Quit falling on my Knife!

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

As a person who as of late has access to cable television again, I have to state here that I fucking HATE Taco Bell commercials! The latest one being of a man in a giant test bunker testing nachos that have just been lowered to .99¢, and blowing out the windows by screaming "WOW!".....trying to proove that Taco Bell suffers no ill effect in the ever present "taste vs. cost" ratio theory we've all read so much about.
I just want to throw my coffee mug at the television!

I'm not being entirely fair to Taco Bell here. The truth of the matter is that I basically hate all commercials; actually, I hate all forms of advertising in general. I've always found it incredibly insulting when someone tries to cleverly "trick" me into thinking of their product first whenever I need (or think I need) a softdrink, new pair of shoes or adult diapers.
Many of my family believe that I should have gone into advertising due to my general disdain for the medium.....which makes no sense to me, seeing as I also have a hatred for the practice of putting babies on spikes, and no one has ever told me that I should pursue a career in that. I suppose it would come down to who offers the better benefits.

This brings me to one of my newest revulsions, the unnecessary drug campaign that has been flooding the airwaves and billboards for the past few years. Pills for weight loss, male enhancement (?), getting sleep, hair loss, being too tall, seeing unicorns, lycanthropy, fear of Alaskian Crabs, ect.
I recently was witness to the newest of these, a pill to combat RLS, or "Restless Leg Syndrome". Restless...Leg...Syndrome. Are you fucking kidding me?!
I'm guessing that this is just a new clever way to remarket Ambien or some other sleep aid, by trying to convince gullable folks that it could be their legs that are keeping them from getting sleep at night. Legs that feel more of a need to walk around and carry their host to the television to watch late night programing. I had no idea that lack of sleep could have such causes. This means that I actually suffered for over a year with SWSWENBSBAFANS....or "Sleeping With Someone Who Eats Nothing But Steamed Brocolli And Farts All Night Syndrome".....where was MY pill when I needed it?!

Maybe my family is right.....maybe this is my true calling. I'm sure I can come up with plenty of made-up conditions to sell people sugar pill placebos for. Grammaret, for Rachael and her typo symptoms. Graecusate, to help Bloomin' battle his being Greek condition. Clorox......for Clint.

And finally, Blogupril.....to help battle writing a pointless Blog on a whim,for myself.

How Kirk Douglas Freed the Potatoes.....

Thursday, March 15, 2007

As I'm sure you all are aware, St. Patrick's Day (the Irish national holiday which celebrates the life of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland) is just around the bend.....a day in which all the world is allowed to become Irish for a day (except for Canadians) due to the little known fact that St. Patrick was NOT Irish himself, but had been born in Britain and had his first tour of Ireland when he was abducted into slavery during his teens by Irish raiders. On a slightly related note, let me say here that I am also looking forward to Spartacus Day, when everybody can become Kirk Douglas for the day (except Canadians).

St. Patrick's Day has also become a very educational resource for many non Irish peoples, seeing as it had finally been successfully campaigned as a day to showcase Ireland and Irish culture. Just a few of the things we can learn about the Irish from this holiday is that everything is green, everyone is drunk, a woman is known as "lass", many Irish men like to embarassingly yell "Woooooooooo!" when there is even the very slightest chance that they might see a lass's breasts, many Irish like to wear green bowler hats and you can piss anywhere that you like.

This is all new to me. My earliest memories of St. Patrick's Day involves being pinched constantly due to the fact that I neglected to wear any green item that day.....probably because of my French descent, which prohibits me to be part of any other culture, but does allow me to ask those same cultures for help when my country is invaded by a large foriegn power or by a little girl armed with a sling-shot and a nasty disposition. But the fact of the matter is that I learned to wear green in order not only to avoid being pinched by my fellow smug classmates, but also to become one of said classmates and exercise my right to inflict pain on those who had yet to learn.
This brings me to my proposal for an update on this tradition, keeping in mind that it has been several decades at least for people to get in step. I propose that we no longer just pinch the offending parties, but beat them silly in the streets as examples. I believe that this will fit in easily with the drinking as well as with the bowler hats and public urinating.
All those in favor, wear green this Saturday....except for Canadians.

Gauging Time with Breakfast Cereals.....

