One more sleep until Hallowe'en, that night when the darling little goblins don their ill-fitting, cheaply-made costumes and descend on us in droves, begging for food. It's the night that still-bald, six-toothed toddlers dressed in furry pyjamas with ears, their little button noses dabbed with black grease paint, the apples of their cheeks rubbed with mummy's red lipstick, get carried from door to door because they are too pooped to walk. They don't care about tricks or treats, but mummy and daddy saw the costume and decided that Hallowe'en would be the perfect excuse to dress their little pumpkin up cute and parade him, shamelessly, before the neighbours. It's the night that windows get egged. Not all of them, of course. Just the darkened windows of the curmudgeons who either pretend to be out so they don't have to participate or give out the crap candy. Old Bag Brown's windows got egged every year when I was a kid, although not by me, of course. Never egged a window in my life. Incidentally, Old Bag Brown was probably younger then than I am now, but she seemed ancient at the time.
Then there was Pam's mum, who spent the week leading up to the big event making pan after pan of chocolate fudge, cutting it into perfect squares, wrapping it in parchment and plastic wrap and tying it up in orange grosgrain ribbon. We used to go to her house twice. It was bloody great fudge! It was the only homemade treat we were allowed to eat because everyone knew Pam's mum, although come to think, none of us knew her name. She was just Pam's mum or the fudge lady.
I remember getting home, exhausted from hitting every house in a ten mile radius, dumping my pillow case and separating it into piles. Chips, chocolate bars, Tootsie Rolls, Rockets and Pam's mother's fudge were the cream of the crop. Then there was gum and other chewy things - jellies, BB Bats, MoJos. Finally there was the shit that got thrown away due to safety concerns or inedibility - apples, peanuts, other people's mother's fudge, unwrapped things, gooey things and those vile candy kisses.
By my estimate, and I think you'll agree I'm being conservative, each year candy companies produce roughly five billion metric tonnes of molasses-flavoured candy kisses and ship them all over Canada and the US, if not the world. Of those five billion tonnes, roughly three and a half pounds are actually consumed by freakish weirdos who, for whatever twisted reason, like the taste of them. That means that, annually, slightly less than five billion metric tonnes of the putrid confections go directly to landfills. I wonder if Al Gore knows about this. Then again, given the recent allegations that his home's energy consumption is thirty times the national average, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gives them out. Perhaps he should start giving out chips, chocolate bars, Tootsie rolls and Rockets. Those are the things kids actually eat. Or better yet, maybe he and the missus should get into the kitchen, make fudge, wrap it in parchment and tie it with pretty, orange grosgrain ribbon. The amount of rejected candy going to landfills would be significantly reduced. The grosgrain ribbon can be reused. The paper can be recycled and everyone's happy. Not to mention the water and detergent usage to scrub the diamond-hard egg residue from the windows will be avoided altogether.
Tomorrow evening, lovely sister-in-law will answer the door to the goblins while brother and I follow Perfect Niece and Perfect Nephy-Poo around the neighbourhood while they, looking ever-so-cute in their outfits, ask the neighbours for goodies. And we will see the babies dressed as honeybees and bunny rabbits, sleeping on their father's shoulders, their pudgy little hands still clutching the handles of their orange plastic pumpkins. And when we've said hello to everyone on the street and gushed over the costumes of other people's children, we'll go home and dump the goody bags and separate the contents into piles. We'll sneak a treat while the kids' heads are turned and it will all be over for another year. Here's hoping you all have that much fun on Spook Night too!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Refresher Course...Rules of the Road
I'm the first person to admit that I am not the world's greatest driver. The formula one people are not knocking down my door to sign me to an obscenely lucrative contract. I have run up my share of kerbs while trying to parallel park and I stalled so much when I learned to drive a standard that I got frustrated and gave up altogether. However, I am reasonably sure that I, and the vast majority of us, know the rules of the road and apply them, as well as the rules of courtesy, regularly. This gentle reminder is for those who do not.
1. The lane on the left is for passing, hence its name The Passing Lane. It is not for cruising along absently. It is not a feeder lane for the left hand turn you intend to make fourteen blocks henceforth. It is not there to alleviate the boredom of always driving in the right hand lane. It is for passing. Once you have finished passing, please move over to the right hand side and feel free to cruise along absently. The rest of us will use the left lane to pass you.
2. And on the eighth day, God created turn signals. Enough said.
3. You, in all likelihood, were born with two hands. One is clearly on your mobile phone. The other is wrapped around your coffee cup. What, in the name of hell, are you steering with?
