Monday Monday

I got hit by a car on my way to work this morning. What a beautiful little Monday morning wake up call. A nice lady turned straight into me and sent me a-flying for a close encounter of the pavement kind. Now I was on the bike path and apparently the bike light had turned red while I was going through, but the regular traffic was green still on so everyone was going through, no flashing green for her left hand turn or anything, and apparently she missed the part of drivers training where you yield to people who are already in the intersection. Fucking women drivers. So this nice Scottish lady helped me get off the road and then the driver comes over and says, "Are you okay? You should really pay more attention."

YOU SHOULD REALLY NOT HIT ME WITH YOUR CAR.

The nice lady gave her a full what-the-fuck, which was nice because I was shaking and not verbalising well. All is well though, I didn't need that knee anyway. I'll post pictures tomorrow when the bruise has set in nicely.

(*Bike is fine Eli! Not a scratch that wasn't already there. That thing is a champ.)

So I get home, drenched to the bone and see I have a package from mother waiting at the post office. Awesome! A package from home will totally make this day better! Off I go to the post office and I come home with this:

I don't know if you can tell this in the photo, but the darker areas are actually damp spots in the cardboard box. When the post office man brought it out there were literally fruit glies following it. What is this, hate mail?

I open it up, the scent of rotten everything slaps me across the face. What small piece of hell could she have sent me this time?

Milk?? No, wait, what's this inside the carton?

She's sent canned goods with popcorn as packing material. I could not possible have thought this up in my wildest dreams. She used actual popped corn as packing material. Genius, obviously.

But what in sam hell is that awful smell?

She packed ripe tomatoes around the milk cartons.

That is to say, she packed ripe tomatoes around the milk cartons in a box going through the mail.

This is far and away better than the time she sent shortbread cookies in a regular envelope. They arrived exactly as you might expect: completely disintegrated back into their original ingredients.

However, the three jars of homeade antipasto arrived safe, if a little smelly. There is nothing in the world better than homeade antipasto and I will wade through cardboard boxes soaked in rotten tomatoes for it anyday.

Mmhmm, yes, interesting.

So I work in a call centre and I'm a housekeeper part time, and I'm thinking about moving to the U.S. because I hear that down there white girls don't do either of those things. I'm not sure on the logistics of how they worked it out or whatever, I think they probably have some sort of deal with the latinos, like you work our minimum wage jobs and we'll eat your tacos. Either way, I am far too white for my current lifestyle.

I recently conducted an experiment in segregated eyebrow reintegration. The results were a technical success, and a moral fail.

My camera sucks, but I swear there are hairs going all the way across.

Condom wrappers on the sidewalk: make the ones under my bed look boring. And dusty. But less aidsy.

Mmhmm, yes, interesting.

So I was all set to write a post about how I accomplished all my goals from last week but then my mother phoned. She got to talking about something and something and it ended with her talking about how she still talks to my ex (it's been four years, which is like twelve in break up years). But she said it real snarky, like she knows I don't like it, but she likes to do it anyway, so I called her 'a sassy one'. She hung up on me. Now I'm sitting on the phone letting it ring until she picks up. Did you know after 52 rings it cuts you off? (My folks don't believe in answering machines, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know how to turn off the ringer.) Doesn't stop me. I'll keep calling, I've got nothing better to do while the new episode of Californication loads. Which reminds me:

Look what I knit! It's a...circle scarf? That's generous. ...a bib? Maybe. A fall weather crop top? Don't mind if I do.

Gratuitous holes for maximum nipple slippage curtesy of my wayward yarn manouvering skills. Second chin curtosey of the second helping, fifth cookie, extra cream habits of mine.

Military alphabet is a semi-check, but I should review again this week.
Californication is a definite check.
Showering three times was a check, but I ran out of deoderant and didn't make it to the dollerama house of toiletries yet so I feel these things cancel themselves out.

New week, new goals!

Do I have any? No.

Can you recommend some please?

If you say soduko I swear to shit I will take a tiny poo inside your slippers. Small enough you won't notice it right away, big enough it will squish between your toes and get all up in the wool lining. It'll get stuck underneath your toenails and I will forever call you shit foot.

But anything other than math related games, please recommend. My new show to cruise through this week is Mad Men. By the end of the week I'll be wearing pointy bras, smoking unfiltereds and slapping ladies bums. But now I'll have a reason.

My mom is still not picking up. Bless her heart.

