Last night I left my filing cabinet key stuck into the lock on the filing cabinet in my office. The filing cabinet key unfortunately shares a ring with my apartment keys. So imagine my distress when, after my hour and ten minute commute home, I realized that I couldn’t get in.
So The Pants came to get me, like good Pants do, me and my bag of frozen stir-fry shrimp. I collapsed into a little heap in his car and started crying like a big twat because it’s the worst when my brain, which I’ve considered to be a pretty good one before, doesn’t work the way it should. It’s a wonder that I remember to put on shoes in the morning. I once had a series of Post-Its on the back of my apartment door telling me exactly what to do that day. And not just like “don’t forget your lunch,” but more like “write a list of things to do.”
Is there a way to rinse your brain off? Because sometimes I’d sort of like to take off the top of my head and clean all of the barnacles out of my brain matter. So I could remember my keys and get into my apartment after a long day of work and shit. That would be so refreshing. Maybe the canoe trip next month will be like a brain cleanse? I hope so. Because eventually there is so much shit going on in my head, and no discernible way to organize it, that I start to forget things, then I start to think that Bad Things Are Going to Happen pretty much all the time, then I just go to sleep and don’t wake up for a few days.
To: Target Stores
Attn: Customer Complaints
Hello,
I just thought I should let someone know that I don’t appreciate the way your check-out girl looked at me last night. I was purchasing a fresh set of clothes, underwear, some makeup essentials, a toothbrush, and a six pack of beer. Now I don’t know what kind of nastiness this young lady had in mind, but I was just trying to make it through my evening. I don’t need to be judged by chirpy, red-shirted cashier girls who seem to have nothing to think about other than the possibility that complete strangers may be preparing for a pre-walk of shame. How dare she?
I locked myself out, you bitch!
Sincerely,
C. Cake Jones
500 Ways to Suck
Everybody went to see that movie 500 Days of Summer last summer. I went to see it and some of it was good but most of it was bad. Anyway, everyone’s favorite dream girl was in it, and she was costumed in such a way that swept the young female nation, and made every girl want to be her, and every boy want to fuck her while she thought about maybe breaking up with him.
I ain’t gonna lie, I thought she was cute, too. Her little outfits were pretty fucking adorable. It was inspiring to think that maybe it’s that easy to just walk into a thrift store and find assloads of cheap clothes that are your size and your budget and look super cute and effortless with all of the other thrift store finds you have going for you and they don’t smell at all like thrift store, ever. Sure, it gave me the whole “fashion is easy and will make you feel better” vibe for about two days until I realized that I just can’t seem to motivate myself to put out even the tiniest bit of effort to Be Cuter. Sure, if someone wanted to come along and dress me, I’d wear something besides my Harry Potter t-shirt and ripped jeans from last year’s Gap sale. If I felt like getting up earlier or staying up later to steam my Peter Pan collared shirt and find the brooch I want for my vest and make sure my patterned tights were clean and laid out, I’d do it. Instead I say hell with it and wear the pants I wore on Monday and some flip flops.
So I was talking about this phenomenon with someone, saying that I don’t know how some girls do it, how they ended up always knowing what goes together, how they have A Style, one which makes other people say “that’s her Style”. Maybe there’s some kind of guide they follow? Maybe someone sat around and wrote up a guide for a wiki and maybe it includes a mention of a book you should “try to read” because it’s the book Favorite Dream Girl was reading when she met her husband. Maybe that makes me puke a little and maybe the person who sent this how-to list to me, with whom I was dumb enough to have a conversation about a Zooey Deschanel dreamy dream girl character, should be killed and eaten by rapists.
And maybe I should have worn different shoes with this outfit because I have this sinking feeling that my life will never be like a hit summer indie rock movie and I think with different shoes I could ignore that feeling.
My Little Crazy
When I was eight I asked my mom if I could have a horse, with the promise that I would clean out a space in the basement for it. I swore that I would go and find hay for it and build a pen for it in the corner by the water heater. It made perfect sense to me. I even had a horse picked out, an aging ex-race horse featured in the Pets section of the Dollar & Sense that had been turned out to pasture and was only $600 to the right owner. “This horse would love our basement,” I told her when I showed her the grainy photo. “It’s not too tall.” My mother, of course, said no to the whole horse idea, but only because, she said, “race horses are too high-strung.”
I didn’t know what that meant at the time but I thought it had something to do with their legs, like maybe their legs were too long to fit in our basement. But now that I am an adult, and have been referred to as “high strung” by pretty much everyone who has known me in a personal capacity, I know that it means “bat shit crazy” and also “easily pissed off by everything.”
