Guest Blogger: Amy (total bitch....just sayin')

Maybe this isn't the job for you: Robot Strippers

Here's something that makes me want to throw a tantrum, but I won't because I'm a mature and responsible person who would never "act out" or "look down" upon others......Robot Strippers.

I mean it's like "C'mon lady, you're job is to be SEXY" and you're up there lookin' like the Tin Man in need of an oil change. Those things to the right and left of your vagina are called hips- use em! You're making us women look like... like objects instead of skilled sexual beings! I mean Christ, it looks like you just got back from having the worst PAP smear of your life.

I totally commend the outgoing, i -love-my-body-no-matter-what, take-it-as-it-comes(no pun intended) stripper and you're disgracing this beautiful art by acting like you'd rather be having a root canal than making hundreds of dollars to be naked. I coulda used that dollar to buy a KFC Snacker!


I mean, things could be worse. You could have to wake up and go to work from 9-5 every day and not get to drink cocktails on the job or listen to the sweet sounds of Van Halen while wearing fishnets.




I guess what I'm saying is, if you're getting naked and NOT getting arrested for indecent exposure(i'm not naming names), you might as well LOOK SEXY and not be that girl with the sourpuss look on her face just going through the motions.


So c'mon you lourdess of the lapdance- get it together, pretend that guy over there isn't thinking about following you to your car after work, and start sexing it up! You never know, I may decide to be generous and buy my boyfriend a private dance.

Are YOU a bitch?

Hey there! Do you sometimes feel like this?


How about like this?


Well, how you would like to marginally amuse the barely literate masses with your bitchery? HOW, you ask? Tell you how it works? Tell you how EASY it is!?




Well, you jot down your feelings on all-things-ass-hair-twisting and email them to me.

Are you excited, 'cause I'm excited!?

Halloween

This holiday seems to be a favorite of everyone and theoretically I should like anything that encourages escapism, having license to look like a retard (as oppose to every other day where I just look like a retard for no reason) and candy, but….not so much. The first gripe of Halloween is that….I don’t love children, and I certainly don’t love them hopped up on sugar knocking at my door like some costumed panhandler. I just keep my porch light off so that I won’t be mistaken for a Halloween participator and have to explain to a 7 year old that I’m not going to contribute to adolescent obesity in America- -something about being confused for a Jehovah’s Witness that doesn’t really strike my fancy. Thankfully my neighborhood is mostly child-free, so that’s not a conversation I ever have to have. For whatever reason, people really get down on women who are in their prime child-bearing years and who openly denounce reproducing. Don’t let these hips and thighs confuse you- -my uterus is purely ornamental. Trust.


The second part of Halloween is that I work in an office where a handful of my coworkers have children, and at some point there is a metaphysical guarantee that they will displace all of the surplus Halloween candy from their homes to the office break room….so that, in addition to the day-to-day splendors of our jobs, we also get to be tempted into self-inducing glycemic comas whilst adding some thunder to our existing “problem areas.” Fun! Thanks, Halloween!
The third aspect of Halloween is perhaps the most annoying. As a dude, I can understand the enthusiasm that for one day it’s ok for girls to get all whored up under the guise of a festive costume and to get drunk enough for you to have a chance at taking your wiener off the proverbial bench and getting in the game. I mean, have at it. If I had a dick, I would probably do the same thing. For me, though, I’ve always been a big supporter of “be who you are,” so if you’re a whore in life…just be a whore. Own it. Instead it’s like, “I’m a good girl…but one night a year, I get to be a naughty police officer….because I have no imagination….and Walgreen’s tacitly made this suggestion…..plus, my friend, Mandy is going as the Naughty nurse and we look too dissimilar to go as Slutty Nurse twins….ipso facto.” (This girl wouldn’t use any Latin references, but you get my point.)


Each successive Halloween, my Halloween costume disdain has resulted in me dressing as unattractively as possible. One year I was a “house wife,” but the reality of a house wife not the kind you see on TV. I wore a robe, no makeup, my hair was in a towel and I was drunk.


The year after that I was “mixing medications” where I went to Goodwill and just picked out the most hideous shit I could find.


All the naughty nurses must have been busy with cocks in their hands, because a guy dressed as Zorro actually said to me, “Those purple crepe pants would look good on my floor.” That’s ballsy and hilarious- -I mean, that nearly deserved an “honorable mention handy”…just not from me. Anne Frank almost took one for the team- -she loves…nevermind.


