Gee, Your Office Smells Like Doll Heads!

Things not to say to the accounting manager at your company:

Hmm. Your department usually smells like Cheerios, but today it just smells like rubber doll heads.

As if I was expecting her to gesture broadly to a box in the corner of her office, filled with rubber doll heads, and say, “Thanks! I just got rid of my box full of Cheerios last week and it’s taken a while for the smell to clear out.”

What the hell, mouth? Do you not have internal conversations with the random-shit-filter in my brain before you start moving?

I mean, seriously. I hear a lot of stupid things at work, but — sadly — the stupidest things seem to come from me.

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They Breed ‘Em Big These Days

Overheard in the elevator after work…

Corporate Attorney:  Wow, Missy!  You don’t look like you’ve gained any weight at all during your pregnancy, except in your belly!

Pregnant Missy:  Are you kidding?  I’ve gained 23 pounds so far.

Corporate Attorney:  You’re gonna have a 23 pound baby?!?!

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Jerry Springer Meets the Health Insurance Industry

Towards the end of a long phone conversation today with one of my field reps, I came across this conversational gem:

Rep:  …so, anyway, the reason I ask is that his daughter’s pregnant and the doctor’s office is saying that the insurance won’t cover the pregnancy.  Do you think it’s because she’s fifteen?

Me:  Her age doesn’t have anything to do with it.  Since she’s under the age limit, the plan will cover her pregnancy.  However, once her child is born, there will be no further medical coverage for that child.  She will have to insure the child herself.

Rep:  Well, then why did the doctor’s office say that?

Me:  I’m guessing that they didn’t call to verify benefits and just assumed that the pregnancy wouldn’t be covered, since most medical plans don’t offer maternity benefits to a dependent child.  It’s quite a controversy in the health insurance world, so we’re a bit unusual in that aspect, as we do cover it.

Rep:  Hey!  What a great benefit!  I should tell our employees that!  You know, that we cover dependent children’s pregnancies and most other places don’t.

Me:  No.  Please don’t do that.

Rep:  …oh, yeah.  I guess we don’t really want to encourage teen pregnancy, huh?

Me:  Pretty much, nope.

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May I Suggest A Hallmark/KY Merger?

Am I the only one who’s noticed a subtle uptick in the number of “personal lubricant” ads on television lately?  I thought it was just me.  Either that or the “personal lubricant” industry is flush with earnings and is blowing them all on skeezy TV ads just before Valentine’s Day.

And then, this morning, there it was.  A “personal lubricant” ad that confirmed my suspicions: the ad slyly suggested that with their brand of lubricant, you are guaranteed to have a “Happy Valentine’s Night” (emphasis theirs).

Ah, yes.  Valentine’s Day.  That happy day which has gone from a celebration of the martyrdom of two Roman priests who were burned alive in the street, to a hypercommercialized card-and-candy industry, and finally to a not-so-subtle suggestion that you will need personal lubricant in order to celebrate with your loved one, because — apparently — all the cards, candy, flowers, dinners, jewelry and foreplay in the world are simply not going to be enough when it comes to consummating Valentine’s Day in proper fashion.  You will need lubricant.

Eeeeew.  And also?  What a lovely sentiment.  And, again…eeeeeeeeeeeew.

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When The Phone Rings, I Hide

Because of doofuses like this…

Me:  How are you doing today, Mr. Doe?

John Doe:  Fine.  But I have a big problem with my retiree medical insurance.

Me:  Okay, and what seems to be the problem?

John Doe:  I’m afraid that I’m going to lose my coverage.

Me:  Well, I show here that you’re covered through the end of this month.  The only reason that it wouldn’t continue past that point is if you didn’t send in a check for the next month.  Is there a reason that you’re worried about losing your coverage?

John Doe:  I received a letter in the mail from Giant Company You Work For that said that since I was 65, I had to do something about Medicare.

