How To Go Postal In 20 Minutes Or Less!

I finally have a referent for the phrase "going postal." And it came, unsurprisingly, courtesy of the US Postal Service.

I had ordered the first season of Burn Notice (which is, by the way, a great show. The new season starts July 10...you should check it out!) from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, and it was supposed to be delivered on June 23. So I was very excitedly tracking it online every day, to see how much closer it was. (It ended up sitting in Denver for nearly a week...stupid Denver.) And on June 23, I couldn't wait to get home and open my package!

Alas, it was not to be. I got home to an empty mailbox, an empty porch, no sign of the ever-cheerful Amazon box with its little smiley face. So I was disappointed, but I figured that it would definitely arrive the next day. And sure enough, the next day when I did the online tracking, it showed that my package had arrived in town the day before. However, it also showed that a "delivery attempt" had been made at 3:00 on June 23, but there was no one home. Which is total bullshit. My husband was home all day, and had anyone knocked, he would have heard it. So I knew right then that they were lying.

The website also said that since delivery had been "attempted," a little orange slip would have been left at my door, telling me when to expect a second delivery attempt. Which was also bullshit. So I decided to call the Post Office's Customer Service number, to find out what had become of my package.

I picked the number that specifically said it was for Tracking and Confirmation, since that seemed like the most logical place to start. I had my tracking number ready, called the number I had found...and got to talk to a computer.

It wasn't just one of those that gives you your menu options and you get to hit #1 for English, or whatever. No, this was one of those computers that pretends it's a person, the kind that says things like "What can I help you with today?" or "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that." Because of course you have to talk to it.

Now, I am not a big talker. Sure, I talk to my friends, or to people that I hope will give me money. But talking to strangers is not one of my favorite pastimes. Talking to computers that are pretending to be fully conscious human beings, when in fact they are even stupider than most of the people I am forced to see on a daily basis (and that's really saying something, because most of the people I see on a daily basis have the intelligence of bread. Really really stupid bread. In fact, listening to the people at my work causes my IQ to drop at least 3 points a day) does not make me happy at all.

So I was already not a happy camper, even though the phone call had just started. But it got worse. I followed the voice prompts, actually talking to the stupid computer since I had no other choice, and got to a place where I could enter my tracking number. I did so, and was told that "No information is available at this time." That, of course, just made my blood pressure rise even more. And I determined that the computer would unable to help me and I needed to talk to an actual human being. So I started hunting through the voice prompts for that option.

What an idiot I am! I should have known that it would not be that easy. Those computer phone systems are designed to carefully shield the human workers from the actual customers. So the stupid computer would ask me something, such as "Would you like to order postal products?" and I would say "Customer Service," or "Talk to a person," and that annoyingly cheerful voice (which is all the more annoying by its very inability to convey emotion. If I am annoyed, I want the person on the other end of the phone to be annoyed, too. But that stupid computer phone voice bitch just kept being perky.) kept saying "I'm sorry, that is not an option" or some stupid shit like that. Or I wouldn't say anything, but the idiot computer would mistake the sound of me breathing for an answer, so it would switch me into a different menu.

I spent 20 minutes trying to get around that evil phone system. 20 minutes!! 20 minutes of my life, stolen by the US Postal Service and their evil, incredibly stupid but oh-so-perky phone voice woman! I was ready to kill her by the time I got through to an actual human, ready to wrap the phone cord around her neck and just squeeeeeze very slowly, while she said, in that relentlessly cheerful voice, "I'm sorry, that is not an option at this time!" And then she would die, and lay lifeless on the floor, and I would stab her repeatedly with my letter opener, and I would feel so much better!

So eventually, it all worked out. Despite the phone voice woman's efforts, I was eventually able to get an actual human, who told me where I could pick up my package, and I did, and the DVDs are great, just like I knew they would be. So it's okay, it's fine, I no longer feel homicidal, which I'm sure makes everyone who knows me feel better. But my ordeal has caused me to have a new and greater understanding of how someone could go into a Post Office and kill everyone with a shot gun. Except, when I do it, I'm going to use a rocket launcher. And I'm going after the phone banks first.

A Restful Saturday Morning

Yay! I found something new to be pissed off about! Lucky me!

So this is what happened: Since it's the weekend, I thought I would get to sleep in late yesterday. Not too late, of course, because of the kid, but later than normal. Heck, if I'm lucky (of I remember to drug the kid with Benadryl before she goes to bed) I can usually sleep until about 9:00, so I thought I could accomplish at least that much. How stupid of me! Because my next-door neighbor apparently decided that it would be a great day to have a work crew come put new cement in his freaking driveway...at 7:30 in the fucking morning. Yes, that's right...7:30.

Needless to say, I was not pleased. I had the window in the bedroom open to catch the cool nighttime breezes, so as soon as a giant truck pulled up in front of my house and a bunch of men jumped out and started throwing tons of bricks and a bunch of metal onto the ground and yelling at each other in Spanish, I got woken up. I called the cops, but there apparently no law against doing construction at 7:30 in the morning in a residential neighborhood, or so I was told. So I just got to be miserable, until 9:00, when it was time to start getting ready for my daughter's ballet class.