Last year I went as a Puritanical whore…which meant, I was completely covered in conservative clothing. Sadder still, barely anyone got the reference- -it made me wonder if High Schools have done away with required reading lists. Either way, the “readers” had a good chuckle.

This year, I’m bypassing the slutty undertones of all commercial Halloween costumes for adult females and just going as a straight up whore. Make no mistake, I’m not talking about some high-class escort- -I’m talking “take my teeth out so that I can blow you in a construction site port-a-potty” kinda whore; the legit and bargain basement type. The kind of unfortunate creature that can’t even be the catalyst for an erection on a prison inmate.

Forced Guest Bloggers: Installment One

I've been trying to get guest bloggers on this piece for a long time...mostly because I happen upon imbalanced lunatics every day. For whatever reason, everyone is gun shy...maybe it's because my guest blogger pitch goes a little something like this:

Me: "Hey, you should contribute to my blog."
Other Seething Jackass: "Awesome!"
Me: "Cool, well it's a PMS Blog. It's basically a safehaven for the bitchy and insane to communicate their skewed opinions about the world...and no one really reads it....or cares what you have to say. So...eh?"

Why do I get to be the only unsung-run-of-the-mill-crazy female which a chip on her shoulder and an annoying abundance of opinions and nonsense to share with the world?!?! (That last part was funny because of the glaring irony...try to keep up; this isn't a sing-along, Folks.) It's for this reason that I'm going to exercise the majestic might of non-consensual cutting and pasting- -so now my friends and co-workers get to be part of the bitchiest blog on the Interwebs without even wanting to be or knowing they are. That just feels nice, like a pair of wool thongs.

I haven't figured out what I'm calling this segment yet, so I'll probably just try a couple of titles on for size. To the five people total that read this shit- -feel free to make suggestions.

"Installment One" (sorry, that's all the creativity I could muster after watching an hour's worth of Computer Based Training Videos about our upcoming computer upgrade) has been cut and pasted from company email against the will of the author, Jesse. He's gay, so he's earned the ol' Girl Scouts Red Badge of Bitchery- -honorary member. Enjoy.....or continue watching kiddie porn on the other monitor- -either way, I'm ambivelant.



Clearly, the person in this bunny suit is a malnourished Guantanamo Bay prisoner, test piloting a new form of interrogation. Just look at how tight a grip “W” has on that poor man’s wrist. “Alright, IbDjad- we didn’t wanna do this. But if you don’t start tellin’ us where them Commie Jap Jihadists hid the bombs, we’re gonna make you W’s personal cuddle toy. And he wont be gentle.”

Me vs. HR

Corporate America never lets you forget that Big Brother has access to everything you do that’s related to your company. Your first day of work in any office, it is made clear to you that every email you draft is kept, every website you visit is documented, every phone call “may” be recorded, and blah blah blah. Who doesn't love threats and intimidation as a vehicle to try to influence good behavior?!


Like a good little new hire, I tried to blend into the flock and, at first I heeded the warnings and took them seriously. I was instilled with a healthy amount of fear of reprimand from my company introduction packet which detailed all the rules and guidelines…..and consequences for non-compliance. I didn’t swear around the office or in my company emails. Like an internet-fearing hillbilly, I abstained from certain favorite websites for fear that the HR police force was going to break down the office door and haul me off to talk about policy and slap my corporate infidel wrist with a politically correct warning...before manipulatively employing some big, warm hug tactic to try to lure me back to the light (Do I win a prize for gratuitous run-on sentence? My rebellion seems to have extended to the English language.)

Well, now that I’ve been here three years, I’ve tested ALL the waters and, BELIEVE ME, there is no man behind the curtain. I’ve looked...extensively; searched even. Why, you ask? No idea, but I consider myself a corporate HR Lewis & Clark of sorts (not the college- -the explorers, Dipshit- -keep up!).