Me:  Hmm.  That doesn’t sound like something that we would send out.  Do you still have a copy of the letter?

John Doe:  No.  I threw it away.

Me:  Okay…  Can you tell me what the letter said?

John Doe:  I don’t remember.  Something about being eligible for Medicare and having to do something.  There were some instructions.  I think they wanted me to send something in.

Me:  Did you follow the instructions on the letter?

John Doe:  No, I threw it away.  I told you.

Me:  Alright, well…  Do you remember anything else about the letter?

John Doe:  It just said that I needed to contact someone if I had questions.

Me:  Who did it tell you to contact?

John Doe:  There was a phone number.

Me:  Did you call it?

John Doe:  No.  I called you.

The conversation went on like this for a few more minutes, until I finally managed to get Mr. Doe off the phone with a promise that I would try and figure out who sent the letter, what is was and what is needed of him.  So I’ve spent the rest of the afternoon calling and emailing people both in and out of the company, pestering them over a letter that doesn’t even exist any more.

I love my job.  I love my job.  I love my job.

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You, Ma’am, Are No Ned Gerblansky

Dear “Beauty Advisor” at Walgreen’s:

I might be more willing to entrust my beauty needs to you if you had eyebrows and did not have a laryngectomy.  So please let me buy my $1.99 tube of Wet ‘n’ Wild lip gloss in peace.

I promise that I don’t need your assistance in selecting a shade and I also don’t need to know about your nail polish sale.

I’m not trying to be an asshole, but your mechanical larynx is really freaking me out and I really have to go now and I probably won’t be coming back.

Love,

K

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Photo Of The Day

Joaquin Phoenix has apparently become either so drugged out that he can’t spell his own name, or that frog in his hair he was so worried about a few years ago has finally nested inside his brain and the frog’s name is actually “Joaqin.”

Your call, readers.

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Life Imitates Art

I may be a huge twat for writing this — nay, even thinking it! — but somehow, the errant strip of fake eyelashes is not the thing that bothers me the most about Laura Bell Bundy here:

The combination of the abstractly-applied eyelashes and the scary, wonky nose lend her entire face the unsettling, jarring appearance of a Modigliani painting.

I love Modigliani as much as the next person.  In fact, I love him so much that one time I took a weekend road trip up to the magnificent Kimball Art Museum in Ft. Worth to see an exhibition of his work because it was only going to be in the United States for four short weeks.

However, I don’t want to show up looking like my face was applied by someone whom history has noted as having a propensity to drink heavily, use copious amounts of absinthe and dope, strip nude at social gatherings and suffer from violent delusions and blackouts.  I mean, he sounds like he’d be fun at a party.  Just not so much as a stylist.

Seriously, though.  WTF is up with her nose?!?

*sigh*  I’m going to hell.

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Stalking Much?

I get all kinds of weird Google searches leading to this blog every day.  From the oddly omnipresent “dirndl fuck” to the mundane “lyrics to chelsea hotel number two,” I’ve seen a lot of search terms and I’ve imagined a lot of disappointed people when they reach a blog that has nothing at all to do with their inquiry (“how to vomit discreetly on a plane,” for example).  But one of today’s search terms absolutely cracked me up with its blatant stalker-ness:

“what kind of car does daniel agger drive”

I don’t know who Daniel Agger is, but if I were him I’d start sleeping with one eye open.

Note:  Okay, so apparently Daniel Agger is a fairly well-known Danish footballer who plays for Liverpool and I’m quite out of the loop.  Still, it’s a little weird that someone is that interested in what he drives.

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Setting That Bar Low

An idea/meme cribbed from Margo, for my birthday:

Horoscopes!  The notoriously unreliable and far too broadly applicable self-indulgences we all know and love.  Here are mine, for November 11th:

From the Houston Chronicle:

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY (Nov. 11). Knowing where you’d like to be this time next year, you’re motivated to make the choices that will deliver you. You’re wary of situations and people who will hold you back. A relationship shift brings more love into your life in February. Finances reflect a new attitude about money in January. You share a special connection with Virgo and Taurus. Your lucky numbers are: 8, 4, 13, 22 and 18.

