Just some simple boundaries.

For this relationship to be both effective and efficient I need some boundaries. Lets set some:

When I ask how your day is going I am not looking for a long explanation of your lives problems. I have to do about a zillion things to make the what was a simple order that you turned into a diabetic inducing sugar bomb. A simple answer is all that is required for a nice exchange between us. 

When I offer you a sampling you do not need give me the full explanation of how your Irritable Bowl Syndrome prohibits you from drinking dairy. I am sorry that you cannot drink milk, however I do not want to know what it does your insides. 

I cannot help you decide how to take care of your pets remains. I am truly sorry for your loss, I know that you loved your pet a lot. However, I cannot listen to your debate of cost comparing what do with your pets remains. I have other customers giving both of us dirty looks. These customers will now be short and rude to me. 

To the customer giving dirty looks, it does not help your drink taste better.

For those who overly share. I do not want to know about that funny scab on your head, tell me its from an accident and I will not question you more. Selective honesty is not a bad thing. We are not married. When your IBS is acting up do not tell me- walk away from me. Please walk away. 

I am not trying to cheat you out of your cup discount I just forget when you have a million modifications I have to put in. You take that cup from us and reuse it, to get the discount anyways. Save a tree and bring a fucking mug!

It is very rude to raid a tip jar for a nickel just because you do not like to have to take it off of your gift card. You are in fact stealing when you do that. Now the nickel you take everyday is not going to affect my life but we all bend over backwards for you, so keep your fucking hands out of the tip jar. 

Now that these boundaries are set I promise that I will have a smile on my face as I greet you. I promise to make your order to your request and I will make you something else with my apologies if I get it wrong. Have a lovely day and please come again. 

Excuses excuses

I understand that work sucks.  I know that most jobs are soul-sucking black-holes that don't pay nearly what anyone's time is worth.  I know that you, my dear friend, are a free spirit.

But if I have to hear, ONE MORE TIME, any of the following excuses come out of your mouth while you languish on my couch, I will bow out of this friendship and leave you to your fantasy world.

• "I can't work for anyone else." - Sorry hon, everyone else is who has the money!
  
• "I'm so tired of worrying about money." - Yeah, being in five-figure-debt will do that to you, especially if you keep charging two week vacations to exotic locales to your credit cards.  You live rent-free with your family.  You get someone else to pay your bills.  Who's worrying?
• "I just want to have as much fun as I can right now." - Isn't that what you've been doing for the past 30+ years of your life?
• "I'm just going to think good thoughts and keep networking.  Someone out there will want to give me a grant." - A grant for WHAT?  Sitting around all day stoned?
• "I want to have kids and a family of my own." - and when I point out that such things require hard work and steady income you say - "Oh, those things will take care of themselves."
• "I can't wait to be a millionaire and take care of all of my friends!" - nice sentiment, but at this rate, it's a good thing none of us are waiting for you to get your ass in gear.

Meanwhile, I am working full-time, my bills are paid, I'm saving money for the future and still able to afford the fun things in life.  I have a resume that doesn't suffer from a lack of practical experience, and I don't assume that the world is going to take care of me just because I think positive - I am pro-active and as a result more able to give back to the world from which I benefit.  I suppose it will be my taxes paying for your kids and food stamps, and not because you are unable to work, but because you are lazy, unrealistic, and a complete parasite to your friends and family.

Now get off my couch.  I've got work to do.

Bouncing balls

Put a damn bra on!!! Ok I'll admit I go without sometimes. But, sadly, I'm barely a B cup. I swear if I see one more D cup without a bra, wearing a flimsy dress, and boobs down to the knees I'm going to flip. The problem, however, is that I frequent the local Portsmouth Wal-Mart where I will most likely be shot if I do manage to squeak out a booby obscenity. So for now, I will just complain here. I don't know what it is about my wal-mart but if you are looking for a show of low-hanging melons .. come on down.