Hat Trick of Fucked Up

Oh you thought this miserable saga was over? No chancey miss awailen (my dad says that, I dont think it's a real thing). But this is the last of the fucked up funeral shit becuase if I write one more word satan herself is going to haul ass up from the seventh circle to hand over her pitchfork and yours truly just can't take the heat.

But I digress.

Last night, on the phone, mother is both stark and raving. Telling me about the divvying of the assets. Turns out g-pa didn't leave much for her but, get this, he set aside a shit ton for her brother, my uncle, a man I've met once. Naturally, I'm all "What the shit??? How is that fucking fair??? I want (you to have) a piece of the pie too."

"Well," says she, "dad thought he should set aside some money for Robbie what with him being slow and all, you know, on account of him being born with the cord wrapped around his neck."

Well shit.

Turns out I have a retard uncle and I dinnae even know it! And I can say retard now, because I'm related to one!

"Well he's not slow slow, he's just not as quick as everyone else."

"What like Reilly? Hey, you better not be planning on giving him extra money just cause he's slow."

"Your brother's not slow!"

"Well he isn't sharp. Like are we talking like butter knife dull or plastic spoon dull? Either way, you better split things evenly."

"Lucky for you I don't got nothing!" she said with the vigour of a poor, crippled lady. (This is true, my father is worth more dead than alive. You should never explain life insurance to a child with a temper. It was touch and go for him for a while.)

"Oh great, thanks, I look forward to paying off all your debts"

From there it segued into her asking what my worst memory of my childhood was (answer: I don't answer trick questions) and then advising me as to what qualities I should look for in a man (answer: one who can cook. Also, one who likes flower gardens. -Whyyyyyy? Becuase they're nice. -Ahhhh so.)

...is something burning? It smells like my soul is on fire.

Stay alive kiddos.

Oh no you didn't.

*I started writing this daaaaays ago when it was topical and relevant and unfortunately pop culture moves far quicker than my ten little digits so this is, like, so earlier this week and you're probably all tired to death of hearing about it. Tough.

Oh hell no.

Kayne Motha Fuckin West you did not just disrespect my girl Taylor.


You can slag Bush, you can pretend to be Jesus, you can say things like ""I bring up historical subjects in a way that makes kids want to learn about them. I'm an inspirational speaker. I changed the sound of music more than one time... For all those reasons, I'd be a part of the Bible. I'm definitely in the history books already." You can suck your own dick until your blue in the face but do not, do not insult my girl.

I love that she actually gives him the mike for his rant, like she's thinking 'What could possibly go wrong?' And she's smiling like, 'What a charming man stealing my mike.'

I like this one too where she's going, 'What should I do with my hands?? Awkward hands, awkward hands. Play with spaceman? Wring nervously?'



She didn't even get a chance to thank her momma or Jesus or her lil' puppy... I just think she's gone through enough this year with the whole Jonas breakup thing, you know? And for heavens sake don't give country fans a reason to be mad at a black person, you know they're on beige ground to begin with.

(I was going to make a Nazi joke. I didn't.)

And does he actually call this an apology?? He turns the second half back around into the Kanye Show and how he needs to take some time off, deal with his emotions, yada, yada, yada. I hope he doesn't stroke his dick as much as he strokes his own ego or they're both going to be overinflated and bruised. Kudos to Jay for playing the mom card though. Do you think your dead mother was disappointed as she was watching down on your from botched boob job heaven? (I assume that warrants a special district in heaven.) Ouch.



I will say though, the man has good taste in ass. Biased, yes, but I am a fan of the double bubbleiscious.

Badunk-a-DUNK.

A Divine Intervention.

I really want to comment on the Kanye/Taylor incident, but it's still so fresh, you know? I'm still so hurt and I just need to take a little time to create some new four letter words to describe pretentious piece of turd.

Instead, this little doozy:

Today was my second day of biking in Montreal. It's nerve wracking, my quads are killing me, but I get to work 200% faster, so it's all good. Until this; I'm biking down Sherbrooke today, it's rush hour, I'm trying not to get my ass pinched between the moving cars and the parked ones, I decide it's too busy so I cruise down to Maisoneuve, continuing west towards the rich anglo district. Once on Maisoneuve I realize there's a bike lane on the left side, but I can't get over because there's so much traffic so I decide to wait until the next corner, then get over. Cool. Not. Get this: a grey minivan pulls up beside me, rolls down the passenger window and the driver who is a nun yells at me"THERE'S A BIKE LANE OVER THERE YOU KNOW!!!!" A nun. A woman of god. A religious penguin. And you can't yell at a nun, even if you're yelling back. I figured the closest thing you can get away with is sarcasm so I gave her one of these: "Ohhhh, yeahhhh, thaaaaanks."