Saturday, March 10, 2007

For those of you who are unaware, it appears that Benjamin Frankiln did see his shadow this year when he rose from the dead, resulting in the three week advanced change in Daylight Saving Time. That means tonight at 2:00 am, your clock will need to be advanced one hour in order to screw you out of at least one hour of sleep, as well as giving college students all over the continent the excuse to stroll into work tomorrow an hour late and feign ignorance to the whole situation.
You might ask yourself how this unwonted practice even came to be, or you may ask yourself why Rice Krispies are so hard to sink.....but I will only attempt to answer the first. The reason is simple: it lowers energy consumption. That should have been obvious due to the fact that high energy consumption and it's effects were such a hot topic back in 1784. But think about it for a second and it will become clear that Rice Krispies are air filled puffs of rice that barely break the surface tension of the milk.
But returning the the process of energy saving, it should be obvious the effects of one more hour daylight has. That is one hour less that many Americans will spend lighting their homes with high powered police chopper spotlights. The savings should be clear! One more hour of daylight at the end of the nine to five work day will allow many God Fearing Americans to avoid returning home to planet choking light bulbs, allowing them that extra hour to drive to and fro in their SUVs to purchase items in energy conscious candle lit stores and restaraunts, as well as the comfort of knowing that if they do happen to stay out late enough that the sun has dipped below the horizon, they can still drive home under the warm glow of the countries energy efficient street lights that are there for them during ALL hours of the now longer night.
This of course does not apply to those living in the Godless State of Indiana who apparently want to kill the planet by lighting their rooms in order to eat their tv dinners while watching Everybody Loves Raymond.
I for one not only support this despensible practice of time change, I welcome the three week advance with open armed enthusiasm for it's unarguably practical solutions to the debate on energy savings as well as helping solve the ongoing problem with lower travel costs, seeing how all American Airlines are now forced to spend billions to update their flight schedules to conform with the rest of the world's choice not to advance the time change three weeks early thereby passing on the non savings to you when you by a drastically higher flight ticket.

Join me next time when I talk to you about how the Easter Bunny saw it's shadow, returning Creationism back to the school text books and how that will hopefully lead to forced prayer.

The Night that David Died.....

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Ok....by popular demand, or at least because Chad asked for it, I will now tell you of Dave who haunts the Kinko's.

