Must Love Dogs... and Hate Jackasses.

Being away from the general public has done wonders for my personality. It's made it so much worse.  No longer can I just grin and bear it. I'm getting toothaches from grinding them in attempts at stopping a stampede of profanities just waiting to storm out of my mouth. It's only my third night back on the floor, back on the register, and back dealing with dumbasses. I've already had enough.

Day 1: Oh, a 98 degree day. Hmm... what can we do that is air conditioned, doesn't cost anything to get in and we can harass the most people?

And ask as many stupid questions as possible like, "how are you?" (Yes, it annoys me. You don't care, don't ask. Clearly, I'm not "Oh, quite well" or "good" or "ok." Yes, I'll ask about your state of being as well, I wasn't raised in a barn. But I really don't care how you are, so just keep your head down, let me tell you your total and you can leave. I also know that "it's a scorcher out there!" and that "it's soooooooooooooo hot.")

Anyway, that day I was accosted at the men's register in regards to the construction behind the register. It's going to be an Izod shop. What will it sell? Really? We've carried the brand for years. Clearly, hand grenades.

Day 2: I'll take a crazy cat lady over the man who I presumed to be a kindly old grandpa. Grandpa Munster, maybe. After I showed him some shirts, he began making small talk about his cat. Once again, don't care, but I'm an animal lover, so I'll play along. Apparently, he got the cat from a shelter because the family couldn't keep the cat with their dogs. After politely nodding my head to the beat of the song playing in my own personal la la land, I tried to excuse myself, but then he asked if I had any cats. Being the proud mama I am, I told him I had a dog. I could see it in his eyes- this flipped the crazy switch on and it was quickly becoming turbo charged. He began on a tirade about how selfish I was to have a dog because dogs cost more money and there's more cats in shelters than dogs. I'm sorry that there's probably just more cats out there than dogs? Oh, and that I'm allergic to cats so even if I wanted one, I couldn't have one? I'm sorry that shelter dogs get more of a bad rep than shelter cats? But who am I to say? I love dogs so that must make me and John Cusack real assholes.

Give me all the bacon ice cream you have

It was a magical day. Not only was it the first official day of summer and recess day (which my new workplace celebrates... can we say awesomesauce?), but I also discovered a true gift from God. It completely makes up for that lame list of ten rules we're supposed to follow. 

So after a long, hard day of work that involved 2 hours of playtime, I just really wanted ice cream... then completely spaced out on the way home and got into the wrong lane, which unfortunately went in the complete opposite direction of the ice cream stand. Then, as if it were a sign sent from the heavens above, I got stuck in traffic, but was able to make an illegal u-turn and head in a different direction... which, just happened to lead me directly to a bountiful land filled with ice cream and tacos and beer. Today, I just opted for the ice cream and thank the good, good Lord I did. I've been curious about this little homemade ice cream stand for awhile (Antneys, hey, this is a pretty good endorsement for them... because so many people read this). There should have been a beam of light hitting the stand with choirs of angels singing its praises for what I saw on the menu- Salted Caramel Bacon ice cream. I feel like my enthusiasm overwhelmed the cherubim at the window, but she graciously gave me a sample of the heavenly indulgence and basically this is what happened....

And that scared her even more. But I did end up ordering a cone and I only had to pay for a small considering that their version of a small cone is two scoops of ice cream. I heard the song so many times at the hell hole, but I finally understand. Heaven is a place on earth. 

It's the most furriful time of the year!

Driving through dahntawn

In my Cavalier

When around the Westin

Oh, what did I hear?

People in fur costumes

Making spirits bright

What fun it is to ride and see

The furries out tonight

Oh, it's furry time, furry time

Anthrocon is here

Grab your cat ears and your tail

Cause furry time is here

This past Friday was basically better than Christmas. It's the time when I feel all warm and fuzzy... mostly because it's June and there are hoards (stampedes? gaggle? murder? herds?) of people dressed in animal costumes parading around the 'Burgh. It's times like this I'm truly proud to be a yinzer- Pittsburgh is the home of Anthrocon- a convention of like-minded nerds who enjoy dressing up as cartoon creatures. It's one of the few times out of the year I feel normal. Which felt strange. 


