Crappity Doo-Dah

Things are just fucking tough, and that's all there is to it. Okay, I have had to scrounge hours here and there because the Front-end Manager took me off the schedule for two fucking weeks: that's bad enough. I rode home Thursday night and hit a piece of crap on Perkins Rd., and had to walk the last mile home, and didn't get home until 11:35, and I was starving and tired and totally pissed off. I nuked something (I think it was a pot pie), watched Adult Swim for awhile, and crashed.

So, I wound up paying $27 to the bike shop to fix my wheel (I busted a spoke, too), which I can't really afford, because now I don't have enough money to pay my bills. Let's get one thing clear: Baton Rouge has the shittiest streets for a city it's size that I have seen in my life. Perkins Rd.,which I have to ride on an almost daily basis, is less an highway than an interconnected series of potholes. Riding on Baton Rouge streets means dodging holes, cracks, rocks and assorted debris, which is made more problematic by the fact that Baton Rouge drivers, for the most part, don't give a crap about your safety, if they are not openly hostile towards bicycles, which many are. If the City of Baton Rouge owns a single street sweeper, I am not aware of it: I have never seen one or any results of the existence of one.

And, they don't fix anything! The bridge in the picture above, which is a bridge on one of the few "bike trails" in the whole city, was smashed by a car over two years ago: they have just got round to fixing it, and they haven't done much on it in the past two weeks. Rather than ride across it, which I actually could before they started fixing it, I now have to go around it. It is now an obstacle.

So Sunday,I got together with Travis and Fernando, and we did laundry and Fernando grilled burgers and we watched War of the Worlds (the new one) with D. who came by. Then, I went home and watched Kubrick's Lolita. On the way back to my chair from taking a leak, I managed to stub the fuck out of my left great toe on the big, clunky iron heater, with the result that the nail jabbed into my flesh and blood went everywhere: it was ghastly. It finally stopped bleeding, and I went to bed.

This morning, the Liquor manager called and asked me if I could come in and work for five hours. My phone wouldn't dial out (I had to pay $45 on the bill), so I went by Travis' house and used his phone and went in to work. The ride over caused my toe to bleed, and the blood soaked through my brand-new trainers. Yay. It gets better.

I get home and I finally got a power bill and, with it, a disconnect notice for $268, that has to be paid by Friday (the 13th, of course). So, I have to give my landlord all the money I have tomorrow, pay him the rest on Thursday, and come up with $268 by Friday. Which brings me to my point: why the FUCK can't American corporations pay their employees enough money to live off of? Why do they not feel a MORAL COMPUNCTION to take care of the people who work for them? I have NO benefits, because I AM NOT ALLOWED FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT. This is the only country among modern, industrialised nations to allow corporations to treat their citizens in such a despicable manner. American corporations who treat thier employees like this SHOULD BE ASHAMED! Their officers grow fat and rich, and their stockholders prosper, while the very people who toil for their benefit CAN'T EVEN FUCKING SURVIVE IN POVERTY!

Yeah, it stinks. Maybe Obama and the new breath of hope in this country will change that, but it won't be before my electricity is cut off or I am homeless again. Tomorrow, I will take what I have to my landlord and ask his pardon. Then, I will start calling local charitable organisations, to see if, just maybe, I can find someone who can help me out. Then, I will pray that I don't have another Crappity doo-dah day anytime soon.

Which Venture Brother?

Like the font really changes ... ain't seen it yet. I switched to Lucida Grande and it looks just like Trebuchet when I post it. Suckoreenee. Tal would appreciate what I'm saying, as would Dave, if they ever read this crap.

Well, working as a cashier in a grocery store sucks, even if you don't have a college degree. It sucks for all of us. It's been slow, after Thanksgiving, and it will pick up soon (I hope), because time stands still when it's slow. Of course, we are expected to do something, even when there is nothing to do. There is a current crackdown on idle time, with the LPs watching tapes to find out just who is chewing gum, reading mags or talking on their cells when they are bored out of their fucking minds. The endless Christmas music is like having a cheese grater applied to your fingertips and then having them dipped in a mixture of acid and hot sauce, while being continuously flogged by a cat-o-nine-tails made up of live cobras who have just been in serious arguments with mongeese (or 'gooses'?), who have just come in from all-nighters with the boys, smelling of whisky, having lost a large amount of what passes for mongoose money, fought with their mongoose wives, and anticipating Kiplingesque hangovers. Yes, it is that bad.

Idiots come into groceries. Of course they do: everyone has to buy food. Sometimes I believe that there is a vast idiot electromagnet under this town. It was turned on last night. People do the stupidest things. They expect you to read their minds. Some of them want every bag filled to bursting. Others want two items per bag. Some want the gallon bottle of milk bagged, whilst others will fix you with the death eye for daring to bag their milk. It is nuts.

I hate the fuckers who talk on their cells the whole time they are dealing with me: it is like I don't even exist. Some of them actually look annoyed if you speak to them and interrupt their conversations. I feel like taking my phone out and dialing someone at random and talking to them, just to piss the cunts off. How rude can you be? Very. You will never experience true rudeness until you have worked in a grocery check-out. When a price is wrong, it is your fault. When something won't ring up, it's your fault. When they read the goddamned price wrong, or they have the wrong item for the coupon, because they are stupid, it is your fault. When they just flat can't count, and you have to void half an order, it is your fault. Fuck.You can't win. All you can do is smile and be fucking polite.

Sometimes, when a customer is on its cell, I will mouth words, without speaking, until they have to put the damned thing down and actually talk to me. That's my puny revenge.

So, I stayed up all night, doing lots of stuff, some creative and some just jerking off. I watched Venture Brothers on Adult Swim (which I've mentioned before). It's a way kewl cartoon. I started thinking: if I was a cartoon guy, which Venture Brother would I really want to do? Hmmm... This took some thought. I like skinny, geeky guys a lot, so I thought about doing Dean. Dean is an obvious bottom boy, and he has freckles, and I love freckles. I'm sure Dean would love to take it up the ass. On the other hand, I love blond boys (like me) and Hank is blond. Hank is stockier, and, though I do like skinny boys, he definitely has the more spankable bottom. I'd definitely let Hank fuck me.

OMG ... I am fantasising about cartoon boys: I really need to get laid, RIGHT AWAY!