MR

GAH, THE FRIENDLINESS, IT HURTS MY SOUL!
I'm referring to the comments more than the post. And this post is just the most recent example I have at my fingertips. It happens regularly in these communities.

So here's what I don't get: What is up everyone's ass about being referred to with friendly terms and in a friendly manner? These comments always lead to some big communal whipping of the horrible, horrible, horrible!!!! politeness that can be found in the south.

Okay, if you're being hit on at a bar and someone calls you "sugar", it's obnoxious. If you're ordering dinner and someone says, "and what would you like to drink, hun?".. why in the fucking world would that make you want to punch them in the face? What the hell? They aren't rubbing your shoulders, they aren't hitting on you, and they aren't making baby noises at you.

Apparently, this is "faux-politeness". Ermmm, maybe they really are trying to be polite? And you're wildly misinterpreting it for some completely ridiculous reason? Hm? Believe it or not, some people really are trying to be nice to you. What do they do in other areas of the country when they're trying to be polite to strangers without using friendly words? Kiss their feet? Give a cold, slightly-more-lengthy stare? Hand them a wad of change and run away?

It's just so bizarre to me to think that people would be so wildly offended by a stranger trying to be nice to them or promote a friendly atmosphere. Why do people find this so patronizing or condescending? Does everyone outside of the south have some huge complex about being called anything other than their name?

I just kind of have to laugh when I imagine someone on the other end of the line being like "OMFG HOW RUDE she thinks I'm a moron! I can tell she's being condescending!!" because I said, "Alright ma'am, have a nice day now :D"

Gosh, what happens if someone holds the door open for you? Vicodin, plz.

So I'm just going to copy/paste this entirely.

Customers suck when they try to force you into paying their parking tickets.


The big green blob is our delivery van.

It was 9:00 this morning and the shopping center was totally dead. We were loading up a round of deliveries and, as the picture shows, the van blocked off one regular parking spot. There was one early-morning pick up customer who came in while we were still loading the van. For whatever reason, the customer could not avoid the magnetic pull that is parking in the handicap parking spot. So whaddayaknow, a cop came out from wherever he was and wrote her a ticket while she was picking up her order!
Yep: It was our fault :D She claims she was forced to park in the handicap spot because our van blocked one single other parking space in the entire gigantic field of asphalt surrounding us. My boss obviously would not give in, so the woman left in a huff claiming that we would "be hearing from her."

Guuuuhh-haaawwwddddddd I hope we do.

John sees our ad for a delivery driver. John replies saying that he has a great driving record, is fairly familiar with the area, and is free for all the days and times we need him. Awesome! He's even capable of making full, coherent sentences!!
Oh wait, John has more to say. I'll copy and paste!

"I assume the payment will be under the table (without taxes,records,etc). I require payments in cash. Also need to know what your policy is on making up for wadges lost due to no tipping*?"

1. Sketchy as hell, right? "I require payments in cash, no records"??
1a. Why would one automatically assume that payments will be made under the table? Odd, IMO. We aren't asking little Billy down the street to mow our lawn.
2. We make a grand total of, like, $5 in tips per month. It's extremely rare that someone tips.
3. The job is $9/hr, so he wouldn't even be eligible for tip credits anyways.
4. Wth you're only going to be working for four days, so it's not like you'll be making huge bank regardless. We aren't hiring anyone for longer than a week.

So my boss shot him back an e-mail saying that payment goes through our regular company (which means check, not cash, with taxes applied), and that we rarely get tips anyways so that is not an issue.

His reply?
I will need the payment to be adjusted to $12/hr to make up for money taken out for taxes and because there will be no tips.

Wow.
She just e-mailed him back saying we have filled the position.
I have no words.


*Tip credits are required in businesses where your staff is paid under minimum wage and tips are assumed to "make up for" the rest of it. The employer must monitor employee tips to ensure that tips are at least equal to the tip credit when business is slow. Where the employee does not make the requisite $3.02 per hour in tips, the employer must make up the difference as wages.