I have been pretty high strung lately.
*Exhibition Opening*
Exhibit A.
Drunk dude walking two filthy little floor mop dogs down the street the other night, allowed both unleashed dogs to approach me and the people I was with. Both dogs, of course, proceeded to do that weird dog sneeze thing where they splatter you with their spit, through their nose, over and over again. Both dogs made runs for my bare feet and ankles, which, for some reason, dogs love to lick…and one of the only things that grosses me out is for dogs to lick at my toes, feet, and ankles. I mean really grosses me out. Like makes me want to peel off my skin and have it bleached while I beat myself in the head with a hammer to drive out the memory of cold dog tongue on my skin. I’ve got that pre-puke lump in my throat right now just writing about it. Both dogs crowded around my legs, scraping at my tights, trying to get me to pet them. I backed away. Repeatedly. Waved my hands at them. “Go on, no…go on now…don’t…no…”
So the drunk dude finally started talking to his dogs, who, I am sure, understand English perfectly well, especially slurred Tequila-stink English. “Come on, she’s scared of you…come on now, she’s scaaaared.” And, wouldn’t you know it, for some reason the dogs had lost their translation skills at the moment, and paid absolutely no heed to his half-assed commands. He finally grabbed both of them by their slimy little collars and pulled them away.
“They should be on leashes,” I said.
“Oh well thanks for letting me know,” he said.
“Well,” I retorted, “it is the law?”
“Then CALL the POLICE ON ME.”
“Just put the dogs on leashes, and I won’t have to.”
And that’s when I basically got told to shut the fuck up by a member of my party. The rest of the group I was with had been, for some reason completely lost on me, enjoying the presence of the animals. Then I went and ruined it with my Strong Opinions About Strange Dogs. And my Confrontational Methods of Communication With Strangers With Strange Dogs. Then everyone was pretty much weirded out and pissed at me for being such a senior citizen about it.
I do not hate the dogs. I hate the owners who fail to put them on leashes because they assume that everyone will love them. They prefer not to see their pets as possible risks to other people (allergies, bites, holes snagged in tights, basic fucking preference to not touch weird animals), and will quickly ascend to a level of unholy anger if you even dare to suggest that you don’t necessarily want their dog’s company as much as they do. Dogs are cool, but people fucking suck. And when they have dogs and don’t train them, it’s annoying as fuck. Like when you’re dating someone who’s mom has a bunch of little anklebiter Scottie dogs, who she allows to put their paws in your lap and reach up and lick the food on your plate when you come over for dinner. Then you’re expected to still want to eat the fucking food that the dog managed to lick. Or when you sit in a chair at her house and are politely told that the reason the fattest of the Scotties has sat on you and scrubbed dried dog shit from its exposed asshole all over your white skirt is because “That’s Smoopy’s chair, he likes to sit there, hee hee hee!”
Well guess what? SMOOPY’S A FUCKING DOG AND THE FLOOR IS WHERE DOGS SIT. PEOPLE SIT ON CHAIRS.
I’m not a total asshole about dogs. I love them. They are good animals. When I was a kid, my dog was my best friend and I cried for months after she died. (Then my sister drew a chalk outline of the dog on our front porch and I cried for a few more months.) But my dog always knew it was a dog. It didn’t crowd people who came in the front door, jump on the couch and sit on their laps, put its paws on their clothes, lick at their feet. It didn’t sit by the dinner table slurping at the edges of plates. I walked it on a leash and even off a leash it didn’t run up to people like a retard. What it did do was let out a low growl when strangers approached, until it was told everything was OK. It ate food out of its own bowl and ran to get my mom if any of the kids fell and hurt themselves. My dog was like a big, loving Lassie.
Dogs are like kids, in a sense. I don’t see why people hate on me for not liking obnoxious animals (i.e., obnoxious owners) but will roll their eyes and express distaste with obnoxious kids (i.e., obnoxious parents) in Target on a Saturday. Nobody says “Awww, c’mere!” and gives big hugs to sticky, messy little shoeless children when they run into you and knock a bunch of shit out of your hands. They look at the parents like “Can’t you handle your fucking kids?” So why am I a jerk because I won’t allow someone to let their pets claw at me and climb on me or even fucking approach me? You wouldn’t be happy if a pantsless three-year-old climbed up onto your lap and wiped its ass on you. So why is it okay if a fluffy little dog does it? “Well doggies don’t know any better!” you could say. Maybe not. But neither do three-year-olds. Kids and dogs don’t know shit until you teach them. And if your drunk ass is too lazy to teach them, that’s what leashes are for, pendejo.
However, I probably could have politely asked Drunk Man to get his dogs. I do have the capability to be polite, you know.
