A Simple Question

Long ago I accepted the fact that working in the hospitality/retail industry means dealing with strange and unexpected customer service issues that will test the patience of the most even-tempered people. As a generally impatient and often judgemental person, I may not seem like the ideal fit for such jobs; however, I appear to possess the power to hide these traits just long enough to deal with the issue at hand.

Monday was a P.A. Day, which meant a lot of teenagers were unceremoniously unleashed on the town. A group of these teens came into the store I work at and began aimlessly wandering through the racks. I was going about my business behind the cash desk when a girl showed up in front of me, having broken away from her posse. I smiled and asked her how I could help. She quickly glanced around the store and replied, "Ummm, could you do me a huge favour?" I was taken aback by her casual request and foolishly thought perhaps she wanted to purchase something on the sly as a gift for another member of her group. As she shiftily looked around again, I realized my mistake and hesitantly said, "Sure." Our conversation proceeded as such:

Teen: "Okay, so this is going to sound reeeeeally terrible..."

Me: starting to worry while maintaining a neutral facial expression

Teen: "I need to make my boyfriend jealous, so do you have any really cute guys working right now?"

Me: fighting my eyebrows as they quiver with the urge to turn up into a condescending peak - I point to one of my colleagues who's helping a customer nearby "Well...he's actually the only guy working today."

Teen: looks at my colleague and turns back to me with a look of dissatisfaction and dejection "I am sooooo screwed."

Me: mouth slightly gaping while I try to think of what the appropriate response is - the teen turns to leave in a huff, then suddenly turns back to me

Teen: "Where's your rugby stuff?"

The joke was totally on her because we didn't have any rugby stuff.

I wanted to share this gem with all of you so that (a) You could hopefully have a bit of a chuckle, and (b) I could pose this very simple, but very serious question: What is wrong with people?

Happy Easter

Not only is this the Easter weekend, but it's the weekend before my final week of undergraduate classes at Western. Amen to that. This has probably been the lightest semester end of my entire university career because, for once, almost all of my major assignments were due in a three day period of my second last week. Busting out a film analysis and a short story this weekend was a minor task.

For various reasons and much to the dismay of the folks back home, I am not spending the long weekend with my family. Easter is the only holiday that I don't go home for because it usually falls at an inopportune time of academic hell. Most of the weekend has been spent doing laundry, finishing up school work, and watching movies. But do not fear, dear blog readers, I am not alone and I will be participating in the festivities! Considering roomie Jess and I have no religious affiliations and are both family-less for the holiday, we're celebrating the only way we know how: with nerdy activities and junk food. So tonight we shall dine on Wendy's and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark! And in response to your question, no, there never was a time when Harrison Ford wasn't handsome--that's what makes him Harrison Ford.

Happy Easter!

UPDATE: Is the Housing Torture Over?

See original post: Is the Housing Torture Over?

Nine days have passed since a rental group toured our house, so I think I can safely say that our house has been rented (knock on wood). March is almost at its end, so I imagine that most people have secured their living arrangements for the 2010/2011 school year. If my assumption proves to be incorrect, I shall be VERY ANGRY! Don't you dare do that to me, universe.

My days in London are few, which I am simultaneously stressed and very happy about. My last class is April 8th and my only exam is April 22nd, then it's back home until I figure out my future plans. Moving should be quite the adventure...

Diverse Interests

As much as websites recommending things to me creeps me out, I do at least find enjoyment in the results. I went on YouTube the other day to find a music video and I'd like to share with you what I found. I'm going to preface this by mentioning that I think I have a diverse range of interests, and it seems YouTube has keenly noticed this. For me, all the recommended videos are about these three topics:

1. Lady Gaga

2. Mud trucks/off-roading

3. Ted Bundy

Thanks, YouTube.

Trouble Sleeping

Sleep has been a challenge for the past several days. I don't appreciate this.

Every night I go to sleep with the intent of waking up at a self-proclaimed "decent time" to get ready and do some work before class. But every night I lie in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep. I could go to bed at 11, 12, 1, 2, 3... The time doesn't seem to make a difference. My mind is suddenly filled with ideas: what to write for my humour journal, what to write my persuasive speech on, what to wear the next day, what shoes to wear to Formal on Thursday, what I'm going to do in a month. When I finally do fall asleep, I wake up multiple times before forcing myself awake in the morning with no energy for the day ahead.