As the months wore on at my company, I sort of cautiously came out of the ol’ compliance cave of obedience and explored what was out there….and there isn’t much. My company has effectively blocked ALL of the fun websites; Youtube, Facebook, Pandora, porn, various blogs…but oddly enough, they aren’t blocked every day…and I know this, because I check……every day. It’s mostly just out of convenience. Like, “Well, if I’m going to do a Google image search to find an appropriate/inappropriate photo to pepper my reply to one of my co-workers- -I might as well see if Youtube is permitted today...I mean, while I’m here and my shoes are on.” Upon discovering that Youtube is working, I immediately email several of my co-workers to alert them that we have a temporary, unfettered green light to fuck off and laugh a little in our, otherwise, joyless jobs. Hooray! The last several times that I’ve sent the triumphant email, the response has been that no one else has access to Youtube- -so, it’s just me. Then I would send out an email alerting people that Facebook wasn’t being blocked…and again, I was the only one that had access to it. THEN, I get an email from HR saying that I’ve been selected to be part of a surveyed test group of employees whose internet activity will be monitored- -NOT AS A PUNISHMENT- -because “I’m part of a random sample group, selected at random.” Random. Yeah, that seems convincing enough. Random. (Sorry...I laugh every time I think of that little cute Corporate white lie.)


Realizing that I violate a whole gaggle of “appropriate internet use” clauses (as identified by my employer’s HR guidelines/mandates) every day, I start treading a little lightly. I mean, I had all ready learned all the hard lessons about, say, Google Image Searching “Hot Gay Asian” in an effort to entice my Gay co-worker to go get sushi with me for lunch. I probably won’t do that again. (Probably.) If not for the HR flag that it undoubtedly triggered, for the fact that there are some things you can’t unsee. There was also the time that a few of my co-workers and I were trying to gently browbeat my “every-stereotype-about-Jewish-people” Jewish (actually Jewish) co-worker into spending pennies and nickels on cocktails with us for happy hour, but I was having difficulty finding an appropriate image to effectively illustrate. Out of necessity, I Google Image Searched “Greedy Jew” and after scanning through a few pages of disappointing selection, I cackled with delight when I found the perfect image…only, as I clicked on it, I realized that it was an illustration on a white supremacist website. Whoops-a-daisy. It’s one of those websites that you sort of nervously laugh and back away slowly when you realize you’re not in Kansas anymore (or...maybe you ARE in Kansas). It was an internet reconnaissance mission of sorts. Emily-1, Hill People Hate Mongers-0.



I feel like HR and I have tacitly reached a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” agreement, and that is...I know that they have a lot of shit on me. THEY know they have a lot of shit on me. I’m sure they have a whole file somewhere, but I also realize that as long as I continue to do my job in a way that keeps me stealthily under the ol’ proverbial radar- -I’ll probably be fine. I can sustain/not be seen or heard as a mid-level cog that generates very little waves in a Fortune 500 machine (I’ve all ready been doing it for three years). But seriously, walk around any fucking office- -even the mute, reject, non-communicative underbellies of society are bad asses when it comes to inappropriate internet use at work. Every time I brazenly defy and leave my desk for a few minutes, I get an eyeful of people on TMZ, US Weekly, some parent blog, reading some stupid 10 page email forward. It’s a fucking who’s who of work-dodging slackery- -I can’t possibly stand out.

I mean, who cares if I have stocked my company hard drive to the hilt with 18 subfolders in my Pictures folder (and dozens of subfolders within those)? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be image-prepared for any situation. I’m like a Google Image Boy Scout…which is why I have folders with such useful titles and applications as: “F,” which is devoted only to middle finger images, “Puking” (I don’t think I need to explain that one…but they come in handy), “Funny”- -I even have a folder for celebrity mug shots, and one that is just titled after one of my co-workers, because every time he foolishly forwards on an embarrassing photo of himself, I like to keep it for later use when he’s being petulant over email.









(Sorry, Kris....there I go laughing at your expense again, Buddy.)

With all of that being said...I see you, HR. I fucking see you.

Soylent Homeless

Oh, this may be the crown jewel of bitchery in this series, Folks. It’s one thing to dislike co-workers, nice people, semi-retarded dogs that shit in cars, but I’m going to go ahead and drag my soul through the mud on this one because…..well, because my PMS insanity knows no bounds and I’m shameless in flexing those muscles this month.

