserves punishment, scorn, and snark from my co-workers/supervisors.
If I’m capable of keeping up my normal duties and still managed to clean, resort, restock, and reorganize our huge office supplies/police gear/self-defense class items/parking equipment storage closet in three days, rewrite the entire procedure manual in four, and set up Chief’s email contact sheets in ten minutes…shouldn’t that mean that I can go to the vending machines for a snack without someone getting in a snit?
I deeply apologize for being a fast and thorough worker. I’m even considering stopping it. Because apparently all it gets me is frustrated in the long-term, and lectured and punished in the short.
“‘So, I’m like, a new student? And I like need a parking permit? Do I like, get that like here?'”
“Wow. You are scary good at that voice…”
-C., mocking the freshman, TenFour being scared
University is like, hard and stuff! LOL!
Seriously! Do these girls only speak in questions, or do they just naturally intone upwards at the end of sentences? I am getting emails sans punctuation, sans capitalization, sans everything! Numbers used as letters, emoticons, and oh the misspellings. How exactly did they get into university, one might inquire?
Listening to them talk as they walk across campus is mind-numbing. Between slang and poor grammar, you can barely understand what they’re saying. The word “like” features heavily, conjunctions do not (I’m looking at you, Venice, as a English and grammar teacher to correct this is your rising seventh graders)
These kids even dress badly, attempted Vogue meets train wreck (and not Vivienne Westwood style, either). They don’t read signs that direct them where to go on campus. They get in an unbelievable amount of car wrecks. Their bikes get impounded when they chain them to “Please Lock Your Bike On A Rack Or It Will Be Impounded” signs. They can’t make eye contact because they’re texting incessantly.
To these kids, the Berlin Wall has only existed in history text books!
“You know those shows? The one where the foreign nanny comes to fix the broken, angry kids and they all scream a certain way? That’s what the kid sounds like.”
-J.
In the flat in between mine and Venice’s dwells a couple. About a year ago, this seemingly normal couple spawned and the wife was brought to bed of an apparently fine boy. However as the weeks went by, it became increasingly obvious to all (except the parents) that there was something wrong…
This evil baby communicates in an understandable, if fake British accent...
To boil down months of annoyance and sleepless nights to a single sentence, the child is a Screamer. And he has somehow mastered the dark art of knowing exactly when a neighbor is nodding off. Or when it’s 3a.m. Or when you’re carrying something easily breakable and likely to be dropped at the sound of a sudden shriek. Or if it senses smiles and happiness, which the Creature cannot abide.
As rotten luck would have it his bedroom abuts Venice and Val’s, but they aren’t the only victims to this child’s nightly symphonies. Our building is made of three rows of four flats…and everyone one of us can hear the baby. And we have no idea what his parents are doing because he screams for hours at a time and it sounds like no one picks him up or anything, he just lies in his bed and makes his misery heard. I myself have rarely glimpsed Demon Baby out in daylight, just a couple of times while his parents were putting him (screaming) into his car seat. J. says that he’s seen them walking around the neighborhood and the kid, when not screaming, sill has a perma-scowl. It apparently hates the world.
...this baby communicates through sheer rage.
A couple of tenets have casually mentioned it to our landlords, but most of us are keeping mum. Partly because it’s a delicate business making one’s frustrations with one’s neighbors known…and partly because our landlord and his wife are themselves expecting their first child any second now and no one wants to fill the soon-to-be mother with horrible worries. Even though she herself has expressed concern that she will give birth to Demon Baby 2.0. Pray for us all.
“The name we give to something shapes our attitude towards it.”
-Katherine Patterson
Good. Grief. Men just have to cough up enough for a sparkly ring, rent a tux, and show up. Us girls not only have to go through the angst of dress fittings, agonizing over catering (incidentally, I didn’t get to eat a thing at my reception; a fact about which I am inordinately bitter), fret pointlessly over flowers, and basically worry for months at a time. And THEN, after the whole affair is over, we get to go around sorting out an entirely new identity, complete with documentation.
My latest theory is that these guys were in line to register their horses, died of waiting, and were fossilized thus. Emporer Qin had a long ways to go with imperial management.
Our marriage certificate came in the mail last saturday, a fact we celebrated by almost immediately consigning it (accidentally) to the garbage. I blame J., J. blames me (I think I have a much more convincing case since I’m gone all day and, even though I’m a horrid klutz, I’m not usually that much of an idiot). Either way, I got off work early today so I trekked on over to the county buildings and got a new copy and then, in a burst of energy I know regret, I decided to be productive and get my name changed on a few things as well. An hour later, still waiting in line at the Social Security Administration (listening to the endless repetition of numbers of people who had long ago thrown in the towel, “47?…47?…47?…Is 47 here, please?…47?…”) I finally got that sorted. There was the minor hiccup of me not being born anywhere near the Continental United States, but that minor heart attack was glossed over by the fact that they had my previous information from when I was employed as a student.