I go see the merry band of costumed creatures every year, but this year we went right into the lions den... well, lion, fox, dog, cat, etc. den. Most of the "furries" stay at the hotel directly across from the convention center and we walked right into the lobby. The hotel, not the convention- I'm not quite ready for that yet. I'm still not quite sure if we were allowed in there considering that we were neither patrons of the hotel, nor the rather expensive restaurant located inside the lobby. Thankfully, we didn't get kicked out and we hung out with local radio personalities and the real stars- the furries, who were quite glad to put on a show for the onlookers. They happily posed for pictures with the families facing the recession who couldn't take their kids to Disney World, so they went for the next best thing... furry-invaded downtown Pittsburgh. On second thought, it's pretty similar to Toon Town. Anyway, my babble isn't very interesting, but the pictures are- so here ya go. 

... I was excited... can you tell?

....excited and slightly terrified.

The local radio personalities... who got much better pictures than we did.

And finally, we found Jesus. And Waldo (not pictured)

The wheels on the car go round and round... that's about all I know

I'm not a car girl. I can't point out makes or models save for maybe the DeLorean and the Batmobile. Maybe the one from Knight Rider, but only if David Hasslehoff is standing next to it. I didn't really pay attention in drivers ed., I mostly worried about if the teacher would discover the mouse my friend and I decided to raise in the school and take to class with us. I did learn about the dangers if road rage- don't piss someone off, they might have a crossbow. I recently learned where the windshield wiper fluid goes, but I need to get the damn hood open first. I found this is best done by hunters with a dead deer in the back of their truck in the GetGo parking lot. And I do know that when your car is smoking, it's not because it is being possessed by the smoke monster from Lost. Smokey the Bear is also not helpful in this situation. Apparently the bastard only cares about woodland creatures. 

So maybe this is why I virtually devolve into a bumbling bimbo anytime I'm forced to go to a car repair place. No matter how many times I practice the speeches my dad tells me, I still regress into a dialogue used mostly by teenage girls and lobotomy patients.  It doesn't even matter if I have a cheat sheet written on my hand. Most car parts are still referred to as "thingys" or whatchamacallits or thingamabobs with a lot of "likes" and "ya knows" thrown in and God forbid it's making a noise. Honestly I just need to fully dedicate myself to the bimbo character I play every time I walk into a mechanics and dress in daisy dukes, a cut off top with hair up in pigtails, lucious, freshly glossed lips sucking on s lollipop while I proceed to wash my car before bringing it in. Oh wait, I went there today in my "I'll be cute at work" dress and flats. That might be just as bad.

Avenging my Previous Avengers Experience... or not

As you might have guessed, my previous theater-going experience with The Avengers was not exactly spectacular. After working a few hours of over time at my new oh-so-much-better job, I decided to reward myself. So I took myself out for a night on the town.. or just to Panera Bread and the discount ticket day at the theater closest to my place of employment. What? I'm a cheap date. I had hoped that the new horror movie, "What to Expect When You're Expecting" would draw the biggest crowd since the blokes had a few weeks to drag their gals to "The Avengers." I was wrong.

Granted, it was not as bad as it was the first time. Not nearly as bad. Unfortunately, I did end up next to the girl I was stereotyped as last time and she asked her man-friend questions at every possible turn. Might I propose a rule that if you drag your significant other to a film (especially a nerdy one), you give them a rundown of the characters and a brief summary of what to expect. I'll forgive children when they ask questions or get confused. Especially the little boy in front of me, who was clearly into the film... I could tell because at one point he threw his popcorn down and proclaimed "SMASH!" His character totally changed by the end of the film though... he declared himself to be Thor. I just hope his parents don't get him a hammer. Then there were the lovely women behind me... who just referred to Mark Ruffalo as "hot stuff" the entire time and cheered whenever he appeared somewhat, almost, but not quite nude. It was awkward. Didn't they know they should be cheering Chris Evans in sweatpants? They also stayed for the credits to "see who those other people were with him." ...yeah. Oh well, time to try and ease my disappointment. I think I'll watch "Smash." It's about the Hulk, right?