Where I’m originally from in Maine there are almost no homeless people and the ones that you do see, you want to shake the hands of, because you have to be one tough son-of-a-bitch to survive a Maine winter outside…..which is why most of them are also insane. The two are correlational conjoined twins. Furthermore, in Maine I was in the habit of leaving my restaurant leftovers in conspicuous places in downtown Portland, Maine to help feed said tough homeless people. I would also occasionally give them some spare change or a dollar, and most of them are too proud to even ask for it, which I quite like. I mean, shit(!), living in a house with a parent-monitored thermostat is hard enough during a typical Maine winter- -I can’t imagine enduring it outside. It’s like an episode of Survivor. In fact, at some point the networks will probably have that show when we’ve exhausted all other soul-depleting options for bad reality TV- -“Homeless Survivor: Maine Edition- -Tune in next week to see who didn’t make it through this big Nor’easter.”
I’d like to say I wouldn’t watch, but I’ve voluntarily subjected myself to The Hills and Rock of Love, so who’s to say? I would, however, be more apt to watch “Homeless Gladiator Death Match: Portland, OR edition.”


This brings me to my next point. Upon arriving in Portland, OR for the first time I concluded that I had never seen SO MANY homeless people in my entire life. It’s like a stinky piñata spewed forth an army of these smelly, non-working, drug-addicted, semi-insane parasites of society. I didn’t realize how different the Maine homeless people are from the Oregon homeless people and my naivety went unrewarded when I offered a homeless “starving” person (or so the classy cardboard sign indicated) my leftovers from dinner when I first moved here, to which they declined. Tell you what- -how about the next time you’re “starving” we just grind up your Stinky friend who’s sitting there next to you and we can kill a couple of birds with one stone…..And so began my romance with abhorring this particular segment of society.

The Portland, OR homeless come in two varieties. The insane kind who can’t take care of themselves because of X, Y, Z that was out of their control (who I can muster sympathy for- -also women/children who are victims of domestic violence and are thusly displaced)….and the rebelling youths from the neighboring suburbs who are of sound mind and body and could easily be working, but they choose to hang out in or around Pioneer Square during a normal work day and ride our city’s free transit and ask the working man for money and ruin the dining experiences of anyone in eyeshot or olfactory distance. GET...A...FUCKING...JOB. I can’t muster any sympathy for people who are between the ages of 16-35 and aren’t working and who are living off the giant Liberal hearts of a city.

I live just a street or two outside of the immediate downtown and I have to say that two of my “favorite” Oregon homeless phenomena are: 1.) Picking through my entire neighborhood’s trash, and then dining on their findings, and then leaving the remaining trash in a heap somewhere in the neighborhood. Fun! I’m pretty sure that flies do this same kind of service, only are less offensive and bothersome. 2.) Urinating and shitting anywhere they please. Honestly, if these people had homes, I would give serious entertainment to a home invasion solely devoted to urination and defecation. I’m sure I could rise above any kidney or intestinal shyness for this task. I’d like to come up with a list of said perpetrators so that when I don’t ever become a politician later in life, I can create a task force. Congratulations, you now have a home...and we’re going to pee in it. Have a nice day.




The people who are homeless as a result of meth addiction are a special breed of scary. I am nearly certain that directors/screenwriters who have manifested Zombie and Undead films were doing so in homage to Portland’s tweakers. They’re skeletal, unwashed, discolored and bare no semblance of brain activity until they see you at an ATM on a dimly lit city block around midnight and then their catatonic saunter quickly escalates to a terrifying sprint. I’m thinking that if I accidentally “double tap” on of them in the skull (with the cricket bat I don’t yet carry), I probably have ONE “I thought it was a zombie” get out of jail free card with the Portland police.



Also, there is just the social unfairness of demanding a dollar from passersby and having them fucking relent to an extent that you can actually sustain life in this manner. Are you fucking kidding me? Your stench doesn’t hypnotize me into opening my wallet, it makes me want to run away so that I don’t puke from involuntarily assessing what attributes of your anatomy have brewed that stink. It’s the grizzled and hardened New England man (with the likeness of R. Lee Ermey) in my psyche that’s like, “You want money? Great! Go get a job” like my parents said to me when I was growing up.



I had a teenage homeless girl ask me for money as I was walking through the downtown and I afforded her the courtesy of an answer by telling her that I didn’t carry cash, I only had a card…to which, she retorted, “Yeah, well McDonald’s takes cards.” To which I replied, “you’re right, they also take applications.” I thought punctuating my “Oohhhh, Snap!” moment by purchasing some item from McDonald’s and feeding it to her dog might be investing a little too much energy into scorn- -plus, nothing deserves to have to eat that shit, especially not a precious dog.

