upping the anty

So a couple days ago at work I got a call, one I was sure had to be a joke. I thought that the person on the other end was putting me on and since it was the end of the day and I was tired. I got a little miffed and thought, “Oh, you want to make up crap eh? 'Cause I can bullshit 'till the Cascades erode down to hills. You want to dance, lets @#$$%## dance!” Needless to say she eventually hung up on me and my coworker claims I lost us a customer, but I feel justified. Here is a transcript of the conversation, submitted for your approval.

Me: “Tigard Petco this is Jeff. How can I help you?”
Her: “What pet would be good for *remainder muffled*”
Me: “I am sorry? What pet would be good for what?”
Her: *aggravated sigh* “I said what pet would be good for a little *remainder muffled*”
Me: “Ok, well how much space do you have for the pet?”
Her: “I want to keep it in my son’s room”
Me: “In that case I would suggest a rat or a teddy bear hamster. Rats are intelligent and if you get them young, they become very friendly. Hamsters each have their own personalities so they aren’t as sure a bet.”
Her: “Do they bite hard?”
Me: “Well, I suppose they could. They don’t bite that often and rarely all that hard.”
Her: “Because I want to get a pet that bites hard so I can use it to punish my son. Like when he’s bad throw it on him or make it bite his fingers or something.”
Me: “um………………………….that’s not good. We really don’t give pets for that...”
Her: “I just want to know. So would a rat bite harder or…?”
Me: *having had enough* “Well yeah they bite pretty hard. We also have scorpions which can sting and it hurts like the devil. We have tarantulas too but I doubt they would be aggressive enough for your tastes.”
Her: “So do the scorpions always sting?”
Me: “If you irritate them enough I am sure they will. We also have lionfish; of course they are harder to take care of.”
Her: *sounding irate* “I am not special &*@#@ Ed. I know how to take care of fish. Do they hurt?”
Me: “Yeah it would be like having your hand skinned while conscious, but they are expensive.”
Her: “How much do they cost?”
Me: “Oh ...like 150, 200 something like that.”
Her: “So how much do they cost?!”
Me: “Well, the thing is, Lionfish are worth their weight in gold...”
Her: *interrupting* “Worth their weight in gold? But how much…”
Me: “Precisely. The thing is though, the prices change every half hour. It really depends who is on shift. We once thought about standardizing our pricing but we had been drinking and…
*she hangs up*

Final score:
The Eckmann 1
The crazy lady 0

The thing that kind of scares me though... what if she was serious? *shudder*

Where do you go when you're lonley...

Sit around, dream away the place I’m from

Used to feel so much, now I just feel numb

I could go out tonight, but I ain’t sure what for

Call a friend or two I don’t know anymore

Sit and listen to the rain

Sit and listen to the rain

Gonna ride down to the river where it runs

Gonna watch TV and pray for decent reruns

Sit around and dream away what I’ve become

Used to feel so much, now I just feel dumb

Sit and listen to the rain

Sit and listen to the rain

I’ll never understand this emptiness

I’ll never really try and understand, I guess

I’ll never understand this emptiness

I’ll never really try and understand,

Try and understand, I guess

Following this stream of conciousness all the way to the ocean.

Occasionally when I am closing out registers at work I find some really cool coins. Yesterday I found a penny from 1947. Granted pennies of that era are still fairly common it was still interesting. I mean that penny was minted shortly after World War II and has been slowly wandering the country since then.
By far the coolest thing I found was a nickel from 1887. This coin was minted just 22 years after General Lee surrendered his forces at the Appomattox Court House. The coin had been in circulation for about 120 years. It was in pretty bad shape and so couldn’t really be sold but that is irrelevant. Just to hold the thing and feel the weight of the history behind it, wondering where it has traveled and who has had it. One of the guys I work with is a coin collector and so he swapped out that nickel for a new one out of his own pocket so he could keep it safe and display it. He asked me if I wanted it and I said no at the time, deciding that he could be better entrusted with it since that was his hobby, but a part of me wishes I had kept it.
Things that old in this part of the country end up in museums, and so I was shocked to find it in a cash register at work.

