Loss of innocence

I was driving Mac, my coworker, back to his car after work yesterday. Even as the words were in my mouth (condemning me...) about how I drive on campus, I heard the toy booping noise. I do not know where that bastard was hiding, because I know where to look for them. Takes my license, tells me to "sit tight there John," and goes back to his car to call in what he's just caught. Must have been proud of it, too, because he comes back and says "hey, wasn't I just in orientation with you last week?" ............................ What. the. hell.

I refrained from asking him if I was his first one, and did not mention any pitted fruits. He went easy on me, though. So I didn't even pay for the experience. Which does not mean that any element of the incident was consensual.

If people were allowed to pump in Oregon

I find it interesting how isolated incidents throughout my day occasionally trigger the blog reflex. Either that or the "character in my first novel (?)" reflex. On our way out of Sacramento yeserday, two of my sisters and I stopped by an Albertsons to buy snacks for the road. I got a large Rockstar, a Holiday Spice P---i, and a box/bag of Zours. I figured at 3:30 p.m. on a holiday, I should be able to get out quick. I figured I would take my first shot at a self-checkout lane. Never done it anywhere before.

There were four of these lanes, in the four corners of a square shaped expanse. First problem was trying to figure out where to wait. Form one line and wait for one to open? This resulted in our line quickly blocking the store's main artery between the check-out lanes and the isles. Okay, so I ambled up behind a lady that looked like she might be done quickly.

And it felt like an underwear dream. Everyone behind me in line was back where we started, looking at me as if I had wandered into some sort of a DMZ. Okaaaay, back to safety. In about five minutes or so, no one had moved. I was first in line when I got there, and the same four people are still there. Well, three. One was a manager dinking around in Windows XP on the touch screen. The other three--all three--had an abundance of produce. The only items in the whole bloody store that don't have bar codes on them. This required these people to select "produce," and then spell the beginning of their food, and then pick a picture from the likely matches the screen brought up. And these people apparently thought there are more than ten varieties of broccoli, because they just couldn't do it. It was like Oregonians trying to pump their own gas, but parking at the curb and using one-gallon cans to transfer the fuel from the pump to their tank. Only when you're behind these people in line...

Too clever for our own good

I recently got this alarm clock. My mom got it for me for my birthday to replace the one I got at a drugstore in Oxford that I really liked and therefore broke. I think it actually got broken from one too many half-asleep "What the hell is that noise make it stop make it stop make it stop slap slap crap" as I knocked it off the bookcase next to my lofted bed. Neither here nor there. What I liked about it was that it started with a series of single soft beeps, and gradually doubled the number of beeps at a time until it got to continuous beeping. See, the makers of that one realized that the longer the thing goes off, the more imperative it is that the subject be woken.

Not so my new one. It goes off at the initially set time, even with a similar beeping pattern. If you hit snooze, it goes off five minutes later. If you hit snooze then, it goes off five minutes later. If you hit snooze then, it's done for the morning. Yep, you got your three alarms. If you're not up now, it's content to let you screw yourself out of a job. I can imagine reasons someone would make it that way, but no good reasons. "Now, if you leave it set when you're not there, you won't piss off your family/roommates," or "This way the batteries will last longer even if your employment doesn't," or "Dumbass Alarms: you want to snooze? We let you snooze."

So far I've only been screwed a few times. You know that feeling you get when you were supposed to have woken up to an alarm when it was dark outside, and instead you wake up after a dream finishes and there's just enough hint of light outside to give you that sinking feeling? Yeah. I don't like it either.

Pocket Ace

In an effort to jump start my posting, I'm going to go to my pet rant. Easy, yes, but today brought it home.

I hate rain. There is nothing in all of creation that I dislike more strongly than rain. I'm serious. I like earwigs and brussel(s?) sprouts more than rain. Well, I like the sprouts in their own right, but no matter. I have had baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, and all kinds of other games canceled because of rain. I look forward to them for all week, and then one bit of rains wipes them out. My hair does annoying things when it rains. And most recently, what do I work with? Mail. Paper and things wrapped in paper and cardboard. And we're not supposed to let it get wet. Well how the dandyfarking whatisit am I supposed to do that? Ten people died this week because of rain. They died! They're not coming back. A gigantic tree (at least 40 feet tall) toppled in the courtyard of the apartments across the street from us. It broke things and cost people money. Your commute is longer because of rain.

Yet whenever I say "I hate rain," it's like I just dissed people's moms. No, that's not it. It's more like they're sticking up for an abusesive boyfriend/spouse. They like rain as a concept, as something completely separated from the part of their life that they actually live. They don't like driving, working, or doing other necessary things in it, but they love the rain. "He's really a nice guy, he just needs to learn a few things/has a hard time controlling himself/goes a little overboard sometimes, etc." No, you like him when you guys are in the rodeo clown position, and you somehow block out the part where he beats you with a bungie cord. You would like rain if it were somehow something you could experience on like a freaking holodeck. "I'm going to go get rained on now." It is but a shadow and a dream that you love; a shadow that screwed over ten people and they're families this last week. Hope you're happy, assholes. They're not.