I once had a homeless guy with vomit around his mouth and on his shirt demand a dollar from me, and when I inquired what he would do with my dollar, he hesitated….which is when my anal fissure flared up and took over and I reactively taunted, “Exactly! You want my dollar to drink and I want my dollar to drink, and guess what- -I win!!!” Then I may or may not have discussed the tenets of free will and how the choices I make to not be a piece of shit differ from his own employment of free will. I’m sure he swiftly heeded my advice, and has since turned his life around. (So WHAT if my current uppity bitchiness is accessorized with a soap box?!?!?)


Maybe all of this is just a childish jealousy that while the rest of us have to work in jobs we hate so that we have homes, and worldly possessions that we are enslaved to- -these people are handed free money by strangers just from sitting on street corners and looking pathetic and stinking. They have no schedules, no strongholds to social conventions, they are about as free as it gets. The local government feeds them and provides them shelter- -all they have to worry about is finding cigarettes and booze so that they can get drunk out in public. They are given so many free passes in society that the middle class isn’t afforded. I actually had an unmedicated schizophrenic homeless man attempt a home invasion in January of 2009, which is pretty scary when you are a female living alone in a basement apartment. I called the police after the guy threatened me and tried to break down my door for 30 minutes. He eventually left, but the cops had the courtesy to call me back to let me know that they hadn’t done anything but “send him on his way” because “he’s just a local crazy.” What?!?! Wow...is that all you have to do to get away with shit these days. I have every capacity to be an unmedicated schizophrenic for at least 4 days out of every month.

Solution, you ask? Well...I hadn't really thought of one.




Talk to me next week about compassion. This week is about multiple personalities all failing at coexistence.

Installment Numero Uno in a Vast Montage of Annoyance

Every day in my job I encounter people who amaze me- -not in their abilities, intelligence or achievement, but in how they were able to get a driver’s license, or get by without wearing Velcro/slip-on shoes. These people are the silent con-artists of society. It’s almost like a ventriloquist act that they play with themselves, to hilariously fool us into thinking they are intelligent, capable and worthy of gainful employment. Sadder still, the joke is on us, People, because some of said people earn significantly better livings than we do…cue the “better luck next time, Loser” brass horn sound à la “The Price is Right.”





One of said people is someone I work quite closely with, but please recognize that there are hierarchical discrepancies in our jobs. Occasionally, he will go through the motions of trying to understand something remedial about our collective jobs…and, from time to time, I will humor myself and try to educate him on the various “wow-a-chimpanzee-could-do-this!” aspects of our job. Today was one of those days where he stood at my desk and made a spectacularly precious face while I explained one of our computer systems. Now, I’m not Steve Jobs, so this was an extremely high-level overview of something very basic. Even still as I explained, he furnished a false expression of understanding accompanied by the frequent blinking and blank stares typically reserved for people wearing helmets. After a valiant attempt, I gave up and told him a story about the computer fairies that live in the computer and make things work….that seemed a little more palatable. I mean, I’m not going to be the one to tell the little fella that there’s no Santa Clause.

If I Started Stripping

Wowee, I hate my job today. To make up for some disappointing mid-year results, the Higher Ups in my company decided to have a little contest in an effort to boost our numbers. Long story short, the despicable fake salesy alternate personalities that some "higher members of staff" employ to talk to the rest of us wee folks is on overload. It’s borderline slutty. It’s like how strippers pretend they give a shit about your life so that you’ll pay for their rent or their nails or “school.”

One of said "higher members of staff" in particular is usually a hideous breed of soul-less asshole. In the several years he’s worked here, no one is really sure who he is in terms of personality, values, friends- -not that we all need to be best friends (or care), but there’s a general level of knowledge you gain about people just by the inevitable diffusion of working 9 hours a day in the wholly non-private discomfort of adjacent cubicles.

Anyway, this one is really an artist in the way he is able to manipulate perceived kindness for self-serving purposes. I mean, I’ve never heard a person consistently ask “how are you today?” in a way that is quintessentially rhetorical (and you are reassured of this fact when he interrupts your response with a new line of discussion that is of more interest)...so, you can imagine the confusion of all of us now that he’s Mary Fucking Poppins today- -skipping around the office, buying lunch and smiling. We’re all speculating why his mood has taken a bi-polar 180, and so far, “kicked a child” is the most convincing theory.