This is nothing new for me. Unfortunately, I've had trouble sleeping since high school. It comes and goes. Perhaps I'm more stressed about finishing school than I was allowing myself to believe. I'm so excited for a (much needed) change and to actually start my life, so I've been trying to concentrate on that instead of the scary parts. In light of my new wave of insomnia, it seems that plan was only partially successful. You win this time, subconscious.

When you try you best but you don't succeed

When you get what you want, but not what you need

When you feel so tired but you can't sleep

Stuck in reverse

- Coldplay, "Fix You"

The Committee of Our Lady of Perpetual Birth March 2010 Newsletter

Hello Friends! We hope you’re all enjoying the positive change in the weather. Spring is definitely on its way, and you know what that means: its time for more babies! Spring always brings the promise of new life, so we’ve decided to dedicate this month’s newsletter to reminding everyone how important that new life is by reiterating why you should always (say it with us): Say no to abortion.

(1) Abortions are expensive and hinder the economic growth of our country. If we didn’t waste all this money on aborting the babies of young women who took all the proper precautions and women who were raped, then we’d have enough money to pay off the country’s $500 billion debt. Then we could afford to send all your babies to Catholic schools so they’d learn that sex before marriage is bad. This would prevent even the consideration of abortions (married people never get pregnant by accident and always want babies). What’s more important: paying off the national debt and sending all kids to Catholic school, or killing unborn babies? Yeah, that’s what we thought.

(2) Abortion is like slavery: embryos have civil rights too. Just because they’re in your womb, doesn’t mean they’re not people just like the rest of us outside of that nasty placental barrier. Those embryos have the right to free speech…if it was possible to talk inside of a womb…and if embryos had issues they needed to vocalize. Perhaps they would say, “Please don’t abort us; we need to grow up to be crack-whores, serial killers, sexual predators, and general drains on society.”

(3) People who think abortions are acceptable also think child abuse is acceptable. They are child-hating hippies who think that life is as expendable as that condom they clearly didn’t use. They don’t respect the life of unborn human babies; they eat chicken eggs, which are unborn chickens, so they’re also baby chicken munching monsters; and they even think it’s okay to dump out the stagnant water that holds the unborn mosquito babies that will grow up to kill people with West Nile and malaria. Outrageous! They must be stopped.

(4) Some people think that an unwanted baby is like a disease, but the joke is on them because the abortion they want will give them some real diseases to worry about! Not only do abortions potentially cause every known kind of cancer, but they also cause women to develop a very specific and horrific form of anti-social personality disorder that causes them to hate all types of babies. This includes, but is not limited to, baby birds, baby elephants, baby carrots, and Baby Spice.

(5) People say Earth is overpopulated and that aborting unwanted babies would solve this problem. Well, newsflash, Earth isn’t overpopulated; that’s just a myth, like evolution and that pulling-out isn’t a valid method of birth control (it totally works, kids). If you’re so concerned, then move with all of your babies to South Africa because, quite frankly, South Africa is severely under-populated and is possibly the safest place to raise your new family. Also, it’s about quantity, not quality. The more babies the better, right? Babies for everyone! Buy a farm, have lots of babies, then use them as a work force. The farm will provide the babies with everything they need and your family will be totally self-sufficient. Don’t worry; it’s not like slavery (see reason 2) or a cult. It’s just like…like being an Amish family… Yeah, that’s it.

We hope you enjoyed this month’s newsletter. Thanks again for subscribing. See you all next month when we discuss how you should eat your own placenta because it’s super nutritious and cuts down on waste, which is good for the environment.

Love always,

The Committee of Our Lady of Perpetual Birth

Is the Housing Torture Over?

As previously mentioned, ever since returning from Christmas break our house as been shown to potential new renters pretty much every single day. It's been hell. Complete hell. The rental company is totally unreliable: they say they're going to show up and then don't, they don't notify us of showings and then show up, they don't show up on time... Hell. Multiple times there have been groups who sounded very interested in the house, but so far none have committed.