4. Weaving is for qualified basket makers. In the city, in the heat of rush hour traffic, the only place you are going to get to ahead of me by repeatedly changing lanes is the next red light. And you might just endanger other drivers, not to mention yourself, in the process. Relax. Turn on the radio, listen to the morning drivel and enjoy the fact that the traffic is making you ten minutes late for work, a place you probably don't really want to go to anyway. Tell your boss there was a bottleneck holding things up. He'll understand. It happens.
5. While we all enjoy a little music while we drive, we don't need to hear each other's. Here's a good tip: if the car is visibly vibrating and drivers around you are clutching their chests and covering their ears, your music is likely too loud. Apart from the fact that you are a nuisance to everyone, you will go deaf. Period. For all our sakes turn it down, even just a little.
6. You cannot effectively discipline your rambunctious brat, in bumper to bumper traffic, by giving him the evil eye via the rear view mirror and swatting him with a road map, and still stay focused on the road. Pull over. Admonish/ scold/ threaten the offending waif to within an inch of his life, then resume the commute. My unblemished bumper thanks you.
7. Cyclists...you cannot demand equality on the road if you are not willing to comply with the rules. We all understand that you have every right to be on the road too, and you are just as important as motorists are, but if you want to be entitled to the privileges you must also accept the responsibilities. Therefore, hand signals are not elective. You must use them. If you don't you have no right to complain that a motorist got in your way when you didn't bother to tell him where you were going. Also, stop signs and red lights apply to you too. And it is probably worth the few bucks investment to buy a head light and a tail light, for your safety, of course.
8. Just because your fancy car cost more than my house does not mean you own the road. You just own a fancy car that cost more than my house. Now get over into your lane so I can pass you. Thanks.
9. DON'T F*ING TXT MSG WHILE DRVNG. IT'S DNGEROUS, **SHOLE!!
10. If it says 'No Parking', it means you can't park there. If it meant 'You can stop here with your hazard lights on and/or motor running for five minutes while you just nip into Starbuck's for a quick coffee' it would say 'Pretentious Prat Parking - five minute time limit' or 'Starbuck's Drive Thru'.
11. And finally...ladies, there is not enough time, at a red light, to rummage through your purse looking for lipstick or eyeliner. The 422nd law of the universe clearly states that items lurking in the depths of a woman's handbag can only be retrieved when needed by removing every single item one by one. The required item will always be found last. As soon as the item is no longer immediately required, it will leap into the hand of the woman every time she reaches into her bag. That's just the way it is. Even if you could find a lipstick before the light turned green, if the person you want to see you with full, pouty, hyperglossed, kissable lips is in the car with you, they've already seen you without it so the lipstick can wait. If they are not in the car with you, you can take a minute when you get where you are going to touch up your face. The person in the car next to you doesn't care whether you have on lippy or not. They're too focused on the road.
Hopefully this clarifies a few things. Happy Driving!
Note: Thank you to Lane for the Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. I've never been awarded anything before.
1. The lane on the left is for passing, hence its name The Passing Lane. It is not for cruising along absently. It is not a feeder lane for the left hand turn you intend to make fourteen blocks henceforth. It is not there to alleviate the boredom of always driving in the right hand lane. It is for passing. Once you have finished passing, please move over to the right hand side and feel free to cruise along absently. The rest of us will use the left lane to pass you.
2. And on the eighth day, God created turn signals. Enough said.
3. You, in all likelihood, were born with two hands. One is clearly on your mobile phone. The other is wrapped around your coffee cup. What, in the name of hell, are you steering with?
4. Weaving is for qualified basket makers. In the city, in the heat of rush hour traffic, the only place you are going to get to ahead of me by repeatedly changing lanes is the next red light. And you might just endanger other drivers, not to mention yourself, in the process. Relax. Turn on the radio, listen to the morning drivel and enjoy the fact that the traffic is making you ten minutes late for work, a place you probably don't really want to go to anyway. Tell your boss there was a bottleneck holding things up. He'll understand. It happens.
5. While we all enjoy a little music while we drive, we don't need to hear each other's. Here's a good tip: if the car is visibly vibrating and drivers around you are clutching their chests and covering their ears, your music is likely too loud. Apart from the fact that you are a nuisance to everyone, you will go deaf. Period. For all our sakes turn it down, even just a little.
6. You cannot effectively discipline your rambunctious brat, in bumper to bumper traffic, by giving him the evil eye via the rear view mirror and swatting him with a road map, and still stay focused on the road. Pull over. Admonish/ scold/ threaten the offending waif to within an inch of his life, then resume the commute. My unblemished bumper thanks you.
7. Cyclists...you cannot demand equality on the road if you are not willing to comply with the rules. We all understand that you have every right to be on the road too, and you are just as important as motorists are, but if you want to be entitled to the privileges you must also accept the responsibilities. Therefore, hand signals are not elective. You must use them. If you don't you have no right to complain that a motorist got in your way when you didn't bother to tell him where you were going. Also, stop signs and red lights apply to you too. And it is probably worth the few bucks investment to buy a head light and a tail light, for your safety, of course.