At the height of my disgust, I started entertaining (*cough* fantasizing) about events transpiring and me subsequently collecting unemployment. Sure, waving my middle fingers and smiling like a newly crowned Miss America as I was escorted out of the office would be great, but it’s the unceremonious $400/week aftermath that’s a bit desolate and uninviting.
My co-worker, "Jesse" suggested moonlighting at a local strip club to supplement the $400/week unemployment check (oh, dare to dream)- -to which I reminded him how I’m not really in “get naked in front of strangers for money” shape. Something about sitting on my ass 10 hours a day for the last 3 years that just hasn’t yielded any constructive physical improvements.





Then we started musing about what that would be like, in the event that a strip club owner had enough zest for humor that he would actually employ me, and we think it would go something like this: “Ladies and gentlemen, get your dollars ready for Emily….she is…..really nice. She’s also quite funny….Did I say “good personality” yet?” Maybe once, "assail your eyes" would accidentally slip out.

To help me with my janky nail middle finger salute, I've enlisted the help of Ms. Spears. She'll do just fine.

People who are too nice

Wait…before that. I actually just heard the phrase, “Oh, I love Anne Geddes” from a co-worker(?!?!?!?!?).





Moving on.

When I moved from Maine I had to leave the comforts of my small town bank (the kind where they will call you if your account is nearing being overdrawn, or if you’re depositing a non-round number- -the cashier is apt to throw in a few pennies from their own pocket. It’s the bank where I got my first small car loan- -and I was able to get this at 21 because the branch manager went to high school with my mother and “oh, why not?" It’s the kind of place that Wilford Brimley would endorse in a commercial; a magical and helpful institution of goodness) and switch to a larger, more evil institution.



This bank doesn’t let you forget for a minute that your patronage is ultimately insignificant, your concerns (large or small) are inconsequential, and that in addition to raping your bank account little by little every month- -they may also try to sneak into your home and rape you while you sleep at night. After months, and probably thousands of dollars paid in overdraft fees and god-knows-what-else- -after debating hiding my money under the mattress and in carefully dug holes in the back yard- -I decided to switch to what felt like a “more local” bank. Not precious and loving like my hometown bank, but seemingly a step up. The first day I walked into the bank, there was a woman seated neatly at a desk who welcomed me. “Well, that’s nice,” I thought. Her friendly greeting was the tiny uplift I needed in my day.


The next time I went to the bank, the same woman greeted, “Hi! How are you today?” Sigh. Oh, that’s nice. She’s nice.

Shortly after that, I entered the bank and she greeted, per usual. I smiled back. I thought to myself, “that’s nice.” Then I assumed my position in the line. After a minute or two of waiting, she chimed in from the corner of the bank, “Thanks for your patience, Folks; we’ll be right with you.” I freshly appreciated the acknowledgment that I was slightly inconvenienced by having to wait in a line.

Let’s go ahead and fast forward several months of going to this bank with regularity.

I walk in and what formerly seemed like a polite and friendly acknowledgment, is now wholeheartedly evocative of the inane squawking from a parrot that only knows two phrases. I must have been in a fog the first several times, because now I’ve caught on that when she greets you, she’s not even looking at you when she says it- -she’s actually looking through you. She’s an automated person. She’s a Walmart greeter with better pay and benefits and a better door at which to greet people. Every time she greets me I hear, “Polly want a cracker?”



Once the first greeting has been robotically reverberated in your direction, you get in line and wait for the other phrase she’s been programmed to say… “Thanks for your patience, Folks, we’ll be right with you.” It’s like, “REALLY?!?! Thank you! I’m the one who just voluntarily got in this fucking line! I know what a line is all about- -it’s about fucking waiting. I’ve prepared myself for the waiting aspect of this line all ready!” Then as more people saunter in on their lunch hour, you hear the greeting TEN…THOUSAND…FUCKING….TIMES. It’s like the admin with the shrilly voice from the movie “Office Space” that only udders one phrase, except it’s not funny when it’s real and you’re living it.