Well, when it was time to leave, with only 20 minutes to drive across town and get to the class, we stepped outside...to find a cement mixing truck blocking our driveway. So the workmen had to move it. And when we came home, two hours later, it was to find another big truck, this one full of bricks, again blocking the driveway. This time, there were no workmen in sight, but the neighbor was out there, so I rolled down my window and asked her--nicely!--to please have the workers move the truck. And she told me no! That's right, she said no, that I could park in the street and the workers would be gone in a while! Can you believe the nerve of that bitch? First, I get woken up, my precious sleep disturbed by their noise, and then I can't even park in my own fucking driveway! So, yes, I was very pissed at that point. So I went inside to call the cops again, but my husband decided to go talk to them himself and got them to move the truck.

So I didn't get to have my neighbor arrested, unfortunately. But, as a result of this little issue, I am probably going to go outside tomorrow and find a potato in my tail pipe, or something like that. After all, how dare I disturb their cement pouring! But that's okay, because I have a plan. If those neighbors do anything to my stuff, I will go get the turtle that they keep in their back yard (which also makes a great deal of noise, a very strange noise, sort of like a tuba with a cold) and make it into a turtle soup and give it to them as a gift. Because you don't mess with my sleep.

Quiet Time (So Please Shut The Hell Up!)

Ahh. Here I am, 9:00 on a Thursday night with nothing to do. I already watched the TV I wanted for tonight (My Boys, on TBS...great show). I could be watching Burn Notice (USA) but it's an episode that I've already seen. (Man, I do watch an awful lot of TV, don't I? Oh well. My brain is already rotted from listening to the conversations that the idiots at work have all day, so it can't do any more damage. And there are some great shows on cable!) Anyways, I wouldn't be able to hear it over the sound of my screaming child.

I'm sure that any peeping toms in the bushes outside right now think that someone is being killed in my house, when in fact it is just my child, crying over the fact that I made her go to bed without a second bedtime snack. This is the same child who was once eating boogers in Walmart. When I told her to stop it, she looked at me, all innocent with giant eyes, and said "But Mommy, I'm soooo hungry!" I'm surprised that none of the other customers called Child Protective Services on me, to report that my poor child had nothing to eat but boogers. (Or maybe not, considering the quality of Walmart's customers.) So maybe she needs to eat more. But that is not my fault...I told her to eat dinner! But she was more interested in being Snow White and dancing around in plastic high heels (the same ones that made her sprain her ankle--twice!--last year) and trying to make me kiss her Kermit the Frog doll. Kids are freaking weird.

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I really haven't had anything much to complain about lately. Of course, I have seen bad drivers, but it hasn't been as egregious as usual. Also, I think the people at work have finally gotten the hint that I hate them all. Only the die-hard annoying ones have tried to bug me lately, and I brought a set of earplugs to work the other day, so I really can't hear them now. It's a great feeling. Also, it's been kinda hard to post, on a purely physical level. I'm at Monkey Headquarters all day, where I am not allowed to blog, on pain of being spoken to sternly by my oh-so-scary boss, and at home, I almost never have access to a computer, because Mr. Loca is a bona fide computer game addict. I am quite convinced that if something bad happened right outside our door--say, like, World War 3, or a nuclear war--he would never even notice it, unless it disconnected our internet. He would notice that damn quick!

So I am pretty much computerless at home, unless I bribe him with sex or something. (Not that I live up to the bribe, but it usually works anyways. Guys are so dumb!) But tonight, I have computer access because Mr. Loca has Gone Out With The Guys, leaving me with the screaming brat and an otherwise-peaceful house. Ahh.

So when I was checking my email earlier, I had my usual word-of-the-day email. Today's word was a great one: Defenestrate. Guess what it means! No idea? Okay, fine, I will tell you. It means to throw someone or something out of a window! How great is that? English specifically has a word for throwing people out of windows! I am definitely going to have to try to work that word into my every day speech.

Of course, that might prove to be kind of hard because, honestly, how often do you actually get to say anything about someone being thrown out of a window? It's kind of hard to work into a conversation: "So, Mr. Jones was really bugging me today, and I just wanted to defenestrate him!" See...awkward. But I am going to work on it.

I might start with a few people at work. (Sorry, I just thought of someone who bugged me recently!) The other day, the monkey worker committee was selling juice, yogurt, and some other things that had been in their refrigerator for a while, for reduced prices. One of the idiots got a cup of yogurt for 50 cents and ate it, very happily. But when I happened to mention that the yogurt was expired by a few days, she suddenly went crazy. She was sick, she was nauseous, the yogurt had mold, it was bad, she was going to throw up, she wanted her 50 cents back so she could go buy potato chips to settle her stomach (because that makes perfect sense...potatoes fried in grease always make my upset stomach feel better!) blah blah blah. And she sits right next to me, so I had to listen to the whole story multiple times, along with all of her updates on how sick she felt. (This is the same woman who once rented I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry for her young sons to watch, and then complained that it was about...gay people! Not even real gay people, pretend gay people, but still, she didn't want her sons seeing that! Oh My God!) Finally, they gave her her damn 50 cents back, just to shut her up.

So I was thinking that I may take snacks in to work one day that are spoiled and let her eat one. Or better yet, make a cake, and after she's eaten a big old piece (which of course she will) tell her that I used expired milk and expired eggs to bake it. She would probably go into anaphylactic shock on the spot. It would be great! (And the expired yogurts? There was nothing wrong with them. I bought several and took them home to my kid and she ate them with no problem. Of course, she also eats boogers, so that maybe doesn't say anything...)

