Come break me down. Bury me, Bury me

Does it bother anyone else when a company does a donations drive that runs some thing like this? "Beaverton Cycles will donate 5,000 dollars to a wonderful charity just as soon as we sell fifteen motorcycles!!" My company Petco does the same sort of thing. Oh yeah they donate money but most of the donations come from customer generosity rather than out of corporate income. It just seems to me that if these people really had any interest in actual donating they would just give the money. The new trend is profit motivated giving. I suppose since profit margins drive almost all decisions in this world I shouldn’t be terribly surprised. But these companies act merely as middle men moving money from the consumer to a charity only if their cut is large enough. Not to say that Petco or other companies don't do some good things but it comes across as merely a means to increase their own status and secure more profits. If they care enough to give, they should give from their profits, and give without trying to use their donations as a pedestal to elevate themselves.
Yes profit motivates everything in this culture, even relationships. I mean think about it, the frequency of divorce can be used as an example. Though the single greatest cause is most likely unchecked selfishness another common one would be people who enter marriage in the belief that it will make them happy, provide some emotional of security benefits. And in a healthy marriage it will, but you can't expect your marriage to succeed if you are in it for your own edification. Someday your pursuit of your own benefit will cause a collapse (which in our modern climate means divorce). You have to come to a marriage as you should come to a charity, you give freely of yourself without looking for a way to profit yourself. Seek first the benefit of others and your life will afford you more pleasures than any other path, but do it for those around you. It will be hard and therefore worth doing. We all want to live and die with honor and this is how.

I can't respect the current corporate giving structure. It surprises me that so many people don’t see through it.

Most of you know that I am adopted. I generally never speak of it and it hasn’t been particularly important in my life. I am not one of those people who obsess about the situation. The only thing being adopted has left me with is a feeling of mild debt. I often feel like I owe the girl who decided first to give birth to me and then to put me up for adoption a thank you. The only thing I know about her was she was 16ish, unmarried, lived in Portland and kept me for a week before giving me up. I have known some complete idiots who resent their birth mother. How stupid is that, she realized she couldn’t provide any good outs for me so instead of dooming us both or killing me she gave me the best possible chance for some sort of success. At any rate that’s all I know about her. I have come to a point where I just wish there was a way that I could let her know that I appreciate not being killed, and give her a very brief account of myself. I wish I had a name and picture or something about her. I don’t want to really have a second family; I don’t even really want to do anything more than just a brief interaction. But there it is. I have no way of doing any of this of course and I suppose it isn’t so bad as I don’t want the complications of having to treat anyone else as family.
The only reason I bring this up is that a few days ago while doing some mercenary birthday shopping for a friend at borders something odd happened.

I was in the CD section cruising along and this guy who worked there glanced over and saw me and acted like he recognized me. Not a “he looks familiar” reaction but a full “it’s my favorite cousin I haven’t seen in years” look. So he comes over and says that I look exactly like a friend of his he used to know in Illinois. In fact I had a striking resemblance according to him to the gentleman in questions whole family. He tells me the guys name is Brandon and asks if I have family in Illinois. I still recovering say that I don’t know if I do. And he mentions that the family has ties in Chicago and do I have relatives there which of course I don’t know. I mean this guy is near convinced that I must be related to the family and after a few minutes of conversation he shakes my hand and walks away bemused at my similarity in appearance to Brandon.

Do I have blood relatives in Illinois? Do I have a brother, a clone, or possible a visible match in a man named Brandon? Could there be some town in another state over-run with Jeff look a likes? Is the lady who birthed my still alive and did she pass through Chicago?
I have no clue.
Coincidence, design, or simply a guy who wasn’t that good with faces making an error.
That is the weirdest thing for me about being adopted.

We're the kids who feel like dead ends

We're the kids you used to love

But then we grew old

We're the lifers here till the bitter end
Condemned from the start

Just don't ask me what I think, trust me you don't wanna know.

“Everyone's a building burning
with no one to put the fire out.
Standing at the window looking out,
waiting for time to burn us down.”

“I've never felt so hollow.
I'm an old abandoned church with broken pews and empty aisles.”

It’s easier to make light of a horrible thing and make it a joke than be completely forward with it, its how I’ve dealt with things most of my life. I am not good with emotions, dealing with them, mine or anyone else’s. A lot of that is a result of personality and my childhood, both of which are both joined anyway. That then pertains directly to my blog. I have taken the little points of my days at work and written them as humor, making light of things. You all know that I don’t like my job. But I have been depressed for weeks now. It’s been one of those black moments where I couldn’t even find the words to explain it, so I stopped blogging. I keep having these “what the hell am I doing with my life?” moments. I have no real plans and no real goals. When I was young I remember standing in the parking lot of the Hatfield Marine Science Center building and thinking some day I want to work here. And I did, for a summer. And the transition from coming close the achieving something to working a job that feels like a form intellectual prostitution has been harder these last weeks than it has before. (I call it a form of prostitution only because I am selling my life, my time, and my hobbies for a few bucks every two weeks.) I almost want to sign back up with ODFW and head back to the coast in June but I wont. And yes I know that at least I have a job etc. etc. but it consumes almost all my time and even then I am barley providing. To everything there is a positive side and a negative side and I have always been a pessimist. I am just lonely in this town that was my home feeling like a complete and predictable failure. So maybe I’ll start aiming for a masters, but after that what then? I am just setting the course at random. In those few moments when I talk to people about fish, the ocean, or any of the worlds I have created in my mind, or aquarium design I feel like I am waking up from a deep sleep. What the hell am I doing? There is no one in this town I can talk to except my wife. Damn do I miss California sometimes.

