It's A Conspiracy

Quite recently, I applied (and by “applied” I mean Katana nagged me until I put in an application and had my interview in the same thirty minutes) for a position in the Narbes cafe. Which is fun; I like the cafe and I like the people in the cafe (for the most part). What's not fun is that I also work at Hallmark four days a week, and now my schedules are quite often back to back.

This, as you can gather, was a mistake.

Take Monday. I had orientation at Narbes from 9:30 to 1:30, which meant that I had to get up at 7, leave the house by 8:30 to catch the bus to the mall and ZombieSlayer's house to get the black shirt I lent her so I could wear it to work, and then go to work. Again, not so bad, right? Not until you add on the fact that I worked in Hallmark from 2:00 to 9:30. Better yet, I get to do a similar run on Friday, working 7:30 to 3:30 at Narbes and 5:00 to 9:30 at Hallmark.

My fee hate me, by the way. At least I get a slight break in between, and a killer discount.

On a different but slightly consecutive note, I was babysitting two kittens during this period. Their names are Shoebox and Lucky. I've never owned a kitten before, and I've come to realize that they fall under the same category as human babies: I like them just fine when they are someone else's. I do not want my own.

My cat, Ella, is actually pretty easy to live with. She gets 75% of the bed, and I respond quickly when she meows. (Yes, I am whipped. No, I don't care. She is a princess.) The only times she has ever gotten in my face when I was in bed was when I was sick, couldn't respond to her meows and she wanted to see what was up. Then I coughed in her face and she ran away.

These kittens got in my face all the time. It was freaking ridiculous. I pushed them off and they came right back within five minutes. I finally put the fear of water in them and started spraying them when they annoyed me. Shoebox liked very much to sit on the back of my chair and either play with my ponytail or knead my sunburned shoulders with her claws. How considerate, right?

Okay, maybe I would like them a little better if I hadn't come home on Saturday to find all of my Snuff notes strewn across the floor. Just maybe.

In other news, BeccaTwoC started college and I'm sooo proouuddd 8'33333

A Very Bendy Birthday

Yesterday was Hamburglar's 22^nd birthday. So of course a great fuss had to be made. Katana likes fussing about birthdays (a fact that fills me with dread, considering I am next). Since it was going to be a very eventful day and I wanted to remember everything about it, I recorded the minutes in my phone. If you want to get a drink or take a leak, now would be the time to do it because this is a Very Long Entry.

11:45: On the bus.

11:50: Tourists. Hiss.

11:52: Tourist (male) with a purse. Not a hacky sack. A PURSE.

12:02: Coffee Bean And Tea Leaf is MY GOD. Feel bad about cheating on Narbes, though.

12:15: *counts pennies into rolls* Katana is a cheap bitch who won't go to CoinStar.

12:25: BIG FISH OMAIGOD *runs out of bank*

12:26: *converses with and names fish*

12:28: If I don't get a pet fish soon I will eat myself.

1:10: Waiting for our Genki order. I has a Flounder. (omaigod)

1:28: ZombieSlayer needs to stall Hamburglar.

(We get the sushi, Hamburglar's little sister, Little Ham, picks us up and drops us off at the apartment. We set up in AN AMAZINGLY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, and then we have reservations at a tea joint in Kailua that Hamburglar wanted to go to really badly.)

2:42: Holy crap. Our reservations are for 3 and we're not even on the road yet.

3:42: Ham's brakes failed. Balls. Goodyear sucks hard cock. They wouldn't take us and call their guy back even though he JUST LEFT. God bless LionDancer. (Minor note: The guy hadn't left yet. Katana and Hamburglar talked to him personally and he was shocked at the way we were treated. They were just being bitches. We took Cloud to another guy.)

4:24: We went to CPK. And we are stressed. Fuck Goodyear. I intend to leave them a strongly worded voice mail concerning our experience.

4:34: LionDancer is here! Funs to be had! (Shit, I'm hungry.)

4:39: Talking about Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Awkward feelings toward Narbes. Lulz.

4:47: Bread rules!

4:52: LionDancer asks if I am going to the bathroom. I tell her no, I'm going to blow the place up. When I get back (after grooving to the bathroom music) I tell them we have 30 minutes to bingo. Lulz.

4:59: There is baseball playing and NO ONE IS WATCHING. You know why? Because baseball sucks.

5:09: Yay, birthday sundae!

5:27: Driving back to the mechanic's. We are still awesome. FYI.

5:27.5: “You know what's not here anymore?” “DUNKIN DONUTS!”

6 – 7:39: Presents and festivities.

