Mail Room Gang Rape – A Christmas Story

Jesus Hearts Shrimp Salad

What’s totally fucking gay about the holidays is that everyone at work gets this stupid fucking friendliness disease.  It makes them all want to spend a lot of time together.  So much time, in fact, that the ladies in this office have organized a Crochet Circle and a weekly meeting to recap all the events of So You Think You Can Dance.  And that’s not enough, we also have to have constant fucking holiday parties.  It’s inappropriate to NOT go.  It’s inappropriate to sit here in the office while everyone else is AT the party, and it’s also inappropriate to go home early while everyone else is getting drunk in a big awkward crowd.

So I stopped working at midday on Friday and went over to the conference center and ate weird butterscotch pudding stuff with white chocolate sticks stabbing it.  The whole room smelled like fish because most people cannot help but equate luxurious food with crabby lobstery shrimpy things.  So there was crab or lobster or shrimp in goddamn everything, from the “gourmet” macaroni and cheese to the “gourmet” papaya dip.  Apparently, to make something gourmet, all you gotta do is make it smell like a stank old pussy.

Anyway, there was a giant gingerbread house and a penguin made out of wasabi.  There were also quite a few unhappy looking catering employees.  There was also a splattery puddle of broken glass and seafood macaroni on the floor by the door.  There were also several employees from the mail room, and you can imagine what happens when mail room employees have access to an open bar.  “Wassup shawty how you been doin?  I been lookin atchu fo like two munfs, giiiirl.  When you gonna lemme holla atchu?”

Ugh.  So I snuck out early because if I’m going to take time away from work, I think it should be spent with the people I WANT to spend it with.  Or with the television shows I want to spend it with.  Not with a room full of awkward IT department freaks and gang rape mail room dickheads.

You know what else is totally fucking gay about the holidays?  I would sort of like to know why I got a crappy picture frame and my coworker got $300 in American Express gift cards.  I mean, it’s totally not the holiday spirit for me to be asking that question, but fucking A, even Christ himself would be like, “What the hell?  A picture frame?  A picture frame.  Awesome.  Thanks, but it would be nice if I could pay my goddamn heat bill.”

The gayness here is that now I have to buy my boss something, and it will probably be of the same value as the picture frame.  So I’m actually losing on this deal because I just bought myself a picture frame I didn’t want, if you think about it.  Yet, my coworker is skipping through the office, $300 richer than she was last weekend.  And yeah, maybe we shouldn’t have opened our Christmas presents at the same time, because they are so obviously different (mine being in the minority here).  But still, holy shit.  One thing that’s gay about Christmas is that people do all kinds of dumb stuff that’s not only offensive but also probably a little bit unethical.

I am reminded of the time in second grade when I brought a Hello Kitty stationery set for the mandatory gift exchange, and what did I get in return?  A dollar store Barbie knock off with a rat turd in the box, courtesy of the girl who ate her own hair and was obsessed with pulling everyone’s pants down.

Can we just not do the gift and card thing next year, you bunch of shit eating motherfuckers?  I could care less what you do with your free time, we only work together.  And someone will inevitably get a torn-up coupon for a Lean Cuisine with a half-assed holiday message scrawled on the back, while someone else gets a solid gold replica of God’s own gleaming cock.  So save me the fucking Christmas spirit dick shit and give yourself the ass-crappy pair of socks you so carefully selected for me at Walgreens because you pulled my name out of a fucking basket.

What’s kind of funny, though, is that I wasn’t aware that when newspaper delivery people give you a card, which is both in an envelope and contains an envelope, you’re expected to put a tip in the second envelope and leave it for the paper guy, like OH!  Surprise!  Here’s the tip you didn’t know we were going to give you in the envelope you gave us to put it in!  It’s dumb as hell, this tradition, this straight-up asking for a handout because it’s the hollllllidayyyyys crap.  So the guy who delivers the papers to the library (of which there are like 6 every day) left us not one, but SIX ENVELOPES.  No doubt in the hopes that he would be getting six tips.  What the fuck is that?  I thought it was kind of hilarious that his last name was Ortega, which immediately made me think of Ortega chips and salsa.  I thought about writing him a nice note that said, “Dear Mr. Ortega: Thanks for the awesome chips and salsa products.”

Poop.

The mouse problem is really starting to piss me off.

Apparently, the little green poison balls that the exterminator left all over the apartment are actually candy for mice.  Because now there’s little gnawed-down nubs of green poison everywhere, and then there’s little mounds of green poop, and there’s just as many mice as ever.  When I came home on Friday, bearing my crappy picture frame and an even crappier attitude, I was greeted by a tiny mouse who had accidentally attached his stupid little fucking face to a glue trap in my bedroom.  So, yeah, I had to get a trash bag, pick it up, endure its screaming and struggling as I did so, and throw it in the dumpster to die a slow death.  It was awful.  Why won’t they just go the fuck away?

Ugh.  Unfortunately, this week will be spent pulling out and going through every pile of sweaters, every bit of storage stuffed into closets and under beds, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, without the reassurance that this will be the only time I’ll have to do it.  Oh, no.  The mice will just love a clean apartment to shit all over again.

Not the best way to spend the first week after a fall semester ends.

So, yeah.  The fall semester has ended.  I was up late Sunday night at the kitchen table, screaming and crying and pulling out my hair because Microsoft Word “encountered an unknown error and closed unexpectedly,” and would I “like to report this error?”  I’ll tell you what I’d like to fucking report.

So what’s funny is that the paper was about personal digital curation, i.e. the steps individuals should take to both avoid losing important digital records and to preserve them for future use.  Kind of funny that Word should shut down, refuse to re-open anything but an early, 2-page draft of what had become a 22 page document replete with bibliography.  So I slung myself around the kitchen, screaming NOOOOO NONONONOOOOOOOOOO!!!  PLEEEEASE! with only an hour until the paper was due.  Then I relaxed and accessed everything I’ve learned about digital document management, and used that knowledge to successfully restore all 22 pages of the paper, and turn it in on time.

THAT deserves an A, nevermind the paper.  Yeesh.

SUPER HAPPY OK YEAH FUN DAY FROSTING PARTY YESSSSSSSS

On a more positive note, do you know what day it is?  Do you!?  It’s December 15th, and apparently, that means it’s National Cupcake Dayyyyy!!!  Woowoo!

I don’t currently have a cupcake in my hand.  I don’t currently have one in my life, and I don’t foresee one stopping by at any time in the near future.  I’d really like one.  It’s a national holiday, dammit!  But I’m broke as hell, so I think I’d better just look at some pictures of cuppycakes.

Have a look at these shits:

That link up top will hook you up with the Huffington Post article on this most amazing and happy day.  I strongly suggest you peruse their cupcake pictures.  They got some cupcakes on there that I’d fuck for sure.

No, really.  I would fuck them.