Friday, February 22, 2008

Cover That Baby Up

Somewhere in the black hole that I have in my car I have lost my ice scraper. This is a bad thing because we are having some crappy here in St. Louis and that ice scraper would sure come in handy. Now, if nothing, I am very creative so the first day that I had ice I pulled out my old Rhodes credit card and went to town on the windshield. Let me tell you, this is a really long and really cold way to get ice off your windshield. Not to mention that if you are over zealous in your scraping the credit card will snap right in half.

Something had to be done.



So let me present my alternative to scraping.





Yeah, yeah, so my car has a Holly Hobby quilt on it. My car is now sitting in a parking lot, in E. St. Louis wearing a blanket and I think she is adorable and.....CREATIVE!! That's right, all I have to do is pull that blanket up and my windows are ice free. I will be sitting in my car looking out at all the scrapers doing their thing and laughing my big ole warm tushy off. Ms. Holly Hobby blanket will go in the trunk until I get home then I will pull it out and let it dry in the garage until she is next needed.

And do you want to know what the best part of this story is? There is no way in hell I will lose my car in the parking lot today!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

I Got A Prize

And here I thought Valentines Days was going to be depressing and sad. I was sitting here, minding my own business, being extremely jealous over my cousin and her prizes when my boss walked up and handed me a cute little purse bag. His granddaughter made prizes for everyone in the office.



I don't know which I like more, the cute little purse bag or the bracelet. Either way it was very sweet of her and I am thrilled over both!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

I Fought The Phone and the Phone Won

Every day that I work and usually the day after I work at the Bookstore, I like to slip down to Hell's storage area, which we will call "the 4th floor", and take a nap. We are not talking luxury. We are talking about a chair in the corner with my feet propped up on an open file drawer. There is no heat on the 4th floor so I take my coat down with me and wrap up with it. Usually I pull the hood down over my eyes so that it blocks out all light and I am all set for an hour. Amazingly enough I can fall asleep with in 5 minutes so I get a pretty good little nap down there. I also sleep really hard so the first thing I do is to make sure the alarm on my phone is set. I would hate to sleep until 4ish and actually have to have one of the co-workers come down and get me.

Today I got all cozy settled in and dozed off when there was a really loud, annoying beep from my phone. What tha hell??? I popped up out of the chair and almost broke and ankle trying to get my feet of the file drawer as I scrambled for my phone. There was no call, there was no message, there was just my screen saver looking at me. I sort of thought I had lost my mind and maybe dreamed the whole thing. I settled back in and again right as I dozed off this BEEP sounded again. Again I checked the whole phone out. I shook it. I squeezed it really tight because we all know a good shake and a squeeze should fix it, right? Nope, again the thing beeped only this time I was ready for it. A nice little alert of Low Battery flashed across the phone.

Low Battery??? Did my phone lose its mind? I plugged the thing in last night. It had a full charge at 8 am this morning. I have made no calls today. It has just been sitting on my desk holding down so papers. How could it lose a charge that quick? Have I mentioned that I hate this phone as it is so this did not sit well. It was actually, pretty much, pissing me off. I started searching for the alert turner off’er thing. I went through every button there was on my phone. I hit every sound alert, every ringtone, every anything that looked like it could be connected with that annoying loud beep. Every three minutes the phone would taunt me with a beep and off I would go in a different direction looking for that alert. The phone was so winning this battle. That’s ok, I was fixing to win the war.

I pulled out my big guns. I called *2. That’s right, baby, customer service. Things were getting serious. I was losing sleep time here. I needed a nap dammit and the phone situation was not helping my crabbiness. Customer Service was going to be my knight in shining armor. They were going to slay the beep (I really need to lay off the romance novels). Oh the horror, oh the pain when I discovered Customer Service SUCKED.

My first attempt at help got me the automated lady. She could not understand me. Yes and no did not compute. Yes and no screamed in a high pitch hissy fit was also pretty much a no go too so off she sent me to a real live person. God help me. This is where Jamie from somewhere far far away came into this story. Im sure Jamie was very nice but Jamie had to ask me a gazillion and 1 questions before he could get into my account. Jamie was not amused when I asked him if he trained at Ft. Knox. It’s a cell phone for cripes sake. So we go through the whole question, secret question, top secret secret question and what’s your hobby question to finally get into my account. Jamie then wanted to know if I wanted to pay my bill. No Jamie, just make the beep stop. Jamie got snippy with me and said, “Just go to the alerts.” Now excuse me Jamie, I did dammit. (OK I cussed Jamie) Jamie gave me the whole I hope we provided you with excellent service speel, let me send you to someone else. I think I might have pissed Jamie off.

ZAP, away I went with my phone beeping every two minutes now due to a really low battery. I was transferred to Terrell this time. Terrell was very nice and did not sound so far far away. What I did not like about Terrell is that Terrell had to ask me the same questions that Jamie had to ask me. Terrell also was not amused when I asked if he trained at Ft. Knox. I explained the problem to Terrell and managed to only whine 8 or 9 times and to only say damn twice. Terrell was of no help. Terrell had not a clue what I was talking about. Terrell made me speak in tongues. I swear I was pretty much foaming at the mouth over this. The whole time my phone is happily beeping away and letting me know that the battery was really getting really low. Terrell finally gave up. That’s right he quit helping me. His parting advice was to just go into the store and they MIGHT…MIGHT…. be able to help me.

