A big steaming plate of seppuku, please

I had the most schizoid day at work. It started off bad, as I was late out the door. Then once I'd gotten settled in I made that crucial mistake of thinking "Aaah, today might go ok." Just as I started in on a particularly time-consuming and nit-picky batch of transactions the flood-gates opened and the hell-spawn came pouring in. The people individually were not THAT bad, it was just collectively they were mostly germ-ridden, sneezing, snotting, coughing and demanding of my time and patience. After lunch, I felt strangely elated, though, as all the complicated transactions I had run though all balanced perfectly (cue: Handel's Messiah). Then came the crying baby family, whose engrossing conversation included such gems as "she's hot, maybe she has a fever", followed by "hey, why don't we go ahead and stay here with our screaming, ill infant and find some more stuff to do to our accounts so that everyone can catch whatever vile pestilence we are currently incubating" (I may be paraphrasing a bit) and my favorite "sweetie, it's not nice to fling sharp things at the heads of strangers (me)". It's times such as these I wonder just what physical damage I could inflict upon myself which would garner the most time out of work, yet the smallest copays.

I then dealt with a very nice lady, who I actually thought during our conversation that I could see myself being friends with, but I only realized until later that I had a severe case of diahrrea of the mouth and was babbling incoherently for much of our time together (I mean, does she really need to know the name of my postman? Um. NO.) During this interaction I was called by a coworker and told that I had committed a serious no-no (thanks, don't wait until I'm alone to tell me. Others really should know, too. Why call someone out alone when you can have WITNESSES! It's embarrssment in exponents!)

Then, to top it off, as I hurried to get the really important stuff done before the end of the day, I messed up that nice lady's account and now she's gonna get charged $2.00 extra dollars, and I'm gonna have to refund her her $2.00 dollars, but surely not after I get to explain to her that I'm a complete and total nimrod spazz-freak.

And I keep thinking of the paperboy from Better Off Dead and his two dollars.

I was just waiting for someone to say "Someone's got a case of the Mondays! Hahaha!", and I would have had to immediately punch them in the throat. Calgon couldn't take this day away with bulldozer and a forklift, though I do have a bottle of rum, come to think of it...

Renaissance Woman

Last weekend we went to the Renaissance Fair. It was awesome. I hadn't been to one in many many years, but it was just as fun and ridiculous as I remembered. It was opening weekend, but the weather was cold and drizzly, so we figured the crowds wouldn't have been so bad, and thankfully they weren't. When describing the Renaissance Fair to those unfamiliar with the concept (there is a shockingly large population of people who have no idea what it is, and where they have been for the last several decades I do not know), I usually say something to the effect of "picture medieval disneyland with beer, turkey legs, and jousting". Usually that wins them over.

The food was great, I drank two glasses of Woodchuck cider and was blissfully buzzy for a couple of hours, they should sell hot hard cider (hehe, sounds kinda dirty), though, as my fingers were numb with cold. We watched the jousting and cheered for the villianous French knight who speared his opponents in the back and knocked them off their horses. Awesome. It was like WWF wrestling on horses with big sticks. The guys had the big sticks..er, lances?..not the horsesNEVERMIND. You know what I meant. I mean the fair was kind of bawdy, but I'm surprised how much so my description is.

We very much enjoyed watching a glass-blowing demonstration, so much so we watched him twice. Plus it was warmer next to his ovens. He was this very cool guy with a salt and pepper Santa Claus beard. You got the feeling he probably followed The Grateful Dead around for a few decades before he got in to the glass thing. He waited patiently after the demonstrations to answer people's lame questions. I got us a beautiful green and yellow globe ornament for our future Christmas trees. I told him we'd cherish it every year and he seemed happy to hear it.

Oh, and before I forget. The very best part. The most fabulous booth of all carnival booths I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. It was called Vegetable Justice.

Curious? Well, the description in the ads was "throw tomatoes at surly peasants" and we were all "We are so there." Because when in this day and age does one get the chance to openly throw anything at another human being without get slapped with an assault charge? Pretty much never. And to make this incredible idea even better? To assuage any latent feelings of guilt over blitzkrieging a helpless person with slimy red ammunition? THEY INSULT YOU! They provoke their attacker with some pretty choice insults, practically demanding you bombard them with ripe produce. It...was...beautiful. We watched as several people stepped up and the clever recipient of the seedy assault burned each an every one with his acid tongue, insulting their appearance, parentage, and performance. Some even attempted to insult back, but that was, to all of our eyes, not only an admission of defeat, but of complete douchbaggery. You are supposed to retaliate with the tomatoes. That's what it's about. If you can't hit the guy with the tomatoes, then you suck it up and walk away. Returning insults to a guy whose job is to get plastered with fruit guts just makes you look like a dick. A dick asking for a tomato in the face.

Disorientation

I just spent the last three days in our beautiful state capital at the expense of my generous employer for my official orientation. I got to meet other newbies from across the state, and sit through exciting lectures about nail-biting, cliff-hanging topics such as ethics and tax-advantated accounts. We got no swag (gasp! Non-profits suck!). But they did give us a generous dinner allowance (Yes, I think I would like to see the dessert menu).

The highlights were definitely going out for sushi and manicures with a fellow disorienter, and the cable tv in the hotel. The lowlights were my extremely chipped manicure within twelve hours (not so much a chip as a chunk), and the embarrassment the Embassy Suites calls a "continental breakfast".

I made new friends, as well as a whole contingent of others to add to the growing following of people who think I'm odd and overly talkative. Sweet.

A prime example of this is during a computer training, where our instructor was teaching us all the ways to seek out customer information and kept saying "Socs" instead of "Social Security Numbers". For some reason it just kept grating on me. I turned to my seatmate and told her that if this chick keeps talking about the "Socs", we were gonna have to go get Ponyboy for a rumble tonight. Luckily she was one of the few who occasionally caught my obscure and random references and said if that was the case she was glad she brought her switchblade.

I like her. I hope we stay friends.

Update regarding previous post: Our camping trip went well, aside from my husband's teenage Lolita stalker who strategically exposed her perky young bits at him while I was taking a trip to the pit toilet. Classy. I know I'm getting older, because my first reaction when he told me about it was "Where were her parents?"