So I'm in WalMart...

So I'm in WalMart...and you guys know how much I hate WalMart, but I live in Oklahoma so I'm required to make an appearance in a WalMart at least once every 6 months...it's the law.

So, I'm in WalMart...and this sweet little old man driving an electric cart drives up to me and says, "Ma'am, if you don't mind my saying so" followed by something I can't hear, so, like one does in polite society when one misses something aurally, I lean in and say, "I'm sorry?" and he repeats it.

I still can't hear it.  I have no idea what this man has now said twice.  I don't know if he's mumbling or if I'm losing my hearing and if I am, one of you had better tell me.  I don't want to tell him I didn't hear him again but I have no idea how to respond, so I stand there with a dumb smile and blank expression on my face.  The silence goes on a beat or two too long, so Little Cart Man (not Little Cartman; he's not buying Cheesy Poofs) finally nods, says, "Looks real nice" and putt-putts his little cart down the aisle.

What "looks real nice"?  My shoe?  My left eye?  The cake in my cart?  Yes, I went in for cabbage and bought a cake...and bean dip...it's the weekend, shut up.  I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT LOOKS REAL NICE.

and I will never know what "looks real nice"...but thank you, Little Cart Man...I think.

Waffles and the Disintegration of America

This is a tie-dyed waffle.

I'll repeat that.  Tie-dyed....WAFFLE.  Six tubes of different colored batters to make one waffle.

Tye-dying a waffle.  This is what we do instead of curing cancer.  This is why the Chinese beat us at everything.

Pinterest isn't just drunk; Pinterest has a meth lab.

This

I Have Chosen the Wrong Profession

I say “I have chosen the wrong profession” because where I work, bonuses are an indication of good work and company success.  Apparently, there are careers where one gets bonuses irrespective of quality of work or organizational prosperity.   Careers where one can fail his/her way to seven or eight-figure incomes.  Hey, man, where do I stand in line?!  I can run Hewlett-Packard into the ground equally as well as Carly Fiorina.  I can leave taxpayers on the hook for bailout money as well as any executive at AIG and I can loot a company and force it into bankruptcy with the swift efficiency of Bain Capital.  Just give me a chance!

The only stipulation seems to be that I not possess a soul…or at the very least possess one so utterly devoid of anything resembling compassion, a basic sense of decency or even passing familiarity with the golden rule.  I just have to be okay with ripping the rug out from under the people who ARE performing good work; those hard-working folks who aren't trying to build themselves a car elevator or a moat around their tony mansion.  They’re feeding and clothing kids, making mortgage payments on a little two or three-bedroom bungalow, and just trying to make it, one paycheck at a time, praying to God they don’t get sick because they can’t afford the hospital.  Don't care what you do to them, you've got two pockets of your own to line.  Business is business and they're all 'takers' anyway.  I'm the maker here.

That’s the only requirement.  Check your humanity at the door.

Never mind.  I’m going back to work.

Should You Update Your Non-Blog Because Your Friend Is Pressuring You?

I have a friend named Holly.  Normally, I'd change her name to protect the innocent, but by no stretch of the definition could she ever be called "innocent", so, her name's Holly.  Holly gives me periodic updates on how long it's been since I updated my non-blog.  Apparently it's been two months.  Two months sounds bad, until you consider that I have three followers.  Do the three of them miss me that much?  I think not.  Additionally, if I updated regularly, this would be a blog, which I believe I've made clear it isn't (see:  Title and Website Address).  I reject blogospheric pressure and, incidentally, atmospheric pressure, pressure cookers, pressure sores, pressure treated wood, and parental pressure, especially the maternal kind, but that's a separate post.  Look for it in two months.

