SHUT UPPP

Back at the bridal shop. YUP. This is hell:

Congratulations, universe. You win.

K so I finally broke down and bought ALL of my books for this semester. Sickening. You know it's bad when the book you need is more expensive from the independent sellers on Amazon.com than it is directly from Amazon or the bookstore. Ugh! Environmental Hazards: No longer my favorite class! Oh I can't stay mad at you (Um have I also mentioned that I'm sick and have ingested a large quantity of cold medicine in the last 36 hours?). Anyway, you know you've spent WAY too much on books and that you have been in school too long and you are maybe also a giant history nerd when two of the three "Recommended For You!" books that pop up after you order something from Amazon are actually already sitting on your bookshelf at home. "The English Heritage" and "Voices of the American Past". Ah yes - be jealous, I know you wish that they were in your collection.

The upside of all of this nonsense is that A) I spent less than $200 on actual textbooks and another $20 on course materials (Dr. C. makes us get lecture notes from the bookstore b/c he's concerned that his Frenchness will make him hard to understand. Gotta love him!) and also B) I will soon be receiving tons and tons of mail. And it'll be good mail, too. What's in this giant box? Is it "A History of Environmentalism In The United States"? Maybe "International Disaster Management"? "Border Radio"? I can't wait! Ugh, gotta get off the cold meds.

I'll probably delete this post in the morning, this is just embarrassing. Good night.

YUP. So there is now exactly ONE WEEK remaining until The Office returns!! Yessss! About a week and a half(ish) ago, I decided to re-watch the entire series before the Big Fifth Season starts on the 25th. So far, so good! Except who knew that OMG four seasons of this show is still a LOT of tape (awesome tape, but still...) and time. Currently, I am watching "Beach Games". If you don't know, that's on the last disc of season three. So starting probably tomorrow and then going on through the weekend (Mon/Wed next week are totally out for TV watching, damn school!) it's SEASON FOUR MARATHON!! You should totally come watch. Long live Jim and Pan! :-)

"I would rather work for an upturned broom with a bucket for a head than work for somebody else in this office besides myself. Game on!" - Aw, <3 Stanley!

I know what this ACTUALLY means but c'mon, Target. BABY SALE? Surely you can produce better verbage than that. Unless you are actually now selling infants and toddlers. Talk about your one-stop shopping. Uh, anyway...this is what I'm doing today.

Here are some interesting/odd/funny text messages that are in my inbox or outbox these days. Can you tell I'm extremely excited to have something to do today? :-P Come ON, Hurricane Ike! Give me something to talk about! Jeez! Anyway, these are from several sources: Amy, Ben, Andrew, Michelle, Katie, Kate, and of course myself. And maybe some others tossed there too. Anyway. This is why I have unlimited texts.

"Is it a Swingline?"

"I love the big balls! Ga-bounce!"

"Free pjs and thongs all around, aye?"

"Well keep me posted. I'll just be here, crunching up this old shot glass."

"Ah! Allergic to formulaic fun!"

"Zotis and Bones"

"I had a friend tell me she was on Team Karen last night and I practically yelled at her: THEY STILL MAKE YOU?! Team Pam!"

"Happy birthday from Smuckers!"

"Katie is super drunk but so is mark"

"::cut to a picture of a cat eating spaghetti::"

"LOL no, Bazooka, we're eating it there like people who aren't ashamed of their Chili's addiction."

"OMG I figured it out! Republicans are doing a big Punked on the US!"

"Serious Poodler."

"Ewwww like homeless pot dealer smelly?"

"Did you hear that thing in swiss land is going to eat the world?"

"I was just thinking 'Ug birth control is $50?!' Then kid behind me randomly screams at the top of his lungs. Uh, yeah WORTH IT!"

"Um note to self do NOT shake a Starbucks double shot in a can. Contents under pressure."

Ugh, college. So I get that a lot of people like to be "free spirits" and do their own thing or whatever but here's the thing: there are some people who are just downright, inappropriately smelly. It's disgusting! Some girl in my stats class actually gave me a headache today even though we were sitting a good six feet away from each other but since she smelled so HORRIBLE of B.O. I actually got a headache. What?! I respect your right to not take a shower, but you have to respect my right to be able to sit in a classroom without being made physically ill from your horrid stink. Don't want to shower? Fine, wear deodorant or splash on some spray, lotion, or essential oils. It is possible to be an appropriate amount of un-smelly without showering regularly, ask the Europeans. Don't want to wear a chemical? Jump in the damn river. Seriously - it's repulsive. I've smelled people all over the world and you, my darling dear, have absolutely set a record for the single stinkiest stinker I've ever encountered. If I vomit in class I'm gonna blame you. Loudly.

Also to the smelly guy in my history class: chew some gum, splash on some cologne, or consider not smoking/dipping immediately before class. Oh and/or invest in toothpaste. OH and maybe try breathing through your nose. Kthx.

What?! OMG that's hilarious. Overreaction, much? Of all the lyrics you can think of that would be offensive to Christians and human beings in general, THIS is the one you choose to attack? Oh, Ohio. Get a life. ;-)

Also I want to go home, school is WAY too long!

