Working Retail Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Have you ever been in a hospital watching someone wearing medical scrubs perform open-heart surgery on a patient and asked yourself, "I wonder if that guy is a doctor. I'll ask him."

Neither have I!

You know why? Because that's a stupid-ass question that you shouldn't even ask! Especially during an open-heart surgery. Like...what are you even DOING in that operating room? Who let you in?

This is an example of how dumb people are the moment they cross the threshold from the outside world into my place of work. It's like there's an invisible force field that doesn't permit brains to enter the premises and customers bodies pass through with all internal organs intact (except sometimes their bladders) while their brains fall plap on the concrete outside.

Don't believe me? Hear these tales of woe that I'm sure any human who has worked more than 72 hours in retail can attest to:

1. When a customer looks at you as you're dressed in full uniform, company gadgets attached to your person as you're doing something that only employees have any business doing (stocking shelves, running a cash register, etc.) and the customer asks, "Do you work here?" Probably the most dumbfounding, yet the most common of all derpy-headed idiotic utterances. Because of its commonality, however, I am convinced that there must be little imposter employees that lurk around the store dressed like they work there, tricking customers by leading them to the wrong product and scrambling signs. This must be the case, because nobody is that dumb.

2. When a customer approaches you with an item off of a rack and says, "This is just so confusing and it's really hurting my brain to try to figure this out so I was hoping you could help me with this before I just kill myself out of frustration and lack of understanding...how much is this item?" At this point, you must use your finger to point to the sign on the rack where the item was pulled off from. Often times you have to read the numbers and words really slow so you don't overwhelm them with too much information. Sometimes if they can repeat it back to me without making any mistakes, I reward them with a graham cracker.

3. When it's time for a customer to pay for their purchases and they approach the cashier who is standing at their register with the light on and a red carpet rolled out for the customer to approach, and they ask, "Are you open?" Bonus points awarded if the customer follows up with, "Do you work here?"

4. When a customer does this shit

Really now, do these people insert food into their asses and try to shit out their mouths? If you know anyone who does this, please murder them and any offspring they may have immediately.

5. When a customer who is in fact NOT legally blind or even illegally blind asks you where something is when they're standing right. In front. Of it.

The list could literally, not figuratively, go on and on. Moral of the story? Be a fireman.

Here's something to end on a positive note and to restore your faith in the human race:

The Perfect Road Trip?

In honor of this great country's birthday (happy 2,015th, America!) I thought it would be appropriate to share with you a fantastic way to visit it all in one asphalt-covered trip! According to scientists and people with way more time on their hands than myself, there is such thing as the "perfect" road trip. One that takes you across each contiguous state without leaving the country or making you drive through Idaho for more than 500 miles. It looks a little something like this:

Although if I had my way, I would include poor Hawaii and Alaska. We didn't fight the British Crown just to have 48 states!

Hope you don't have anything planned for the next 2-3 months!

You're probably wondering what all those little destination pins represent. Well, wonder no longer! I have for you the list!

1. Grand Canyon, AZ
2. Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
3. Craters of the Moon National Monument, ID (Bring sunscreen and something else to do.)
4. Yellowstone National Park, WY  (Warning: Do not goad the bison.)
5. Pikes Peak, CO
6. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, NM
7. The Alamo, TX
8. The Platt Historic District, OK
9. Toltec Mounds, AR
10. Elvis Presley’s Graceland, TN 
11. Vicksburg National Military Park, MS
12. French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
13. USS Alabama, AL  (Weird name.)
14. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL
15. Okefenokee Swamp Park, GA  (Completely normal name. "Ned Flanders, let's go to Georgia!" "Okefenokee, neighboreeno!")
16. Fort Sumter National Monument, SC
17. Lost World Caverns, WV
18. Wright Brothers National Memorial Visitor Center, NC
19. Mount Vernon, VA
20. White House, Washington, DC  (Shut up, Washington, DC. You're not a state!)
21. Colonial Annapolis Historic District, MD
22. New Castle Historic District, Delaware
23. Cape May Historic District, NJ
24. Liberty Bell, PA
25. Statue of Liberty, NY
26. The Mark Twain House & Museum, CT
27. The Breakers, RI
28. USS Constitution, MA
29. Acadia National Park, ME
30. Mount Washington Hotel, NH
31. Shelburne Farms, VT
32. Fox Theater, Detroit, MI
33. Spring Grove Cemetery, OH
34. Mammoth Cave National Park, KY
35. West Baden Springs Hotel, IN (But just the hotel.)
36. Abraham Lincoln’s Home, IL
37. Gateway Arch, MO
38. C. W. Parker Carousel Museum, KS
39. Terrace Hill Governor’s Mansion, IA
40. Taliesin, WI
41. Fort Snelling, MN
42. Ashfall Fossil Bed, NE
43. Mount Rushmore, SD  (Take lots of pictures and don't expose the film while driving through the Badlands! Hah...you're welcome for that glimpse into my idiotic, blunder-filled childhood.)
44. Fort Union Trading Post, ND
45. Glacier National Park, MT (See warning for YNP)
46. Hanford Site, WA
47. Columbia River Highway, OR (If it's not raining.)
48. San Francisco Cable Cars, CA (Really? Cable Cars? These scientists ARE aware that there's also a Golden Gate Bridge in this city, right? Well, I guess they are smarter than me...)
49. San Andreas Fault, CA  (That earthquake was all San Andrea's fault!)
50. Hoover Dam, NV

