The Doctor Is Out

Today, the Weasel sez to me, "I had one of the guys from Self-Important Asswipe Builders talk to me about you."

I sez, "Oh?"

He sez, "Yeah. Uhm, he's not happy because, and he knew your name, he said that when he comes in, you never remember him. I don't know the guy and never saw him before in my life. But he said, "yeah, that mumplegirl always asks for my ID, and she never remembers me."

I sez, "Self-Important Asswipe Builders? There's like a thousand of them, and I'm not often at that register, and in all honesty, they all look and smell alike--not attractive."

He sez, "Well, he said you didn't make him feel memorable."

I sez, "Well, if it's JimBob, I swear that kid never looks the same two days running."

He sez, "Nope. Not him. A different one. I told him that maybe you're just not observant."

I sez, "Well, you know, they also will tell me a name that's on the list, but it's not them. They do that a lot, too."

He sez, "I know. And you follow Da Rules. Which is good, but this is retail, and he said you don't make him feel important."

I sez, "Tell him to grow up."

He sez, "Mumple, mumple, mumple. I know, I know. But it's retail. It's retail."

So I sez, "I know it's retail. But retail ain't therapy. And if his self-image and self-esteem is so low that he needs ME to validate his existance, he needs to grow up, get a grip, and get some therapy. I'm not a therapist."

He just looks at me for a minute, then sez, "Mumple, it's retail."

sigh. Apparently, that Plankton designation on my name tag now includes being some asshole's ego validation.

The Last of 2010

It really wasn't very great.

GOOD RIDDANCE!

(and resolutions? I'm planning a few revolutions, actually. If I can get some minions together. Stay Tuned for more...)

Shazaam!

It's come to my attention over the past year that I have actually become the woman I wanted to be 20 years ago.

And I hate it.

I spent the first 10 of that 20 miserably trying too hard. Then, I figured what the hell, and just let it go--stopped trying and decided that I would just be happy the way I was. So I spent the next 10 just doing the best I could, and ignoring the assholes who didn't like it. And saying a lot of the stuff that I thought anyway. Why wait 'til I'm old and senile? Just say it now and get over it.

I actually came to enjoy not having to bother much with all the trappings and crap of being a woman--especially the time consuming uninteresting parts. I especially came to glory in being unexpected.

My Sweetie helped immensely in a lot of that. He's a far better person than I am, and he talked me down from many a bell tower in the beginning. Those bell towers are fewer and farther between now, and I've most recently discovered that the bottomless pit of anger and bitterness not only had a bottom, but it's also run very nearly dry.

I know you're thinking, "Sure, that was all fine and sometimes it was dandy, but isn't it better now? To realize you've actually become the person you wanted to be..."

Well, that's easy enough for you to say, 'cuz you haven't just spent 20 freaking years gouging a place for yourself where you're comfortable and happy, just to discover that it was a whole lot of time spent for, what amounts to being, nothing. To realize that I am about 15 years too late to my own life.

Frustrating and discouraging. To counter that awesome feeling, I'm working on adjusting my perspective to believe that it wasn't really ME, it's the rest of the world that is just finally catching up to me. 15 freaking years late.

No wonder 80's fashion is back in style.

Rescue Me

Tonight I was in lumber. Ugh. I hate it down there- it's dark, and dingy, and well, the customers are often times, believe it or not, bigger assholes than they are anywhere else in the store.

Anyway, Nub, aka the Gnome, was in rare form. I ask a simple "yes" or "no" question and his utter inability to answer it led him to complain that I wouldn't go away. How hard is this math? Sheesh. One of these days, I'm gonna step on him like he's a little, moustached, bespectacled bug (which he is, but that's not the point.)

I have decided that I'm throwing insanity pheromones because a chubby, gray haired old biker dude decided to chat with me, for 20 minutes at least, about the state of the union, and Santa Claus.

Now, sure, lots of these people want me to agree with them on politics. And don't even get me started about the God Squadders. But Santa Claus? Seriously?

Oh, yeah. It's gotta be a pheromone. Please tell me it's a pheromone.

It's Time for ... Family Feud

Grrr Argh.

And this will be the RD Condensed version: my brother is a very self-centered person. He is currently in the habit of borrowing my Sweetie & my (step) Dad's tools and keeping them for upwards of a year. There are things he borrowed at the beginning of his "little" project--and at least one none-too-cheap item is currently unaccounted for.