8. Just because your fancy car cost more than my house does not mean you own the road. You just own a fancy car that cost more than my house. Now get over into your lane so I can pass you. Thanks.
9. DON'T F*ING TXT MSG WHILE DRVNG. IT'S DNGEROUS, **SHOLE!!
10. If it says 'No Parking', it means you can't park there. If it meant 'You can stop here with your hazard lights on and/or motor running for five minutes while you just nip into Starbuck's for a quick coffee' it would say 'Pretentious Prat Parking - five minute time limit' or 'Starbuck's Drive Thru'.
11. And finally...ladies, there is not enough time, at a red light, to rummage through your purse looking for lipstick or eyeliner. The 422nd law of the universe clearly states that items lurking in the depths of a woman's handbag can only be retrieved when needed by removing every single item one by one. The required item will always be found last. As soon as the item is no longer immediately required, it will leap into the hand of the woman every time she reaches into her bag. That's just the way it is. Even if you could find a lipstick before the light turned green, if the person you want to see you with full, pouty, hyperglossed, kissable lips is in the car with you, they've already seen you without it so the lipstick can wait. If they are not in the car with you, you can take a minute when you get where you are going to touch up your face. The person in the car next to you doesn't care whether you have on lippy or not. They're too focused on the road.
Hopefully this clarifies a few things. Happy Driving!
Note: Thank you to Lane for the Rockin' Girl Blogger Award. I've never been awarded anything before.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Sick Day
So, I think it's about bloody time I actually wrote about writing, seeing as the writing process is the reason I started this blog in the first place. I will likely be up half the night, having slept for three hours late this afternoon, so I might as well do something productive with the time. I was off work today. I took an impromptu holiday yesterday to enjoy the crisp air and breathtaking scenery of autumn. I love autumn. Truth be told I was feeling a little sorry for myself. Not exactly sure why; things are good, but every once in a while we all need a completely self-indulgent day to feel unabashedly sorry for ourselves and nurture our souls. Yesterday was that day. The boss was away, my work was caught up, for the most part, and our office was closed for the morning, so it seemed like a great day for a holiday.
Today is, emphatically, not a holiday. Today is punishment for the wanton hedonism of yesterday. Today I feel like some sadistic bastard is continually snapping elastic bands against the soft, fleshy part at the back of my palate prompting me to swallow what feels like a stew of thumb tacks, gravel and wet sand in a rich, thick gravy of snot and battery acid. Thank God for tea. I was well into the second pot by ten o'clock this morning.
There are certain things you discover while hunkered down with a blanket on the couch on sick days that you would never get the opportunity to discover otherwise. For example, the floor of the Rachael Ray show actually revolves so that the audience doesn't have to move when the focus of the show changes. So if you are an exceptionally lazy person looking for free entertainment while on holiday in NYC, get tickets to the Rachael Ray show. Also, tea molecules duplicate themselves inside the body. I'm not a scientist, so I'm not entirely sure if this is true, but it would explain the fact that for every two pots of tea I consumed, I peed four. Anyway, enough about the hideous sore throat day. It feels a whole lot better now after drinking enough tea to float a cruise ship, a cup of chicken bouillon and a spoonful of grainy vanilla ice cream that really should have been thrown out weeks, if not months, ago.
Tonight I am writing. I foolishly sent the first three chapters of my manuscript off to an agent before it was finished and received the rejection slip last month. The first draft has been finished for ages and I thought sending it off prematurely would force me to finish it completely. I won't do that again. The entire time it was away I was terrified that the agent might want to see the rest of it and I'd have to send an email to the effect of 'Thank you for your interest, Splendid Agent. Unfortunately I am a putz of mammoth proportion and have only a shoddy second draft riddled with holes to show you. Please hang in there. I will send the rest in due course. Sincerely, Arsehole.' Now that I have been rejected I am going to take the time to finish it properly before taking the plunge again. My stomach can't take the stress of potentially looking like an idiot to an agent who has taken the time to request a full manuscript.
I'm having a bit of a hard time trying to put the bits and pieces together. I don't write sequentially so I have to put it all together after I've written vignettes. The problems come when the vignettes contradict each other or when I inadvertently leave little holes in the plot here and there. Now I am filling the holes. It's difficult to get into a rhythm when you're just filling holes. Although I suppose it might be easier if I'd buckle down and get on with it. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make one more cup of tea then buckle down and get on with it. Goodnight.