How many of these national treasures have YOU seen? If your number is between 0 and 9, hop in that car of yours and go see that beautiful country of ours! If your number is between 10 and 29, not bad, not bad, but I think you can do better. If your number is between 30 and 49, you're almost there! Call in to work tomorrow and explore this fantastic land of the free and home of the brave! If your number is 50...well la-dee-frickin-da! You want a medal or something?!

 

In Which I Talk About The Cobbler...and Not the Peach Kind!

Oh man, it's been a while, hasn't it? I'd like to apologize...but I'm not going to.

I suppose I haven't really pinpointed the purpose of this blog. Is it to ramble? Is it an outlet for my frustrating observations of this crazy thing we call life? Is it a cry for attention? Is it a place where I can safely criticize the crap out of everything I deem unworthy of this world? How about...all the above?

...Or how about it's a thing I do because I want to and I don't need to explain myself to ANYBODY!


Today I'll be criticizing -- I mean, reviewing...okay fine, criticizing the movie The Cobbler. Why did I italicize the title? Because I am one grammar savvy beeyotch.

Not unlike most Americans, I saw the cover of this film and immediately assumed, "Yes, another Adam Sandler piece of horse shit that is ridden with awkward crassness and painfully unfunny poop humor. ...I LOVE IT ALREADY!!!" When I started watching the film, however, I was met with an unfamiliar tone of sincerity and heartbreaking truth of humanity. I was very disappointed.

Honestly, though, I was excited to see a film with Adam Sandler that actually drew me in emotionally rather than with the promise of 1,000 fart jokes. Sandler plays a Jewish cobbler, which apparently still exist in Manhattan...cobblers, not Jews...who is begrudgingly upholding his family shop and taking care of his senile mother. His shop neighbor, Steve Buscemi, is a barber who acts suspiciously fatherly to him throughout the film. Sandler is approached one day by a perky activist chick, who is conveniently single but would be waaaay too young for him in the real world, and encourages him to sign some petitions to keep his shop from being gentrified. He goes against his wishes of taking this out from his pathetic life to sign the petition because he hopes this will get him laid.

Days later, Method Man enters Adam Sandler's shop to get his alligator shoes resoled. We don't know much about Method Man yet, but the film strongly hints that he's a bad motherfucker and he wants his shoes fixed TONIGHT! Adam Sandler works after hours to fix Method Man's shoes for fear of getting murdered when his machine explodes. When he can't get anyone to come fix it in time, he resorts to the ancient relic he keeps in the cellar from his great, great, great grandfather. But this machine is MaGiCaL!!! When he stitches the shoes and tries them on for shiggles, he immediately BECOMES Method Man!

After much confusion and heavy breathing and cheap camera tricks, Adam Sandler discovers that any pair of shoes he stitches with his ancestor's machine will allow him access to their bodies. (!!!) For a solid eight minutes of film, he tries on dozens of shoes and becomes dozens of people including a transgender and a corpse. Amazingly all these shoes are his exact size. At no point through this whole experiment does he stop and question why he has so many pairs of unclaimed shoes.