Exhibit B.
I was crossing the street on my way to work yesterday, and a man in a van was, of course, edging out over the crosswalk, looking the opposite direction from where I was crossing on MY LIGHT, trying to pull out in between bursts of traffic and run a red light. I looked up just in time to realize that he wasn’t looking in my direction, and didn’t see me, and that’s why there was a large green van creeping up in front of me, barring my way across the street. I stopped with my toes about an inch from the guy’s front fender, and when the shock wore off, my toes were about an inch from his front right tire. So I said “HEY!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, sorry about that!” he claimed as I crossed the street. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, but I crossed the fucking street as fast as I could just to get away from him.
I don’t know about other humanoids, but almost being hit by a car really revs up my adrenaline and makes me a bit nervy. And it happens from time to time because people are too stupid to walk in straight lines, let alone drive cars properly, and I have to cross streets often because I walk and jog everywhere. And I know there’s a lot to think about when you’re driving, but holy fuck, there’s a lot MORE to think about when you’re driving and trying to do something illegal just to save yourself some time, isn’t there?
So anyway. The dude was apologizing and I was walking away and THE SECOND I made it across the street around the front of his vehicle and my back was to him, he ceased his apologies and said “Now wipe that fucking look off your face.”
I guess the “fucking look” he was referring to is the look of someone who’s almost been hit by a van, and is understandably a little jangled. I guess I was supposed to giggle and smile and say “Oh, no problem!” and skip along my merry way. I guess I was supposed to be pleased that I wasn’t dead and just wink and smile like someone without a thought in their head.
So I turned around and yelled “LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE YOU DRIVE ACROSS THE FUCKING STREET.”
Because I don’t think that’s too much to ask. He looked a little surprised. I can’t figure out if I would be happier person if I just smiled at stupid people and pretended that my guts weren’t boiling. I mean, normal people deal with this shit by being like “Ohhh it’s cool, thaaaanks” to the offending driver, then mutter “Wow, that guy was a douchebag” under their breath.
Normal people wouldn’t stand on a corner and yell back at him. Okay, okay, I get it.
Exhibit C.
A certain Starbucks on a certain corner in a certain neighborhood of this city is the most depressing place on the planet. That’s because I was in there this morning, and this loud woman in expensive jogging/yoga fusionwear was hollering her 4 espresso orders over my head from where she stood behind me in line. I had to say “What?” twice to understand what the guy at the register was saying to me, because this bitch was obviously on crack, and was going on and on about “the great synergy you guys have going on behind that counter! Look at that! Look how he takes my order and he makes it and he rings it up! What great synergy! Don’t you agreeeeeeeee about the synergyyyyyyy!?”
I mean, what the fuck.
But I guess that the real mistake is going into a Starbucks in that particular affluent neighborhood and expecting something other than a bunch of totally bored, pilled-out, rich-piece-of-shit gaywad housewives in workout wear jostling for the position of Most Memorable Visitor of the Day. Again, my fault.
*End of the Exhibition*
So there are three examples of my crotchety nature, which have all occurred in the span of the last three days. Here are three examples of why I will end up alone, living on a hilltop behind the motel, pulling the curtains tighter every day and filling the downstairs bathroom with used adult diapers until the floor rots out. It’s because nastiness and confrontation and sheer annoyance with the constant yap of other human beings in my path don’t make for cute anymore. Maybe it’s one thing to read about it, maybe people think it’s funny when I write a Facebook status update about how I yelled at my neighbor for borrowing my mixer and failing to wipe off the red food coloring before returning it 2 months later. But I think that’s where it ends, and lately I feel like people are sick of it. Or they’re just really polite, positive, happy people, who don’t necessarily want to be around someone who’s always like “I don’t like the way you order your coffee, WANNA FIGHT?!”
“I don’t like your dog, WANNA FIGHT?”
“You almost ran over me, WANNA FIGHT?”
So this counts of Day 1 of my new experiment, wherein I force myself to be goddamn fucking positive about every annoying thing that happens to me until I don’t notice annoying things anymore. At least, that is the outcome I hope for. I will try not to be so affected by society. I am going to relax and smile like a jackass when people almost run over me. I am going to stand there and coo while strange animals lick at my feet. I am going to block out the annoying sounds of other people in chain coffee shops. I will not let hipster cunts at house parties get under my skin. I am not even going to write about the hipster cunt at the house party over the weekend who got under my skin!!! See? I am already making progress!
Thus begins the Summer of My Ignorance.
I am officially not bothered by anything.
…..
sooooo…
what’s been going on with you?
Cupcake Heartbreak 