7:42: “I WISH I HAD A FLYING BISON! I would Yip-Yip this crap!”

8:00: There is no seating at Dave and Busters. What the eff.

8:05: I really want to play but I don't think everyone wants to sit with me for six hours while I obsessively roll the ball.

8:07: I hate waiting, though. Balls.

8:21: They seated other people of equal or greater parties. We're still here. (This is because we're white, isn't it?)

8:22: They just seated parties of Mel, Matt and Nat. OMAIGOD SUCCESSORZ! (This still sucks, though.) ZombieSlayer went to talk to them. No improvement.

8:37: We finally sat down but now we have no fucking waiter.

8:46: Snow Cone = Win. (Little Ham: “Dangerous.”)

9:04: Bull Buster. Hamburglar hates me now.

9:06: The cup smells like fermented cough syrup. (Hamburglar likes it.)

9:10: Purple People Eater.

9:11: It tastes like purple DEATH.

9:11.5: It tastes like a popsicle.

9:12: We like it!

9:14: “It's happy hour somewhere...” “It's an hour and I'm happy.”

9:17: “Everything's starting to swim, thank you, BEK!” (My drink had Jagermeister in it.)

9:22: “This was made in China. I can still read.”

9:23: “I think you said canumption.”

9:25: The Shizzle and the Orange Cream Cooler are here. We like the Shizzle. The Cooler is “all kinds of Red Bull.”

9:29: Katana wants me to take a picture of everything, and not just Hamburglar. I don't quite care. I'mma smack a nerd.

9:32: I snuck upstairs past a bachelor party (we are now pals and I think they will have problems today when they look at their pictures and go “...Who is this chick?” because they asked me to pose with them. They deserve it. No one brings a camera to a bachelor party.) but I don't think they have my game.

9:35: Huge military type dude omg.

9:38: I ran downstairs because this guy wouldn't leave me alone. He was clearly drunk so I told him to meet me at the slots. (D&B had no slots that I could see.)

9:42: The Lethal Weapons. Little Ham is mean.

9:43: The Big TNT. Hrrrmmm. (The Lethal Weapon is nice, apparently. Like cinnamon.)

9:45: Hamburglar, Katana and A. are each going to do a Lethal Weapon. Katana has a happy.

9:47: The TNT tastes like... tea?

9:48: Hamburglar should not make any sudden movements. We are testing our fine motor skills by texting Facebook. Results are humorous.

9:50: The curfew is almost up. Hamburglar doesn't think she can walk to the car. But she is happy.

9:56: Hamburglar's hands are numb. YAY TOTAL DRUNKNESS!

10:00: Lean back.

10:02: It's past curfew and we're bad. Hamburglar has no water and she is le sad.

10:03: Katana gave Hamburglar water and she is le happy.

10:08: I can tell I'm happy because I'm dancing to hip hop. And also, Hamburglar is too drunk to eat her birthday brownie.

10:16: Scooby Snack. Katana downed it in half a second.

Those were the minutes of Hamburglar's birthday party. Her sister, Little Ham, flew in from Maui (not very far, bee-tee-dub) to spend it with her. We had a surprise party, and lots of festival crap. Etc. Because Katana makes a big deal out of everyone's birthday, I'm worried because I could care less about my birthday, and I don't like people making a big deal. But if I don't tell her anything I want to do, a big deal will be made. Argh.

EPILOGUE:

We went to pick up the car today, and the guy inflated her tires and changed her oil for no additional cost—which is good, because his labor price was seriously inflated but we couldn't go anywhere else because Goodyear is a bitch and we couldn't go home because we would have to go on the highway and she was driving with her emergency brake.

Then we went to Jack in the Box. Yay.

RIIIICOLA! RICOLA, RICOLA, RICOLA!

Every day that Hamburglar works, and Katana works, I go with them. I sit in Narbes, have my tea, freak out random strangers, plot against BaristaBoy (when he is there) and have an all-around good time. Today, even though I was sick, and even though I wanted nothing more than to stay at home and contain my plague, I automatically got up and got ready to go to Narbes.

This was a mistake.

I got an orange juice and water (not together) and sat me down to read Peanuts. (I typically read Peanuts when I am sick. Today is no exception.) Because I tend to have a devil-may-care attitude when I'm sick, and hate everyone and everything around me because I can't breathe, I get into a Creative Discussion with Katana... and then almost got kicked out of the mall.

Yeah, you heard me. I waited until Katana's break so she could guard my table in Narbes, and then ran downstairs to Long's to get some Altoids and ricola. I didn't need a bag, so I'm carrying my purchases in my hands, and I'm power-walking back to Narbes. This, apparently, was suspicious behavior to the fat rent-a-cops milling around the mall. I had to cough on them and justify my purchases. Then I ran back upstairs.