Now to add insult to injury, right as Terrell suggested this, my phone shut down. Not only did it turn off but it played a happy little tune when it did. It was all I could do not to wing the phone up against the wall. It was also all I could do not to cry because the worst part of the whole story is that with all the fighting and fussing I had spent almost an entire hour dealing with the phone and had lost my nap as well as a bit of my dignity by letting an electronic device get the better of me.

So now the moral of the story is…. Just go ahead and sleep until 4ish. Honestly, your co-workers would rather you do that than have to hear you whine that you are sleepy and about how much you hate your phone for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Stuff I Have Learned Today

When someone at work says have it done by Thursday they really mean that it needs to be done by Monday.

Never suggest brown tassely shoes to someone with small feet.

If you cook the popcorn for 2:20 it will be burnt in the middle.

If you don't wear socks with your tennis shoes then by 4:00 your feet will be squishy.

Beef stick and croutons make a crappy snack.

If there is no heat on in the storage unit then there is a good chance you are going to freeze if you go down there at lunch to take a nap.

Never say you will work your second job two days straight because by the second day you will be grumpy tired.

Ok, I think that is pretty much all I learned today. I'm sure the Bookstore will have some other wonderful life lessons for me when I get there. I did have to laugh the other day. I was in the travel section which is by the bathroom and overheard a dad and son having one of THOSE conversations.

D - Did you wipe your butt

S - I think so, I don't remember (how does one not remember if they wiped or not)

D - Well did you go poop?

S - Yeah, I just don't remember if I wiped or not

D - Come here so I can smell you (this is where I peeped around the corner to see what was going on and the dad was just kind of sniffing the air around the kid)

D - Well you don't smell at least...did you remember to wash your hands?

The kid walked off in a stomp. I'm not sure if that was a yes or a no but I made sure to kind of watch the area and not touch anything that he did just in case.

One thing is for sure, I have a feeling that for the rest of my life, I will always remember to wipe my butt AND to wash my hands after I poop, thanks to that dad!

Monday, February 11, 2008

You Will Never Take Me Alive, Coppers!

I am so gangster you just have no idea.

Sunday morning a miracle occurred and I was actually early leaving out for the Bookstore. I was feeling good, well rested, a bit in awe of myself because, I think, this is the first time I have been early in awhile. I hopped in the car, cranked the radio up and off I went down the highway. I was even more pleased when You Sexy Thang came on the radio. For some reason I can not sit still when I hear this song and it also brings out the urge in me to sing. It seems that it also brings out the urge in me to press my foot down on the gas. So there I was, singing, car dancing and speeding down the road when I saw my worst nightmare heading in the other direction. There he was in all his red and white glory, one of St. Clair’s finest, ye ole sheriff.

Of course as soon as I spotted him I stopped dancing, slammed on the brakes, turned the radio down and started cussing. He had me. He had me flat out and he knew it. I watched as he slowly made his way over to the other lane and looked for a place to whip a U-turn. Now here is where I lost my mind. Since he knew he got me and I knew he got me and the truck in front of me knew he got me I decided to cut the poor guy a break and not make him chase me down. I decided that it would be just as easy for him to give me a ticket in the rest area as it would on the side of the road that way he would not have to walk on the highway. See, I was being thoughtful.

I pulled into the rest area and down into the car park area. I went ahead and wrestled my license out of my wallet and was in the process of getting my insurance card out of my glove box when I saw Sir Sheriff pull in to the rest area. I admit that my heart was beating a mile a minute and that I was not looking forward to having to deal with this so early on a Sunday morning but he had got me so I braced myself. The red and white cruiser pulled slowly into the rest area. I watched his every move in my rear view mirror and desperately tried not to make eye contact. The car slowed as it went passed the parked cars. I could feel my heart beating in my ears. (I think I might have pee’d my pants a little too) Closer and closer he got to me and I was sweating bullets. As I watched he pulled up right behind me….


Then slowly slid past. WTF??? YOOOOUUUUHOOOOO Mr. Ye Old Sheriff, here I am!!! I felt like waving my hands to get his attention…. but I didn’t. I just sat there watching him looking at all the other cars that were parked. As he made his way out of the rest area and took off down the highway I was dazed and confused. Did I just pull a sneaky? Did this actually work? Is he tricking me? When I pull out on the highway is he going to be sitting there with a big ole Sheriff’s grin and a huge ticket because I’m a dumbass? Oh so many questions were whipping around in my head. So many questions, in fact, that I didn’t take a chance on moving for a good 10 minutes just in case. So many questions, in fact again, that when I did move I did it at a very slow rate of speed. There was also no singing or seat dancing going on just a constant chant of, “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you” coming from my car.

Now here is the good news/bad news thing. The good news is I ducked out of a ticket that I could not afford but the bad news was I was 15 minutes late for the Bookstore. Im pretty sure as I clocked in I heard this voice chuckling and saying, “No matter how hard you try you will never be on time.”

Pulling my fedora low down low and striking that laid back gangster pose. It's ok universe, bring it on. Just call me Babyface Flynn!