Thinking back to the time I went to England though puts the age of the coin in some perspective. We were at Newgrange and while inside the structure I noticed graffiti cut into the walls and just as I was mentally cursing the idiots who did it I realized all the graffiti was pre-1820. Yeah our stuff is brand new by comparison.

Newgrange

Originally built between c.3300-2900BC according to Carbon 14 dates (Grogan 1991), it is more than 500 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, and predates Stonehenge trilithons by about 1,000 years (although the earliest stages of Stonehenge are roughly contemporary with Newgrange). It lay lost for over 4,000 years due to mound slippage, until the late 17th century, when men looking for building stone uncovered it, and described it as a cave.

Mortal Wombat!!

I was selected for jury duty. That is what’s going on with me. I am sure that you will all think I am crazy but I was actually interested in doing it. I can’t though, several reasons for that, 1. I can’t afford to miss four days of work and 2. The boss said that they can’t spare me right now and they need me at the store.
I am disappointed because I have never had jury duty before and it would be a new experience, not to mention four days off with nothing to do but read novels, play world of warcraft, and relax. I don’t feel any calling of civic duty to perform jury duty nor do I feel like it would be a meaningful participation in local government, it would just be something new and interesting. *Sigh* oh well.

Elaine thought that I wanted to go just to play hell with the system. (I gave her that impression due to our first conversation about jury duty.)
I mentioned passing notes to the other jurors during the court session. Things like; “I don’t think that color tie really goes well with the lawyer’s skin tone. Wouldn’t you agree juror number….whatever” or maybe something more simplistic like “That guys an ass.” Or maybe I could slip the bailiff a note asking when lunch is.

Probably the most fun thing to do if you truly didn’t care would be to totally BS the questions you get asked when they decide whether they want you or not.

Interviewer; “What is your opinion of robbery at knife point.”
Me. “Well I personally think its lame. I mean the knife, seriously overdone; it’s just not scary anymore. See, when I knock over an ATM I use something original, something scary. I have this trained attack wombat, and yeah at first they don’t respond appropriately, but when that little guy latches on to their calf…well, I get paid. And then I buy the little guy a wombat treat.”

So sleep tight little boys of the new damned.

In Honor of Valentines Day

"Sleepwalker"

“Maybe I could be the one they adore

That could be my reputation

It's where I'm from that lets them think I'm a whore

I'm an educated virgin

Sleepwalker, don't be shy

Now don't open your eyes tonight

You'll be the one that defends my life

While I'm dead asleep dreamin'

Cupid, don't draw back your bow

Sam Cooke didn't know what I know

I'll never be your valentine

The sleepwalker in me

And God only know that I've tried

Let me in, let me drown or learn how to swim

Just don't leave me at the window

I could be the one to be your next best friend

You may need someone to hold you

Sleepwalker, take this knife

You may see someone tonight

You'd be the one that saves my life

When I'm dead asleep dreamin'

Cupid, don't draw back your bow

Sam Cooke didn't know what I know

I'll never be your valentine

The sleepwalker in me

And God only know that I've tried

I'm in your movie and everyone looks sad

But I can hear you, your voice, the laughtrack

But you never saw my best scene

The one where I sleep

Sleepwalk into your dreams

Now, sleepwalker, what's my line

It's only a matter of time

Until I learn to open up my eyes

When I'm dead asleep dreamin'

Cupid, don't draw back your bow

Sam Cooke didn't know what I know

I'll never be your valentine

The sleepwalker in me

Now, the sleepwalker in me

Now, the sleepwalker in me

And God only know that I've tried”

Most of you who know me know that I personally am not a fan of Valentines Day. I was fortunate enough to marry a girl of similar mindset and so I continue to largely ignore the holiday. I think that anyone who can objectively view it will agree at least to some degree. My problems are thus.