Today is, emphatically, not a holiday. Today is punishment for the wanton hedonism of yesterday. Today I feel like some sadistic bastard is continually snapping elastic bands against the soft, fleshy part at the back of my palate prompting me to swallow what feels like a stew of thumb tacks, gravel and wet sand in a rich, thick gravy of snot and battery acid. Thank God for tea. I was well into the second pot by ten o'clock this morning.
There are certain things you discover while hunkered down with a blanket on the couch on sick days that you would never get the opportunity to discover otherwise. For example, the floor of the Rachael Ray show actually revolves so that the audience doesn't have to move when the focus of the show changes. So if you are an exceptionally lazy person looking for free entertainment while on holiday in NYC, get tickets to the Rachael Ray show. Also, tea molecules duplicate themselves inside the body. I'm not a scientist, so I'm not entirely sure if this is true, but it would explain the fact that for every two pots of tea I consumed, I peed four. Anyway, enough about the hideous sore throat day. It feels a whole lot better now after drinking enough tea to float a cruise ship, a cup of chicken bouillon and a spoonful of grainy vanilla ice cream that really should have been thrown out weeks, if not months, ago.
Tonight I am writing. I foolishly sent the first three chapters of my manuscript off to an agent before it was finished and received the rejection slip last month. The first draft has been finished for ages and I thought sending it off prematurely would force me to finish it completely. I won't do that again. The entire time it was away I was terrified that the agent might want to see the rest of it and I'd have to send an email to the effect of 'Thank you for your interest, Splendid Agent. Unfortunately I am a putz of mammoth proportion and have only a shoddy second draft riddled with holes to show you. Please hang in there. I will send the rest in due course. Sincerely, Arsehole.' Now that I have been rejected I am going to take the time to finish it properly before taking the plunge again. My stomach can't take the stress of potentially looking like an idiot to an agent who has taken the time to request a full manuscript.
I'm having a bit of a hard time trying to put the bits and pieces together. I don't write sequentially so I have to put it all together after I've written vignettes. The problems come when the vignettes contradict each other or when I inadvertently leave little holes in the plot here and there. Now I am filling the holes. It's difficult to get into a rhythm when you're just filling holes. Although I suppose it might be easier if I'd buckle down and get on with it. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make one more cup of tea then buckle down and get on with it. Goodnight.
Friday, September 28, 2007
No longer a meme virgin...hurrah!
I have been meme'd for the very first time ever!!! When Lane said she'd meme'd me, I didn't have a bloody clue what it meant, being new to this blogging business. I only hoped it didn't hurt. Then I read her blog and Jen at work enlightened me. I have to say it's all very exciting. Just thinking that someone wants my opinion on something gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Of course she might just have been desperate for a fifth person, but I'm choosing to believe the former. Anyway, enough of the pleasantries. Here goes:
Total number of books: A few hundred. If I didn't live in a matchbox there would be walls of bookshelves, but space is an issue. There isn't a room in my apartment without reading material.
Last book read: Currently reading Fame Fatale, a feisty little romp by Wendy Holden.
Last book bought: Bright Lights, Big Ass, by Jen Lancaster. I laughed so hard I think I might have peed a little. (Too much information?)
Five meaningful books: It's sad really but I'm just not that deep, however I'll give it a whack anyway.
Anything by Dr. Seuss. Loved him as a child, love him still. I think he has somehow shaped the life and imagination of any child who has read him.
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald. Read it initially in high school. It has everything you could ever want in a novel and it is so beautifully crafted. It made me realise how effortless writing can seem.
Oliver Twist by Dickens. Saw the musical film first as a child and developed a huge crush on the character, or maybe developed a huge crush on Mark Lester who played Oliver. Then years later I read it and loved every word of it.
The Reader by Bernard Schlink. It's a story about the nature of love and whether or not love can survive the unfathomable. Very provocative.
The Other Side of the Story by Marion Keyes. It's just a good, funny story, but it focuses on the publishing industry from three different perspectives, so it was meaningful for me. A good laugh is always meaningful for me.
So, there you have it. Now, in the tradition of the meme, I'm supposed to tag five more victims...er, enthusiastic, willing participants. I would like to hear what Travis Erwin, Sarah G, Terrie Farley Moran, Juliette M and KeVin K have to say about this.
Total number of books: A few hundred. If I didn't live in a matchbox there would be walls of bookshelves, but space is an issue. There isn't a room in my apartment without reading material.
Last book read: Currently reading Fame Fatale, a feisty little romp by Wendy Holden.
Last book bought: Bright Lights, Big Ass, by Jen Lancaster. I laughed so hard I think I might have peed a little. (Too much information?)
Five meaningful books: It's sad really but I'm just not that deep, however I'll give it a whack anyway.
Anything by Dr. Seuss. Loved him as a child, love him still. I think he has somehow shaped the life and imagination of any child who has read him.