First, a little background:
I worked for Kinko's for many years, the last several years of which, I worked alone on third shift. Now, Louisville at one time had six separate Kinko's stores (I had worked at five of these), my favorite being known as Louisville IV, which was the smallest of the six, and located just off of the University of Louisville campus. When I started working at this location, it was ranked last in the region, out of a number of 40 or 50 or the like. I had transfered there under the request of it's new manager and friend Max Foster. He hired all the right people, and within a few months, he brought that store from last to second in the region! How did the corporate office thank him and all of us? By making the decision to close the store and transfer the whole staff to Louisville III, which was the famed black hole Kinko's on Bardstown Road. Fucking retarded! But I digress.
So, our store closed and we moved to Bardstown Road and did our best there.
A little more background for you: I was sort of known as a "horror" within the staff at Kinko's....meaning, no one was safe from the practical jokes I might pull on my shift. As an example, our second shift color operator, Eric, had the habit of always leaving some uneaten or half eaten morsel behind the counter after his shift....and I had the habit of running whatever it was through the oversized laminator and then putting it right back where he left it. My favorite being the night he left an untouched McDonald's hamburger, still wrapped in it's paper. I unwrapped it and forced the hamburger through the laminator....which stretched it out to near ten feet of laminated Mickey D's goodness! I then trimmed it, rolled it up, rolled the wrapper around it and then rubber-banded it before putting it back for Eric to find. I think Eric grew to hate me.
But I never got the chance to mess with customers, because, let's face it, they were dangerous in the fact that their lack of humor could result in unemployment.
Like I said, I worked third shift alone....which meant that I really was alone for the most part from midnight to about six in the morning....give or take a few early morning walk-ins. But what I did seem to get a lot of, was phone calls. I hated late night phone calls due to the fact that 90% of them where people asking if we were open. Look, I answered the phone at three in the morning, it would be safe to assume that we were then open....especially considering that "Open 24 Hours" was just about the only REAL advertising that Kinko's ever did!!! (I remember a talk Max had to have with me when a customer complained that I had mentioned on the phone that actually we were only open 24 hours a week, being 4 hours a day)
Now, this particular incident took place several weeks after having moved from Louisville IV to Louisville III. The phone rang around one am, and I answered it.
"Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is Dave, how can I help you?"
Yes, I used the name "Dave". Somewhere along the line of my Kinko's career I aquired the habit of using different names when I answered the phone.....hell, even my name tag mimicked this practice, being "Mr. Fishy - After Hours Duplication Guru". Sometimes I chose simple false names, such as Dave or Betsy, and sometimes I made up off the wall phone responses, such as "Dr. Sneak" or "Larry the Head". I do remember once even answering the phone as a baked potato. "Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is a Baked Potato, how can I help you?" "Who is this?!" "Kinko's"......no one ever pursued it after that. I suppose they never really wanted to ask wether I said I was a baked potato.
Anyways, "Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is Dave, how can I help you?"
It was a run of the mill call, a woman asking if we were open and what kind of color copies we can do and if she were to bring them up there now could I copy them while she waits? Yes, I said....and that was it. She never showed up, which was not really uncommon. Many times people would call just for information and I'd never see them all night. So I thought nothing of it.
About an hour and a half, or so, later, the phone rang again.
"Thank you for calling Kinko's, this is Fisher, how can I help you?"
"Uh, I hope you can help me." I recognized the voice, it was the lady who called previously, when I answered as Dave. "I went to your store on Fourth Street, but it's not there anymore. Did it move somewhere?"
A little more background information for you.....something that our store had only learned ourselves earlier that week. When the store on Fourth Street closed, that is Louisville IV, someone had the stupid idea to have it's phone number automatically foward it's incoming calls straight to our store on Bardstown Road. No one had told us this. Which meant that sometimes people would try to call a closed store, and instead of getting a message explaining that the store was no longer there, they would get someone at our store, who had no way of knowing that this person never intended to call us. We started to get a lot of confused and angry customers. Kinko's was in the process of fixing this problem, but as far as this evening goes, they hadn't yet.
"No, it didn't. I'm sorry, but that store closed a few weeks ago."
"But, I called it before going there. I talked to someone. Are you sure it didn't move?"
I could NOT believe how lucky I was!! This woman originally called the closed store, drove there to find it gone, returned home or where ever and proceeded to call MY store instead of trying to call the closed store again!! This was the Great Deceiver handing me a gift while looking at me with a face that convied "Now don't mess this up."
"No miss. You must have accidentally dialed one of the other stores. Like I said, that store's been closed now for a few weeks."
"I'm sure I called that store. It's the only number I had for Kinko's. I had to look in the phone book to get your number."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you. That store hasn't moved, it closed, and the phones are turned off. If you tell me who it was you talked to, I can tell you which Kinko's it was that you called. Or you could tell me what you called about originally and I could try to help you." ....all I was saying in the back of my mind at this point was Please, please, please, please, please, please!!!

"I talked to a young man who said his name was David"
"Dave?!!" I'm dancing at this point! She took the bait!!
"Yes."
This is where I changed my tone to suspicious and annoyed, boardering on angry.
"Who is this?!"
"What?"
"This isn't funny! Who the hell is this?!"
"I don't know what you mean!" Her tone was rising defensively. I have to mention also that my friend Kevin, who frequently visited me on my shift, was standing not five feet away with both hands covering his mouth and looking at me with a horrified expression that translated into I can't believe you are doing this!
"This is really sick, and I don't appreciate it!" I said coldly and flatly.
"What is? I don't understand."
"You say you talked to Dave?"
"Yes, he said his name was David."
"Miss," I started in a tone that was as serious as I could manage, "I don't know who it was that you talked to, but it was NOT Dave. Dave was murdered in that store on his shift several weeks ago! That's why it's closed now!" Kevin was dying at this point, trying not to make a sound while he laughed into his hands. I had practically hurt myself trying to say that last line without even cracking a smile and giving myself away.
There was a long pause before I heard a quiet "Oooohhh....." followed by the click of the woman hanging up.

As far as I know, this woman never tried to call the other store and as a result was forwarded to ours again. I never heard about this again, meaning either the woman never discovered that I completely conned her and still believes that she spoke to a ghost, or she figured it out somehow later yet chose never to pursue it. And considering the amount of times Max had to give me "talks" about the stunts I would pull, I know I would have.

I think it's safe to assume that I'll be going to hell.
 

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