Wednesday, March 22, 2006

So. What have you been up to?

Seven Things I'd Rather Do than Work Right Now:

  1. Sell socks door to door
  2. Give a speech before a crowded auditorium while wearing tight pink spandex
  3. Sprinkle my dog’s toenail clippings on a salad for some extra crunch
  4. Relive the seventh grade
  5. Eat a box of sidewalk chalk
  6. Fashion a crown of tampons and wear it to an important meeting
  7. Live in a world populated entirely by Dr. Phil clones
As I’ve written of in more creative days of yore, I am now in the thick of our “crunch period” at work. Believe me, this has nothing to do with granola or sit-ups. I wish it did. Anyway, I thought I’d give you a status report so you can live in my world for the next 47 seconds. Lucky you.

Current Status of …

My love relationship: I’m married? Wow. So that dude on my couch must be my old man.

Hangnails: bloody tatters. I thought about posting a picture of my fingertips here, but it would probably trigger your gag reflex and/or frighten you away forever and/or convince you I have serious neuroses, which you may have already deduced.

Dog: she’s eating her own poop again. And the barking. It is incessant.

Children: Wait. I don’t have children. Thank God, because if I did, someone would have called Social Services on my ass weeks ago.

Hygiene: Let’s just say I could land a role as a bag lady on CSI without even auditioning.

Relationships with friends: neglected. But I did speak last night with the lucky pal who just returned from Venezuela. S, I love you dearly, but a small part of me hopes you brought cockroaches home with you in your baggage. (This is the jealousy talking. Shut up and sit down before I smack you, jealousy.)

Houseplants: are you familiar with the term “desertification?”

My brain: has been replaced with a bag of marshmallows. If I close my eyes, I can hear the faint strains of “Turkey in the Straw” emanating from my left ear canal.

Daily interaction with peers: lately, the only people I’m interacting with are my coworkers and our office’s 85 year-old cleaning lady, Dorothy. Topics of conversation with Dorothy in the last two days have covered funerals, nursing homes, church, her negative attitude toward binge drinking, the possibility of me taking her out and getting her drunk, people who feed robins ground hamburger, and the weather. Dorothy conversations are always initiated when you are trying to add a column of 746 four-digit figures manually.

And yes, Dorothy is 85. Because I work in the Hotel California. You can check out, but you can never leave. Or retire. Ever. When we employ quality staff, we keep them. Yes I am duct-taping my talented coworkers K and L to their chairs as they close in on retirement age. I have already warned them. Shit, their chairs have WHEELS, so I don’t know what they’re complaining about. All we need are a couple of colostomy bags and they’ll be ready to roll. Pun sadly intended because that’s the kind of lame garbage my brain is capable of these days.

31 comments:

  1. Well, THIS is damn hilarious! Makes me wonder why I've been doing other stuff besides checking blogs lately--boring stuff like running errands and eating and showering...

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  2. Let me add one more. YOUR BLOG: Always funny and always interesting. Among the best of the best.

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  3. Jess, if you're going to take up door-to-door sock sales, please swing by place. (Email and I'll give the address.) I'd love me some new socks.

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  4. Anonymous11:07 AM

    Hey, bet my fingertips are grosser than yours.

    Maybe we can post pics. Similar to that 'Self Portrait Tuesday.' Call it 'Hangnail Wednesday.'

    You in?

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  5. Anonymous11:11 AM

    Dr. Phil clones? Oh things must be bad, very very bad.

    Oh wait - how about "type blogger word verifications..."

    blech

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  6. relive 7th grade? omg, if 7th grade was as dreadful for you as it was for me, you must be having a bad day!

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  7. Anonymous11:50 AM

    Thank you, thank you for this post. It made me laugh which I sorely needed. I too am having a horrible crunch week/month (year? god I hope not) at work and I agree there's many many more things I'd rather be doing. Which you can tell since I'm here procrastinating...

    Sigh. Back to work. My best to Dorothy.

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  8. Anonymous12:01 PM

    If I close my eyes, I can hear the faint strains of “Turkey in the Straw” emanating from my left ear canal.