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald. Read it initially in high school. It has everything you could ever want in a novel and it is so beautifully crafted. It made me realise how effortless writing can seem.
Oliver Twist by Dickens. Saw the musical film first as a child and developed a huge crush on the character, or maybe developed a huge crush on Mark Lester who played Oliver. Then years later I read it and loved every word of it.
The Reader by Bernard Schlink. It's a story about the nature of love and whether or not love can survive the unfathomable. Very provocative.
The Other Side of the Story by Marion Keyes. It's just a good, funny story, but it focuses on the publishing industry from three different perspectives, so it was meaningful for me. A good laugh is always meaningful for me.
So, there you have it. Now, in the tradition of the meme, I'm supposed to tag five more victims...er, enthusiastic, willing participants. I would like to hear what Travis Erwin, Sarah G, Terrie Farley Moran, Juliette M and KeVin K have to say about this.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
A little service, please.
Let me say at the outset that I do not profess to be an expert on customer service. I am much better at it now than I was at seventeen, when the manager (and by manager I mean pimply-faced youth on a power trip with a mere three months more seniority than me) at a major McFood chain hauled me into the office to give me McShit, made me sign my file and suspended me for a week for not smiling at a customer. (May my nipples fall off if I'm making this up.) I lost a week's salary and a substantial chunk of my teenage dignity for not smiling at one jackass customer with nothing better to do with his Saturday afternoon than complain about the poor little girl at the counter just trying to make enough money to buy a pair of Nike All-Courts with the smurf-blue swoosh and a pair of red Lee painter pants. (Stop laughing! They were cool at the time.) You'd think he would have been happy that the burger he ordered without the sauce actually arrived on his tray without the sauce, but I guess that wasn't enough for him. He wanted an effing smile too. Bastard.
So, I've acknowledged that teenagers don't always get customer service bang-on, and that's understandable. Their minds are full of other things like the opposite sex and rock stars and film stars and zit cream and the opposite sex. I get that. But the little twerp who served me, and I use that term very loosely, at the cleaners the other night needs to have his ass fired, or he at least needs to be hauled into the office, given shit, forced to sign his file and suspended for a week.
I didn't go there to drop off or pick up clothing. I'm a firm believer that if it needs to be dry-cleaned or ironed then I don't need to wear it. I went in to see about a part-time job, because when you work in the non-profit sector and you don't have a roommate, you need a second job. I stood at the counter for at least a minute, maybe two, waiting for him to figure out that I was there. A minute doesn't sound like a long time but it is. Stop reading this and time one minute. Go.......See? It's a long time. Finally he came out from behind a door, presumably a washroom or a stockroom door, scratching his arse. And I mean that quite literally.
"Yeah?" he grunted. Not 'Hello, can I help you?' Not 'Hi, how are you?' Not even 'Yes?' Just 'Yeah?', with all the enthusiasm of Lindsay Lohan at a sobriety convention.
"Hi, I understand that you are looking for staff."
"Uh...I think we were? But the boss? Isn't, like, here."
He began to fidget with some invoices on the counter.
"You think you were?"
"Yeah, but we hired someone already. But, uh, maybe we need one more person."
'As soon as they fire your butt, you mean?' was on the tip of my tongue but I pulled it in. I might, after all, have to work with this guy at some point.
"Is there an application form I can fill out?" I said, positioning myself directly in front of him, trying to prompt him to look at me and give me his full attention, such as it was.
"Nope. You have to bring in a resume."
"Okay, to whom should I address the cover letter?"
"The manager."
Mental note to self: Do not slap this child, do not slap this child, do not slap this child...
"Does the manager have a name?" At this point, the bitchy was beginning to creep in but can you blame me?
"Fred." (Name changed to protect the idiots.)
"And Fred's last name?"
Idiot Boy looked at me as if I'd just asked him to mentally calculate pi to forty-six decimal places.
"Does Fred have a last name?" I asked. Slowly.
"Uh, just a minute." He opened the drawer under the till and riffled through the pages of an address book. This could take a while, I thought, since Idiot Boy doesn't know Fred's last name and therefore won't know what alphabetical section to look in first. Sooner than I expected, he said "I think it's Smith." (Name again changed.)
"Okay then. Thank you. I'll bring Fred a resume tomorrow."
"He won't be here tomorrow."
"His day off?"
"Yeah, but I'll be here tomorrow so you can just give it to me."
Not a hope in hell! "When will Fred be here next?"
"Monday, I think."
"Okay, I'll drop it off Monday then."
"Cool," he said, and resumed farting about with the invoices.
Like I said, I was no customer service genius at seventeen but if anyone had come into my McWork and said 'I hear you're looking for staff,' I'm reasonably sure I could have come up with 'I think so but the manager won't be in until Monday. Feel free to drop off a resume to the attention of Fred Smith.' Although there's no guarantee I would have smiled when I said it.