Armed with this special ability, Adam Sandler decides he can be "anybody I want!" Which of course isn't entirely true. He can be anybody he wants from the small selection he has...which it turns out aren't very interesting. If I had the ability to become the likeness of any of my customers, I'd look in the mirror for a long time and think "This is creepy." and immediately go back to my life. Adam Sandler, however, takes utmost joy in wandering around Manhattan in someone else's body. He doesn't do anything he wouldn't normally do otherwise. He does, however, use the ability to stalk Perky Activist Girl by staring at her through a window as he occupies a 13 year old's body.

At home, he talks with his mom who laments that she only wants to have dinner with his father one last time before she kicks off. Adam Sandler gets the crazy idea of putting on his father's shoes and becoming Dad (Dustin Hoffman) for one mind-bending night with his mom. I was totally betting on the evening ending, or at least going in the direction, with Mom trying to get frisky with her long-lost husband and Sandler being unable to deny his mom's wish, thus resulting in an awfully grotesque, yet classic Sandleresque attempt at humor. However, I was one again deeply disappointed.

The next morning, Mom is dead, but most likely died happy after having gotten to see her fake husband one last time. Adam Sandler is devastated. He can't afford a decent casket for Mom because he spent the last week of work dicking around in other people's bodies, dining and dashing and fapping off to Perky Activist Girl. When he finally returns to work, Method Man is waiting for him demanding his gators. Sandler dickishly asks for Method Man's ticket and upon not having it refuses to return his shoes. Method Man threatens Adam Sandler and leaves without putting up much of a fight. This launches the second leg of an already drawn-out story!

Sandler packs about ten pairs of shoes with him and follows MM around Manhattan. Upon observing him through several different bodies, and apparently finding time change into them without being seen transforming, he discovers MM is quite the douchebag. He gets in random fights with convenient store workers, he beats his girlfriend, he orchestrates the gentrification project that's threatening the city block that Perky Activist Girl is fighting to protect...Wait WHAT!! This guy is very busy! And what a coincidence that he gets his shoes fixed at Adam Sandler's shop and wears the exact same shoe size as him!

Sandler, in Method Man's body, manages to enter MM's apartment in search of his expensive watches to hock for his Mom's well-deserved, diamond-encrusted casket. But when Method Man unexpectedly walks in to the apartment and sees..Method Man! things get dicey!

Eventually Real Method Man is defeated by Adam Sandler Method Man and is left tied to a chair and gagged. Out of his vast selection of shoes to wear for the intimidating captor role, Sandler chooses the transvestite's stilettos and transforms into probably the least intimidating person to demand where the watches are hidden. Personally I would've picked the corpse. If I didn't look scary enough, I would've at least stood quietly and waited for the stench of rotting flesh to break Method Man's will. But whatever.

As his interrogation goes fruitless, Method Man's homies show up. Oh no! Now Adam Sandler Method Man emerges and travels all over on a mission to "get his money." After stopping by a few sketchy warehouses, they make their final stop at a nice upstate mansion where Evil Gentrification Mastermind Lady is cooking crab ragu and hands Adam Sandler Method Man a giant brick of money. At this point in the film, I disabled my suspension of disbelief and tuned out the nonsense of the logistics of why this lady would want to bulldoze a city block in Manhattan and why she would have any business paying off a thug like Method Man to do anything that the government should be doing in the first place. It was all supposed to make sense, but it wasn't!

Like I'm supposed to make sense out of a film in which the protagonist can transform into someone else's body just by wearing their shoes.

Back at the apartment, Adam Sandler, still in Method Man's body, opens the door...to Method Man in Method Man's body! Instead of just shooting him dead like a true thug would've done, Method Man in Method Man's body launches into the long-winded speech about how "you're dead, you're SO dead!" that only truly good writers would engage in. A struggle ensues, transvestite body takes over, a kick in the jugular with the stiletto ends MM's life. Because stiletto heels are sharp objects.

Adam Sandler panics and turns himself into he police but when they go to retrieve the body, it's GONE! What a craaaazy movie!