Occupy MC Nickels... might as well, it's pretty much a ghost town

So the company ("MC Nickels") I kinda, almost, sorta, but not really still work for got a new CEO. In keeping with my oh-so confidential cover- up names, we'll call him Ron Last-name-synonymous-with-male-genitalia. Well, let's just shorten it down to "Dick," it's pretty fitting seeing as how he's running the company into the ground and putting a ton of hard-working individuals out of jobs. I know it's strange to see me actually passionate about keeping the company afloat, but it's not so much the tyranny of corporate America that I'm sticking up for- it's the people that make up the individual stores. Sure, there are people I don't get along with and some that I just plain wish would take a two mile run off a cliff whilst on fire. But there are many others who make the eight plus hours I have to endure there so much more bearable. I'll admit, I've imagined that place exploding, imploding, going down in flames, up in smoke, flooded, runaway wrecking ball (especially when we carried a hat that resembled Indy's fedora), taken over by a zombie hoard, mannequins coming to life and taking human slaves, recreating The Hunger Games in the junior department (more on that to come), and basically every near- apocalyptic scenario. However, I never wanted the company to go down like this- a slow, sizzling burn out that makes it more painful for the peons while the big-wigs sit back and wait for the inevitable crash in order to take their severance or whatever they get for their screw ups. So this jackass...err, "Dick" better change course soon or else he'll not only have angry stockholders to deal with, but one already disgruntled associate with not a lot to lose. And we all know those are the dangerous ones... especially when they're a girl who is 5'3 with no formal defensive training except for a few zombie apocalypse preparations and fake light saber. So I guess until then, we must keep calm and carry on...

...or according to my new, awesome, so much better job:

...yeah, it's much better. 

Tonight I'll be your nerdy girl

Feelin' kinda N E R D Y

I don't know how many times I can state this. I'm a nerd. A geek. I'm a Whovian, X-phile, and incurable Lostaholic. I like almost anything with "Star" in the title, except for maybe "Dancing with the." I've read comic books, graphic novels, science fiction, and fantasy. Oh yeah, and I'm a girl....I know- major shock! ...as if all of that wasn't enough social awkwardness for one person.

I finally saw The Avengers last night... I say finally because I was going to go to the midnight showing, but had to work at the hellhole until 11:00 that night. Yup, that place ruins everything. So I ended up at a sold out Tuesday evening showing by myself. Alone. By myself. I really was supposed to have movie watching companions, I even saved them seats. Unfortunately, they got there after the tickets sold out and didn't take my hooligan advice to buy a ticket for another movie and sneak in the theater. So who cares if they created a small fire hazard? Not all the seats were filled and I even had two saved... up until 5 minutes before the movie started. In my heart of hearts, I believed they might muster the courage to be a rebel and sneak past the teenage ushers who take their job oh so seriously. At least I had saved their seats long enough for families with small children to bypass me and go to the very, very front of the theater. Yeah, it just made me look like a real dick. So I finally decided to call my absentee movie buddies (mostly to prove that I actually have friends) and told them I had to fork over their seats to a group of nerdy boys... who seemed to see a kindred spirit in me. Or just boobs.

I was proud of myself- I actually spoke to these gentlemen like a normal human being. Mostly. Unfortunately, that morning I opted for the "cute girly top" rather than my normal geeky t shirt suit of armor or else the night's events might have gone a bit differently. I hate when people talk to me during movies. I hate when people text during movies. I hate seeing movies in crowded theaters (except for midnight showings) because someone usually breaks these commandments. I thought I had these gents on my side... until the movie started. Apparently my minuscule female brain was already overflowing with thoughts of make up and dresses and all things pink to comprehend the movie and I needed to be told who each character was. For example, one of the guys leaned over when Loki first appears to tell me that it is, in fact Loki. I refuted that I believed he was Gandalf because he was carrying a big stick. Not picking up on my sarcasm, he then told me that Bruce Banner is the Hulk. I just couldn't believe it. Mild mannered Bruce Banner is a giant green monster? Boy, I wouldn't like him when he's angry. Oh, and did you know that Tony Stark is Iron Man? Whaaaat?! No way! Is his arch nemesis  the Man of Steel? So it's like a naturally occurring element versus a man made alloy? That final comment is finally what put it over the top and they shut up for the rest of the movie... I need to work on my social skills.