His MO is that he will call me (or the Gator) and ask if he can borrow something. (No lie, a few weeks ago, The Crown Prince called me and wanted me to go into my attic and look through the stuff he's still storing here for an I-don't-know-whatsis. When I told him to c'mon over and look, he suggested that my Sweetie do it when he got home from work...and when I insisted that he come over whenever he wanted and help himself to looking through his stuff for the whatsis, he said, "It's not that important.") Gator always says, "Of course, your Majesty" and I usually say, "I'll give him the message and we'll let you know." The Crown Prince ALWAYS gets his way, one way or another.

Currently, though, the menfolk in the family (My Sweetie and My S.Dad) are working on getting the other 1/2 of the duplex ready to be rented to new and hopefully improved tenants. The C.P. spent a few hours "painting."

After spending upwards of 3 hours in the same building as S.Dad, the C.P. leaves (and of course, the job is unfinished! Why on earth would anyone expect him to actually FINISH what he started?!) and waits patiently until I get home from work to call and ask me to go tell S.Dad that he's borrowing this one thingybob.

I ask him a legitimate question: "What if he needs that tonight for what he's working on?"

The C.P. calls me a "smartass" and hangs up. Hasn't really spoken to me since. (Yes, devastating, I'm sure.) The Gator promptly takes up his cause: I am assinine, and she will continue to bitch at S.Dad and My Sweetie, until one, or the other, agrees.

So far, neither has agreed. And she won't mention it to me. I talked to my sister last night--the Waffle. She usually sides with my mother, on all things, simply because she'd rather pick her own fights with me, but partly because she'd honestly rather fight with me than with the Gator.

Waffle actually agreed with me...and even reminded me how The C.P. got his name.

R U Sayin' I'm Fat?

The past few days at work have been cold. Not cool, COLD. As in, numbing. I refuse to break out the Orange (and deal with the Great Pumpkin references) until October, so I stuck with my spring and summer attire: Ol' Yeller.

The yellow rainslicker, in and of itself, other than being very very bright yeller, isn't bad. But when paired with the yeller pants, it's quite a sight.

And, apparently, when paired with my standard issue uniform (a red vest) I look like Winnie the Pooh on the LP cameras. I asked if LP was calling me fat. She said no, but I am choosing to blow this out of proportion anyway.

Luckily, years ago, during the cold weather, I gave up my dignity and vanity for warmth, and opted to keep all 10 fingers and toes, so I can laugh about this.

Besides, other than the apparent physical likeness for a few days, (and the obligatory dum-de-dum-dum humming) I am nothing like the Silly Old Bear. I am not stuffed with fluff, nor am I chubby, tubby, or silly. If the Gnome or Frodo decide to make references to the likeness, I will begin using phrases such as "Oh, bother" and "smackerel of honey" on a regular basis.

Now that I think about it, this is going to get ugly.

Thankfully, the Great Pumpkin arrives tomorrow.

Am I Really?

Okay, so this has been a year of learning stuff about myself.

I learned that I can control my attitude and my tongue. I learned that I began to grind my teeth. I learned again (like I do every year) that I am desperately and nauseatingly in love with my husband.

I also learned that I am a leader.

I spent loads of time trying to be a leader when I was younger. And I never could quite pull it off. It was pathetic in a way, the way I kept desperately trying so hard. Every election, prior to 2009, I entered, I lost (and in all honesty, not always with grace.)

This year, with no effort on my part (and not a little surprise) I was nominated and elected to the PTA Executive Board. I mean, I didn't put my own name in. I didn't ask anyone else to nominate me, and when asked if I was going to put my name in, I laughed a nervous little laugh, and said, "No. I like the cheap seats, thanks."

I had fully embraced my being an Indian, and had fully given up hopes of being a Chief. I am not Chief material, people. I don't do tact and diplomacy so well, and I have a tendancy to totally mess up and drop the ball on big important things.

I even went so far as to prove my unworthiness by offering (albeit while laughing and joking around) the other members of the PTA Smarties, asking that you "be sure to let me know when they start working." And I made fun of myself, and made moderately adult jokes about some of the Dads at school. I made it clear, I thought, that I don't necessarily play well with others, and I certainly have a ribald sense of humor--ribald, slightly vulgar, and certainly off center sense of humor.