I will go now (it's after 10:00, past my bed time) but I want to leave you with this reminder: make sure you defenestrate someone today! Preferably an idiot. They deserve it.

A Short Cure for Momentary Boredom

Hello, minions! How are you today? Good, I hope. Unless you're one of the many, many people that have pissed me off lately, then I hope you have intestinal worms or something.

I just wanted to make a very short post today, on a couple of amusing things I've seen in the past couple of days. To begin with, have you ever watched Dirty Jobs? It's a great show on the Discovery Channel. The host goes around to different places and does dirty jobs, like collecting road kill, or helping a scientist determine what snakes are eating by making them throw up, or working at a pig farm. There have been many episodes revolving around farm animals, and these usually involve inseminating the animals. That poor man has inseminated (which also sometimes involves collecting the sperm, which, as you can imagine, is rather interesting) cows, horses, and turkeys, on episodes that I have watched. Last night was the turkey insemination. That was fun. The girl turkeys kept pooping on him.

Also yesterday, when I was driving to work, I saw a car pulled onto the shoulder, with its front left tire missing. There was a sort of burning smell in the air. A little ways on, there was a tire, rolling down the freeway at 65 miles an hour. Apparently, the tire fell off while the person was driving and, according to one of the laws of thermodynamics (I would look up which one, but I really don't care all that much) it kept rolling, because an object in motion tends to stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. Well, the outside force was the guard rail. The tire rolled across all four lanes of the freeway (and remember, there was other traffic on the road, which had to slow and swerve to avoid the rolling tire), bumped into the guard rail, kept rolling back across the freeway to bump into the other guard rail, and finally stopping, spinning like a dropped coin, to lay on the shoulder until the poor schmuck in the tire-less car came to get it. Sucks to be him!

I also wanted to point out a new feature of this wonderful blog. If you look all the way down at the bottom of the page, you will notice that I finally figured out how to install a hit counter! (I figured out to have my husband do it for me! Yay me!) So you have to open this page lots of times, so that my hit counter will show that lots and lots of people are reading my blog and my (already huge) ego can grow even more. Thanks!

Happy Stupid Day!

So, was yesterday today National Stupid Day, and nobody bothered to tell me? Because that's what it seems like. I encountered scores of idiots yesterday. I swear, one of these days, the massive amount of stupidity that I have to deal with is going to drive me insane, and I am either going to have an aneurysm, or I am going to start killing people with a machete. I know which one I think would be more fun.

Seriously, though, people just love to drive me crazy. As always, my elevator-ific seat at work was a constant source of joy. This really really really (did I say really) annoying woman, who ALWAYS wants to talk to me, though I have made it clear many times that I am not the talkative type, decided that this time, since I had headphones on and obviously couldn't hear her (it apparently never occurs to people that I can hear them just fine, I just like to use the headphones as an excuse to ignore them), she would pound on my desk until I was forced to look at her. That's right! She pounded on my desk with her fist until I turned to look at her. And then said "Hi!" with a nice cheery smile, and walked away. I would have loved to follow her and strangle her with my headphone cord but, unfortunately, killing stupid people is still illegal in most states.

Then, I had this wonderful, enlightening experience. I had sent a file back to one of the other workers at my office, with a note asking her to correct a mistake she had made. The mistake was on parts 6, 7, and 8 so, on my note, I put to correct #6-#8. Now, as a normal human being (if, indeed, you are a normal human being) what does that mean to you? It means #6 through #8, yes? Not #6 and #8. But #6 and #8 is exactly what she fixed, totally ignoring #7. I am amazed that she is actually able to walk erect.

Then, of course, there were other, incidental annoyances. The supervisor from another department who asked me to do something for her while I was on my lunch break, and when I refused (pointing to the giant pink sign hanging from my monitor that says "BREAK"), gave me a look like a dead fish, all bulging eyes and O mouth. Or the mere sight of the anorexic woman. She looks like a starving 10 year old boy--no boobs, no butt, nothing but bones, a concave stomach, and weird spiky hair. (Personally, I think she should come as an Ethiopian for Halloween--all she would need is some flies to buzz around her eyes, and maybe one of those tall sticks.)

But, by far, the worst example of stupidity that I saw all day was driving home (big surprise, isn't it?) First, it took me a good 10 minutes to get on the freeway, because right past the on-ramp, a garbage truck had gotten into an accident with a pickup truck, and they were blocking off one of the lanes. Yes, you read that right. A big, blue, stinky, garbage truck. What the hell it was doing on the freeway at all is beyong me. I really think that large vehicle like that should be confined to regular streets, because when I'm blowing down the freeway at 75 mph, the last thing I want is to get stuck behind a slow, hulking thing like that. And then, once I managed to get off the freeway (without colliding with a garbage truck) I had this experience. Twice, within half a mile of each other. Both times, someone was trying to make a left-hand turn across traffic. They thought they had an opening, so they pulled out into the next lane, but then they realized that they didn't have time to make it. So then they just sat there, blocking the lane, forcing traffic to slow or swerve. Twice!!

And people wonder why I want a rocket launcher on my car!

Good or Bad?

Hello, all my little flying monkeys! So glad to see you again, I hope you are doing well! I have missed you so much since the last time we spoke!

Okay, enough of that crap.

Today, we are going to talk about things that should be good, but turn out not to be, for various reasons, illustrated by two examples from my own recent life.