Every single day since I've been back, I've eaten at least two or three things that have terribly upset my stomach. It's supposed to be the other way around :(

I'm overdue for a nice drive. Somehow it's different when you're the one driving. Our trip was lovely, but it was an adventure, not a vacation. I can't justify going to the beach for a weekend jsut yet, but that sounds sooo goooood right now. Not even to lay out or swim or anything, just to go. I think it's just that the whole time we were there we had a full schedule and then I get home, have time to shower and sleep, and was immediately shoved right back into a full schedule of work and school. My (mostly empty, at least) suitcase is still on the floor downstairs. I've seen Stephen for a total of six hours since we got home.

School is making me antsy. I can't wait to get it over with already. One more semester, my internship, then I'm free! At least, of that school. Antsy antsy.

Antsy to get on with living.
And now I'm down to six hours of potential sleep!
Good day to you.

PICCHAS are finally up.

I must say, Stephen is not a top-shelf picture captioner, so if you have any questions about any of them please ask away. We ended up with 750-some pictures plus a dozen videos but we whittled it down to 300. They're gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. Most of them are just of scenery. In fact, I think we only make maybe two or three appearances in any of them.

In other news, school is pulling all on my dick again this semester. They're switching around my classes almost two weeks after they have begun. So I just have no clue what's going on. As long as I graduate on time, I don't care too terribly much, either. It's just obnoxious to have to keep picking up and returning textbooks two weeks into a course. Guh I can't wait to be done with this.

I'm a bit stressed the past couple of days because it's like I hopped off the plane and immediately had to go right back into a full schedule just six hours later. I still haven't gotten some of my mess together.

I feel a change in the air.

1. Seeing John Krasinski when he is not being Jim Halpert almost makes me ashamed of how ravenously attractive I find him when he is being Jim Halpert.
2. I only ever see "the distractingly sexy hot guy that I had a huge crush on all during junior high and high school" out and about when I've just gotten off work and am grabbing a burger that is as greasy as my post-work face, body, and clothing. I find this unfair. I have never once seem him since high school when I was looking anything but hideous. He's a volunteer fire fighter, last I heard. I mean, ......
3. Sarah, you remember him? He was in Shannon's drafting class and she used to mention him during lunch. Like, super male model hot but not in that weird overly feminine male model way. He was really quiet and polite but holy mother was he hot.

Vaguely pertinent section of the post
4. I leave for Peru in about fourteen hours and I shall be back in about two weeks :D I'm getting everyone those stylin' Alpaca hats.

My family owns a beach house on the North Carolina outer banks. For the past couple of years the NCSU Zoology department has been conducting research on the ~*rare Crystal Skipper butterfly*~ literally in our back yard. The person in charge of the project sent us an e-mail today to let us know that they are seeing positive results and would be very grateful to continue their research as per usual this year.

Apparently our back yard contains a freakishly large number of these butterflies and they seem to absolutely love gettin' it on all up in our vegetation.

VONLISBON: INDIRECT, INADVERTENT RESUSCITATOR OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Also, I went in for a physical today and they told me I could probably start to wean myself off one of my heart medications :D My blood pressure has barely crawled above 70/40 for about two years so they say it's high time I see what happens when I function without any help. Though really, there's nothing wrong with low blood pressure. As long as you feel well, you have good circulation, you don't feel faint, etc there is nothing inherently bad about having low blood pressure at all. It's actually closely associated with a longer life span. I guess they just figure that I may not need the medication anymore, so why take it. Oh well. I'll miss you, obscenely low blood pressure.

because you kind of have to be high anyways to even think up these things.

Will they build a cocoon out of pot?
Will they set their dog on fire?
Will a bag of meth fall into the cake batter?
Will there be mesh tanktops?
Which parent will yell down the stairs?

ANYTHING GOOOOEEEEESSSSSS!

I swear to god, what is with our customers this week?? First there's this guy then there's a woman this morning. She placed an order for four of our cheapest arrangement to pick up early yesterday. She picks them up, is happy, pays, and leaves.

So today she calls up and says she has a ~*serious problem*~. I think, oh shit, there was hair or bugs or something. No. No, no. The arrangements came in mugs. NOT ONLY MUGS, but BLUE AND YELLOW MUGS. She said when she placed the order on the website, the stock photo showed it in a green bowl-ish thing that is literally just a mug without a handle. I point out that yes, they can come in that, but we were out of that particular container and I noted that it does say on the website next to every single picture that containers may vary.