Perky Activist Girl and Adam Sandler then team up to fight the new enemy, Evil Gentrification Mastermind Lady, and together they take her down in a very confusing, probably unnecessarily complicated way that I refuse to recall. But it involves putting on the shoes of every henchman involved and transforming into several different bodies. In the end, EGML is defeated and everybody wins.

One final kidnapping attempt later, Adam Sandler wakes up to find himself in Steve Buscemi's barber shop. At this point I jokingly exclaim: Steve Buscemi is Adam Sandler's father! Because at the rate this movie was spiraling and twisting, it was very possible.

Lo and behold, Steve Buscemi takes off his shoes and becomes Dustin Hoffman. "I'm your father the whole time!" Adam Sandler is pissed. I would be too if my father chose to hide from me for decades in Steve Buscemi's body. Turns out Dustin Hoffman had to hide from the world because of all the horrible situations he found himself in and chose that particular moment to reveal himself because...by God it was TIME.

The film ends with father and son driving off in Dustin Hoffman's fancy shiny car that was hidden underground, driven by personal driver named Webb...I can't even finish this thought because I am so done talking about this movie!!


EDIT: For being "one grammar savvy beeyotch" I sure had to fix a lot of typos.

Childfree is For Me or: How About You Stop Telling Me How to Live My Life!

As I've tried not to use this blog as an outlet for my frustrations and dirty laundry that I can't air out on Facebook or in my therapy sessions without getting harshly judged and shunned and banned from the Morrison Center, I just need to throw this particular rant out into the world to relieve some pent-up annoyances.

I don't want kids.

Shut up. Let me finish.

I don't want kids. I don't care for kids. I can't see myself having kids. I am pretty sure if I become pregnant I'll promptly and swiftly end my life. I have a very strong opinion about kids and why I don't want them. As such, I get very passionate when other people try to tell me that I'm wrong and I actually don't know what I want out of my life and that I have no idea what I'm talking about. So maybe instead of reading this as a rant, maybe take it as a list of very detailed, passionate instructions for those of you who don't already know about my decision.

I'll make this simple and structured. Here's a list of things you shouldn't say to me.

1. "Well, that's very selfish of you."

Why? Since when is making a life decision being selfish? That's like telling someone who is applying for a higher paying job that they're being selfish.Also I think not having a desire to make a mini clone of yourself so you can prime it to be the best thing this world ever saw is the opposite of selfish.

2. "I didn't think I wanted kids when I was your age either."

 Yeah, I'm not you. And don't say "either" like you know me. In fact, don't even say any of this. We are all different. Whatever worked for you won't necessarily work for me. Maybe you were scared of having kids and you didn't think you could live up to society's expectations of being a good parent. Then you overcame your fear. Me? I just don't want them. The end.

3. "You'll change your mind."

Oh, I wasn't aware I was talking to a being from the future! Tell me what else I'm going to do five years from now! Also fuck you.

...Okay, that was a little harsh. Please go fuck yourself. Better?

And perhaps a nicer way to say this is instead saying "Maybe you'll change your mind" rather than being so definite about it. Yes, I will concede that. Maybe I will change my mind about reproducing. Just like I may change my mind about liking Bruce Springsteen music or what gender I want to be for the rest of my life. It's a possibility, albeit highly unlikely. Thanks.

4. "Don't your parents want grandchildren?"

I'm pretty sure my parents had a hard enough time raising three hellions of their own, so why would they possibly want to put themselves through it for another 18 years?  I guess I can see the appeal in watching me try (and probably fail) to raise a child. Witnessing the struggle, the frustration, the agony. The regret. The poop. "Mom, Dad, help me!" I'd scream from the abyss of vomit and toys, reaching desperately for their hand as they laugh, eating popcorn...laughing...

No.

5.  "Who will take care of you when you're old and senile?"

The same people who would probably take care of me if I chose to have kids: the good ol' government!

6. "You'll regret it when you're 40."

Yes, I'll definitely regret my early retirement and tight vagina. What have I done??!

7. "Well, that's not fair to your husband."

Wow, okay if you think he married me knowing full well what I didn't want and he's just waiting for me to change my mind for him, then he deserves to be disappointed. In other words, NEITHER OF US WANT KIDS!

8. "But Disneyland..."

Is open to adults too.