On Saturday, I stepped out of the bathroom fresh from a shower and wrapped in a towel to hear a man downstairs saying, "Ok, why don't we head upstairs." Shit. As the first person began ascending the stairs I asked if they could look in my bedroom first so I could get back to getting ready. The guy leading the tour all but shit his pants in uncomfortable surprise. He began apologizing profusely and trying to avert his eyes as he was forced to stand beside me so the group of six (the three girls looking at the house plus three guys for moral support) could make it onto the landing and into my room. As they all awkwardly apologized to me, I assured them it was fine and that I just needed them to look at my room so I could get along with my business.

I could hear the group asking questions and making comments about the house as I stood, still towel clad, in the safety of my room. Everything sounded quite positive, although the guy from the rental company was bumbling around trying to answer their queries. However, we had no showings yesterday (Sunday) and I haven't received notification of any for today (Monday) so I'm hoping my Saturday house cleaning and my almost naked shower-fresh body tipped the scale. Please let the house be rented. Please please please. I can't have anymore strangers see me in a towel. That's why I stopped living in rez after first year.

One Summer Dessert

I am an ice-cream cone

Wafer plains and ridges promising a reward

A curved and tapered vessel

To hold sugary, crystalline cool innards

To be perfectly cradled in your fleshy palm

And your rough fingers callused by steel work

Thankfully cupping my sweetly rough exterior

A clutch too eager causes cracks in my ridges

Holes in my paper thin plains

An approach too timid lets my innards melt

Become soupy and exposed

And my fragile but solid shell

My contained existence

Implodes in your helpless hand

Written for Fundamentals of Creative Writing

(poem had to begin "I am a")

The Snuggie Sutra

Pop culture will never cease to amaze me.

While "attempting" to do my screenwriting homework for tomorrow morning and chatting with Jess, I was presented with something hilariously beautiful. During her Internet horoscope mission, Jess discovered The Snuggie Sutra ("The Kama Sutra of Snuggies").

As the site explains, "You have a Snuggie. You have sex. This was inevitable." I think 'nuff said. Check it out and bask in the genius, hilarity, and oddly cute cartoon diagrams.

Here In My Room...

I've been back in London for a week and a half and my room still isn't tidied. The mess I left behind when I returned home for my Christmas break is still collecting dust. Every day I pick up a shirt, organize a surface, shuffle the items in a corner, but the mess remains. Groups of student have already started touring the house for next year. As our house battles the rental company due to its early and unlawful disruption of our lives, we keep our fingers crossed that a group will choose our house ASAP and I know having a clean house will help. I also know a clean room will help me get through this final semester. But the more time I spend in here, the more I resent it. How did I end up living in my bedroom?

When I was permanently living at my parents house, I rarely spent much time in my bedroom outside of the necessary sleeping and dressing. While I value my alone time, I get bored very quickly back at home and prefer to do my work in the company of my stay-at-home mom. I think we both prefer to have someone to chat with as we go about our daily tasks, and we've always been close. Then I moved into residence for my first year of university where my bedroom was my room and 'alone time' was a scarce but generally unwanted commodity. But since moving into my off-campus house (which I have lived in since moving out of res), I go through phases where I live in my bedroom.

I do work, eat, and sleep in here. Had I known I would be spending so much time here I might have decided against painting my walls Commie-red. As I become more restless here and more anxious to finish the year, I find more to dislike about my bedroom--my voluntary prison:

- the closet is way too small (I have a lot of clothes...and shoes...)

- three of the four drawers in my dresser are broken

- my bed is about one foot too high

- one window = adequate lighting for only a few hours

- the carpet is old

- my desk is small and lacking drawers (why do desks not have drawers anymore?!)

- my bookcase is overflowing with books, DVDs, and CDs and is threatening to collapse any day now

And the list continues. This semester needs to end, if only to liberate me from my student housing bedroom life. There are only 83 days until my last day of class. Will my bedroom and I survive? Tune in tomorrow for an exciting vacuuming episode.