Waits this all about?

I have stumbled upon something amazing. Something fantastic, something I am wondering how I have never heard before. Tom Waits. Yeah. I saw him on Conan a while back, liked the song he preformed so I jotted down his name. Didn't really think much more about it. Went to Best Buy the other day and was in the mood to spend some cash so I wandered around the CD section, picked up one of his and said what the hell and bought it.

Amazing. It may only be one album I have heard but I am sitting here craving more. I read somewhere that a critic described his voice "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car." and its true. (and I don't know how to get the bourbon to not be all hyperlink like) There is just something addicting about it. It infects you. It's one of those voices that expresses the emotions of the lyrics without having to hit high notes or holding notes for ten seconds like Kelly Clarkson. It is just so rough sounding.

Must. Buy. More. Must. Get. More. Tom. Waits. I want to get the CD set. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards. But thats something like 40 bucks. and I'm cheap.

I also bought another Michael Buble. CD. hehe. My musical taste is just as much a mystery to me as it might be to you. I love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love Garth Brooks. I love classical. I pretty much hate hip hop. I tend to lean more towards the rock.

I also got the fourth season of Wings. Hehehehehe. Hehehehe.

Is it sad I got a giggle out of saying Shiver Mint Timbers! and thinking I was so creative for coming up with that? Yeah...I thought so too.

Also, I've been watching a lot of those shows on TLC, the ones with the people who weigh 700 pounds, and today someone came in who was rather large and I couldn't help but think that maybe some day I'll see them on one of those shows getting their stomach stapled. I know. I;m a bad person.

Well one of the few remaining Studio 60's will be on shortly.

I need out!

...Of this freaking state!

I know I've blogged bitched about it before but I am really feeling it right now. I hear people talk of vacations, see friends' photos and I can't take it anymore! I need out! I need to head west across the Mississippi or east of Lake Michigan. Or North across Superior into Canada. Though going south into Illinois doesn't sound poetic since there is nothing cool to cross except...toll booths. And lets face it people, those things are not cool. They take your damn money so you can get into Illinois. Enough said.

I'd take going to Iowa! Minnesota! Michigan! (but not the frigging UP. That is just like a tumor growth on the state of Wisconsin. Infecting the state with it's Spartan and Wolverine fans. Michigan should just give it up already. But then Wisconsin would lose its cool shape...) Ohio! Illinois! (I'm desperate people!)

Is it too much to ask? I've spent the past five years in the same places. Oregon. Madison. Fitchburg. Whitewater. Monroe. Minoqua. I think maybe Milwaukee like a grand total of twice. Once when I went to tour the campus and once when I went to a baseball game. Oh lets not forget the stops en route to the blasted northwoods. Wausua and SP. and Janesville once in a while during the school year. New London a handful of times but that's a new development to see TT.

All exciting places. I know! I mean there is no where better then Whitewater! I cannot contain my excitement over that place! A place that doubles in population when school is in. A place that doesn't have a record store, and Wal-Mart closes at 6 on Sundays! The student population drops in significant numbers on the weekends the place is so f-ing exciting! The University wonders why everyone spends their free time drinking, it's because the only places open on the weekends are the bars! And if you're not old enough to go there then you just drink in your damn room!

...I need out of this mitten shaped place.

Soon.

An open field and a baseball bat.

Today I wanted to pull an Office Space. I wanted to take my register (I don't know what part, the scanner part) go to an empty field and whack it a couple times with a baseball bat. Bust it. See pieces of it fly. Get some satisfaction out of destruction. I was really getting pissed at it. I ask only one thing of a register and that is for it to scan. I have a rhythm. I do things and I do them my way and when a register isn't scanning my rhythm is thrown off. Rarely at this point in my cashier career (um yikes! it is so not a career. If that was my career I'd be depressed and drinking a fifth of vodka) does it take more than one swipe to get something to scan. Two is acceptable. But no more. Some items are red flagged in my head as problematic in scanning then I can prepare but when something as simple and fast as cereal or soda isn't scanning then I get Pissed Off with a capital P and O. *breathe*

Today some lady's bread or something got stuck down at the end of the belt out of my reach and when I asked her if she could slide it to me or at the least on the belt so I could turn it on and have it come down and she looked at me like I was absolutely crazy for asking. In my head I was saying "well I can't Go Go Gadget my arms so shimmy the three and a half steps and knock it on down here lady"

aye yi yi. Working in a grocery store just really makes me doubt humanity. And makes me think that people are in fact stupid by nature. Don't get me wrong. There are some really nice people. Some people who are easy going who don't have a kinipshit. For every 10 passable people there is at least one that makes me some what annoyed. And then there are a handful everyday that make me want to scream. I don't know where people get off getting rude. I'm doing my job mmk? Don't tell me how to do it. I don't tell you how to do yours. Granted there are some complete morons in the grocery industry but take a looksee and see that I am not one of them before you start with your stares and your 'tude.

End. Rant.