Hindsight, what I should have yelled was one of these:

"It's okay, I'm not getting laid either!"
"I bet you'd be nicer with a cock in your mouth!"
"Your religion is a sham!"
"You call that God's work?!"

But my personal favorite:

"God forgives you!"

New Posts From the Afterlife

An addendum to a previous post, just in case you thought the first post about my grandfather's funeral wasn't bad enough...

Just found out fat brother rocked up to the wake with a fresh set of stitches, courtesy of an old timey rage problem. He made one stop on the way to the funeral, one stop. One fight later with some Albertan french trash (read: Fahlar, AB, home of the world's largest bee, many slutty girls and a subpar hockey team) and he's got 15 big ones above his eyebrow. One for each brain cell.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a punch in the face.

Goals

Due to the relentless monotony of my life I have decided to compile a list of goals so as to prevent an unfortunate boredom related head-in-oven incident. Of course I am by nature very lazy so I must be careful not to set the bar too high. Unless it's a limbo bar, in which case quite the opposite. Luckily limbo is not on my list of goals. This is what I've come up with instead:

- Win a game of two suit spider solitaire (actually I did this last week, but I wanted something
to check off right away, you understand.

- Learn the military alphabet thing. I don't know what it's called, but you know the one that goes alpha, bravo, cunt, dick, ejaculate, foxtrot, ect... I think this is an interesting thing to know, infinitely helpful if my application for Idiots Week on Jeopardy goes through, or when spelling things out to deaf veterans on the phone. Also, if I ever get drafted for war, well I'm sure I'll die immediately, but I'll be delta echo alpha delta.

- Knitting. I think this will be great to occupy the large amounts of dead space throughout my day and perhaps if my fingers are tangled up in yards of yarn I won't be able to gnaw my fingernails into ragged stubs. Expect gifts of lopsided dishrags sometime in the next 3-5 years. Also, Lowercase C-baby, expect frustrated messages about the difficulties of casting on and jacking off, knit one, pearl necklace, ect.

- Watch two full seasons of Californication in the next week. Actually this isn't so much a goal as an inevitable, but it's less sad if it sounds intentional.

- Shower at least 3 times this week. Ok, I'll stop now.



General life goal though, less vegetables-as-penis photos while wearing dad's old Headpins shirt and displaying hole in crotch of jeans. I will try harder. I will try harder. (The butternut squash makes a pretty good chode though, you must agree.)

Sidebar: I just spoke to a man who had a voice that sounded like chocolate dipped in sex if it had been smoking unfiltered cigarettes for ten years. Ooh baby I love the way you say erectile dysfunction.

Q&A

Q: Who's your favorite Jonas brother?

A: The one who's going to kill himself in a couple years.

...not naming any names, Price Studly Lesbo Haircut III.

Language Barriers.

My job entials of a lot of communication problems, generally due to the hearing difficulties of those well into their 'golden years' whose ears aren't working but seem to expect their peckers to keep on pecking. Today though was a linguistic problem, namely that I had to speak Spanish. Funny thing though, I don't speak Spanish.

“Uhhh, senor? (I surely didn't pronounce the wavey thing above the n) Hablo ingles? Non? Un poco? Non? Ahh, ok, bueno....umm....call back tomorrow?...no comprendo? Ok, uno momente por favor...um....me no hablo espagnol...niente personna hablo espangol maintenent...oh shit that's french...senor? um...call back tomorrow....telephonay tomorrow? Taco? Quesera una cerveca. Donde esta la playa? Si, quesadilla.”

Today I also spoke with an illiterate man. I'll be totally honest, I was judging the American education system in the most self righteous of ways when I asked for his zip code and he rattled back letter-number-letter number-letter-number. When this man told me that he had never gone to “none of your schools,” I reluctantly thought that's likely for the best given the, you know, horrendous abuse, decimation of culture, and otherwise atrocious behaviour, the effects of which are still being felt and passed on to a new generation. Perhaps you've heard? Irregardless, we managed to get through the order process and get his boner pills sent on up to the great white north. By the end of the call I had forgotten all about it until I told him what the charges would appear as on his credit card statement. How do you check your credit card statement when you can't read? Well, you don't, evidently. Importanter though, when he picked up the phone what did he think he was calling for? I've seen the brochures that get sent out and he could very well have thought he was calling a phone sex hotline, in which case he must surely have been disappointed.