The holiday is a time to show your partner, friends, family etc. that you care about them. (I will refer only to a couple from here on out for ease of communication from here on out but it applies relatively evenly for any relationship.) My thought is that showing your significant other that you love them should be something you do pretty much everyday. So simply put it’s a holiday designed for you to do something you already should be, which makes it kind of pointless. Further, if you aren’t showing love any other time it is irrelevant what you do on Valentines Day. You could pull out the most romantic wonderful day ever but if this one day is all you got than it is worthless. Conversely if you sacrifice for the other and show love throughout the rest of the year, if you do nothing on Valentines day the prior consistent action renders this one day irrelevant.
Now think about this because I know a lot of people would say “oh, but they should know to do something special on Valentines Day. And so if they don’t then I have a right to complain.” And to that I say you are letting a single day nullify an entire year. If you really think about it this day is setup in such a way that any action taken is not spontaneous and should mean less. Any person who doesn’t do something for Valentines Day is a practical social pariah in our society. People are almost required to perform today. I just think in life consistent action is the only thing that means anything. Those times you see that you’re are lacking in an action be it performing acts of love to another, spending time in prayer, or taking care of your responsibilities if you don’t consistently do those things but only do it only very occasionally it is nothing more than twitching while in a deep sleep.

Now I would like to address the ladies particularly. Now I know many women do nice things for their man on Valentines but if you are honest with yourself you know that this holiday is largely about the man doing something for the woman. Just consider the average post-Valentines day conversation. The women generally ask each other what the guy did whereas the guys generally ask what they did for the girl. By placing such weight and expectation on this day ladies you are really shooting yourself in the foot. By that action you are creating a circumstance where a guy could have his entire year trumped by a lackluster Valentines. And if the reward is largely dependant on a single day the others matter just a little bit less, hence less effort on the others more on the day of reckoning. And honestly wouldn’t you prefer spontaneous acts of love that come straight from a guy rather than annual actions created at least in part by a marketing frenzy and your own expectations. If you want a guy to truly show love than you need to stop trying to force it too look a certain way or ignore long term action in favor of a single day. Simply you have to let go of Valentines Day. And gentleman, get her flowers next time you’re thinking of her on your way home from work. In short, if you aren’t willing the rest of the year, who gives a damn what you do today.

And one final quote to all those girls out there who suffer Valentines Day wounds out of unmet expectations they had of good guys who try the whole rest of the year. We speak with one voice and say.
“You murdered yourself. I just carried the bullet a while.”

If you were a ghost where would you haunt?

After giving it much thought I have decided that if I ever was forced to do a little post-life haunting I would select as my place of residence, without a doubt, Alpenrose dairy.
The high school I went to used the theatre there for most of our plays. And my opinion of the place has remained the same from the time I first laid eyes on it till now. By all means anyone who is familiar with the place, feel free to throw your thoughts but to those who have never seen it let me try to set the scene a little.

The complex consists of the main dairy, housed in a large concrete box of a building on one side and a velodrome, baseball fields, and racetrack of some sort on the another end. In between those is a miniature town. I say miniature not because it is particularly small but that it was originally designed for children and as such the buildings are built more closely to a child’s scale than adults. On the far side of the town there is a large man-made “pond”. It was never landscaped and looks like a concrete bowl. This body of water is surrounded by a 6-7’ chain link fence covered in signs saying that the water is too be avoided at all costs. The water has over time become an unhealthy looking lake that is black in color and smells unpleasantly of something that is not readily identifiable.

The story goes that when they first built the dairy they built the “town” as well and had puppets and handmade dioramas and other amusements designed so people could take there children to the dairy and let the kids walk through the buildings looking at motorized dolls acting out fairy tales. Well the idea crashed and though the diary still functions the town has been abandoned to a fate of slow decay.

The town has no lighting and at night is left in the dark. There are only two buildings left functioning in it. The rest are filled with cobwebs and weird archaic farm equipment and random items (I know this because you can still look through the windows into the buildings.) The theatre which was what my school used was a good example of why I would choose that place as my place of haunting. In the theatre the only well lit places consist of the main entry, the seating area, and the stage. Everything else, all the side rooms, passageways, and corners were always dark and filled with cobwebs. The unsettling thing was if you walked out of the light and into the shadows you would start to find things; a broken child’s doll here, a single shoe there, an old work shirt, newspaper clippings, things like that.
At night when we held the plays the rest of the town shrouded in darkness would crowd up against the few lights in the theatre. It was like the slow decay had seeped into the corners of the building and eventually it would overwhelm the faint light in the center,

The place just looks like a physical manifestation of someone’s dying dream.
It is the perfect place for a modern ghost.