Check.
Then off to the Driver License Division (otherwise known as the 9th circle of Hell)! However, getting there was a mess because there were two places listed and somehow in my temper frayed state, I managed to superimpose the numerical address of one place on the opposite city. Which meant that I spent another 45 minutes doing loop-de-loops across town trying to find this office. It was housed (read: hidden) in a small bank without any labling on the outside to indicate its presence within. I must have circled that parking lot half a dozen times before I worked up the nerve to just march into a building and demand guidance. Then we had a repeat of the line process, the only difference was that this time I got to sit. Right next to one of the more unusual characters I’ve seen in weeks.
This woman was tiny, the size of a 12 year old, and from the waist down she could have been an octogenearian: varicose veins, droopy tatooes working their way down her calves, and crusty feet. But she had plump childlike hands and arms and a head that I honestly can’t put an age on. Grandma-ish features on a young face and hair color that looked natural. Midway through my wait she answered a phone call and started arguing in the meekest, quietest voice about some sort of payment. “You’ve gotten me into something I can’t get out of,” she mewed, “I’m a student” [to add further to the riddle of her age] “and I can’t possibly afford to pay for this.” My ears perked up in spite of themselves, though I kept my nose firmly buried in a David Sedaris book. It sounded serious! “I didn’t know I had that option,” she chirruped softly, “I was told I was under a contract and that I had to keep buying, so I did, but I can’t honor those commitments now.” A gambling addiction? A vicious, silken-tonged bookie on the other end perhaps?
“But I only wanted the animated Bible stories and you made me buy lots of other films! It’s terrible of you to try and make me pay for this, it’s about religious material and you were completely false in selling them to me, you should be ashamed of yourselves!” She took a breath and said in an even meeker voice, “I’m sorry you alwas see the worst side of me in these phone calls, I don’t like being so unpleasant, but I’m just so upset.”
A huge letdown, in my opinion.
Another half hour later I was called and with a brief repeat of the question of my natal origins, I got my name changed on my license as well. Then, driving home, I rolled down my window because I thought my car was making a funny noise. Having ascertained it wasn’t, I rolled my window back up but managed to catch my sun visor in the closing pane and heard two terrible crunches before I managed to reverse the window and survey the damage. My visor now has a definite dent down the middle where the plastic inside has been snapped in half and my mirror was shattered. All the way home I was showered with confetti-like shards of glass.
And halfway home I got a text from J. telling me his parents are coming over for dinner. Bless him for cleaning up and doing dishes, otherwise I might have tossed our new certificate right back in the trash in a mood and gone straight to bed. Thank goodness tomorrow is a state holiday and I can sleep in!
“Despite the gardeners best intention, nature will improvise.”
-Michael Garafolo
Those perfidious fiends at the home and garden store! They basely sold me six little plants, that were labled as cherry tomatoes, that I lovingly planted along with cilantro and basil, and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t kill them. My little sister also gave us a potted geranium, in a vibrant red, to put outside our front door to make it more cheerful. This too I hoped would survive being my plant pet. But I seem to have been doomed to disappointment. After weeks of coaxing these fickle things with water, sunlight, fresh air, and lots of expectations, I have been rewarded thus:
Dead and dying flowers...
Cilantro that's gone to seed (as well as a sickly yellow which you can't tell in this photo...)
“To summarize the summary of the summary, people are a problem.”
-Douglas Adams
Kiri used to have this up as her desktop background. I used to think it was funny. I now consider it a sad truth.
I have again been smacked in the head with the realization that while in terms of skill and efficiency I am constantly getting better at my job, I may not be mentally cut out for it for one very important reason: I dislike silly, annoying, bad-decision-making people. But what sort of people do you think we deal with at a police station, especially one on a university campus?! Pranksters anxious to go down in campus legend, freshman drunk on the feeling of being away from home for the first time, crazy drivers, anxious students, stalkers, druggies, thieves, and occasionally the seriously out of touch. And I mean seriously dangerously out of touch. Basically, the sort of people that make me go quietly mad and bang my head the wall of futility that encompasses the entire human race (especially on a friday afternoon). Dealing with these characters day in and day out is exhausting, even my hyperactive personality can’t sustain the level of intense vexation these individuals deserve!
Occasionally, though, when I’ve had a very trying day and that French Bakery is looking even more tempting than usual, there are moments of delight. I got home from the gym the other night, absolutely dreading some of the stuff I had to do that evening, only to find J. doing the dishes and wiping down the kitchen. He then helped me put together invitations for almost all of his friends before sending me to bed early. Pure Bliss.
Ok, Mother Nature, you obviously didn’t get the message earlier, either that or you’re just a sadistic psycho wench, so I’m going to make this as clear as I can.
KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE SNOW. IT IS FREAKING MID-APRIL. There should be blue skies with plenty of clouds, flowers shooting up left and right, and cheerful springtime animals starting to frolic about. What twisted alternate time warp are you in? Have you no sympathy for people’s feelings, let alone the calendar? I am getting sick of packing up winter sweaters only to drag them out of the closet for 48 hours at a time. Is there someone else up there we can talk to, because you clearly aren’t managing to get your job done. To summarize, showers are permissible, blizzards are not. Fix it. Now.
“Marriage means commitment. Of course, so does insanity.”
-Unknown
Back in early March I finished planning the wedding with a big sigh of relief. I finalized the food, flowers, decorations, invitations, dress, shoes, bridesmaids’ gifts, travel plans with family, and everything. Then I gratefully stopped thinking about the whole thing in order to focus on getting my apartment ready and moving in. The wedding was nice and far off and I was content not to think about it, plus it was mostly done, right?
Elopement? Anybody?
Sigh. Yesterday I was rudely awakened from my wedding planning hibernation when Elysha called me to tell me my invitations were ready. Then, when we were in Target buying a microwave (because I’m a lost soul without one), J. reminded me that we need to register for things, and then a bunch of people reminded me about the actually getting ready part of the day (hair, makeup, all that torture), and THEN the spa I emailed months ago about the possibility of doing an early morning appointment for me and my friends for the big day finally emailed me back with information.
Apparently my break is over and I have to get back to work. The real big project for this party is going to be collecting addresses from people and getting them all out (have you seen the price of stamps?!) and I’m not going to love doing it. But since everything else is done…I have no way to procrastinate!
Once upon a time I asked my mother if I could elope and her response was, “Whatever you’d like, honey.” But! As soon as there was the legitimate chance of me getting married? “You. Will. Not. Even. Think. About. It.”
Our adventures in male/female interactions continued yesterday when I had to attend a workshop in Preventing Sexual Harassment that the university insists its new hires take (note: I’ve been working here for 8 months, first I ever heard of it). I didn’t mind, it was a paid hour out of the office I thought…unfortunately by the end of it I was irritated enough to breathe fire. The problem wasn’t the topic, the problem was This Guy.
Picture if you will a short, rotund man with heavy jowls, greasy hair (where he had any left), small eyes hidden behind thick glasses, and huge pores gaping in his cheeks. Got that? Now add on the annoying personality of that kid you once had in some class or another who had to comment on anything the teacher says, and when he isn’t called on offers up a muttered running commentary anyway under his breath. And finally, top it all off with a nasally voice that was used mostly to talk about himself a lot. Charming, eh?
Not five minutes into her powerpoint presentation the teacher started a new slide with a cheery, “Now, there are several categories of personal aspects that are protected under the law–”
Up shot this guy’s hand. “Why aren’t men protected? When I was the vice president of XYZ Corporation, we had a situation–”
“Actually,” the teacher said quickly, “men are protected. Sexual harassment can pass between genders in any number of ways.”
“But say I was being hit on by a homosexual,” he demanded (the word homosexual was whispered darkly).
I personally couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind, regardless of sexual orientation, hitting on this guy, but I digress. It took a while but the teacher managed to get us back on topic, but then when she brought up the protected categories again: gender, religion, disability, race–
Up shot the hand again! “Well, in my last area of work at Such-And-Such University, I had nothing against the negroes, but…”
Smalldog is...speechless
My jaw dropped, I couldn’t help it. Out of date, grossly derogatory racial epithet in the middle of an anti-harassment seminar? Seriously?
It sort of went downhill from there, culminating in an argument between this man and a female biochemistry teacher who talked (at length) about her personal dating history and how she’s been subjected to prejudice because of her unmarried status, but how could she marry when all the men she meets are intimidated by her intelligence, has anyone else had this problem, isn’t is unbearable, what is wrong with the men…
But, injects our enlightened friend the greaseball, you made the decision when you decided to pick school over dating, this is your fault, women can’t have it all and it’s ridiculous to try…
“Um, can we please try and stay focused?” asks the teacher in a small voice which no one hears because they’re too busy watching the train wreck.
In the end, the lecturer had to cut out the last third of her presentation and lamely hand us pamphlets saying, “Most of the material we didn’t get to is in here, and feel free to give me a call.”
“I have another question,” our hero demanded, but I didn’t wait to hear it. I bounded up, snatched the pamphlets with a breathless thank you and scampered back to the relative safety of my officer where stupid people, when we deal with them, are usually undergoing some kind of legal recourse.
“You’ve gotten me into something I can’t get out of,” she mewed, “I’m a student” [to add further to the riddle of her age] “and I can’t possibly afford to pay for this.”
Small Dog Syndrome 