A la prochain.

Tales From the Workplace

Hello. My name is Brittney, and I sell male enhancement products.

It has surprised me lately how many times people have commented on how this is the 'perfect' job for me. I did not realize my obvious talents in this field, but given my knack for saying penis with a moderately straight face and manipulating my fingers to answer a phone, it must be true.

"Order desk, how may I help you?"

"The Platinum package comes with three tubes of the MangumFX, now that's a cream that you massage directly onto the penis for 3-5 minutes to provide an erection as well as increased length and girth, plus you get two free bottles of the Seminizer 500, that's s capsule, and what that does is boost your ejaculation."

"Ejaculation? That means orgasm sir. It boosts your semen flow."

"Who massages the cream? You do, sir."

"You apply it directly to the penis sir, but yes, if you like you could put it in a spoon first."

"No not inside the penis sir." (How do you massage the inside of your penis?)

"No sir I'm not married. No I can't answer any personal questions." (But my boyfriend's dick is AWESOME thanksforasking.)

"Yes, sure, I suppose that would be good for the affair you're having."

"So that's the three bottles of ViaSteel plus the two tubes of Volcano Gel, your total is 205.99...no I'm sorry we don't have a senior's discount sir."

"Oh wow, 84 years old? Congratulations sir. World War One you say? I'll have you know I took history and have a calculator handy so I'll thank you not to lie sir."

Oh but wait, I also sell weight loss products:

"Customer service, how may I help you?

"Yes ma'am it is recommended that you excercise while taking the Blast and Drain capsules....I know it doesn't say that on the brochure...it's just a recommendation."

"So how the Cellu-Light works is...hold on...ok, so, umm, you just place the adhesive patches directly onto the cellulite area and the ingredients will be absorbed directly into the skin to melt away the fat. No you can't shower with them. I know, it's unfortunate, but so is being fat."

And finally, I sell several "books":

"How does it work ma'am? Well it's a book. So you read it. Yes, that's right, you read it."

"No ma'am the Psycho Power book will not make you win the lottery. I know it does say it will teach you to harness the power of positive thinking, but unfortunately we cannot gaurantee that you will win the lottery."

One of the most annoying things about the 7000 calls I answer each day is that about 1/4 of them don't know the name of the product they'd like to buy. No idea. Can't find it printed on any of the forms that came in the mail. I have seen the mailings, the names are very clearly printed in obnoxious fonts and obscene colors. Nevermind the obvious question of why you would buy a product you don't know the name of.

The other thing that gets me is when the men try to flirt with you. You just admitted to major erectile dysfunction, you just told me that you had an operation on your prostate that causes you to pass your semen inside your body, I can hear your wife talking in the background, please don't tell me how pretty you think the girls up in Cane-ada are."

The last thing that gets me is when people from tiny towns near my tiny town call in to place their orders. When I see that familiar area code come up my skin gets the shivers and I picture the smiley man who works check-out at IGA. Lord have mercy.

But the pay is good, the people are nice, and I really feel like this is my time to finally learn how to play minesweeper. Or at least two suit spider solitaire. Repeat after me: David Sedaris was an elf in a mall. David Sedaris was an elf in a mall. David Sedaris was an elf in a mall...

Who You Calling an Idiom?

I know I promised job stories but this was just too good. Today I saw a man wearing dark sunglasses, carrying a white cane, leading a woman who was also wearing dark sunglasses and also carrying a white cane. They walked side-by-side, taking up all of the south side of the sidewalk, not stopping for traffic, not looking anyone in the eye, not a care in the world. I have literally seen the blind leading the blind, and they were heading west on Mont-Royal.

Two Too Many

Just returned for an 11 hour work day which for someone like me (ie. lazy as fuck) is 11 hours too many. My feet smell like tiny pieces of sour turd. Scratch that, honesty time: they smell like ladies size 10 1/2 pieces of sour turd.

I'd love to tell you all about the many wonders of my job (teaser: I get to say penis. Over and over. Penis penis penis. Also, girth. What a great word.) but frankly Mr. Shankly I am bushed. Big time bushed. Like, 70's porno bushed. Feminist hippie bushed. Bushed just like your grandmama cause you know she hasn't trimmed the hedge since grandpa broke the lawnmower.

Tomorrow children. Or the next day. Life is long; patience is a virtue.

Stay groovy kitties.