A comic for all y'all.

Jeff, The Drunk Guy, and the Ferrets

If this job has taught me nothing else it has taught me this: drunken men love ferrets. Maybe it’s the animal’s quick and erratic movements. Maybe it’s the fur. Maybe it’s the cuteness. Whatever it is when some guy comes into the store drunk there is only one thing they have eyes for, the ferrets. They want to hold them and be near them. And we, being responsible, busy ourselves elsewhere and begin a waiting game, us vs. the drunk with the ferrets riding in the balance. I could write a very dull and plot less book out of all the drunk-to-ferret interactions at the store. But to you I submit my personal favorite:

Drunk Guy: “That’s an albino ferret.”
Me: “Yeah, yeah it is.”
DG: “You have albino ferrets?”
Me: “Uhhh Yeah, two of them actually.” Thinking *Like the one you just pointed at?*
DG: “That’s just cruel.”
Me: “Pardon?”
DG: “Albino ferrets, its cruel. They can’t walk, they can’t run or jump, its cruel.”
*Albino ferrets run around cage tackle a cinnamon colored one and take a flying leap at a hammock*
Me: “They seem to be able to run ok.” *I briefly consider trying to explain that an albino simply lacks pigment in skin and hair and then moving on to the genetics of it. Then, realizing that it would be an exercise in futility, I let it go.*
DG: *Looks at me with blurry disbelief* “They got pink eyes. The light hurts their poor little eyes.”
Me: “Well actually…”
DG: “They can’t see. They are helpless creatures.”
*The albino ferret stands on its haunches and looks at us both and then pins the cinnamon colored ferret.*
Me: “Our albino ferrets do just fine.” Thinking *Just look at the damn ferret! It could tackle a fricking Wildebeest skin pigment or not!*
DG: “Who would do that to an animal?”
Me: “You can get almost anything albino these days.”
DG: “Well I’ve never seen an albino woman.”
Me: *Touché* “Well….they exist, I assure you.”
The drunk guy shoots me one final look of blurry doubt and the puts out his hand. I figure if shaking this guys hand will help him move along so be it. I take it and give it a quick shake and then apparently the conversation is over. Out into the night goes the drunk leaving only the lingering scent of cheap wine.

Another time this drunk came in and he kept asking the same three questions:
"Where are ferrets from?"
"They are basically mice but they have cat feet how weird is that?" (After my third attempt to explain that ferrets aren’t rodents I gave up.)
"What do they eat?"
And he would ask them in sequence with no memory that I had just answered them. At some point I wanted to finish his sentences for him.
DG: “They are basically...”
Me interrupting: “…mice but have cat feet how weird is that. JINX, now you have to leave the store.”

Jeff makes more enemies.

A couple comes up to the register with a coupon.
Guy: “I can’t find this item the….uh *consulting the coupon* mini-deluxe habitat. Where is it?”
Me: “It’s either over there on isle 1 by the window or on the rack by the tank.”
*The guy nods and plods off in search of his mini-deluxe habitat.*
Girl: “Why don’t you actually go and help him find it?” *said in the snottiest ‘you’re and idiot’ tone I have ever heard*
* So I walk over and find the item*
Me: “Here it is sir.”
Guy: “That’s not it.”
Me: *pointing to the tag that says mini-deluxe habitat* “The mini-deluxe habitat? I believe it is.”
Guy: “The sku on the coupon isn’t that same. That’s not it.”
Me: “That’s the coupon sku; it’s not the same as the item sku.”
Guy: *with agitation* “The numbers different, and the coupon one is for a kit” *he points at the picture on the coupon which shows the habitat with a Betta and a plant in it.*
Me: “It’s not a kit. They just did that to give people ideas about what they could use it for.”
Guy: *now looking at me like he wants to flay me alive* “Then why did they make it look like a kit in the picture”
Me: “Because it’s a pathetically small plastic cage and that’s the only way they could make it look half-way decent. There are other things you could use the coupon for.”
*at this point the girl comes around the corner*
Girl: *looking at me with anger and distrust* “What’s going on?”
Guy: “He is trying to tell me that this is the cage and it’s not a kit.”
Girl: “Well we can always go to another Petco.” *and then directs a glare at me so I know that she finds me repulsively incompetent*
Me: “Feel free to but the cage will be the same there.”
Guy: “Well can I credit the coupon towards a kit?”
Me: “Can you use it towards another aquarium?” *caught off guard by the request*
Guy: “Yeah can I use it to get what you’re calling the mini-deluxe habitat and then return it and use the credit towards a kit and then pay the difference.”
Me: *thinking* “The mini habitat if returned would get you zero dollars in exchange!! What kind of madness is this?! Sure sir, here’s a blank gift card with the credit of your return the balance is at zero.”
But what I said was:
“No, I am sorry but the coupon is for that tank, it is what it is.”
Guy: “Ok, can you get me a manager.” *cold rage folks*
Girl: “Yeah, seriously.”

Now for all those out there wondering what a Deluxe-Mini Habitat is I present to you, the object of the couples desire and reason for wanting me dead, the Mini-Deluxe Habitat.

I told you it was a piece of crap.