"I know, I saw that, but it was not made blatantly obvious that they would come in a different container. I think it's just irresponsible that you switched containers on my order and did not call to ask first. It was for a very elegant opening at xyz jewelry store and we had to tear all of them apart and set them on a platter and it looked terrible."

1. She saw that it said containers may vary
2. She knew that it was for a very important "elegant" event
So she decided to just assume that the little notation could not possibly apply to her and place the order and throw a fit after the fact?? She went so far as to say that she just doesn't trust doing any more business with us if that's "what I can expect from you." She kept insisting that she knows what "containers may vary" meant but that it was, direct quote, "not made blatantly obvious". I also pointed out that if she had told us that it was for an "elegant" event that we had many, much more "elegant" containers she could have chosen from. She just ignored that part and kept insisting that it was simply not obvious enough and that we are very irresponsible blah blah blah.

I'VE BEEN DEALING WITH CALLS LIKE THIS ALL WEEK.
Gaahhhh!!! I swear I'm going to start ending phone calls with "Now what did you learn from this experience, ma'am? Hmm?"

was the absolute worst movie I have seen in a very long time. I am still trying to wrap my mind around how god-awful it was. I mean, I see bad movies here and there but I don't think they've ever been so awful that I actually felt it warranted coming to LJ to discuss the atrocity.

I can't blame it entirely on the "movie" part of it, though. There was nothing wrong with the acting. There was nothing wrong with the costumes or makeup. There was nothing wrong with the scenery. The gore was extremely fake but I assume that was on purpose, for comedic effect. The plot was fine.

But the atrocious, barely sensible lyrics? The horribly strained, barely understandable voices? The 'use the same basic couple of notes taken from junior high band' music? The utter lack of any sort of rhythm, tempo, beat, or discernible pattern of any sort? Anything that would actually identify it as music, and not just placing drawn-out, high-pitched words in random places? Sweet mercy Moses. I mean.. it was just astoundingly terrible. And this is actually a live theatre musical that has been going on for a while?? Wow. Wow. Wow wow wow.

I'm honestly wondering whether this was a serious project or whether it was supposed to be some sort of satire. Was it? Is that just totally going over my head? Was it meant to look like they were ad-libbing all of the music? I'm generally a fan of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, etc. I'm generally a fan of musicals. I'm generally a fan of gore. But all of this was just one long experiment in wasting studio money. Maybe Tim Burton has finally snapped and decided to see how awful something has to be before sticking his name on it will no longer sell tickets. I just want to weep for every little dollar spent on this.

I am blown away.

So what happened to Nicholas Cage, Robert Downy Jr, and Edward Norton about four years ago? Because I'll be damned if any of them have done a single semi-decent movie recently. What did they do to offend Hollywood so?

Stephen did the most bizarre thing the other day: He got a set of drinking glasses for when we move out. It's nice, I'm not complaining.. but it's just so wildly out of character. The guy can't stand even planning dinner a day ahead and here he is picking out dishware. Odd, odd, odd.

We leave for Peru in 15 days, my babies. And prepare to be inundated with a never-ending slideshow massacre when I return. Oh, there will be pictures.


Fin

I really do not enjoy getting into political discussions, but I do have to comment on something I've noticed as of late.

One gargantuan "holy crap" at how much more acceptable the media appears to find misogyny as opposed to racism.

Everyone's heard the little joke -- Oh, can't elect a woman, we'll have a war once a month, she'll cry about everything, she'll paint the whitehouse pink, etc -- and everyone knows it's just a pathetic little cover-up for people who are incapable of expressing why they actually dislike a candidate, but wow. I never expected to actually see clips of voters saying stuff like that on the news and being taken in a serious context. I'm really pretty astonished that they're actually playing it. They really and truly are sitting down, asking people why they will/not vote for Hilary, and they're saying stuff like that. And then they're playing it on television. Hot damn.

I'm just having fun imagining the utter hell that would ensue if they did that for Obama. "Oh, can't elect a black man, he'll try to put spinning rims on Air Force One, he'll get the entire staff pregnant, there will be fried chicken stains in the oval office, etc." Honest-to-god. It's just bizarre to watch. Why in the world is it not only more acceptable -- but worthy of actual news coverage -- when someone says they will not vote for a woman because of a slew of blatantly false, archaic, frat-boy generalizations? How in the world is saying that any more acceptable than, "Well, I would vote for Obama, but black people don't care about education lololol"?