Epic Tuesday

So, I took an energy booster last night to get me through my workout. Bad idea. I almost yakked. It was so stinking hot in that godforsaken gym, I thought I was going to die. THEN, I felt nauseated the rest of the night. I almost barfed up my oh so exciting dinner of spaghetti noodles with olive oil and parmesan cheese. I wanted to do laundry last night, and looked ALLLLL over the house for freakin quarters, and there were NONE to be found. Fuck laundry. Whatever. I finally got to bed at, like, 11:30 pm (waaaaaaaaaaaay past my bedtime) and woke up at 1, 2, 3, 4...UGH. When I did sleep, it was fitful, and I probably sweated my own bodyweight 3 times over. So I'm exhausted. This morning I walk out to let the dog out of the kitchen, and lo and behold, there are the quarters, ON the kitchen table, RIGHT in front of my face. Last night, I would have sworn on my life there were none. Then, I was packing my bag for the gym, and I just bought some new shorts I wanted to wear, and I can not find them ANYWHERE. AT ALL. And the part that pisses me off the most is that I KNOW its like the quarters: they are probably RIGHT in front of my face, and I can't find them. And because D isn't here to point them out, they might as well not exist. The dog wouldn't crap on his walk (fucker), and the cat wouldn't shut up (meowmeowmeow). The clothes I want to wear are dirty (thanks to the vanishing quarters), its roughly 68432187 degrees with humidity near 10,000% (welcome to hell). Get to the gym, work out, take a shower, get breakfast, go to work. First thing is a shitty email from my boss telling me that I did some god-awful spreadsheet wrong (maybe she should have given us instructions when she assigned it), and I need to re-do it. She then proceeds to guilt us, her team, for her being at work at 9:30 pm. Bitch, please. Maybe if you got to work ON TIME you wouldn't have to STAY LATE. Novel concept, I know, but it works for most the free world. The cherry on top was when the fat chick who sits behind me made some comment to the affect of "Did I get any packages or phone calls yesterday"? I wheeled around and was like "What am I, your secretary?" and she has the gall to say "EX-CUUUUUUSE me? How many times have I signed for your stuff?" Once. I didn't ask you to, don't play the martyr.

How did you make it this long without killing yourself?

Either by accident or because you are such a loser that you realized there was nothing better for you and that you'd actually be doing us all a huge favor.

Yes, I actually said that.

If you can't keep up, get the hell of my way...

I commute by bike to work, and there's this amazing rec trail that runs from the front door of my apartment to the steps of my office. I ride fast because usually I'm running a bit late and really, I don't know how to ride slow. Ask Mo.

Anyhow. I get a good pace going, and there you are, two spandex-clad middle-aged guys out for probably your first ride of the year. One of you has a super-spiffy bike that rattles like a junker because you don't take care of it, and the other one of you, well, you really REALLY should have skipped the spandex. But that's not my main complaint.

Your pace was actually pretty good when I caught up to you, so I tacked on a few yards behind, and started to enjoy the tempo. You were riding side-by-side, which on the fairly-wide trail wouldn't be a problem, except that your pace, every 2 minutes or so, would SLOW WAAAY DOWN; Mr. Spiff would stop pedaling and coast, and Mr. Beerbelly-Biff in the too-tight jersey kept drifting across the middle-line, making it impossible for me to pass his wide ass before the oncoming traffic of runners with baby-strollers and meandering tourists closed the gap entirely.

You would routinely speed up again, and I would think, hey, maybe these guys are actually going to RIDE. Nope. As soon as I'd let that thought finish, you slowed way down, chattering so much about nothing that you didn't hear me say "Excuse me, coming through", Then you would speed up, only to slow down again at the next intersection, even though there was no traffic headed through. You made sure to take the time to suck on your energy-gel packets and drift around in the lanes some more. For fun? Cooling off after that grueling sprint of a flat 20 feet? Excuse me for actually having someplace to BE.

I saw my chance and I took it - envisioning my hand reaching out and smacking you in the back of your helmets as I passed - squeezing through the oncoming lane across the intersection as the cross-traffic light turned green. And what did you shout when I startled you, passing in a tiny gap to your left? "Whoa! Look out! What's HER problem?!"

My PROBLEM is you treat public spaces like you own them, and while I took a big chance when I shot across the street and on my merry way, your riding clueless and tuned-out makes you a bigger risk to the rest of us. Not to mention the spandex - downright offensive, unless you are up to riding fast enough that none of us have to look at it for too long. No? Then move the hell over and let me through.

Sincerely,

The cranky girl on the bright-yellow bike.
Can't miss her.
She's the really fast one you probably couldn't catch if you tried.

Chicken bone, glass bottle throwing Mother 'uckers!

Alright I don't know what is about Tacoma, but here people find it perfectly acceptable to throw their chicken bones and glass bottles on the ground. Yes chicken bones, chewed on chicken bones. The glass bottles are of course cheap malt liquor bottles and for some reason must be smashed. 

Tacoma is suppose to be one of the most walkable cities in the US but I find that these two items strewn about make it impossible to take my dogs for a walk. The favored place for the bottles to be thrown is of course in front of parked cars so that you pop your tires. 

TO ALL OF YOU CHICKEN BONE, GLASS BOTTLE THROWING MOTHER 'UCKERS I WILL SLAP THE CRAP OUT  YOU IF I CATCH YOU.