I’m not sure how Richard will feel about both the “relationship shift” or my “special connection with Virgo and Taurus.”  Does this mean my horoscope is predicting that I will pick up cuckolding as a hobby in the next year? How scandalous.

From Astrology.com:

Let others in your workplace or social group take the risks today — you’ve done enough lately! It’s not that you’re afraid of failing, it’s just that sometimes you need to spread the energy around the gang.

Wow, considering that I’ve been away from work for the last two weeks and my co-workers have been doing all of my work for my while I’ve been away, I’d say that’s a pretty shitty way to return the favor when I get back to work tomorrow.  Yeah, I can just feel their “energy” now.

From Cosmo.com:

Venus sends you a friendly reminder that you don’t need a reason to play. So feel free to get rowdy with your girls tonight.

You can always count on Cosmopolitan to provide a road map for the skankiest and most inappropriate way to get in the pants of that skeevy guy at the club and/or catch herpes, so why should their horoscopes be any different?  Yes, Sunday night — that’s the time to get “rowdy” in my book.

From Yahoo.com:

Sagittarius Moon will continue in force for the next two days – offering you a myriad of insights and brainstorms. When cosmic challenges are of minor consequence, today’s lunar dispensation can provide you with a happy-go-lucky demeanor and optimistic outlook on life. However, there are several difficult celestial sky patterns that can rain on your parade. Mercury re-entering Scorpio (12:42AM PST) – along with a Mercury-Juno union (3:27AM PST) – can suggest that stormy conditions are influencing the collective emotional world of humanity. Being too pushy, egocentric and demanding will hurt your chances of making gains with dear ones. In addition, the Sun squares Neptune at 5:44PM PST – a potentially frictional aspect that often coincides with a steep rise in confusion, chaos, illusions and deceptions. Placing your trust in friends and family members who are not always reliable may be a mistake. Signing papers, making long-term agreements, and buying large-ticket items can put you into a bind. This is one of those days when you don’t want to become your own worst enemy. Luckily, a Sun-Saturn 72-degree quintile formation from Scorpio to Virgo (6:04PM PST) can provide enough commonsense, objectivity, and realism to see you through several hours of uncertainty. Learn more from mentors and experienced professionals in your main fields of expertise. Ingenious ideas are pervasive as Sunday night morphs into Monday morning since Mercury trines Pallas in water signs (12:59AM PST tomorrow).

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…huh? Wha, what? I’m sorry, I dozed off somewhere after something about sky patterns.

And last, but not least, from Horoscope.com:

For those of us born on November 11
Happy Birthday!  The months ahead could see you taking up a good cause, especially when Mars begins to influence matters in the New Year, but don’t dream of changing the world: keep it real and be satisfied with what you do achieve.  You might expect too much from your romantic encounters, too, particularly during the early summer, although you will radiate an inner charm that will be quite irresistable.  By September, you’ll probably want to give your life an overhaul and introduce some positive changes ready for the challenges that the following New Year will bring.

So, basically, the theme for my next year of life is: set the bar low.  I’m so inspired by this, that I think I’m going to go out right now and not try to accomplish anything new or change my life in any measurable way.  Happy Birthday to me!

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And While I’m On The Subject Of Phone Calls…

I think that most of us have been through the trials and tribulations of trying to sell something on Craigslist.  Also, if you’re anything like me, you’ve probably scanned the M4M section of the personal ads and sent the most disgusting postings (gross penis pictures included, of course) to all of your straight male friends’ e-mail addresses with subject lines like, “Check Out This Cool Dodge Viper!” so that you can hear their collective screams of horror from across the city as they open the link.