The first example is ice cream. Now, I love ice cream. It is one of the best inventions ever, right behind hot showers, Coca-Cola, and vibrators. But the other day, I discovered how ice cream can be bad. The Dark Side of Ice Cream, if you will. This is what happened: There was an ice cream sale at work, so of course, I went to buy something. The ice cream was in a little electric-powered freezer. There were fudgesicles, which looked awfully appetizing, so I got one. Went back to my desk, unwrapped my fudgesicle, popped it in my mouth...and discovered that the freezer was apparently set too cold. Have you ever stuck your tongue on a freezing pole in winter, and it gets stuck, and you have to rip the skin (or whatever it is) off your tongue to get free? Well, that is exactly what it was like, only chocolate flavored. And it wasn't just my tongue, but my lips, too. Once I got free and began to actually eat my ice cream (after I let it melt a little, just to be sure we wouldn't have a repeat of the tongue-ripping) I began to see little red streaks against the brown of the chocolate. Yes, it was blood. A nice bloody, chocolate ice cream bar. Yum.

My second example of good things gone bad comes from this weekend. My husband and I actually had an overnight babysitter for our daughter, something that hasn't happened in more than a month, so we decided to take advantage of it by going to the movies. And, since the house would be kid-free, I figured we would have some adult-oriented extracurricular activities when we got home, so I decided to dress cute. Make up, jewelry, low-cut shirt, sparkly silver shoes, the works. So that was great, I looked hot, everything was fine...until I was standing in line at the concession stand at the theatre, trying to get some popcorn. I was next in line, behind an old man who told the popcorn worker that he wanted "new popcorn, and make sure you stuff it in good." That right there should have warned me. But there I stood, waiting patiently, watching the popcorn, when the old man turned to me, looked me up and down, and said, "Nice shoes." I turned to him, eyebrow raised, and said, "Thanks," and then turned away. A clear "Don't talk to me anymore" signal, if every I've heard of one. But he was not deterred. He moved so he could see my face again, looked down at my cleavage, and said "Nice shirt!" with a dirty-old-man smile on his face. Needless to say, I didn't thank him this time. I gave him a dirty look and proceeded to ignore him, my sexiness ruined.

So we see that even things we think of as good can be bad, under the right circumstances. The lessons I have learned from these two situations are, 1) let your ice cream melt a little before you stick it in your mouth, and 2) carry pepper spray to get rid of nasty old men that are looking down your shirt.

That She Is Mad 'Tis True; 'Tis True, 'Tis Pity; And Pity 'Tis 'Tis True

Today, we are going to talk about a very troublesome issue that is plaguing the world today: discrimination. Discrimination is wrong. I know this because of the countless public service announcements I was forced to watch by the U.S. government while growing up.

See, I grew up as an Army brat, in Germany, and we didn't have real TV over there. Some kids were lucky and their parents sprang for satellite TV from England, but my parents were cheapskates, so the only TV I ever got to watch was the military channel, AFN (Armed Forces Network...get it?). In case you've never had the pleasure of being brainwashed by the government, let me tell you, that is some whacked shit. There was only the one channel, and they tried to appeal to everyone, so there was usually nothing good on, and when there was a good show, it was like two years behind what was being shown in the States. When I moved back here from Germany, I had no idea what was going on in my favorite shows, because I had lost several seasons, just by crossing the Atlantic. It was horrible. I missed the last two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation! Damn you, AFN!

But that's not even the worst. AFN didn't show commercials. Now, when you've seen the fourth commercial in a row where those idiots are shouting about how great their cars are, or one of those "As Seen On TV" products that always look so cool but never seem to work as advertised, you may not think that is a bad thing. Let me assure you, it is. Because to replace the commercials, AFN showed public service announcements. All the time. And they weren't just any public service announcements, like the ones you might see here, about not smoking, or not drinking and driving, or using drugs. No, they had PSA's about everything, from how to not attract terrorist attention (get a license plate issued by your host country, instead of an American one) to what kind of flowers you should take your hostess if you are invited to dinner by a native of whatever country you are currently in (Definitely don't take roses in Turkey. That means you love her! Take daisies instead). PSA's that are still stuck in my head, 15 years later, some including full songs, include:

• a jazz song about not smoking, sung by a woman in a slinky red dress, that goes "It makes your teeth turn yellow, it makes your lungs turn black! A pack-a-day habit only makes you cough and hack! Smoking...makes a fool out of...you!"
• how to ride a motorcycle double (by leaning with the driver, and taking extra time to stop!)
• snippets of poetry by Edgar Allan Poe (don't ask me why)
• the Military Code of Conduct and how if you are captured by the enemy, don't give anything but your name, rank, service number, and date of birth
• a great many bits of American history, which were part of a series called "Shaping America." When each one of those started, a map of the U.S. made out of stone or something would appear on the screen, and a man's hand with a chisel would come and chip away a bit of the stone and there would be a sonorous donging sound, like the map was a giant bell

(And people wonder why I'm warped. Well, this explains it. And if you don't believe me, please do a search on YouTube for AFN commercials. You'll see.)

Well, many of these PSA's were also about things like sexual harassment, or racism. Which (if you still remember my original point) is how I learned that discrimination is wrong. I bring this up today because I often feel discriminated against, due to a medical condition.

