Fruit of the Nerves

So I had to pick up a few things the other day. Toothpaste, socks, underwear, toilet paper, and laundry detergent to name a few. I decided to stop at Zellers* and get everything in one store.

I've been living as a woman for half a year now, but for some reason buying panties is still pretty frightening. I made sure I had everything else I needed first before I reluctantly, nervously, walked into that section. Wouldn't you know it there was some kid stocking the shelves right where I wanted to be, so I was doubly-nervous. I had done all the rest of my shopping already though, and I wasn't about to lurk nearby for who knows how long until he was gone, so I just decided to just do it. Unlike with men's underwear, women have an amazing amount of choice. I am used to walking to the underwear rack and grabbing the predominant large white boxers and I am done in 3 seconds, but now in just a quick glance I saw that no two pair are alike. I scanned the options: 'panties', 'briefs', 'panty briefs', 'hipster', 'bikini', 'high-cut', 'boy brief'... the list goes on. Even after determining the style there is the color to worry about! Well, with all these options I knew I'd have to seriously think about which kind to get, so despite the stockboy's presence I wandered in for a closer inspection. A few minutes later I was looking at the thongs. To be honest, I don't know why I was contemplating getting a thong. Maybe it is because I have quite fond memories of uncovering them under much different circumstances, but whatever the reason I soon had a package in my hand. I snuck it underneath the other stuff I was buying and took it all up to the counter.

The store seemed kinda busy, yet there was only one cashier working. Luckily there was only one customer in line and she was already paying. How often does that happen? Not only that but I pulled in behind her only to have 5 or 6 people line up behind me within the next few seconds. Lucky me! Well soon it was my turn, and I watched as the cashier scanned each item one by one until she revealed the thongs at the bottom of the pile. I quickly glanced over the facial expressions of everyone nearby and nobody seemed to care. She swooped the thongs across the laser... nothing. She did it again, and again, but no luck. Then she saw that the UPC was torn. She tried to push the tear together and she scanned it a few more times. I felt a little embarrassed at how long this was taking and I looked at the line again. Each person was looking a little impatient and was now watching her scan them over and over again. Great, the last thing I wanted was to have attention on me, let alone attention on my panties! Well then it happened - she picked up the phone and held it to her head. Note I said 'phone' and not 'megaphone'. Had she gone to pick up a megaphone I would have stopped her right there, but little did I know that in the world of Zellers a phone and a megaphone are the same damn thing! Next thing I know I, and every shopper in the entire store, heard "Can I get a code on a 3 pack of ladies' thongs?"

I couldn't believe it! I was so nervous about this to begin with, how is it possible this actually happened? I looked at the line and to my relief nobody was looking at my thongs anymore... but to my horror they were all looking at ME. My mouth turned dry and gaped open as the blood surged into my face. I tried to play unconcerned as I quickly looked at some neutral point on the wall and after a few seconds I started to calm down... then I heard the megaphone say, "...a 3 pack of pink flowery ladies' thongs."




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* Last time I was at Zellers I was standing next to this little kid and his mom. The kids says "Are there any other Zellers's we can go to?"
The mom said "Two of these stores is still called Zellers, not Zellers's".
The kid instantly replied with "Oh yeah? So are we in a 'Zeller' right now??"

Brave Knew Word!

Main Entry: ty·pho
Pronunciation: 'tI-(")fO
Function: noun
Etymology: Sarah's Personal Vocabulary
1 : one of two or more words pronounced alike but different in meaning or derivation or spelling (as the words to, too, and two) that are accidentally interchanged in typed or typeset material. -- COMPARE: Homophone, Typo

New: Guestbook!

So please come and sign it!

Wrong Version

I hate that there are always different versions of events depending on who is telling the story. I think it is normal to want to explain why you may have done something, but it seems like people always tend to just re-write events to put others down for no reason.

Yesterday morning I got a call from Helen, one of our clients. The restaurant she works at was having internet problems. In fact her internet wasn't working at all, and therefore neither was her highspeed debit/credit card processing. She told me she had already called Shaw who said her modem was working fine and that she should call us. So, I asked her to reset her router. This didn't work, so I asked her to reboot her computer. This didn't work, so I was thinking perhaps her router was just not working, and I asked her to plug the modem directly into the computer. Well Helen she said she'd prefer that her manager do this, and that she'd get him or her to call back in a few hours.