NB - It is not my intention to, in any way, denigrate the McFood chain alluded to in this post. They are splendid and I had some of the best times of my young life working for them. I don't mind denigrating the anonymous McDink who suspended me. You know who you are.
So, I've acknowledged that teenagers don't always get customer service bang-on, and that's understandable. Their minds are full of other things like the opposite sex and rock stars and film stars and zit cream and the opposite sex. I get that. But the little twerp who served me, and I use that term very loosely, at the cleaners the other night needs to have his ass fired, or he at least needs to be hauled into the office, given shit, forced to sign his file and suspended for a week.
I didn't go there to drop off or pick up clothing. I'm a firm believer that if it needs to be dry-cleaned or ironed then I don't need to wear it. I went in to see about a part-time job, because when you work in the non-profit sector and you don't have a roommate, you need a second job. I stood at the counter for at least a minute, maybe two, waiting for him to figure out that I was there. A minute doesn't sound like a long time but it is. Stop reading this and time one minute. Go.......See? It's a long time. Finally he came out from behind a door, presumably a washroom or a stockroom door, scratching his arse. And I mean that quite literally.
"Yeah?" he grunted. Not 'Hello, can I help you?' Not 'Hi, how are you?' Not even 'Yes?' Just 'Yeah?', with all the enthusiasm of Lindsay Lohan at a sobriety convention.
"Hi, I understand that you are looking for staff."
"Uh...I think we were? But the boss? Isn't, like, here."
He began to fidget with some invoices on the counter.
"You think you were?"
"Yeah, but we hired someone already. But, uh, maybe we need one more person."
'As soon as they fire your butt, you mean?' was on the tip of my tongue but I pulled it in. I might, after all, have to work with this guy at some point.
"Is there an application form I can fill out?" I said, positioning myself directly in front of him, trying to prompt him to look at me and give me his full attention, such as it was.
"Nope. You have to bring in a resume."
"Okay, to whom should I address the cover letter?"
"The manager."
Mental note to self: Do not slap this child, do not slap this child, do not slap this child...
"Does the manager have a name?" At this point, the bitchy was beginning to creep in but can you blame me?
"Fred." (Name changed to protect the idiots.)
"And Fred's last name?"
Idiot Boy looked at me as if I'd just asked him to mentally calculate pi to forty-six decimal places.
"Does Fred have a last name?" I asked. Slowly.
"Uh, just a minute." He opened the drawer under the till and riffled through the pages of an address book. This could take a while, I thought, since Idiot Boy doesn't know Fred's last name and therefore won't know what alphabetical section to look in first. Sooner than I expected, he said "I think it's Smith." (Name again changed.)
"Okay then. Thank you. I'll bring Fred a resume tomorrow."
"He won't be here tomorrow."
"His day off?"
"Yeah, but I'll be here tomorrow so you can just give it to me."
Not a hope in hell! "When will Fred be here next?"
"Monday, I think."
"Okay, I'll drop it off Monday then."
"Cool," he said, and resumed farting about with the invoices.
Like I said, I was no customer service genius at seventeen but if anyone had come into my McWork and said 'I hear you're looking for staff,' I'm reasonably sure I could have come up with 'I think so but the manager won't be in until Monday. Feel free to drop off a resume to the attention of Fred Smith.' Although there's no guarantee I would have smiled when I said it.
NB - It is not my intention to, in any way, denigrate the McFood chain alluded to in this post. They are splendid and I had some of the best times of my young life working for them. I don't mind denigrating the anonymous McDink who suspended me. You know who you are.
Monday, September 24, 2007
If they're on sale, buy lots!
So, after the ten-pages-gone-mysteriously-missing fiasco of last week, I felt compelled to restore some semblance of order to my postage stamp-size apartment so that future attempts at locating vitally-important objects are not quite so distressing. Don't get me wrong. It's a lovely, little apartment with a lovely, little sunroom to write in and a lovely, little kitchen, perfect for preparing lovely, little meals. It's just so small that if I don't keep on top of the editing, things can get out of hand very quickly. You would think that the smaller the flat, the lower the chance of losing things because there are only so many places they could be. But let me assure you, it is staggering how much extraneous crap you can cram into a scarcely four hundred square foot space.
Let me emphasize that I am not the kind of slob who doesn't clean for twenty-eight years until Kim and Aggie turn up, rubber-gloved and ready for action, at the door. The regular cleaning gets done, well...regularly. No obvious buildup of thick, brown grot on the stovetop, few, if any, spiders lurking in the corners, no long-dead vermin or wayward hairs in the fridge, no pet by-products ground into the carpet and left to petrify. I would not be mortified if company were to show up unannounced. I am not sure, however, whether I'd be comfortable with them rifling through my linen cupboard.