After that little altercation, things got a little boring—except when I suspected these two kids had multiple parents. (There are these two little kids who come in every now and then with this guy who feels a little ~*FABULOOUSS*~ but they always go up to the counter by themselves and always argue about random crap. Well, today I saw them with that guy, another guy, a woman, and then a big bald guy. I discussed it with ZombieSlayer and we think that Sir Fabulous is their brother.)

I then got a call from NaziJerk's sister, NiceNazi. She told me that he forced her to call me to try and “talk some sense” into me. He was outside, and she said that we should talk about random stuff for a while, and to ignore any violent changes in tone on her part so she could act like we had a fight. NiceNazi is pretty awesome.

Oh, and then when ZenTea came in, I thought I was hallucinating. Yeah. Don't wear plaid with your work pants when your regular shirt is black or white and I'm sick. I will think I am going crazy. Which I did. I thought I was hallucinating from ricola.

ARE YOU SCREAMING IN YOUR HEAD WHEN YOU READ THIS?

To prove that I don't make stuff up to write about here, I have a very uneventful day today. I made plans last night to get up early and get ready to go around and apply to places, but... I got about four hours of sleep last night, collectively, and Katana alerted me at about 8:40 that I should get up. But I heard this in my dreams. I got up at 8:50, and was ready at 8:57, but... we didn't leave the building until 9:15. WHAT.

Because I rushed around and didn't really have time to... wake up, I was still mostly asleep when we got to Narbes. And then I fell asleep at the bank teller's desk at the bank by Narbes. Did you know they can't process transactions if you're asleep? When I got back, I had an espresso (to wake up, not to get drunk off of) and a zen tea. ZenTea, I suspect, was half-asleep when I made my order because he asked if I wanted the (hot) espresso shot in my (iced) zen tea. I loled.

Hamburglar had to work at 11, so she hung out with me for a while and played Crisis Core and I got to rant about the general short-comings of multi-fandom RPGs. Then she went to work and I doodled. I doodled.... things. And those things were magnificent. Then I went down and applied to places.

On the way into the main part of the mall, one has to walk past Whole Foods. People sit at the tables outside Whole Foods with their dogs. One of these dogs looked just like my dog, who is recently deceased. And it behaved a lot like my dog (aka, wagging her butt at everything that moved). I had a sad so I went back up to Narbes and bought a Godiva chocolate bar from ZenTea (split it) and told him about the dog. Then I went to Hallmark, dropped an application, and bought an Angel For The Dog Lover pin, which is now on my bag in place of my L pin.

After this, I was still sad about my dog, so I went back to Narbes, got a zen tea, and told ZenTea and ZombieSlayer (who was working at this point) that the dog was still there and I was still sad. ZombieSlayer gave me a hug. ZenTea's advice? “Steal it.”

Me: “...What.”
ZenTea: “Steal it! Just knock it over the head and drag it away.”
Me: “...I think its owners might take issue with that.”
ZenTea: “Eh. Small price.”

ZenTea is funny. He also drew this on my cup:

...Yeah.

There was also this bento lady at Narbes, so Katana and I got to have these little egg-chick things.

And then there was Curry House. And it was good. And I have a stomachache.

The Ballerina Is A Lie

I was In A Mood this morning when I went to Narbes, for reasons I shall not disclose to my small readership, and I shamelessly took it out on ZenTea. (Tones are difficult to convey in text. Roll with it. I'm also paraphrasing; I don't remember entire conversations. DON'T CORRECT ME. Unless I'm really wrong.)

Before I go on, let me just state for the record that ZenTea is a nice person. He makes my drink (a zen tea, in case anyone was wondering) perfectly, and we usually split a Godiva chocolate bar and then decide if it sucks or not. (So far we like the mint chocolate the best.) I apologize for plugging you in a blog, dude.

Anyway, I go in with Hamburglar, who had to work. I ordered my drink, and a bowl of broccoli cheese soup. ZenTea has my drink ready before I pay, which is an impressive feat, and hands it over.

ZenTea: Here :D *when I don't immediately respond or communicate or look up, he apparently believes something is wrong with me.* .... Sup? You okay?
Me: What?
ZenTea: You look tired.
Me: So do you. What time did you get up today? (ZenTea lives on the other side of the island and has a two-hour commute. And he works the morning shift a lot.)
ZenTea: Five.
Me: *thinking: Boo, you whore* I got up at six after going to bed at four.
ZenTea: Why?
(Because I totally plan intermittent insomnia, of course.)
Me: I decided to see how quickly I can self-destruct.
ZenTea: *knows I am kidding, and laughs*
Cashier: *doesn't know I am kidding, and wasn't even a part of the conversation in the first place* How's that working out for you?
Me: …. *a pause for odd looks* Awesome.