Anyway, my friend Mike decided to sell an old 19-inch television on Craigslist last week.  Having played many, many foolish games of “Of Course I’ll Hold It For You!” with potential buyers who never showed up, he finally wised up and told interested parties that it was strictly first-come-first-serve with his TV.  Because he was selling the television for such a low price, he had a lot of inquiries and, of course, just as many no-shows.  Mike was glad that he hadn’t promised to hold the TV for anyone; this was turning out to be a much easier selling process.

And then there was Becky.  Becky was a college student who was one of the interested parties.  She had e-mailed and spoken with Mike several times but there was no arrangement made for an actual date or time of sale.  A few days passed, and Mike figured that Becky had found another TV to suit her needs.  Mike sold the TV to a scary-looking, mulleted man in a Gremlin one day after work and continued on with his life.

This morning, he came into work to hear a message from Becky’s very angry and very screechy mother on his voicemail.  I’ve transcribed it below for your reading pleasure:

Mike _______, you are a piece of shit. A real, honest-to-God piece of shit. My daughter rented a truck, made all of these arrangments, took time off work, even, to come and pick up that television that you posted on Cragislist. And you weren’t even there at the house to sell it to her! And the ad’s not up anymore, so I guess you already sold it! You piece. Of. Shit. You really have no respect at all for other people, do you? No consideration for anyone else’s feelings! No respect! Mike ______, you are a piece of shit, and I just wanted you to know that.

Sadly, the telephone number that the mother called from was blocked, so Mike was unable to call her back and explain both the concept of “the pot calling the kettle black” and the fact that her vacant, airhead of a daughter never even discussed a price with Mike, much less a date or time to purchase the television.

Yes, Craigslist is obviously filled with the lunatic dregs of society, but don’t let the above story put you out.  Because the lunatics will also usually pay you good money for useless crap that you want to get rid of and they’ll haul it off for you, too.  So, happy selling!

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The Temp Gets All The Good Calls These Days

I just overheard the temp on the phone with a retired employee who was asking how to spell “HR.”  No, not “Human Resources.”  Just “HR.”

Actually, it’s probably better that I don’t get those calls, since I was cracking up at my desk the entire time and laughing mercilessly at 92-year-olds isn’t exactly considered a “best practice” around here.

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Mad Google Skills

In an ongoing meme, I present the latest Google search terms that have led cyber-wanderers to this page.

The Questions

• how much is the david yurman employee discount?
• how to vomit discreetly on a plane?
• trashy maternity shirts?
• pepto bismol okay when pregnant?
• free silicone boobs?

 The Superlatives

• very very very very sexy boobs
• FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!

The Castigations

• quit staring at these boobs!
• im a dumbass american
• i hate everything
• lazy drunk

The Disquieting

• Mottainai Grandma is coming
• how to slaughter a lamb
• insane asylum address, Odessa, TX
• local trannies

The Confusing

• mermice
• scooter muppets
• spoon badger
• heavy eyeliner bleach mirror chair
• boobs & BBQ
• boobs & pine

The Awesome

• mad ninja skills
• i had a nightmare that i was a blonde
• pig farms for sale in Portugal

The Ubiquitous and Omnipresent

• dirndl fuck

This search term shows up at least twice a day in the Search Results page of my little behind-the-scenes meta widgets.  It would appear that the poor person from Germany is still out there, night after night, religiously Googling “dirndl fuck” in the hopes that one of these days, his searching will lead him to an entire website devoted to girls in dirndls doing possibly illegal things with beer steins.  There’s obviously a small yet devoted following for someone willing to undertake this task.  Will it be you?

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Cool… Refreshing… Canola Oil!

While guzzling a can of cheap, Randall’s-brand Slim-Fast Optima this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that I’d never once glanced at the ingredients label, even though I’ve been drinking the foul but useful things on and off since college.  Sure, I always give the nutrition lable a once-over, with self-satisfied thoughts of, “Hey! I’m getting 50% of my daily calcium intake in this wonder-product!  Take that, osteoporosis!” or “Manganese?  I don’t even know what that is, but I’m totally stocked up on it now!” even though I take two multi-vitamins a day on top of the shakes.