I started with the front hall closet. How hard could it be? Take out the coats, footwear and vacuum cleaner, sweep, mop, put everything back. Piss case. Except that I completely forgot that over the past three years I've used the shelves at the top as a catch-all. I found two cans of spray paint that I have never used; can't remember what I bought them for but, clearly, there was a project in the offing at one point. I also came across a bottle of carpentry glue that I used to fix my coffee table. And ruin my couch. (If anyone knows the secret to getting an obscene quantity of wood glue out of upholstery, please post.) There were also many small, tool-type items including my handy-dandy electric screwdriver - the single woman's best friend. Alright, maybe not best friend but certainly in the top five.
I vaguely recall tissues being on sale for the crazy low price of fifty-nine cents a box. I vaguely recall a limit of four boxes per customer. I have no recollection whatsoever of making three trips to the shop to snap them up. If you consider the fact that I keep a box of tissues beside my bed, one in my sunroom, one on the back of the toilet, one on the bookcase next to the couch and one on top of the fridge, you will realise that there are seventeen boxes of tissues in my scarcely four hundred square foot space. Seventeen! Does that seem excessive to anyone else or is it just me? What in the holy and sanctified name of God am I going to do with seventeen boxes of tissues? Two of the opened boxes are printed with bells and snowflakes, which would obviously suggest that I have not managed to get through them since last Christmas. It's nearly October. It will take me roughly four years to use them up. Kids who started ninth grade two weeks ago will graduate high school before I need to buy tissues again. They will have cast, shot and premiered Pirates of the Caribbean VII before I need to buy tissues again. Britney Spears will have been married and divorced two more times before I need to buy tissues again. Interesting, I think, that I just put the last roll of bog paper on the spindle this morning. I can cruise right through seventeen rolls of that stuff in about eight weeks. Must buy some more, though I suppose I could just use tissues, if need be.
My front hall closet is now spotless. The tissue boxes are piled neatly at the back of the top shelf, like a floral cardboard brick wall. The things I use more frequently are stacked in front of them. I've made space so that accessing the coats, footwear and vacuum cleaner is much easier. In a few weeks, when I've recovered from the trauma, I will tackle the linen cupboard where, incidentally, the linens have not been kept for the better part of a year because there is no room for them.
Let me emphasize that I am not the kind of slob who doesn't clean for twenty-eight years until Kim and Aggie turn up, rubber-gloved and ready for action, at the door. The regular cleaning gets done, well...regularly. No obvious buildup of thick, brown grot on the stovetop, few, if any, spiders lurking in the corners, no long-dead vermin or wayward hairs in the fridge, no pet by-products ground into the carpet and left to petrify. I would not be mortified if company were to show up unannounced. I am not sure, however, whether I'd be comfortable with them rifling through my linen cupboard.
I started with the front hall closet. How hard could it be? Take out the coats, footwear and vacuum cleaner, sweep, mop, put everything back. Piss case. Except that I completely forgot that over the past three years I've used the shelves at the top as a catch-all. I found two cans of spray paint that I have never used; can't remember what I bought them for but, clearly, there was a project in the offing at one point. I also came across a bottle of carpentry glue that I used to fix my coffee table. And ruin my couch. (If anyone knows the secret to getting an obscene quantity of wood glue out of upholstery, please post.) There were also many small, tool-type items including my handy-dandy electric screwdriver - the single woman's best friend. Alright, maybe not best friend but certainly in the top five.
I vaguely recall tissues being on sale for the crazy low price of fifty-nine cents a box. I vaguely recall a limit of four boxes per customer. I have no recollection whatsoever of making three trips to the shop to snap them up. If you consider the fact that I keep a box of tissues beside my bed, one in my sunroom, one on the back of the toilet, one on the bookcase next to the couch and one on top of the fridge, you will realise that there are seventeen boxes of tissues in my scarcely four hundred square foot space. Seventeen! Does that seem excessive to anyone else or is it just me? What in the holy and sanctified name of God am I going to do with seventeen boxes of tissues? Two of the opened boxes are printed with bells and snowflakes, which would obviously suggest that I have not managed to get through them since last Christmas. It's nearly October. It will take me roughly four years to use them up. Kids who started ninth grade two weeks ago will graduate high school before I need to buy tissues again. They will have cast, shot and premiered Pirates of the Caribbean VII before I need to buy tissues again. Britney Spears will have been married and divorced two more times before I need to buy tissues again. Interesting, I think, that I just put the last roll of bog paper on the spindle this morning. I can cruise right through seventeen rolls of that stuff in about eight weeks. Must buy some more, though I suppose I could just use tissues, if need be.