The medical condition is called Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow diease. And no, I do not have mad cow disease. But because I used to live in Europe, I may have been exposed to it, and so I am not allowed to donate blood. Not that I really want to donate blood (I really like my blood inside my body, not dripping down a tube into a bag) but I kind of feel obligated to do so. But the one time I actually made it into the Bloodmobile, as soon as they took my history, they kicked me out. I didn't even get a juice and cookie! Those Red Cross bastards.

And so, ever since then, every time I see a Bloodmobile or a PSA (damn those PSA's!) about donating blood, I feel discrimated against. Why can't I be a hero in a red cape? I would make a good hero! I would fly around blowing bad guys up and flourishing my cape, and everyone would be happy. I think if I was going to develop mad cow, it would have happened already. (And yes, plenty of my friends would say that I am already a mad cow. They would also say that I am a crazy bitch, but that is not my point.)

So today I am depressed, due to my mad cow tendencies. If you happen to see me on the street, please come over and give me a smile, a hug, a friendly pat on the back. Just, please, whatever you do, don't give me roses. At least not in Turkey.

Problems Solved!

(I had planned to write this post yesterday, but just when I had opened up the page and started typing, my boss went walking around the division, telling everyone to make sure that we don't blog at work. Who knows why. But since I don't want to be fired from my monkey job, because then I might have to find real work, I decided to postpone it until tonight. So now I am sitting at home in my pjs, drunk. Just FYI.)

It occurs to me that I haven't outlined my positions for my world domination. So I am going to take this opportunity to do so. Just so you know what you are getting into if you decide to support me in my bid to take over the world (and what you're up against if you decide to join the misguided rebellion that is sure to spring up).

First off, stupidity is going to be illegal. There will be mandatory intelligence tests, and anyone who falls below a certain score (100 is a nice round number, but I think maybe it should be higher, just to weed stupidity from the gene pool. Maybe 110.) will be guilty. I haven't quite decided what should happen to intelligence criminals yet. It would be eminently satisfying to kill them, but it may be more useful simply to sterilize them and then force them to do jobs suited to their level of brainpower, such as trash collecting, cleaning, and being weatherpeople.

Second, in an effort to control the population and to prevent things like abused/abandoned/neglected children, there will be mandatory birth control. I'm thinking it will be injected into the water supply, so you really have no choice in the matter. Then, if someone wants to have a baby, they have to pass a test and get a license; then they can get the antidote to the birth control. That way, only people who want and can handle kids will have them, and everybody else can screw all they want without messing up some little kid's life.

All forms of violent crime will have just one punishment: death. So murderers, rapists, wife-beaters, armed robbers...all of them will be put to death. But we're not talking any old death, like lethal injection or the electric chair or anything. No, my vision calls for a shark tank. And the criminal will be sliced up with a small razor, to make him nice and bloody without killing him, and then he will be dropped into the shark tank. We could also use piranhas, lions, and various kinds of poisonous snakes. (I am envisioning a Christian vs. the Lion sort of thing.) And this will all be broadcast as the new reality television (sorry, but all the crap that's on now--American Idol, Big Brother, etc--will be outlawed).

But I really expect the crime rate to go down, because, as everyone knows, most criminals are men, and I really don't expect to keep a lot of them around when my takeover is complete. See, men are really just a pain in the ass, for the most part. So, a lot of them will die. (Again, the shark tanks might come in handy here.) Those that swear loyalty to my regime will be allowed to live, but there will be very limited job options for men in my glorious new world. They can do all the nasty, dirty, heavy work, like construction and farming, things like that, but they will also have the option of being maids, or cooks, or laundry people! The really lucky ones will be allowed to be sex slaves, to keep the women happy and provide children when it is time for that. But those are only the really smart, good looking, nice guys. Sorry, boys! But when I have a dolly (for lifting and carrying heavy things) and a vibrator (well, you know what that is for), you're really kinda obsolete.

Professional sports will be outlawed. You can play sports all you want in your community or school or whatever, for fun. But the second that people start getting paid multimillions of dollars for throwing/catching/hitting some stupid little ball, that is when my special earthquake generator will be deployed, and the entire sports stadium, complete with players and fans, will sink into a giant pit in the ground.

Rap, country, and Spanish "music" will all be outlawed, because they just suck. Also to be banned: as previously mentioned, reality TV, along with movies that have just enough plot to explain why people are shooting other people (the genre I refer to as "action porn"), talk radio, local news programs, sub woofers in cars, mullets, ESPN, and chili.

These are just a few of my thoughts regarding my eventual global domination. I'm sure I will have more another time, but this is a good primer. So if you agree with me, please let me know, so I can add you to the list of my loyal subjects. And if you don't agree with me...well, there will be plenty of room in the shark tank. If you don't mind the sharks.

Miss Manners on Crack

In today's installment of "The Stupid Things People Do That Bug the Crap Out of Me" we're going to discuss two egregious breaches of etiquette that have been committed against me in the past few days: the Pop-In, and People asking Questions about Your Reproductive Status that are None of Their God Damn Business.

First, the Pop-In. If you are not a fan of Seinfeld (and if not, what is wrong with you? That is one of the best shows ever!) you may not have heard of it, but a Pop-In is when someone shows up at your house unannounced and uninvited. Like what my mother-in-law did on Friday night. Now, the m-i-l and I aren't on the best of terms as it is, but I put up with her crap because it gets me a free babysitter sometimes. But she is definitely not my favorite person. And this incident does nothing to endear her to me.