Then the line gets longer, and for the entirety of your wait, the parrot lady is continuously thanking you for your patience. It becomes more like a taunt. Like, “I’m killing you. I’m killing you with my kindness. Do you feel me pushing your buttons? Pushing…..pushing. You can’t get mad, I’m too nice.”
It’s worse when the line suddenly gets too long, and she gets up from the desk to help. This is the absolute worst thing. The extent of her Teller niceness supercedes the “going out of your way” niceness that a Special Education Teacher may have. It evokes shudders and dry heaves. She thanks you for every step of your transaction. She thanks you for existing. She thanks you for going through the motions of normal respiration. “Thank you for waiting (original.thanks.).” “What can we do for you today?.......Oh, I would be HAPPY to do that for you today?” “Speaking of, how are you today?” “Oh, thank you for signing that check.” “Your signature is lovely.” “Thank you for waiting while I punch these numbers into the computer.” It’s a running verbal catalog of everything that is taking place, real time, but in the form of a “thank you.”

Worse still, she has a lazy eye. So, as she’s being nice and you’re internally seething at how ingenuine it feels, you feel BAD that you feel this way….because she has a lazy eye. It makes that bitchy internal voice cajole, “Oh great….get mad at someone with a disability. Real nice. You’re a terrible person.”

Everything about this woman reminds me of the desperate compliments delivered by someone with no friends who wants very much to be accepted, even by perfect strangers. She was likely that girl in high school- -the invisible one who was so painfully nice that people didn’t trust her. Being THAT nice just doesn’t exist anymore- -not in that flagrant sense where it’s inescapable and forced on you. It just gives you an uneasy feeling. It makes you think, “What the hell does this woman do when she goes home for the evening? Is she killing the neighborhood cats? Is she really into hardcore German feces porn?” The mind employs endless hobbies and pastimes for this person whose sincerity is perceived as creepy.

The punchline? The punchline is that this woman frustrates me to no end, and now I’ve written this, and now I feel bad for writing it…..BECAUSE SHE’S SO NICE (the lazy eye is just an added dig). And there you have it. She wins and I am a PMSy bitch. Even the Russian judge gives that one a 9.

“You know you might be PMSing when you start playing head games with your dogs”

It is in my opinion that women have a subconscious affinity for head games. We can’t help it. There is something in our genetic make up (okay, we know what it is; it’s estrogen) that makes us ask open-ended questions, even though there is only one right answer and, in all honesty, we most definitely know this answer when we pose the question. It’s a pass/fail test that is designed to set the taker up for failure nearly every time. Poor men. I mean, at least lesbians have a fighting chance because they are wired similarly- -but men don’t even see this psycho/psychological onslaught coming. I once heard a married man say, “I can be right or I can be happy” which I thought was hilarious and true, but also sort of sad…...have I said “true” yet? I have to say, I appreciate the simplicity of men, and I commend lesbians. I couldn’t deal with me as a partner, this I’m sure of.

Anyway, my natural headgameyness (I’m insisting that’s a word) paired with PMS yielded some really singular results yesterday. I decided to be a good ‘dog mom’ and take my two dogs for a ride as I ran a few errands. Now, to paint a picture- -I have two very different dogs. I have Xavier, who is 8 years old and wise and sweet and obedient with a soul a mile wide. Then I have X.E. who is 3 and……well, let’s just say she’s “special.” Towards the end of my errand trip yesterday, X.E. opted to shit in the back seat of the car. For those of you who haven’t ever had the privilege of being in a small enclosed space, in city traffic, with a steaming pile of shit, let me just say that I make no apologies for my grievance- -even fucking Jesus wouldn’t have been immune to the likes of this kind of agitation, so I make no apologies.
I like to think that X.E. knows better, but this is a dog who licks windows and thinks her reflection in my foyer mirror is another dog. It’s an added thorn to have proverbial egg on your face for overestimating that your housebroken, 3 year old dog won’t shit in the car. Silly me. So, I pulled over as soon as I was able (into a Mexican Restaurant parking lot) and broke out the poop bags that are kept in the trunk and usually designated for outdoor shitting. So then for about five minutes, the people with the fine pleasure of dining window side of Muchas Gracias Mexican Grill & Cantina (I'm not kidding; I can't even make up stuff that good) had the rare privilege of watching me clean feces out of my car while I swore and carried on like a crazy person. I know it made my night better knowing that Darwin’s forgotten creatures eating their $6 entrées pitifully mused, “Wow, it sucks to be her.”

