my grocery store nightmare (it's reoccuring....)

everytime i go the giant eagle by our house, i come home traumatized with stories about the various bizarre young men running the checkouts. i don't know where they find these guys, but they are all young (late teens to early 20's), talkative (they make me look like a mute) and disturbing as hell.

the check out boys:
dj brandon
fast talking video geek
nervous, inappropriate joker
angry thin gay guy

sample conversations (always out of the clear blue!)
dj brandon: "hey, do ya like music? i'm a dj, here's my business card! i'm playing at a booth at the fairport city fair, wanna come by? what? you don't like fairs or loud music? you don't dance or like crowds? aw, come on!!!!"

fast talking video geek: actually, i couldn't reproduce his diatribe if i wanted to. he really must be on crystal meth (or blak coke, preferred beverage of howler monkeys.) all i remember is him asking me if i played "halo" (of course i don't!) and then for the next 10 minutes telling me how he develops strategies for winning online multi-player games, why robert downey jr. will be good in some movie about some comic book, and how myspace is a good for picking up whorish type girls. i had to come home and lay down after this one.

the other 2 you can easily guess how those conversations went. besides, i need to get to tonight's episode, entitled......

"karma shopping- with coupons!"

i worked late and had to go to the grocery. i was not up for any of the nonsense mentioned above. so i make sure and choose a line without an insane young guy. i spot an old gal with a peach-tinted bouffant and get in her line. i unload my groceries, and notice the lady in front of me. she's thin and nervous, in a faded jogging suit. her groceries are already bagged, and she's clutching the receipt. and i suddenly realize............this is not going to be good.

the bouffant-lady cashier looks at her, confused, and asks how she can help her. she takes a deep breathe and says, "um...i need you to look at my receipt.....um..... i bought 5 dannon yogurts. the kind in the small containers that are 5 for $2. i also bought a large container of dannon yogurt, and my receipt shows that i was undercharged 80 cents for that. and then, um....i had a coupon for 60 cents that didn't get applied to my total......so i want to fix that."

bouffant says, "well honey, that's sweet of you to let us know you got undercharged, but it's ok. it happens and you can go ahead and head on home."

crazy replies, "no, i need to pay the difference! i owe you 20 cents!"

bouffant looks puzzled and asks, "why?"

crazy lady says, "it's bad karma!"

bouffant tells her she can't do anything about it and suggests she go to the service counter. i step up and she gives me a look, winking and rolling her eyes and saying something like, "we get some real crazies!" and we watch the lady stand at the service desk, explaining her "karma problem" over the next 10 minutes.

it was funny and shocking and odd, but also annoying. this lady wasted a good 5 minutes of my time, the cashiers time, and another 10 minutes of the service desk managers time, all to make sure her karma was in order. how is that good karma?

either way, i need to find a new grocery store.

secret work friend, fall is here, and seinfeld...

joining the ranks of "uc freak", we now have secret work friend. the coworker who reads my blog and prompted me to add a "blog disclosure".

unlike uc freak (name withheld by request) or the plain clothed freaks (like rachel and copax), secret work friend is just a freak. he's the male version of me, and i felt horrible to break that news to him. it's the only reason i broke my rule of keeping work folks out of the blog, pure pity. i wouldn't wish the "male version of me" on anyone!

he'd like to join the fun but remain anonymous. he has until friday to provide some photo of his choosing, or else i take him public! he's finding out the fun (and the emotional blackmail involved in blogging.)

all i will say is that he's a he. he's the one who hipped me to sock monkey bed sheets, and has an array of his own embarrassing stories, like today; explaining how he "accidentally" shaved his head, or how he almost stabbed himself in the neck with a garden weasel.

he is not allowed near the sea monkeys after telling me about his brother eating a pack of sea monkeys eggs as a child. when i said i was going to put up invisible fence to keep him away, he said, "oh god, those collars are really painful!!!"

"um....secret work friend, how would you know?" his reply, "lost a bet..."

in other news:

jerry seinfeld is cute again! maybe i am used to seeing him in reruns with the slight mullet and mock turtlenecks. he's aged well and is my new pretend celebrity boyfriend. and look at these jeans i found online. GROSS!

fall is here and i love it. here are some pics from our place and the giant deer i stalked after work yesterday. enjoy!

happy halloween!!!!!!

i am way too excited by sea-monkeys

day one- water purified....

sadly, we read the directions and realized it was a friday, and since the directions say purify for 24 hours, we had to wait til monday

day 2- water purification now commences!

(here we can observe anthony reading the directions and then stirring in the mixture with a coffee stirrer....)

the water is purifying and monte looks on, amazed at the miracle of sea monkeys!

day 3- hatch the eggs!!!

anthony finds hatching fun, and monte looks on, baffled at the magic and mystery happening right before his eyes!

the secret sea money scientists observe their creation.....

also, i got a kick ass purse/tote/ bag at target, big enough to fit a laptop, books, or a small child! (i went to the fancy bathroom for the purse photo shoot.)

per the directions that came with the sea monkeys, we should start seeing some stuff happen in the next 2-4 days. monday we feed them for the first time!!!!

i'm way too excited about dinnerware

I Y PFALTZGRAFF!!!!!

i take back all the bad stuff i've said and blog fighting with my mom. she gave me this awesome set of dishes!!! They are the "folk art" pattern and i am signing up for some kind of registry so people can go buy me more of this stuff!

there's even a little container for my packs of splenda, and these pieces on the right for god know's what!

my favorite is this dumb little heart shaped bowl. i was so excited to eat leftover spatzles in it!!!