So Friday night, me and my kid are sitting around in our pj's, relaxing. She was playing, I was watching tv. Not just any tv, either, but the second part of the 2 part season finale of Monk, one of my favorite shows. Monk had faked his own death to beat a murder charge, and everyone was going crazy trying to figure out what was happening, and I was really into it...and then my phone rang. Now, thanks to the wonderful invention of caller i.d., I saw it was the m-i-l, and decided not to answer, knowing I could call her back later. I hit "ignore" and went back to my show, thinking that was the end of it. Ha! How stupid of me! Two minutes later, there's a knock on my front door...right in the middle of my show! And what to my wondering eyes should appear but that stupid woman! I was not amused, to put it mildly.

But I let her in, against my will, to see what she wanted. Big mistake. All she wanted was to give my daughter a Valentine's Day present, which had been sitting at her house for 2 weeks, so there's no reason she couldn't have waited until I answered the damn phone to bring it over. But she doesn't have the sense to see that. The woman is a psychologist, for god's sake. You would think she would understand human nature, such as the desire not to be disturbed by people pounding on your door without warning. And yet she has absolutely no common sense. So anyways, she came in and started wanting to chat, but I flatly ignored her until the commercial, at which point I started edging her towards the door. Totally ruined my Monk-watching experience. No wonder I can't stand her. When she's old, I'm going to make my husband put her in a nursing home.

Now, for the second item. This is another one of my "I really hate sitting by the elevator" stories, but I can't help it. I really do hate sitting by the elevator, because it gives all sorts of stupid people an excuse to say really stupid things to me! Like today, when a woman with whom I am just barely acquainted (enough to say hi when we pass in the hallway, but definitely not enough to stop to talk) came up to the elevator, hit the button, said hi and then just blurted out "So when are you going to have a baby?" Like it's any of her business! I'm sorry, but my reproductive plans are not waiting-for-the-elevator talk! Especially not with people I barely know. If we know each other well enough to discuss the details of our sex lives, then you can ask me questions about when I want to have another child. Just a rule of thumb for those of you who were wondering what the proper etiquette in that situation is.

They're Real and They're Spectacular...but Please Don't Touch Them

Have I mentioned before how much I dislike the security guards at my work? They are so incredibly worthless. A bunch of old men and tiny women. Now, I am very proud of being a woman myself, and never think of myself as less than any male, but I understand that if some 250 pound man is rampaging, I am not going to be able to do a damn thing to stop it, especially without a weapon. But these tiny little women, 5 feet tall, are charged with protecting us. Ha! And a bunch of old, fat men, with beer bellies and bald spots. They make me feel oh so safe!

Except, of course, when they are being annoying. Like when they are demanding to see my cell phone, to make sure it doesn't have a camera on it. Oh my god, not a camera phone...eeek! Or, even though I have been working here for 7 freaking years, they still demand to see my badge, to verify that I am an employee and am allowed to walk through the employee entrance. Because I'm a shape-shifter and my face changes on a daily basis! Or when one very tall guard, instead of moving out of the way so that people could walk through, just held his arm up instead, and hadn't bathed for several weeks, or ever washed his uniform...that was disgusting. Literally made my eyes water from the stench.

Or this morning, when one of the guards touched my tit.

Of course, I suppose she probably didn't mean to. I had beeped, like I always do when I walk through the metal detector, and she was waving her little wand over me, trying to determine what sort of dangerous thing I had hidden in my bra (maybe it's the tiny, bra-mounted submachine gun that I carry for personal protection! Or my launchable steel-plated nipple knives, accurate up to 30 feet! Or maybe just an underwire) and her hand brushed my boob (on the inside slope, right above the nipple, in case you were wondering...pervert).

Man, I feel so violated.

I wonder if she wants my phone number.

Liars and Lunch

Man, weathermen (or would that be "weatherpeople"? Or I guess I could say "meteorologist," but that sounds like way too fancy a title for an idiot that stands in front of a green screen and waves his arms like a ninny.) are such liars. Even though it was 60 degrees yesterday afternoon, they promised us snow last night. But did they deliver? Of course not. There was not a drop of precipitation during the night. Bunch of damn lying bastards!

Not that it matters anyway, I guess. Even if it snowed, I would still have had to come to work. The Head Honcho of monkey-work central would demand it. Hell, we could have a raging blizzard, 2 feet of snow, and the HH would probably get a snow mobile and drive to every employee's house to pick them up, just to make sure they could get to work. And then we would be snowed in and end up having to eat our co-workers for sustenance. Thank goodness lots of them look like whales...they will provide a great deal of nutrition for the rest of us.

Speaking of the whales, there is a lunch sale going on in our breakroom right now, which is right next to where I sit. Aren't I lucky, getting to sit right next to the elevator and the breakroom, the most heavily trafficked walkway in the building, when I can't stand to talk to anybody? Ugh. Anyways. So there's a whole herd of people (lots of whom resemble whales, or at least hippos) walking around my desk, carrying their plates full of food back to their desks, gathering by the elevator and talking at the top of their voices. At least this food doesn't stink. Sometimes they have things like chopped onions in there, stuff that just makes my eyes water. Disgusting. Or it's also great when someone sets the toaster oven (which, of course, I also sit next to) on fire. Now that's a great smell!