Why I Hate Wal-Mart, Reason #34

By semi-popular demand based on a series of Tweets I posted August, 2011:

     I hate Wal-Mart. Every time I go, I add to my list of reasons why I hate it. I am now up to, I think, #34. Tonight, against better judgment, I am in Wal-Mart. I am in line, being checked out by a very nice young man, obviously new, who realizes he is running out of bags.  He has enough to check my purchases and probably a couple more people, but he's earnest and proactive so he calls for bags...twice...no response.  Now, it becomes apparent by his behavior that he can't simply go to an empty register and get bags himself; he has to fill out a formal bag requisition or something.  So, after two futile attempts to get bags or locate the proper bag requisition forms, he flags down a Customer Service Manager, whose name I never got, so for purposes of this story we will just refer to her as "Lazy Bitch".  He politely inquires, in very Oliver Twistesque fashion, if he might, perchance, have a few more bags, please, ma'am.  Lazy Bitch tells him to just switch registers instead. Wait, what?  The EFF??? There are four fully-bagged empty registers around him; we are literally awash in bags.  Bags this young man isn't allowed to touch and Lazy Bitch can't be bothered to go to "Where the Bags May Be Touched" to get him a supply?? There are three people behind me that now have to move to another register and this young man has to sheepishly explain that he's being moved because well, the bags, you see...are no more...THE BAGS ARE NO MORE!!! If this young man at some point has a complete mental breakdown and spends his remaining days muttering "the bags...it was the bags..." ala Caine Mutiny, it will be entirely the fault of Lazy Bitch and dumbass Wal-Mart.

Exhibit A in How Dare You at NBC

     Last week I was in New York City.  It was my first time there and I was doing all the cheesy, tourist-y things...checking out Times Square, seeing Broadway shows, eating everything in sight...and in cheesy, tourist-y fashion, I went on the NBC Studio Tour.  If you haven't been on this tour, it's exactly what it sounds like, a tour of NBC Studios, including the Saturday Night Live set.  While I, my husband, and the 20+ middle school students milled around, the Page gave the SNL spiel I'm sure she gives several times a day.  Part of her scripted commentary mentions "Things Not To Do When Guesting On SNL" and uses Sinead O'Connor's tearing of a picture of Pope John Paul II two decades ago as an example of "Unacceptable Guest Behavior Which Must Not Be Tolerated" and reminded those of us in the group old enough to remember that Sinead was banned for life from SNL and NBC Property.  Those not old enough to remember were given no context.
     I was watching that show 20 years ago.  I remember the lyric change from "racism" to "child abuse" in the song "War" that she performed.  I watched her commit career suicide on live television by ripping a picture of the Pope and yelling "Fight the real enemy!" At the time, nobody, myself included, understood or cared what she meant by that or why she did it.  It was perceived (again, by me as well) as a gratuitous insult to Catholics and the Catholic Church.  It was a classless, uncalled for, unprovoked attack on the Bride of Christ.
     But it wasn't.  It was a young woman with a few seconds of precious time on live television trying to blow the whistle on what we now know was long-term, systemic, sexual abuse of children within the ranks of Catholic church officials, covered up by the Church itself.  Sinead was 20 years ahead of everyone else, except, of course, the abused children.
     Now, 20 years, hundreds of broken former children, and a mountain of lawsuits later, in the eyes of most of the world, Sinead O'Connor is vindicated.  She was right and the rest of us were wrong, blind, and stupid.  She is still punished by NBC, still banned, as is their right.  SNL can have any rules for guest behavior it wants and NBC can ban anyone from its property.  They don't have to forgive her, although considering the dire nature of the situation she was trying desperately to get attention for and the blatant fact that the only real harm was to herself, forgiveness seems easy and cheap to give her...but to continue, year after year, to have their Pages use her as Exhibit A of How Dare You At NBC given what we know, finally, is simply malicious, smarmy finger-wagging by too-young-to-know-better proxy.  It's time to knock it off.  How long a sentence should one get for whistle-blowing, anyway?  Isn't 20 years enough?  You don't have to let her back onto your lawn, NBC, but stop slandering her in your Tour.