Wit & Whim

*Danger* *Point of no return* I am at war. There is no enemy except the one within, and my task is not to fight him, but to keep him disciplined. The most annoying thing about this battle is that, in my everyday surroundings, the longer and better that I hold my discipline the more it becomes a burden. It is abnormal in the eyes of society, and abnormality is a grievous sin. I will not comply and my non-compliance is often misconstrued as dysfunction. I do not have a girlfriend. There is a lot of weight in that phrase. Healthy American males of my age are expected to form romantic attachments. If they do not form any attachments of this kind, it is often thought that 1) We are not sufficiently attractive, or, 2) We are merely anti-social. What on earth could possibly be wrong with me? Why is that child unable/unwilling to attract a mate? Has he been gelded? Is he afraid??? My pride would just as soon answer them by doing as they expect. What better way to shut them up than to give up a...

I should note that not all areas of my work are disappointments. The fellow employees are more than decent and my time is normally spent in constant movement. The suit guys are some of my favorites. Tom is the picture of quiet dignity; Mike is hilarious; Dave is a study in confidence and charisma; and Greg is probably the most positive and friendly person in the store. In the Mature Men's area the regulars are: Cathy, who is on the quiet side, but polite; Kim H, who is the most competent and useful person in the area; and Kim K, who makes for excellent conversation. Young Adult's regulars are: Tony, a geek, with whom I feel kinship; Josh...yeah, Josh; Kurtis, who is a wellspring of sexually explicit comebacks; and Kirk, who manages to maintain dignity and be on fire for the lord at the same time, which is to say, unique. The Floaters including: Me, my favourite person in the store, bar none; Heather, who seems to have Jacqui's disease and begins shivering violently every ti...

I realize that I should write much more often, but this work thing can be a little more intense than I first imagined, especially when coupled with school. Energy wanes and never waxes leaving me with this moderately irritable mood and a desire to see a large part of the American public beaten. There is a pettiness that seems to reside in a great part of the customers I work with; a general attitude that says that you will meet their demands, or that they will make your life more difficult. That I am required to be polite to people who intentionally make my life harder galls me. There are many 40-year-old men who are in need of a good dressing down; they act like spoilt children, throw tantrums when they don't get their way, and treat us poorly when their screw-up goes beyond what we can fix. A woman who came in on Sunday brought back well worn clothing without a receipt and demanded a return. She was, of course, turned down. She then held conference with her teens, which conferenc...

...Learned he many useless things, but he was on the clock, and it was good. I learned--from a small cadre of utility team members--that my coming was long foretold. I am apparently expected to cast a couple of obnoxious co-workers into my shadow, even into the outer darkness thereof. Apparently my future division is home to a couple blockheads who don't like actual work, and who feel that utility should do some of their work. Utility, in the common tongue, translates to Winston. Funny. I had more time and better opportunity to get the measure of some of my future co-workers today. I've been back behind the closed doors of the training area this whole time, so when my lunch break came around, I slunk out through a side exit and came back in and played customer. Some of my fellow employees were incredibly friendly, much better than the peops in the training videos (gag me with a serrated pitck-fork). There were others, however, that had guessed my secret; they knew that I would,...

So, tell me. If that warm feeling that you have while you sit there flapping your arms around is the Peace of God; then what do you think it means when the world seems so very cold and lonely? Just a Thought....

My sister is sitting here watching BYU-TV (Mormon) channel. She is watching a program that rivals NCIS in terms of the skill with which the dialogue is delivered. I am sitting here gagging on my own bile and she sits there enjoying it. As often happens in such cases as these, my memory of certain incidents is suddenly coming back very strong. I think I'll share. You know how literature set in the Regency and Victorian eras is replete with women who swoon all over creation, are dead sure that their minor medical issues are terminal, and fret over bad vapours. I always thought these were a myth and very clearly exaggerated. You might have noticed the same. This particular kind of female still exists, though not nearly in the quantities that writers describe in the aforementioned eras. Today I am going to share my observations on a modern specimen of this variety, who, for convenience sake, we will call Bethany. On one particular instance this young woman--having eaten enough Chinese...

It is a sad fact that I have neglected this blog, in spite of having some excellent ammunition thrown my way. I start to blog and just feel no motivation to finish. The simple circumstances of my life have undergone only one major change, and that is the fact that I will be employed at JCPenny's by the end of the week. The interviews went swimmingly and met with nothing but dazzling smiles, at least, until I met with the area manager. She was one of those people who exudes cold confidence--think Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada"--and shows no sign of what she is thinking; she, too, in the end gave me a dazzling smile. So, barring a felony or two on my record, I will be in the men's department in a few short days. On another note, I have forgotten how to hula-hoop; this must be rectified. Because of these interviews I spent an unusually long span of time in the mall, which experience was harrowing, to say the least. I could not help but notice all of the grotesqu...