Man, I'm glad it's finally Friday. I get to go home and hope that I will never have to leave my house again. That would be heavenly.

Shut Up

I really despise small talk. My feeling is, if you don't have something important and substantial to say, then why are you opening your mouth? There isn't enough clean oxygen left to support the planet...we don't need you using it up with your stupid ramblings. And yet there are many situations where people seem to be uncomfortable if they can't think of something to say. And then there are people who just love to talk but don't really have anything to say that anyone wants to listen to.

There are a great many people at my work who have that problem. They always want to talk when they are waiting for the elevator, but they very rarely have anything to say that I find the least bit interesting. A "Hi" or "How are you?" would be fine. But instead, I have to listen to comments like: "Cheer up! You look grumpy!" or (on a Friday) "So it's finally Friday!" Like I don't know what day of the week it is.

But the absolute worst of the bunch are the people who ask questions to which the answers are glaringly obvious. For instance, if I have just cut and/or dyed my hair, I am treated to "Oh, did you cut/dye your hair?" Or when they look at pictures of my daughter and say "Wow, she's growing!" Like that's a shocker! What else do children do, shrink? Or another favorite "Wow, it's raining/snowing!" Because I can't see through glass well enough to see the weather myself.

Man, people are stupid.

Another thing that bugs me (and this has absolutely nothing to do with small talk, but it's been bugging me lately, so I have to add it to my rant) is women wearing stupid boots, especially with dresses. Now, boots are great, worn properly. But properly does not include wearing cowboy boots with sundresses, or high-waters with zip up ankle boots, or big black platform stripper boots to work. Get a grip, people! Go buy some nice boots with a small heel, and wear them with pants or a skirt that is actually long enough. Otherwise, you just look like a freak.

Sorry, I don't really have a lot of coherent thoughts right now. It's almost time to go home from work, and I can't concentrate on my monkey work anymore, so I am just typing and frowning at the screen so that I look busy. Because if I look busy, people are less likely to talk to me. Like George Costanza said, if you frown a lot, people think you are very busy, and that keeps people from talking to me. And anything that keeps people from talking to me (and I am not ruling out global nuclear war in this sentence) can only be a plus.

Driver's Ed Apparently Didn't Work

Pop quiz! Imagine the following scenario: You are in your car, on a small side road that meets a large main street on the diagonal. Right next to you, on both sides of the road, is a big red and white sign that says "YIELD." On the large street, in the lane that you will drive into when you hit the gas pedal, there is a car going around 50 mph. What do you do next? A) Stay where you are until the car has passed, like the yield sign says, and take the opportunity to pull out your cell phone and start texting? B) Pull into the street, but go wide so that you are not in the same lane as the moving car? Or C) Pull out, into the lane in front of the moving car, and then immediately hit your brake so that you can make a right hand turn, almost causing the car behind you (the one going 50 mph) to ram into you?

If you picked A or B, congratulations, you may be a decent driver. If you picked C, I'm sorry, but you are going to die as soon as I get my hands on an automatic rifle. I absolutely hate people who cannot drive. Every day, when I am on the road, I see some great display of stupidity that makes me fantasize about having a rocket launcher mounted on top of my car, so that I can blow these people up and spare the world from having to deal with them. And at my job, I see people's traffic tickets all the time; tickets for having 6 kids in the back of a sedan, all with no seat belt; for driving the wrong way on the freeway; for being so drunk that they crash into a parked car...twice! I actually see this stuff. And these people are actually allowed to walk around free, to use our precious natural resources, to reproduce? I am so killing them all when I take over the world.

In the meantime, here are some more indications that you deserve to die. Do you:

• Change lanes without using your turn signal?
• Speed in a dangerous manner, tailgating the people you can't pass until they are just so desperate to get away from you that they change lanes or swerve onto the shoulder?
• Run red lights/stop signs/yield signs?
• Listen to really loud, bad music, the kind that makes other people's hearts feel like they are going to explode in their chests?
• Talk/text on your cell phone and not pay attention to driving?
• Drive reeeeeeeeeally slow in the fast lane, making the other drivers insane with frustration, especially if they are unable to pass you?
• Drive a semi truck?
• Have one of those bumper stickers that says something like "Jesus loves me" and then drive like a total dick? If Jesus had ever driven, I'm sure he would have been a perfect driver, so if you want to live as a christian, you really should do better.
• Weave your motorcycle between the cars on the road, as if you were invisibile, or invulnerable? That's one reason everybody hates motorcyclists, because they mostly drive like dicks. When I see one doing that, I am always tempted to open my car door, or just swerve a little and hit him.
• Pass people on the shoulder of the freeway if there is no other way to get around them and they are not driving fast enough for you?

I'm sure more examples of bad drivers that should die will occur to me later, when I am driving home, getting cut off by scooters going 80 mph and being tailgated by giant semis that could just roll right over me if I hit the brakes. I just love driving!

Why do people insist on talking to me?