    You really are gifted with these observations! =D

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  9. Marshmallows make for good bloggers. Clearly this wasn't a fluff post. It was thoroughly amusing.

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  10. Neptune's in retrograde...only three more days until the crazyness is over. ;) At least, that's what I read here: http://bite-my-cookie.blogspot.com/2006/03/now-this-is-what-i-call-excuse.html

    Anyway, we here at my company believe that even going to a funeral is better than being at work. You know, as long as it's a distant relative, not your parent or spouse or child or something. 'Cause that's even worse than work.

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  11. You brain's lame garbage is genius.
    And thank you sincerely for putting "Turkey in the Straw" on repeat in my internal cd plater.

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  12. I see nothing wrong with a crown of tampons if it matches your belt and shoes.

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  13. LOL A tampon crown. You should make a panty-liner cape to go with it. I hope your day/week gets better! If it makes you feel any better it's like the apocolypse in my office. We had no internet, fax, copier, phone, or AC all day. You would think they'd send us home. But NOoooo.

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  14. Oh man! Your brains are marshmallows? Come on over and we'll make smores!

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  15. My very good friend suggested a cure all...for those days in which you feel you might rather wear a tampon crown than engage in the work crunch...tequila slammers. She swears by them! In fact, she and Dorothy just went out for a few shots last night...don't let Dorothy fool you!!

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  16. Anonymous3:27 PM

    I so feel your pain. It's a tampon tiera kind of week. My first book is coming out in 07 as well. Brooke at Odious Woman sent me your way. Love your site.

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  17. Your Seven Things I'd Rather Do than Work Right Now made me laugh so hard I may have to meme it tomorrow.

    I love it.

    I love it, times a thousand.

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  18. Holy mac-a-rolie! That is hilarious!!! Those are the best 7 things you'd rather be doing ever. :)

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  19. You always make me laugh. Somehow your displeasure is my pleasure. ~grin~

    I love that song by the way. Too bad that poor old lady can't leave.

    I don't do houseplants and I wish I didn't do kids, or diapers, or anything related with kids. ~sigh~

    What's wrong with pink spandex? and marshmallows? Cause they go hand in hand my friend.

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  20. Anonymous5:05 PM

    "Old man on the Couch" eh...? How belittling and demeaning!!! Now, where are my dentures and that damn remote?

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  21. Note to self: do not read this page while taking a sip of water. My screen and water spit all over it = not a happy match. You crack me up, Jess. :-)

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  22. Anonymous6:07 PM

    You never cease to make me laugh with your wit and humour!

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  23. Anonymous6:47 PM

    Ok, my fingernails look fine, but my toenails are signing a contract right now to be in a horror movie. Thank goodness we have a king sized bed, my husband only has a few minor wounds.

    Let's see, things I would rather do than go to work...

    1) Not go to work.

    2) Stay home from work.

    3) Sell socks with Jess (selling point? Look how nicely they cover my scary feet!)

    3) Pick the dog's toenails out of Jess' salad.

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  24. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants! :-) Really cute, Jess.

    Tanya

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  25. Mmmmm....marshmallows.

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  26. Anonymous7:26 PM

    "Lame garbage"? This was hilarious! Sorry work's driving you crazy, though. Hope things slow down for you soon.

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  27. Are you sure you and Dorothy weren't binge drinking together? Feeding robins hamburger? WTF.
    Relax, said the night man, we are programmed to... sell socks and eat marshmallows!

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  28. I was feeling extremely resistant to work today as well. I enjoyed hearing about your conversations with Dorothy-very funny!

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  29. Anonymous11:53 PM

    Ugh, I hear ya on the fingertips. Treat yourself to a mani! If, um, you had, like, free time or something...um, yeah. And if anyone could pull off Spandex, it'd be you.

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  30. Your marshmallows kick the ass of my gray matter, my dear.

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  31. When I was about 26, we went to a Halloween party and I dressed up as a bloody tampon, complete with tampon earrings, a tampon necklace made from the pink inserters (unused, of course!) a nylon thick string hanging from my head, in which I wore one of those bald-head masks, fake blood all over my red shirt and white thermal pants.

    It was a great costume.

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