notice my cool michael myers tshirt. also, mom, what are spatzles?

now that i have these cool plates, i need to make room for them. they are large and heavy and it's a huge set. so i am moving the spices i don't regularly use. i decided to "think outside the box" and put them in a cabinet in an old easter gift bag. i am a super genius!

these are the spices i am keeping in the cupboard. i was suprised to see i have "cheesy popcorn seasoning" as well as "cheese flavored seasoning- cheesoning". i'm so confused!!!!! and there's no wiki entry for this, so i have to go by the label. cheesoning is cheddar and then all kinds of spices and things, and my black friends in columbus cooked with it a lot. and i think my mom puts it in pasta salad.


here is a photo (left) more rare then bigfoot or the loch ness monster. groundcat cooking. he stirred the boiling pasta for almost the whole 7 minutes until it was done! and he was even game to try brussel sprouts, since, as he put it, they were "covered in butter and might not be too horrible."

the final shot on the bottom right is not the usual "method acting" groundcat employs for photos. he really hated those brussel sprouts!

click here to see another funny movie copax made. this one totally cured my "case of the mondays" today! (i won't embed the video since my mom and step-bro bitched me out for having a blog that loads too slow.)

ah hell, screw them, here it is!!!

i got nothin' today.....

except a candy bar recommendation!

" Nestle white crunch bar. Creamy white chocolate with crisped rice. Why be plain? When you can be crunchy!! A great tasting chocolate bar that everyone likes to sink their teeth into."

weekend huckabuck

my sister made me a horrible and awesome cross stitch thing, combining the 2 things i hate most in life: 1. string and 2. bees. i love it AND hate it, which makes it the perfect gift!!!

we saw ryan adams last night at the lakewood civic theater. it was the best sounding live show i have ever seen/heard. i got goosebumps more then once. the entire band sounded tight, the harmonies were near perfect, and the music was just lovely. it was a really long show and we actually left before the end. but we only missed 2 songs! it's rare to hear a sound system set so perfectly in an auditorium with amazing acoustics. and every player on that stage was a master. ok, enough gushing.

check out my work badge. i hated my photo so i replaced it with brian peppers as mona lisa. the receptionist noticed it the other day and seemed kind of bothered. i just laughed and said, "oh, i had a bad hair day!" and toddled off.

finally, i have a new anonymous commenter on the blog. apparently i am "too old for sea monkeys, boring and no one cares about my salad sorting". of course anonymous has been back 3 times now to comment, so i wonder, if i am so boring, why keep coming back? ah well, not a big deal. and i know for a fact sorting one's salad by color is exciting! all the kids are doing it!!!!

uncle tank

copax and i were chit-chatting on IM, avoiding doing any actual work at our respective jobs. we were discussing a mutual friend and copax described him as a "weird uncle". here's the conversation that had me laughing and snorting at my desk (my few comments are in green):

he’s the weird uncle when everybody's at the family reunion wearing normal clothes, he comes in a tank top and cutoff jean shorts smoking a big stogie, with aviator sunglasses on his balding head. and he gives the kids inappropriate toys like a switchblade comb or dirty comic books.

and then he gathers them all around in a circle, and starts to complain about the communists that run the walmart down the street, and how mcdonald's burgers are made of insect larva.

after the kids have been taken away, he makes his rounds hitting on the teenage girls, until one of them recognizes him and says "you're my uncle" which leads him to go get another beer out of the cooler he brought.

after the reunion's over, the next morning, as the hosts come downstairs to have breakfast, they find him passed out on the couch, in his underwear with his hand down his pants, drooling on the coffee table, mumbling something about doritos being “good bait for trapping foxes.”

and as they help him out to his car, they notice the leg of a blow-up doll sticking out from the trunk.

and the passed-out prostitute who'd been in the back seat since he got to the reunion.

he gets in his beat up oldsmobile cutlass supreme, he starts it up to a cacophony of backfires, backs through the black and blue smoke billowing out of the tailpipe, leaving a trail of condensation, anti-freeze, oil, and a fluid that strangely smells like tobacco mixed with weed, mixed with jellybeans.

and you know what color that cutlass is? maroon. it has to be maroon!

with a green drivers side door. and not hunter green, or anything. pastel green.

the hosts go back into the house, sighing in relief, when they realize that he's taken one battery out of each of their remote controls in the living room, the change out of their change tray in the kitchen, and all the letter Q's from the magnetic letter set on the refrigerator door.

looking closer, they notice that he's scratched out the kid's names on the drawings posted on the fridge, replacing it with "UNCLE TANK" (his high school football nickname since, in a fit of sportsmanship, he proceeded to head butt every player on the other team, the cheerleaders, their mascot, and 3 of the band booster parents before authorities could restrain him.)

he was in the french foreign legion after high school (or so he called it.) it was really just a group of stoners behind revco throwing rocks at rats.

the hosts are startled out of their fog of confusion by a banging at the door. leery, they open the door to discover "tank" and his lady friend. tank says, "dude, can I get a jump? my el supremo's not so supreme now *cough, hack* HAHAHA *clears his throat*" his lady friend mumbles something into his ear.... "oh yeah, and can trixie here use your crapper, she's got a case of the beer shits you would not believe."

this is when i realized that it was past 4pm and i had laughed my way through the entire afternoon at work. this is also when i realized that copax is what i call a "plain clothed freak", someone who appears normal for all intents and purposes, but is actually quite insane. he joins my friends "u.c. freak" and rachel in this illustrious group.

and now to find the appropriate images for this story.......i love random google image searches! (enjoy these additional monkeys pictures!)