Eventually, Cashier leaves and ZombieSlayer, who also works at Narbes, comes in like a tornado. She didn't know she was working today, and she got in slight trouble because she wasn't there on time. Her temper diffuses eventually (or at least it seems to). I come back for my first refill (I average about ten refills a day) and she tells me this story. I tell her about Hamlet and how I am a douche who doesn't understand pet death. I tell ZombieSlayer and ZenTea that I am working on this blog to compile material for a sitcom. They have lukewarm enthusiasm, like they don't think I'm serious.

Hey, guys? I'm totally serious. Bee-tee-dub.

I finished I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Lulz were had by all involved—and by people wondering what the fuck the girl at the next table over keeps laughing about. I suspect many of the Narbes patrons believe I have mental issues.

Throughout all of this, I am texting Katana, so I have the near-exact minutes of my later day.

5:25 PM: There is a jackass behind me playing computer games with sound and without headphones.

5:27 PM: He's not even very good. I'm better than he is. (Translation: He sucks like a two-dollar bitch.)

5:28 PM: There is a ballerina. Dancing. Around. The Cafe. What. The. Crap.

5:30 PM: Katana thinks I am on drugs. I tell her this is not so, because ZombieSlayer and TheGraduate also saw her. She exists outside of my mind.

5:33 PM: There's a new barista boy I've never seen before. I want to make him cry. Katana tells me not to; he's nice, and a coworker of hers. I'm not allowed to make her coworkers cry.

5:37 PM: It's taking a lot of effort not to—HOLY SHIT THAT GUY LOOKS LIKE TOM SELLECK (TOO EXCITED TO CARE ABOUT CORRECT SPELLING)!!

Hamburglar is done with work. She gets a drink and a brownie, and we go home, pick up Katana and go to Safeway.

Safeway is having a sale on bagels, by the way. Mine all have cheese on them and I've already eaten one. I got pirogis to keep me from eating all of the others.

Espresso Drunk

After about sixteen MILLION MINUTES of being pissed off at Germans in general, I decide to drown myself in espresso-induced happiness, compliments of Narbes (AKA, Barnes & Noble) Cafe. Story as follows:

10:04 AM: Receive e-mail from aforementioned German jackass. German Jackass inquires after my mental stability and requests immediate access to MY LIFE.

10:05 AM: I lol.

10:13 AM: German Jackass informs me that he is TheOnlyGuyYouCouldStandToBeWithForAnExtendedPeriodOfTime." I lol again, but then decide to get pissed off.

10:23 AM: Argument escalates to me inviting him to "come over here and stop me".

10:27 AM: He replies with one word: "Fine."

10:28 AM: Fuck.

Skip to Narbes, pre-espresso. I am now FULL-ON pissed off. For no apparent reason. he can't find me here because I'm not giving him my address. I get my usual (venti zen tea, sweetened; mercifully, ZenTea makes it and not DeadEyes.). But I'm still mad. I come upon the ultimate solution:

3:18 PM: Bek "I'm never dating anyone from anywhere East of France ever again. EVER."

Five espresso shots later: I AM A GOD.

One espresso shot after that: Katana suggests I apply to places in the mall.

I lol.

Applying to jobs in that state of mind (i.e., everything is funny, everyone is funny, and I'm imitating the lipsmacker next to me because even THAT is funny to me) would be nothing short of suicidal. I would instantly be labeled as unemployable.

I inform her of this. I also let her know that, worse comes to worse, I'll do porn.

I think I was serious.

4:09 PM: I decide maybe we shouldn't go drinking on my 21st (What?! you exclaim, She hasn't drank before? No, asshole; I'm not my sister.). I still want to, but I want to go on record saying that I think it might be a bad idea. If I'm this crazed on espresso, imagine how I would be on alcohol. Shit will EXPLODE.

I'm still going drinking on my 21st, though.

5:01 PM: Someone is using a highchair as a laptop table. I have informed him of his awesomeness.

Katana thinks it's not allowed.

I know. But it's still AWESOME.

A special note: This retelling is not accurate. Next time, I'll bring my notebook and record everything. It's really difficult to explain just HOW CRAZY I was (and why Katana says I am cut off from espresso for at least a month. She didn't actually say a month, but I've decided I'm only banned until my next bad mood.) without exact minutes.

Next time. Next time.