None of that worked.

They nominated and elected me anyway.

I merely bowed to the inevitable, and am hoping that I can escape that fate with only a one year tenure.

I am alternately delighted with the opportunity for change and overwhelmed with the responsibility (not to mention the aforementioned lack of tact and diplomacy.)

What all this leads up to is that, I'm hearing more and more often that I am "a leader." First, it was at work, with a flat-out statement by the Head Cheese. Today, it was from the Howler's teacher.

How did this happen? Well, how the conversation turned to that, I can answer--how these people got this crazy idea about me, I have no clue.

As for the conversation: the magician was late in arriving at the school. Mrs N asked, not in a mean way, if it was from poor planning or what? So I gave her the Reader's Digest condensed version of the PTA Drama Trauma from February, March, and April. She asked who, then, is next year's President? I told her, and listed the executive board for her, rolling my eyes at my own name.

She said, "But that's good, right?" and I said, "Uh, no. I'm doing it because there's really no one else to do it."

And she said that it couldn't be true, "You're such a leader."

"You think? ~snort~" I replied.

"Well, sure you are. Mrs S (the principal) has commented more than once the good things you've been doing this year, and how successful they are. You're a leader whether or not you know it."

In thinking on this, it gives me the giggles--partly because I'm apparently doing a good job at whatever it is I'm doing, and partly because I'm just vain.

Zoned

Yeah, it's a continuation of the other post. And it is creeping me out. Seriously.

I've been thinking about it, and I think it's more the fact that people were deliberately coming to talk to me--about good things, and offering to give me their real names and phone numbers. That's NEVER happened before, not in 41 years. I've never BEEN the person others seek out(seek to avoid, yes. seek out? never.) I always figured nobody would ever volunteer to line up to see me unless I was dead, and they were in line to be sure that I really was.

And now, it seems that I am one of those people that others actively seek out.

It's a crazy little head-rush, it is.

Not by The Hair on My Chinny-Chin-Chin

So, at work, outside in the garden center, I have a spiffy toothpicks-and-saran wrap shelter for the register. The fact that they've spared 2 square feet for my fat butt is incidental. And fabulous.

It's a great place to work, no really. I mean that. *snark*

Anyway, while I'm sitting there, with my obligatory 3 layers to keep myself moderately warm, I'm trying to think of a way to explain this without seeming too sarcastic. Because, I've noticed, sarcasm is lost on the decision makers of the world.

Now, on the particular day I'm writing this (not typing it) I'm thinking seriously of the Three Little Pigs, and that this is, truly, a glorified twig hut. Given my choices, I'd take the straw house, because that, at least would hold the heat in, even if it did smell like cows.

I'm thinking of Little Pigs and the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin. And then a miracle happened. An infinitely better idea on how to explain this situation than I could have made up--it really happened. There is a God, and He, too, is laughing.

I'm sitting there, in the twig house, huddled up over the heater, practicing saying, "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin" in my best "and your little dog, too" voice, when I hear some shifty shuffling.

Occasionally, my co-workers think it's funny to *scare* me, and they'll come out, and be all sneaky-sneak and tap on the saran wrap or jiggle the toothpicks. Because it's funny to tease Dorothy about the tornado.

My natural response is, "Helloooooooo." I do not recognize the answering, "Helloooooo." The shifty shuffling is still happening.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

"Where ARE you?!" is what I hear. It's practically a shriek.

"I'm INSIDE here, trying to keep warm." And this dumpy sort of woman stomps around towards my pseudo-door. I think she missed the midget designation by mere inches. (Remembering that I am wearing flourenscent hunter ORANGE, and confined within my twig house, there's NO WAY she didn't notice me in there, all things considered.)

So, Gretel comes 'round to where she can actually SEE me, even with those huge bugeyed glasses, and she says, "I need a roll of plastic!" still shrieking, because, well, obviously, I'm deaf. That's why hunter-safety orange is worn often by the deaf.

I tell her where to go (HAH! aisle 18, not where you were thinking) and off she rolls.

It occured to me after she left that what the shifty shuffling was. She was going to dismantle my pathetic attempt at weather protection!

Sweet gingerbread houses!

I have been assured, however, that our policy is that I can roast any midgets who try to take apart my twig house.

(Which is a much better ending than it getting blown away by a wolf.)

I've entered this in Scribbit's Write-Away contest for December.