But the ingredients label never caught my eye until today, and how I wish that it hadn’t.

Apparently, after water and non-fat milk, the third main ingredient in my breakfast this morning was canola oil.  Holy hell.  I mean….eeeeew.  A thousand times eeeeew.

I’m sorry, okay?  I know that canola oil is supposed to be this fantastic ingredient with all of these health benefits (high in monounsaturaed fats and omega-3 oils, among other things), but I don’t know how comfortable I am with it being the third ingredient in what is, essentially, a beverage.  I can’t imagine waking up, throwing together a fruit smoothie and thinking, “Y’know what would be delicious with these bananas and strawberries?  Canola oil.  Let me just tip some in there…”

Canola oil is great for seasoning a cast-iron skillet.  It’s great for sweating onions.  It’s great for adding to muffins in lieu of butter (although I hate to do that).  But I really don’t want to drink the stuff.

I guess I’m back to plain coffee in the morning, folks.

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Back in Black

I spent eight hours today at an HR compliance seminar — sounds like a doozy, right? But this was the most bizzarre, completely awesome HR seminar I’ve ever been to (and, sadly, I’ve been to many). It began innocuously enough: a hotel meeting room with a name like “Sierra” or “Diamond” or “Martinique” or some other stripper-esque nomenclature, roughly 90 middle-aged women in their finest Chico’s and Talbot’s ensembles and a tired buffet of rock-hard croissants and lukewarm coffee. I grabbed a spot in the back corner of the room, hoping to do some covert reading and avoid any thrilling conversations (Oh, wow! We use Mercer as our TPA, too! Aren’t their out-of-scope fees outrageous? I know, I know — but their call center is local — no damn Indians — and that’s all you can ask for these days, right? Hahahahaha!).

The murmurs from the various HR ladies died down as a man entered the room — which is unusual in and of itself, since HR as a business unit is so heavily pink-collar — and shuffled to the front, taking a seat on a barstool and facing the audience. He looked somewhat haggard, with tired eyes and a slightly humped back. His shirt was unbuttoned one button too far, revealing the pasty, hairless chest beneath. His hair was ruffled carelessly. He eyed us all wearily.

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Really?

In the second of a…well…two-part series on Google searches, I present the latest random search that led someone to this page: a Dutch gentleman (or perhaps a lady) in Utrecht searches for “barbie grits winkle” at 5:03 a.m. and lands here instead.

Can someone out there can clue me in to the hidden meaning of the phrase “barbie grits winkle”? Is it simply a random collection of unrelated words or is it some universal mystery that no one is destined to uncover?

Google Image Search appears to lean towards the former.

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Lederhosen Copulation

I’ve noticed a recent rise in web traffic from people doing Google searches and ending up here. Mostly, the Google searches are for the lyrics to “Golden State” by John Doe. I appear to be the only person on earth who’s actually sat down and transcribed those lyrics on the internet. WTF? You can find out the actual location of Atlantis or the answer to “what is the meaning of life?” (42), but apparently lyrics to popular songs are in short supply these days.

Anyway, I noticed this morning that I had a truly unique visitor to the blog last night around 3am. This person (from Germany, no less) had Googled “dirndl fuck.” Imagine their disappointment when they landed here…

Sorry, my German friend. I hope that subsequent Google searches led you to that elusive goal.

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E-Mail Hell

Since one of my favorite pastimes is gently (okay, maybe viciously at times) mocking the people I work with and transcribing some of their better moments, I present you with this head-pounding-against-the-wall chain of e-mails (with all random spacing, spelling and punctuation left intact):

Katharine-

***

-Sev

Sev-

Sorry, nothing came through…

-Katharine

Katharine-

His information cannot be retrieved?