My front hall closet is now spotless. The tissue boxes are piled neatly at the back of the top shelf, like a floral cardboard brick wall. The things I use more frequently are stacked in front of them. I've made space so that accessing the coats, footwear and vacuum cleaner is much easier. In a few weeks, when I've recovered from the trauma, I will tackle the linen cupboard where, incidentally, the linens have not been kept for the better part of a year because there is no room for them.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Fall cleaning
I started a story a little over a year ago, but ten pages in I put it aside to work on the Effing Novel From Hell. The idea has wandered into my thoughts a handful of times since I put it away, but I've always managed to simply scrawl one or two brief notes on a post-it or the back of a grocery receipt and banish it to the shoe box of random ideas under the bed until I finish ENFH and can devote my undivided attention to it. That all changed Friday night.
I was watching Sex and the City on DVD - the episode where Big drives out to Aidan's house in the country to cry on Carrie's shoulder over some snooty actress who doesn't deserve him. Classic episode - moving on. I'm not sure what part of the show made my story pop into my head but it did. With a vengeance. I had to find it and reread it immediately and, with any luck, whip off ten more pages in an hour and a half then stand back in awe of my sudden bolt of inspiration.
I opened the file box marked, ever so originally, STORY IDEAS and opened the pink folder I had filed the story in. But it wasn't there. I scanned through the rest of the folders for the pages. No luck. I looked through all of them again but it was definitely not there. Somewhat perplexed, I opened the desk drawer, but all I found was a box of paper clips, two erasers, an exacto knife, a roll of Scotch tape, two keys that must open something, although what I have absolutely no idea, and half a box of Smarties that have been there so long that the packaging has since changed. No papers of any sort, unless you count the cardboard insert on the Scotch tape. I systematically went through the heap of yet-to-be-filed papers that have been piled on the second shelf of my bookcase since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but the story remained elusive.
It was about that time that all hell broke loose. We've all experienced it - the volatile cocktail of confusion, panic and sheer frustration that compels us to rip through an apartment like a category five hurricane, leaving untold chaos and destruction in our wake. I turned things over, emptied things out, pulled things down, strew things from one end of the flat to the other. Somewhere in this heap were ten pages I had a feeling I would never see again, no matter how hard I searched for them. I resigned myself to the fact, made tea and started on the Smarties, still delicious after all those years.
It took three days to sort through the wreckage. In the recesses of my brain I suppose I thought I might come across the pages during the clean up operation. But as I placed the last box on the shelf, I solemnly accepted the loss and vowed to move on.
Yesterday my earring rolled under the couch. I reached to retrieve it and my fingertips brushed across the dog-eared edges of what felt like ten sheets. I pulled the stack out and skimmed the first few pages. But the mood had passed. I filed them in the pink folder.
I was watching Sex and the City on DVD - the episode where Big drives out to Aidan's house in the country to cry on Carrie's shoulder over some snooty actress who doesn't deserve him. Classic episode - moving on. I'm not sure what part of the show made my story pop into my head but it did. With a vengeance. I had to find it and reread it immediately and, with any luck, whip off ten more pages in an hour and a half then stand back in awe of my sudden bolt of inspiration.
I opened the file box marked, ever so originally, STORY IDEAS and opened the pink folder I had filed the story in. But it wasn't there. I scanned through the rest of the folders for the pages. No luck. I looked through all of them again but it was definitely not there. Somewhat perplexed, I opened the desk drawer, but all I found was a box of paper clips, two erasers, an exacto knife, a roll of Scotch tape, two keys that must open something, although what I have absolutely no idea, and half a box of Smarties that have been there so long that the packaging has since changed. No papers of any sort, unless you count the cardboard insert on the Scotch tape. I systematically went through the heap of yet-to-be-filed papers that have been piled on the second shelf of my bookcase since dinosaurs roamed the earth, but the story remained elusive.
It was about that time that all hell broke loose. We've all experienced it - the volatile cocktail of confusion, panic and sheer frustration that compels us to rip through an apartment like a category five hurricane, leaving untold chaos and destruction in our wake. I turned things over, emptied things out, pulled things down, strew things from one end of the flat to the other. Somewhere in this heap were ten pages I had a feeling I would never see again, no matter how hard I searched for them. I resigned myself to the fact, made tea and started on the Smarties, still delicious after all those years.
It took three days to sort through the wreckage. In the recesses of my brain I suppose I thought I might come across the pages during the clean up operation. But as I placed the last box on the shelf, I solemnly accepted the loss and vowed to move on.
Yesterday my earring rolled under the couch. I reached to retrieve it and my fingertips brushed across the dog-eared edges of what felt like ten sheets. I pulled the stack out and skimmed the first few pages. But the mood had passed. I filed them in the pink folder.
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