I'm done. OMG this whole day...it's just been kind of horrible. For starters, I'm really conflicted over a decision I made recently (about work) and it's bothering me to the point where I was literally up all night thinking about it. I could not get it out of my mind! FINALLY around 4:00 am I managed to doze off for an hour and a half of shuteye, and then came 5:30, the alarm went off and it was time to start another day. Grr! Not only that but I didn't have time to pack my lunch this morning so I was at school all day with nothing but a bottle of water. Sucky. So I took the bus there at like 6:30, went to all five of my classes, and I was on the bus home when I got a phone call from Dale at 4:00 pm. Apparently some genius had parked in Dale's parking spot so he parked (MY car) in an unassigned spot on one of the upper floors of the garage, e-mailed all of the required people, and there should have been no issue. Towing company fail! They took it upon themselves to patrol more of the garage than is in their contract and they straight up took my car because it was in a spot that it wasn't assigned to. Again, I will point out that this is not their job and is absolutely not at all legal within the parameters of the contract that the towing company has with the Castilian. The only reason for them to take anything off of that floor is if someone with the Castilian calls and requests that the car be towed, which nobody did because a) they know that's our car and that Dale uses it to get to work, and b) Dale went out of his way to let them know what was up. SO. It's 90-something degrees, I'm wearing jeans, I haven't slept but ninety minutes and I haven't eaten all day, and now I have to walk from Waterloo Park (15th and Trinity) to the Castilian (24th and San Antonio). Granted, it's not the worst walk in the world, but given the other circumstances and the fact that my car was pretty much stolen put quite the damper on my afternoon.

On the phone, Dale told me that the towing company had offered to pay for a cab to pick us up from the Castilian and take us to get the car. Let me also point out that the towing company is located WAY OUT in BFE east Austin and it was getting to be rush hour as the day went on. Flat out not a win for me. I told Dale that they were going to bring it back on their own and that it was to be back at the Castilian by 5:00 pm or I was reporting it stolen. People have had issues with this company being dishonest before and I was exhausted and not at all in the mood to play games. For once, I beat a towing company (it feels damn good, actually). Dale passed along my message and they unloaded my car in front of the building at 5:00 pm on the dot. Next time I'll make them put it back where they found it.

Maybe I'm your grandma, quietly knitting in the corner and chasing away errant cats that threaten the sanctity of my perfectly-wound yarn ball BUT I was in a Starbucks this afternoon and this guy...I mean, his pants were a good four inches below his butt even though he was wearing a belt (WTF?!) and his red and white candy-stripe boxers were just hanging out for all the world to see. Like...I get that layers are in or whatever but that's ridiculous. And I was just stalkery enough (and also probably illegal but...I was trying to get a pic of something legal and I just happened to...whatever you get it) to get this picture. WHAT?!

This is actually a little better than it looked when we got there, when we walked in he was looking through the little refrigerator thingy that has the water and Odwalla and stuff in it and he was pretty much mooning small children in their strollers. But seriously, what do you think of when you wake up in the morning? I'm gonna wear these jeans down to my knees because that is attractive. What?! Dear Dummy: You look ridiculous! You! Look! Ridiculous! GAH! NAW%*&HJ$@UE!1!!

K gotta go lie down before I have a heart attack.

Last Sunday Dale and I wandered over to HEB around 11 in the morning just to pick up a couple of things. When it was time to leave, all of the checkout lanes were understandably full, especially since it was a holiday weekend, so hoping to defy the odds we got into the "20 items or less" (can't type that without wanting to correct it) self-checkout lane. There were three lanes open and all three had people at them so we were next in line. How bad could this be?

OMG OMG OMG. Seriously? So, I don't think any of these people ACTUALLY had fewer than twenty items but that ended up being beside the point, because they're also not at all fit to operate the technology required for self-checkout use. First there was this guy there by himself who had a ton of produce he was trying to ring up. Apparently, he couldn't see the big "PRODUCE" icon there on the screen because he took out his celery (that's what she said?) and was looking for a BARCODE there on the stalks. Ummm...this is not going well. At the next line was more of a classic fail. The lady there had two children who were getting away while she had to take things out of her bags and then replace them, etc. because she couldn't figure out that doing things like touching the bag carousel messes with the scale and will F your stuff up. THEN she takes out her wallet and awesomely begins trying to shove dollars in the dollar slots at the ONE CHECKOUT LINE with a handmade (though still large enough for me to easily see from where I was standing) sign that said: CREDIT CARDS AND CHECKS ONLY - NO CASH BACK. At this point I began giggling gleefully and uncontrollably because it's just so damn funny and also my luck to be behind these jokers.

Maybe the best, though, was the yuppie couple at the third and final checkout lane. I still have no idea what exactly was going on, but at various points they were standing there doing absolutely nothing, then she yelled at him for...something, I don't know, and then they stood there doing nothing some more, then the poor cashier/babysitter came over and tried to help but was kind of chased back to her stand, then the cashier came BACK with a whole thing of coupons but at the same time the wife yelled "JUST HAVE THEM ZERO IT OUT!!" and ran back into the store. What?! It's all so amusing! So by now I'm laughing like an idiot because this is just so funny. I mean, these are exactly the people who used to treat me like crap when I was a cashier at Target in high school and I still see it while I'm waiting in line behind someone - the cashier is so inconsequential to them and it's "not a real job" or whatever and...you know what? It's not so easy, is it, beeyotches? Seriously, between the three of the checkout lines we stood there for a good eight minutes. Not all that bad if you're just in a regular line on a Sunday but to be NEXT IN LINE with three different people standing there utterly confounded and losing it was just hysterical.

Dale has gotten really good at making it look like he's not with me when I make no effort at all to hide when I laugh at the stupid things that total strangers do in public. Poor guy.

OH and for the record the lady with the two runaways and all the cash finally saw the sign, figured it out, and paid with a card. GAH! But at least we got her checkout lane. :-)