So um, how's it going ya'll? Yikes. I really don't like when people say ya'll and aren't from south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Ok well it's getting late-ish. Almost time for some sweet dreams. Nighty night.

Oh are you serious!

Work has me futushed. fatuched? I don't know how to spell it, I really don't know Yiddish. But anyways work has me mad.

Now normally that's nothing new. I find something to annoy me but rarely does it last. I usually get over my anger in ten minutes and wait for another person to piss me off. This is different. This is lasting. And this is coming from within the store's ranks. Not some stupid customer who doesn't know their ass from their esophagus. This one makes me angry when I think about it. (Ok so on a scale of anger its about a 5)

Let me tell you about it. I was standing there, at my register (number 9 if you were curious. I like to call that one ole Sally Mae..not really) waiting for the customer in my line to finish doing something and one of the glorified cashiers, as I like to call them (they're really service desk folk) comes, stands there looks at me. I ask what she wants, she doesn't say anything I say she's making me nervous and she says some one has complained about me. I say What! and she said yes, about your uniform. At this I rise an eyebrow and look at her, my face full of confusion and say what? are you serious. She says yes, that my blue tank top under my white collared polo shirt is against the uniform guidelines. I reply OH ARE YOUR SERIOUS?! She says yeah (now granted you could tell she thought it was a load of bull and didn't have a problem with my tank top) and I said well that's stupid. and that I thought Roundys should buy me new pants.

The new uniform rules are you have to wear a while collared shirt. Check! Black apron. Check! Brown,black or white shoes. Check! tan or black pants. Check! I follow the rules man. I follow them. The only part of my tank top you can see is on my back where the apron doesn't cover. If anyone says anything about it to me again I think I'm gonna say something to the effect of "Ok. No colored tank top underneath then. What about if I wore nothing? and by nothing I mean no shirt or bra. What's Roundy's policy that? The possibility of my nips showing? oh and while we're on the subject of uniform, I'm out a pair of khaki pants because the apron turned the front of them black so I think I should get a check for $40. " or perhaps I will just smile and say ok! and then the next day show up wearing this shirt I have, its yellow with stripes but BUT it has a white collar! and if asked about it I'll say "well I was looking at the uniform guidelines and it says a white collared shirt. This shirt has a white collar. It doesn't say white shirt with collar, if it did then ok but it doesn't." Technicality! They get you every time!

Moving on.

I think I've pin pointed what type of old people my parents will make. My mom will be the crazy bird lady. Sits in the garage with binoculars around her neck, bird book next to her. I could even see her going bird watching with a group. As long as she doesn't sit in a park looking like a bag lady singing Feeeeeed the birds! Tuppence a bag. Tuppence! Tuppence! Tuuuuuuupppppence a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag! My dad's gonna be the old man with a horrible fashion sense. The guy you see in the store and shake your head at. (he wears chains on his sunglasses and all black Reebok's already! He's not even 50!) I could also see him as the guy that stares at the pickles for five minutes trying to figure the best deal.

I'm just full of things to say tonight!

I had a weird dream the other night. I was back at high school, just visiting or something and we all had these chocolates. Chocolate balls to be exact, in pretty foil wrappers and then Bob Scott who was the principle all thru my high school years but isn't anymore took away all our chocolate! and he said the only way we could get it back was if we went to the nuns, there were just standing there, say a prayer and then we can get them. Then someone said something about not being Christian so he said that they'd have someone from their faith there. Then there was this meeting. The people trying to get their chocolate back against Bob Scott and the administration. We were sitting in the Commons but on bleachers (which don't really exist) and then I got called on so I said something like "I did a research paper on No Child Left Behind and a school cannot stop prayer but they also can not lead it and couldn't it be argued that by making us go to a nun to get our chocolate back the school is breaking the rules of imposing religion upon their students?" and then people clapped and we got our chocolate back.

Like I said. It was weird. I wonder what it means.

Oh for the love of everything holy! the Brewers just blew a 3- nothing lead in the bottom of the 9th to lose to the Rangers again. The Rangers have the worst record in the American league! That's just....so....angering! Though they still have a few game lead in the NL central but not for long I'm guessing.

Ok. Well this has become really long. I thank you if you've read it all.

Good night Seattle! (I said it like Fraiser in my head...)

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty free at last!

Paris Hilton is a whore.

That's nothing new though. Out of jail after three days?! That is buuuuuuuuuulllllshit mama. Oh boohoo. Little snobby rich girl got punishment most people would get and she gets out early. Three days in the hooscow lead to a nervous break down? Maybe she dropped the soap.

I hope they send her back because house arrest in a mansion has cruel and unusual punishment all over it.

I am watching some horrible Katie Holmes movie right now. This makes me think perhaps she lost her mind before she married Tom Crazy Cruise.

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

No exciting work stories. Saw some guy in magenta scrubs and I thought to myself "what self respecting surgeon wears salmon colored scrubs?" Noticed that the pregnant ladies are out in full force. That might sound weird yes but every year at this time it seems like the pregnant population grows and I hadn't really noticed it much last week. But the last few days, yup. Noticed the trend is back.