9. "Just watch. You'll get pregnant someday and you'll fall in love with your baby and you'll want more and then I'll say I told you so!"

Yeah, funny. Watch out for that bear next to you.

 

The Day of Hating Love That We Love to Hate

Well it's that God-awful time of year again. The one day of the year when everybody spends a large fraction of their annual income on items that will wind up in the garbage and/or the toilet in the form of bodily waste just to appease the societal pressures of a holiday that was invented by greeting card companies. 

Don't get me wrong; I am happily married to the most wonderful doofus I've ever met, yet I abhor this holiday more than a fat kid hates treadmills. Maybe it's the near decade of working in retail that has given me this hostile attitude towards pretty much all holidays, but seeing the desperation and stress and unnecessary anger in everybody in the days leading up to the 14th has really put a bad taste in my mouth for this holiday. It's just another day, people! This isn't the one day of the year you're supposed to express your affections and do nice things. 

Okay tirade over.

The whole point of this blog is to make you feel a about today. So here's a sweet video that will boost your self-esteem and make you happy about being single/that your own marriage proposal wasn't as successful as you'd hoped.

Wasn't that nice?

Okay here's something to end this post on a relatively good note without making me seem like a completely callous, hateful bitch.

Happy VD.

Why You Gotta Be So Obnoxious? My Review of "Rude"

I'm reviewing a song now. Because it's my blog and I do what I want!

Last summer radios exploded with a reggae sensation Magic! That's Magic! with an exclamation point. Like they're screaming at you. Also when you speak the band name, you're supposed to yell as the exclamation point instructs. Even if it's a question.

For example:
"Jeff, have you heard the new song by Magic!?"
"Why are you yelling at me, Greg?"
"I'm just excited about the pop music scene's evolution into a more eclectic sphere thanks to Magic!"
"Please stop."

Magic!'s song "Rude" tells the tale of a fellow's struggle to get his girlfriend's father's permission to marry her.

The song attempts to lead the listener into thinking the singer is going to see his girlfriend to "ask you a question" but then it turns out that he's talking to "an old-fashioned man." By now the confuzzled listeners don't know what the hell is going on until the singer bops into "Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life/until someone younger and hotter comes along." And shockingly the father tells him no, after which the singer launches into that oh-so-catchy chorus of lamenting on how "rude" he's being and how he's hurting his feelers and then decides "Meh, I'm going to marry her anyway."

...You're going to "marry her anyway"?? Then what was the point of asking for permission? "I don't care what you say; I'm undermining your ass!"  Now who's being rude?

By the way, his first mistake was saying "Can I" instead of "May I." There's a huge difference between "Will you allow me the opportunity to marry your daughter (may I)?" and "Do you think I'm physically capable of partaking in a matrimonial ceremony with your daughter (can I)?"  Maybe the father was just being bluntly honest with him by answering no. "No, you can't marry her because you're one of those guys who just talks about it for the first two months of the relationship before you fizzle out and focus more on groupies and fantasy football. Then she'll just dump you."

The whole premise of this song is just asinine. If he's really that hellbent on marrying this girl, why is he letting some guy stop him? Unless he has some serious morality issues and needs to validate them.

"Sir, can I marry your daughter?"
"She's three years old."
"WHY U SO MEAN!!"

But despite him making the effort of respectfully involving her father, the singer still vows to go behind his back and do the deed anyway and even threatens to "run away to another galaxy." Now there's a guy who clearly has his shit together. Dad, you're being a dick!

 By the end of the song, Magic! has everybody rallied on their side fighting for justice and equal rights for deadbeats everywhere. They've even taken Twitter by storm with their hashtag #nomeansyes

The song ends as it began. Crappily. And with no successful persuasion. The lesson? When dad says no, ask mom. If they both say no, write a pouty song about it and make millions of dollars.

Well, thank you, Magic!, for teaching Americans that you don't need permission for anything if you want it badly enough.

Also, congratulations on your one hit wonder. I'll be seeing you at the Boise Music Festival in about eight years.

Movie Knockoffs You Love to Hate

So anyone who's ever been to a Redbox kiosk or has browsed through Netflix's library has probably stumbled across one of these gems.