-Sev

Sev-

I’m sorry, I meant that your prior e-mail was blank — there was nothing in the body. What do you need?

-Katharine

Katharine-

I apologies for the misunderstanding. We need a copy of Mr.Smith’s elections, when he elected benefits; and / or a screen print of when (lots of blank spaces here that Blogger won’t let me format) Mr. Smith benefits.

-Sev

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Dr. Spock Would Not Approve, My Overly-Tanned Friend

This morning at Starbucks, I had the great fortune of being in line behind a lovely specimen of the local breed of housewife:

Memorial BarbieThis yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of Rolls Royce convertible or Hummer H2. Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card and country club membership. Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and Private School Skipper. You won’t be able to afford any of them.

However, today she actually had Private School Skipper and Private School Ken Jr. with her. Skipper and Ken Jr. were about three and four years old. They were your typical tow-headed, Gap Kids-outfitted, squrimy younglings — nothing particularly good or bad about them, except that they were insistently tugging the bottom of Barbie’s yoga pants and whining about coffee. So, really, nothing that special. I figured they were whining because they either wanted a sip of their mother’s coffee (I used to try and sneak sips of my mom’s coffee when I was little…why, I don’t know) or they were bored and wanted to move on to the next destination.

Then, Barbie blew my mind.

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Thank you, come again!

In the ongoing, agonizing struggle to free myself from the townhome that I was leasing (very little of which I’ve bothered to complain about on here because: provokes anger), I had what I thought would be the final walkthrough tonight with the leasing agent and the new tenants. The new tenants are nice enough, I suppose – although I could really give a shit at this point – but they are the type of very anal-retentive foreigners (you know the type, don’t act like I’m the asshole here) that make people from a certain subcontinent look really bad and perpetuate a certain stereotype, which I hate (stereotypes, I hate stereotypes). So, by the time that they’re finished with their “walkthrough” an hour later – and what am I even doing there? I’m not the landlord! – they’ve compiled a handwritten, two-and-a-half page list of “problems” that need to be fixed before they’ll move in. Which they then give to me. And the proceed to explain at length how they won’t be moving in until I fix these things. Again: not the landlord.

Among the many, many things on the list are the following items:

1) Re-key the locks (I’M NOT THE LANDLORD)

2) They want the showerhead that was in the bathroom when they originally viewed the townhome, which was mine. I explained that the showerhead currently in the bathroom is the one that came with the home and that the one they saw was my showerhead, which I suggested they could purchase at Lowes for $49.99. They didn’t seem amused by this.

3) They also want the shelves that I had hung in the bedroom. Again, my shelves. When I explained that they were my shelves, the husband launched into a shrill tirade which went, verbatim: “We agreed to rent this particular unit based upon the assumption that certain items would be retained in the unit and if these certain items aren’t included with the unit, then we will be unable to rent it!” So, in other words, you want me to bring back my shelves, rehang them and just flat out give them to you? Sure thing. I’ll get right on that.

4) One of the wall sockets in the bedroom was missing A screw. One.

5) The baseboards were dusty.

6) And, finally, my favorite – they were convinced that I had been living – nay, squatting – in a townhome with no electricity and no A/C and they wanted me to fix this immediately. Actually, the electrician that had been out the day before to fix the wiring had accidentally turned off the breakers in the breaker box. But no matter how many times I tried to explain this and the fact that I’d been living in my new house for over a week and not in the townhome, they just kept asking me, “How could you live like this?!?” in incredulous voices as if they were speaking to a woman who’d been found living in a house filled with 57 cats and two feet of feces in every room.

I can’t even tell you how incredibly relieved I am to not be living in a rented house anymore. Escaping my lease has been an utter nightmare – a story for another day, though – and I can’t wait until we’re completely settled into the new house, drinking beers on the patio with the doors open, listening to salsa music on the stereo until the late hours, and then – much later – driving by my old townhome with six dozen eggs and egging it for all it’s worth.

I love italics.

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