What is up with penguin movies?! Why has there been an explosion in the penguin market? The demographic exists? I haven't seen any of these penguin movies. Penguins are not an animal that entices me. They just...waddle. What else is there? Nothing. Lions. Now there is an animal I like. The Lion King. Need I say more?

Oh! Who uses parasols now adays?! Sorry, I just walked out of my room to get some water and walked back in and on the screen was Katie Holmes twirling a parasol while sitting in the middle of a lake in a row boat. After I got over the cliche factor I focused on the parasol. And now how dorm rooms in Hollywood look nothing like any dorm room I've ever seen.

Ok. No mas. I'm outta things to say.

Blessing in Disguise

You know. I never thought of work as a great place to think. But it is. It's an amazing place to think. For the most part anyways.

I think about all my silly little movie ideas. I can hash out dialogue in my head and then write it down on a decline slip when I got the time. It's amazing! This is a perk of having a job a well trained monkey could do. Though I don't think a monkey could count out change....that would be an impressive monkey though. The job is so mind numbing and routine that it stimulates my thoughts. I get lost in them in order to not lose my mind. Four years of working there I could do it half asleep and lost in my own Neverland better then about 3/4ths of the people who work there. Not to mention it is the Muse of my grocery store movie. It's great. Except for when I try to write stuff down people come in my lane. Damn customers.

It's a good thing I have an active imagination because otherwise I think I could very well go crazy doing the same thing about 125 times a day. More depending on how busy it is. "Hi. Would you like paper or plastic today? scan scan scan. Do you want the watermelon in a bag? scan scan scan. The buy one get one free come off with you're savings card. scan scan. Ok you're total is $85.79. Out of 100? ok $14 dollars is your change, the 21 cents is in the machine. Thank you have a nice day."

That's is. Over and over. Spicing it up when its something like WIC but other then that, its that over and over. Perhaps a little conversation. So routine I can read a customers body language. If I see them watching the screen like a hawk I know I'm bound to get a question over prices. If a person watches me bag then I know they're bound to be a bitch. If a person is just sitting there as the bags mound up cuz I don't have a bagger and not about to walk every single bag around to put it in there cart then I know they're bound to be a bit snooty. I hate it when people talk on their phone the whole order. It's just rude. Granted I don't have any life or death questions to ask them but I also don't want to have to ask about three times which bag they want and get no answer so start to put it in plastic and then five bags in have them tell me they wanted paper and expect me to repack their bags. Um no. Sorry mister. Get off you're phone or say a single word to me and we wouldn't be in this predicament. and for the love of mike! If I set something to the side don't throw it in the bag I'm currently bagging or waste a bag on just that item! I have plans! I look at the belt I see whats there and I know pretty much every single bag I'm gonna bag. Just cuz I set something aside doesn't mean I'm gonna leave it out. Do you really want your dryer sheets with your bread and produce? No, you'll have mountain fresh lettuce then. I know what I'm doing. Gaaaahhh! Don't reach over and steal my pen. MY PEN! The pen on the check writing area is for you. The pen sitting on the register is mine! Wait you're damn turn! Don't steal my pen! I get very mad when my pens get stolen. I need them. And don't touch my switch to turn the belt on and off! Or swipe you're own savings card! I'm not gonna steal you're damn keys and it takes you too long to do it.

I'm sorry. I got a little carried away. It was a snowball effect, it kept growing. I have to vent once in a while. I apologize.

Ok. I'm gonna enjoy my day off. Hopefully my toe stops feeling numb since I won't be on my feet for 8 hours today.

Knocked Up

Saw the movie tonight. Good flick.

And very R rated. Lots of F bombs. Not to mention a scene that I think has scared my for life and pretty much makes me never want to have babies come out of my hooha. Yeah. Not cool. I...blach! I shutter when I think of it. Naaaaasty.

I'm on a roll! Two movies in less than a week. That's amazing!

My fingers are blue...I just noticed that. I don't know why they're blue. That's odd.

Moved a load of stuff into my apartment this weekend. Pretty sweet, not gonna lie! The best part? Outside my own room and bathroom and all that? My shower curtain. Yeah. You read me correctly. My shower curtain. It is of a lighthouse. Got it at Wal-Mart for 10 bucks. They didn't have any cool retro/"the 70's called and wants their color scheme back" ones so I went for the lighthouse. Just tried to find it on the Wal-Mart website cuz my camera'a batteries were drained (whoopsy) so the only pictures I have are on my phone. But really. It's sweet. And now I'm gonna be on the hunt for some cheap ass lighthouse things for my bathroom. If you're gonna go gawdy, you gotta go big. Wal-Mart had matching stuff but I'm not gonna pay 20 bucks for a friggin' waste basket. My pretty white dollar ninety four one works like a charm.

Aye yi yi. my room is a dump, should really put the clothes into the dresser, though stacks work amazing in my mind.

Peace!