An hour or so after I got off the phone with her my shift on support ended, but I was curious what the trouble was so I checked the phone records and saw that she hadn't called back at all. I thought that maybe her internet restored on it's own, but decided I should call her to see if everything was ok. She answered the phone and obviously didn't know I was the same person she spoke to yesterday, and she proceeded to tell me how she spoke to 'a guy who didn't know what he was talking about'. Then, with criticism dripping from her voice she started to recount to me steps we had taken to fix it. She was not hiding how completely contemptuous she was of the steps I asked her to do, and even though we had only tried two things before SHE ended the call, she was quite vocal about how that 'guy' didn't get her internet up and running. I listened for a while and then ended up telling her that she didn't need to say anything more because I was the person she was talking to. Actually my words were "that 'guy' was me, and I *do* know what I am talking about, and I am a girl."

As silly as it sounds, I was honestly upset by this. There was a time when I would jut have found this amusing, but these days I am more sensitive. She started to apologize, but I just interrupted her saying I was putting her through to Patrick and then I hung up on her.

I have spoken to Helen before, and I know she doesn't have a clue how to use a computer, let alone troubleshoot it, but there she was colouring the events to make me sound like an idiot - even though I only asked her to go through some perfectly reasonable steps. I cannot for the life of me understand why she'd want to be so critical of what I had her do when she hasn't even a rudimentary knowledge of computers.

Christmas Decorations

When my friends and I were in highschool every Christmas we'd go take a look at some theme streets and make jokes about them. This year, for old time's sake I went back to Smurfy Crescent and Charlie Brown Lane. This time I took Nick and Jenn and we took a few pictures. I decided to post some of them including a couple old favorites, one that only I liked, and a few new ones.


Papa Smurf is hypnotizing Smurfette!


It's Al Jolsen Smurf!


It's Bing Crosby!


Charlie Krueger!


Snoopy has three arms!


Jaundice Brown!

"So, you're doing a little painting."

Ask anyone to name someone smart, and you may get answers like "my dad", or "my teacher", but ask anyone to name a genius and most people will answer "Einstein". He was so smart his name means genius - unless you do something stupid. Since most of us are not all that smart, chances are if someone calls you Einstein, they are just being sarcastic.

Today I took a look in the mirror and I really liked the color of most of my hair. I like how hair looks with the roots growing in a little bit, but sometime in the past couple days those roots started approaching the appearance of a reverse skunk. I decided I should fix it. I had a highlighting kit in my closet, and even though it wasn't meant to be used like this I decided to use it to bleach all my hair a bit lighter. I'd actually done this before and it seemed to even out the roots just fine, so I wasn't worried. I followed the instructions to a T... except that instead of doing streaks I covered my entire head in the goop. The instructions said to put on this plastic hood and tie it off while it bleaches. While I waited I started watching a tv show and I guess I got involved in it because somehow I actually forgot I had bleach in my hair until the show was over - an hour later.

Once I realized what I had done I went to the mirror and tore off the plastic. The goop had turned to a crust, and underneath it I thought my hair looked awful white. I ran to the bathroom and hopped into the shower to rinse it out. By the time I was done the steamy air made my apartment smell like a swimming pool. I grabbed a towel and vigorously dried my hair. I stepped in front of the mirror, wiped off the steam, and looked at my reflection. I saw a big mop of messy hair. It was sticking out all over the place, and, it was completely white.
I swore under my breath and said, "Nice work, Einstein."

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Kids in the Hall: That's Right Einstein

Cast
Dave - Painter
Kevin - Einstein

[Dave is in the middle of painting a front porch and Kevin walks up.
You only see his body but not who it is.]

Kevin: So, you're doing a little painting.

Dave: That's right Einstein. How'd ya guess? I mean, I was trying so hard to hide it. Huh Einstein?

[Kevin's face is shown and we that he is really Einstein.]

Kevin: Listen, not everything that comes out of my mouth is the theory of relativity. So can the sarcasm.

Dave: Sorry, did I hurt your genius feelings?

[Kevin starts to leave and reassure himself.]

Kevin: Walk away, walk away... you're the genius, he's a painter... you're clearly the winner here.


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