I drove home, still not excited about the events that had just transpired. Plus, even though I had gotten rid of the poo with expert timeliness, the whole car was still ripe with X.E.’s unholy wrongdoing. I felt the need to remind X.E. what a bad girl she was for the entire ride home; meanwhile she greeted my reprimand with a dead stare and some sporadic window-licking. I felt really frustrated that she didn’t seem to be understanding the scope of my anger and aggravation, so when we arrived back at the house, I hysterically blurted out, “Well, X.E., you get to go in your crate while Xavier and I watch a movie!” Sadder still, I felt vindicated for about ten minutes until I realized that I was laying in a bed with a stinky 8 year old dog watching a movie- -like that should be some sort of triumph. “I showed her.”

PMS Chronicle 4 29 2010

Despite having not one, not two, but THREE heaving closets of gorgeous clothing, today I opted to sift through the “transitional laundry” pile on the floor of my bedroom, and select the very black loose pants that I wore to work yesterday. They’re the kind of pants that encompass all ends of the dressiness spectrum depending on what you pair them with. They can either be yoga pants or youthful, funky dress pants…or somewhere in between. Despite this versatility, yesterday I paired them with a hooded sweatshirt- -thus making them yoga pants (The clashing 1” heeled open-toed sandals I added to that outfit were a hideously offensive and apathetic attempt at “business casual,” at best). Immediately after that I nixed wearing a bra, so I paired my black snug/loose pants with a similar caliber of shirt- -and then added a poncho. Because nothing says, “I’ve given up on myself” quite like a poncho (plus it hides that my too-big-to-be-braless breasts are delightfully un-tethered). I’m basically a Snuggie infomercial, minus the smiling faces, make up, and couch.

“With Emily being so comfortable, how is it possible for her to be disgruntled?” Good question. Today’s disgruntled demeanor is brought to you by “Home Office Incompetence”…and the letter ‘C.’

I work in a field office, and sometimes that makes me feel like I’ve had to earn my job- -either through my own aptitude, demonstration of intellectual capacity, work ethic….or because my uncle is one of the most successful sales reps in the company and his niece needed a job. *Cough* Tomato-Tomato. Point being, sometimes I feel like the small pool of individuals in this office makes individual failure a bright neon sign of apparentness. Your peers keep you in check. Your manager keeps you in check. You understand that your own shortcomings will be recognized.
Our Home Office employs several thousand people, and there are days…lots of days….where I feel like there was some contest at a local 7-11 where you were the 50th customer of the day and you won a position in my company’s Home Office. Yay- -tell the kids that Mom doesn’t have to stay home and watch 17 hours of soap operas anymore! Now, she has a “purpose”…and that purpose is to make my 9-5 life HELL. Instead of passing her days how she’s accustomed…by eating processed foods and vacantly staring at this month’s featured doll collection on QVC, now she gets to play corporate “hot potato” with any legitimate request that comes from her co-workers and partners in the field offices. The extent to this “game” makes it very difficult to believe that there isn’t some kind of home office incentive, unbeknownst to the field, where the individual Home Office employees who accomplish the least amount of work are awarded on a quarterly basis.

One particular Home Office partner is the focus of my current ass-chappery. For the purposes of venting frustration to prevent sending very tonal and unprofessional emails to this person, I drafted a fake suggestion to an imaginary company suggestion box today. Here is how it reads:

“_______________ may be better suited as a relatively stagnant cog in another company’s mailroom or one of the unhappy Wal-Mart greeters that’s afforded the ability to sit at the entrance of said establishments and apathetically force a word and/or facial expression at approaching shoppers. Clearly she doesn’t like to work, she doesn’t like to answer the phone, and she is less resourceful than some humans are prenatally. Maybe she could gain 400 lbs and be relegated to a bed somewhere, and make a living off disability payments and money that tabloids would pay to photograph the “giant slothy slug woman.”

This is probably why I’m not God, despite our similar slapstick senses of humor. This has me thinking…maybe it’s socially irresponsible of me to keep this blog going(?). I can see conservative males citing my blog as the reason why we should never have a female president. PMS is a pretty powerful force. Now I’m imagining that I’m the president…right now….in my semi-clean black stretch pants and poncho with my disdain for the human race. Nahh, I’d never make it into office with the forceful and inspired campaign slogan of “Emily Lariviere: Heyyyy.”