There is entirely too much human interaction in the world. If we lived in some Utopian society, where everyone was smart and pleasant and clean, that would be fine, but since we live in the real world, it's a major problem, at least for me, since I can't stand at least 90% of the people on this planet (and the other 10% can be on shaky ground sometimes). I am reminded of this every time I venture out of my house, and sometimes even when I don't, like when the Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking. The last time they came by, I answered the door in my nightgown (since it was only like 11 a.m., those bastards) and when they started in on their pitch about "freedom from fear" or some other such crap, I told them I was not interested in religion and slammed the door in their faces. (I have also used the "Sorry, I'm a satanist/witch/pagan" excuse on people intent on saving my soul. For some reason, those seem to work great. Guess they aren't that concerned about saving me from everlasting damnation.) Ahh, good times.

So I am seriously opposed to unnecessary interaction with strangers. And I really can't stand when people force their cheerfulness and/or loneliness on me by talking to me in public. This is a list of places where I do not want to be talked to:

• At the store. The only acceptable stranger conversation at the store is a perfunctory "excuse me" as I try to move around some idiot who has the whole aisle blocked, or is letting their stupid kid roller skate in the store. I hate those damn kids with their damn roller shoes. I want to trip them. And I really hate people who try to talk to me in line. If I don't already know you, I don't want to talk to you.
• In a public bathroom. Even friends and acquaintances should shut up there. I hate listening to someone talk while I am trying to pee. Talking while washing hands is okay, though.
• On public transportation. I don't even take public transportation, but if I did, I would not want someone disturbing my ride with their inane natterings. Riding the bus would be miserable enough, without that.
• Panhandlers. I know this is not quite the same category, but I hate panhandlers, especially the ones that approach you in dark parking lots, asking for spare change. I always feel like throwing rotten eggs at them.

There are also a lot of specific people that I don't like to be around, because they will inevitably talk to me. These include the man who sells hot dogs outside my work (he always wants to say hi, but he's creepy and I don't want to talk to him) the security guards inside my work (they are just annoying, and some of the men try to stare at my tits, so I don't really feel like saying good morning to them) and the greeters at Walmart. Honestly, why do I need some old man saying hi to me when I walk into a store? And this, this takes the cake. I sit right next to the elevator at work. So, all day, people are standing by my desk, waiting for the elevator. And what do most of them do (aside from pushing the elevator button multiple times, as if that will make it come any faster)? That's right...they talk to me! As if I wanted to listen to their stupid stories and random cortical firings! One old man (this is totally true, I swear) spent at least 5 minutes telling me about how in Hawaii, people are so into recycling aluminum, that they will steal the lamp posts to recycle them for money. Do I really need that? Especially when I am trying to finish my monkey work! I really need to put a sign up that says "Do not talk to bitch." Wonder if that would help. Probably not. I wish I could build a wall over my cubicle, so that I could not see the elevator. My life would be a whole lot more peaceful then. I cannot wait until I can kill a large percentage of the world population.

Always low prices. Always robots!

so i ordered a tv off of walmart.com for my daughter for christmas. it's a 13 inch, disney princess tv, in a pink case with a little crown on top. disgusting, i know. but my kid is incredibly spoiled and incredibly girly, and she wanted santa to bring her a tv, so that's what santa is getting her. anyways, so i ordered it off of walmart.com the day after thanksgiving. it was supposed to arrive at my local walmart store within 10 business days, and i would get an email when it got there. 3 weeks went by before i got an email from them...and then, the email that i did get, didn't say that my tv had arrived. it said, basically, we've shipped your tv, but we don't know where it is, or when it will arrive, sorry for any inconvenience! like that's going to fly on christmas morning, when santa didn't bring anything and i have a disappointed 5 year old. so naturally, i called the 1-800 number listed in the email, to see if anyone could help me. and what did i get? machines. that's right, only machines. i went through every single menu option on that number, and all i got was a machine. and it wasn't one of those were you just hit buttons. no, this one wanted to talk to you, and wanted you to talk back! i hate those things! "i'm sorry, i didn't understand that." of course you didn't understand it...you're a fucking recording! argh! so then, i email walmart to complain about 1, not having my tv and 2, not being able to talk to a person at their so-called customer service line. and what happens next? i get a reply...also written by a machine! a stupid form letter, thanking me for my email and directing me to walmart.com if i have any questions!!! argh!!! i was set to tear my hair out when i got that email. but now, after reflecting a bit, i realize what's going on. walmart isn't in it for the stores. it's building a giant robot army, deep in whatever rural area its headquarters is, in a bid to take over the world. i can completely understand that, of course. but i at least will have the decency to use people as my slaves, not soulless machines! i can see it now...giant marauding robots, storming across the cities of america, looking like something out of the transformers movie, except they will have big yellow smiley faces on their heads. and they will smile and smile as they stomp your house to dust and then kidnap you and force you to spend all of your money at walmart before they feed you to their energy generator, to make power for the robots to live off of. it's progress! yay.

but on the plus side, the tv did finally arrive. so now we can go ahead and have christmas. i like christmas (when it's actually december and not october). spoiling my kid is fun. and so it having two days off work. it's great to be a state employee! i love getting presents, of course. since my husband is incapable of buying anything for me, i mostly buy my own presents and then he just wraps them. i bought myself a shirt that has a picture of captain kirk and says "i slept with kirk...but who hasn't?" it's great! can't wait to wear it!

man, i am getting sleepy. it's only 9 pm, but i think it is time for bed already. damn winter, makes me tired and lazy. so i am off for now. i will leave you with a quote that i was thinking about today, one which has made quite a difference in my life, by my favorite philosopher, dave barry. "the books all say that barracuda very rarely eat people, but very few barracuda can read..."