And that, my friends, is why I believe we'll have a dozen black men in office before a woman is elected. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm not saying it's something I want to debate.

I'm just sayin'.

I clicked on a post about Lauryn Hill.
And someone has posted this picture in the comments.
And I completely drenched the monitor in the juice-water concoction I was drinking. A whole mouth full of it.
And now that monitor won't turn on anymore (I'm on the other computer next to it).



It's not even funny. I think I broke it.
I'm just going to..... wipe it down......
and let it dry during the night.

And maybe.....

idk. fuck.

I'm post-happy lately.

So this woman ordered something from us, for her twin, on their birthday last year. Long story short, she threw this huuuuge hissyfit and demanded that we refund her because we close at 5pm, her sister didn't get home until 8pm, and we refused to hang around until 8pm to deliver one basket. She didn't bother telling us this until just about closing time, after we had already tried to deliver it. We had already made it and sent it out at least once, so our policy is to offer to either send it out the next day for free, let the recipient come pick it up, or to give them store credit. NO REFUNDS. And she pitched a fit :) And refused all of her options :) And swore up and down that she would never ever do business here again :) And blah blah blah we're terrible people blah blah birthday ruined :)

This year on her birthday? Her twin sent her an arrangement from us for her birthday (yesterday) and Valentine's Day (tomorrow). Bigguns, too. AAAHAHAHAHAHHFLKAWHELFAHA.

Suck it, Ms Sandra Lucas. Her twin absolutely knew that it was us who tried to deliver something to her last year (we left a note on her door and she called the next day -- we were the lucky ones who got to tell her that her sister had changed her mind and we had nothing for her anymore) so I don't know whether this is supposed to be a joke or if she just forgot or what. Either way, my heart is lolling.

-----------------------------------------

So I told Stephen about how I want a bit o' romance and he just pouted a whole bunch. "I don't know what to do. I'm bad at making plans. I can't think of what to do." :/ I tried. He agreed that it's not remotely out of line for me to ask and that he would like to but, alas, he "doesn't know how". I threw out some ideas and he just kind of shrugged and insisted that he doesn't know how to make plans. Hmmm. I shall work on this.

S'mores
+
Bacon

Ferreally y'all.

I had to tell Stephen about the Peru trip early :(
Turns out you can't get a passport expedited without a plane ticket/itinerary :(
And it wouldn't arrive in time for me to make the final trip payments if it was not expedited :(
And there's no sneaky way to get around any of that :(

But he's excited! And terrified! He cannot speak a single syllable of Spanish and has never been on a plane, let alone an international flight.

I guess I really took for granted the lady who came in once every other week to teach us Spanish in the 4th and 5th grades because Stephen doesn't even know the days of the week or that a double-L sounds like a Y. I guess that combined with the fact that we have a bajillion hispanic people around here just makes it so bizzare to me that I had never noticed that he can't speak it whatsoever. Weird. But he wants to learn enough to get around.

He does know how to order queso, though, and really isn't that what counts?

I'm sorry that all I'm going to post about for a while is this trip but dammit I'm excited. The weather there will actually be almost exactly the same as it will be here but with about one-trillionth of the humidity.

Also, I am either going insane or my hair is getting more and more red in it by the day. ( You vote: Brown or red? )

Sleep now.

Every now and then someone will ask me what I want to do when I get out of school and I go into a little panic.

I know the job I am training for at the moment won't make me tons of money. I totally realize that. I know I'm not going to be a marine biologist or oncologist. Some days I wake up and I think I should have done this or that. Some days I'll hear my cousins talking about how much they love teaching and I think that I'd probably like that, too.

I really don't know what I want to do but you know what, I'm still young. So I guess that's normal. I know that what I'm doing now is a step in the right direction but I'm 99% sure I'll want to return to school to further my education shortly afterwards. I'm so glad I have the luxury of being able to afford that.

It's like there are just so many things I enjoy that I couldn't possibly settle on just one right now. I suppose the least I could do right now is pick a general idea and head in that direction. So that it what I'm doing.

I'm not really getting to some greater point here. Just something I wanted to get out on .... well, I guess this isn't "paper" per se. You get the idea.

Goodnight.