Some of you may have seen one of these and thought "Wow, I thought that movie was still in theaters, but I can get it today! And it's actually in stock! This must be my lucky day!" And after the fateful credit card transaction and confusing, frustrating 10-45 minutes of "...What IS this??" filled with fast-forwarding and double- maybe triple-checking your disc, you realize then that you've been  robbed and deceived and the evil copycatters on that second-floor office in Denver are laughing all the way to the bank.

If you have fallen victim to this atrocity, do not be ashamed. You are not alone.

...I mean, I never have. I'm too smart for them. Bwahaha!

But millions of Americans have been victims of movie duping.  And surprisingly enough it's not a new thing! The first case of movie duping dates back to 1939. Studio execs saw the booming success of a blockbuster and wanted a piece of the pie. They came up with the idea of releasing a sub-par film under a near-identical name and movie poster, thus avoiding pesky copyright laws and banking on the naive, unobservant consumer stumbling in and spending money on a film that they weren't meaning to see. Genius!

Here's one of the actual posters from 1939. 

I probably would've fallen for it myself.

So as you can see, movie duping has been confusing movie-goers way before the birth of Netflix and Redbox. In fact, I can personally tell you of one from my own childhood. 

The year was 1994 (Yes, I'm OLD!!) and I had an unhealthy obsession with The Lion King. I loved this movie so much, I was willing to undergo breakthrough, perhaps borderline illegal surgery to become a lion. But I had posters, bed sheets, dolls, watches...pretty sure I was single handedly bankrolling Disney's Christmas parties with my consumption. But the one piece of Lion King memorabilia I didn't have yet was the most quintessential of them all: the movie itself!

Being a young, stupid child, I didn't understand the concept of scheduled film releases. All I knew was the movie was no longer being shown in the theater and the next step was for it to come out on VHS (...I told you I'm old!) so I bothered my parents to check every day at the video stores to see if The Lion King was on video. Every day I was disappointed. "Not yet, Jamie," they would say. 

"But WHEN??!! Maybe you just didn't see it! Go check again! Go! GO! HURRY BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE BUYS IT!"

Yeah, I was pretty dense.

So one day my father, bless his soul, came home one day from his daily trip to the video store with a parcel in tow. "I got you something you  might liiike!" he sang to me.

I remember promptly abandoning my Lion King cereal and bolting to him, arms extended to the VHS in his hand. "YOU GOT IT!!" I screeched to the world.

When I grabbed the video out of his hands, I feasted my eyes upon it and beheld my coveted--

...

The fuck?

Is this a joke?

Is this some sort of

SICK

FUCKING

JOOOOOKE????!!!

I immediately thrust the atrocity back at my dad like the spoiled brat I was and told him he got the wrong movie. 

"But you might like it better than The Lion King!" he insisted. "You'll never know unless you give it a try!"

Better than The Lion King?

BETTER than The Lion King????

Even with a tiny child brain I could tell from the first glance at the cover that it paled in the shadow of its superior Disney counterpart. The duration of  the film was 45 minutes. The cover animation was lousy.  Siskel and Ebert didn't even give it any thumbs...probably because they knew better not to waste their time! This movie was obviously trying to pass itself off as the loveable blockbuster...or at least trying to sucker in kids like me to watch it! But I knew better. I wasn't going to fall for their shit, and I was going to tell my dad such.

"But Daaaaaad..." was my respectable retort.

"Just give it a chance," he said before leaving me alone with the pathetic excuse for a cartoon.

I grumbled as I shoved the cassette into the VCR thinking "Maybe he's right."

This thought lasted for a grand total of 2.5 seconds. 

The movie was exactly what the cover promised: inferior garbage.

I was so enraged that I left the room several times while the TV played to an empty couch. I think even my VCR was mad. 

45 agonizing minutes later, I rewound the tape (not only am I old, but I'm also courteous to other suckers) and threw it back at my dad proclaiming my rage and disappointment and that I'd never trust any of his decisions again. 

But being as young and idiotic as I was, the rage I was channeling to my father should've been directed to the film executives who spent time making a piece of garbage to market to unsuspecting children as myself and banking on our excitement for a film about anthropomorphic lions. Shame on them! They are the real enemies!

So anyway as you can see, movie duping has been pissing off people of all ages and generations. Don't be a victim! Fight the power! Buy only licensed products! Eat eggs!