What I’ve Learned This Post-Christmas Vacation—So Far

1. “Dayton has suffered its first double-homicide of the year” is the most depressing sentence in the world.

2. There is an entire television show in which second-rate celebrities pretend to be retail or food-service slaves, and say “I get that a lot” every time someone cries, “holy crap, you totally look like a second-rate celebrity.”

3. Lean Pockets are repulsive.

4. A shocking number of people do not secure their wireless networks.

5. Some people think I need to lose weight. Some people think I’m too skinny. Apparently, I have two options: be a trophy, or be a typical southern Ohio resident. Both of those options suck, and actually aren’t really options, since I’m pretty sure I’m stuck with my own damn metabolism. Alas.

6. I have no upper-body strength. My arm is still sore from playing Wii—although, in my defense, I did spend hours stubbornly trying to beat my power throw bowling score.

7. If I lived here, I wouldn’t do anything—just sink into my rapidly-expanding body and cuddle my Wii console as I gave way to a sugar coma, with the strains of country-pop bouncing in the background and lending amusing contrast to my pathetic situation.

8. I’m really just not that interesting. Hopefully that changes and I can write something semi-not-completely-dull soon.

No.

Seriously, people?

If you want to buy some books, you buy them all at once. That is, you set them on the counter, I ring them up, you pay me, I bag them, and you leave. You don't bring up some books, have me ring them up, tell me to bag them, and then let your four year old granddaughter prance around the store with them for THIRTY MINUTES while I wait for you to decide what else you want. That is not how it works.

Also, if you have store credit, you either give me your credit slip or, if we have it on file, you tell me so and give me your name so I can like, I don't know, look it up? I mean, that sounds pretty logical to me. But you know what isn't logical? Staring at me blankly for about thirty seconds, then sputtering, "what do you mean it's thirty dollars? We're part of your book club thing!"

"'Book club thing'? You mean you have credit?"
"Yeah, that."
"Do you have your paper, or -"
"You never gave us one!"
"Okay, then you left it here?"
"Yeah!"
"Fine. What was your last name, please?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know."
"I think it's under [name]."
After a few moments of searching:
"Okay, found it."
"Why didn't you have it before?"

Yeah, um, that's annoying.

"Because I'm not actually telepathic. If you have credit I need you to tell me."
"...Oh. Well, we didn't know that."
"No problem."

I applied their credit, adjusting their total accordingly, and naturally, Grandma Genius (who, by the way, was neither senile nor particularly old, just dumb as a freaking post) decided to pay me almost exclusively in change. I swept the change into my hand one veritable pound at a time, and she shoved four pennies across the table with a condescending:

"You forgot these."

I raised my eyebrow. "Actually, I didn't. But thank you for assuming otherwise."

Luckily, she didn't get it.

And yes, I know that one day my attitude is going to bite me in the ass, but I don't care.

Bitter Much?

Classified from the Northern Hills Advertiser:

JOE had a job making $4,000 a week but the state took Joe's driver's license away. If you want Joe's job, call today! Must be trainable. Call Michelle 1-877-313-3633 8am-4pm Mon-Fri.

I wonder how Joe feels right now. And what did he do to piss Michelle off so badly?

Also, I love how the only qualification is that one must be "trainable." "We don't care if you have skills; all we ask is that you possess the capacity to develop skills. Which basically means that you can't be a lazy ass. Which really shouldn't need to be said, but what the hell - we're willing to spend the money to cram those three extra words in the ad in order to hopefully weed out people like Joe. So yeah. You want four grand a week?"

Seriously, that ad made my day.

Which is good, because this almost ruined it: Study shows ability to detect sarcasm decreases with age.