---------> I was a man on a mission today at work. Mission number one hasn't been accomplished yet, but with a little bit of time and a whole LOT of patience, I'll complete the task. You see, there is this bonehead who keeps parking in my favorite spot in the parking deck!! This has been going on for quite some time now and I've come to the conclusion that this person is evil and must be destroyed.   Now before you all think I'm being a bit trivial about the situation, let me explain. You see, I have XM satellite radio and there is only ONE spot on the lower level of the parking deck where I get decent reception---the very spot that this person keeps stealing from me! Everytime that I come around the corner and see that damned blue Oldsmobile Alero sitting in my spot I want to SCREAM!! There are 35 other spaces in that damn deck and he (or she) INSISTS on taking MINE all the time!! Yeah yeah I know--why don't I just park somewhere else?? Because I suffered a LOT in my quest of obtaining this space!! Remember my stories about last summer?? I was lucky to find ANYTHING on the lower level back then and I don't intend to give up my spot just because it's not 100 degrees anymore!

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----------> My OTHER mission was a bit easier to accomplish than blasting some unknown colleague into space. I decided that once and for all I was not only going to get caught up, but get AHEAD by the end of business on Friday. I'm sick to death of worrying about this crap. So I went in and started calling people left and right. When I got voicemail, I hung up and called again and again until I got someone on the phone. Of course this also proved my theory that these dickweeds are actually sitting at their desks, but just don't want to answer their phone! By the time that I left for the day, I'd whittled my list down to only 6 remaining appointments to be set for February! Once I am done with February's appointments, I'll be able to start on March's work...and if everything goes according to plan, by this time next week, I'll actually be......AHEAD.......!!!!!!!

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------------> I heard that John Edwards is dropping out of the race for President. Can anyone tell me why this buffoon keeps running for office in the first place? Apparently Mr Ed (er, Edwards) thinks that no one remembers that he ran 4 years ago, dropped out, and then showed up as a candidate for VICE President. He also has obviously forgotten that even those of us in his "home" state of North Carolina don't even like him. As lousy of a Senator he was, I can only IMAGINE how bad he'd suck as President! Oh well...I have to at least give him an E for effort.

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----------------> My brother sends out one of those "bulletins" on MySpace this evening that is something along the lines of "Rules for Dating My Daughters". It's one of those pre-made things that circulates all over MySpace. Anyway, it says basically that if a guy shows up with baggy pants, a loud car, or staring at the daughter's bazooms that he's doomed to die a slow painful death. It struck me as funny that my brother of all people would take this kind of attitude about young guys these days. See, when Kenny was a teenager, HIS wardrobe consisted of skin tight blue jeans which he'd slash to ribbons with a pair of scissors, bandanas (he tied several of them around each leg), dark sunglasses, and the most ridiculous pair of moccasin boots you've ever seen. He also wore his hair very long, smoked cigarettes, & listened to the most hideous heavy metal music. Oh--and even though he didn't get his driver's license until he was 23 years old, he STILL drove all over the place, which often resulted in his getting a ticket! Even though he had the appearance of being a thug (by 1980s standards), Kenny was actually a very decent guy and he HATED the fact that so many people judged him based solely on his appearance. Apparently time has faded those memories for my little brother, so I had to give him a big ol' history lesson and remind him that you should never judge a book by its cover!!

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That's it for now!

                   After a conversation that I had this evening with my cousin (the one that spent $60,000 in less than a month) I've decided that I want to live like he does. Of course there are some guidelines that must be adhered to in order to maintain this type of lifestyle:

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• When it's time to sell the home that you grew up in & the land that's been in your family since the mid-1700s make sure you've got a solid plan on how to spend your newfound riches. Buy a brand new boat, a 20 year old vehicle, a $2,000 diamond ring for your wife, and a trip to Disney World. It is strongly recommended that you NOT pay any outstanding debts OR go house hunting because after all, buying a house once yours is sold is just stupid.

• Christmas rolls around. Nevermind that you've only worked a total of 11 days throughout the year...it's perfectly ok to take that rent money and spend it on your two children. Actually it's a REQUIREMENT that you spend at LEAST $900 per child or run the risk of your children not having the MOST up to date gadgets, clothes, & prepaid MasterCards!
  

• Before you fret about just exactly HOW you're going to go about paying for Christmas, take a look at the brand new boat you paid cash for just a few months ago. Buddy, that boat is practically an ATM!! Don't be stupid though...make SURE that you go to a second rate finance company & insist on the HIGHEST interest rate possible. I mean the plan is to pay the loan off when your tax refund comes in, right? Unless of course something ELSE comes along that is going to require that money....nah....THAT won't happen!

• Ahhh!! It's tax season! You're SO excited because you can FINALLY pay off that boat loan! Of course filing your taxes this year could be a bit tricky after the events of the last two years---getting the rapid refund check option when you knew full well that the IRS is going to intercept the money that's supposed to go to the place that gave you the rapid refund loan. No worries though---you've got your money. You'll just have to find somewhere else to do your taxes next year!

• While getting your W2 & tax forms ready to file, you suddenly realize that EVERYONE in the world has a really cool plasma tv...except for YOU! Now THAT is just NOT fair at all! Damnit, you work HARD all year long and you are sick and tired of not having YOUR fair share of all the "things" that everyone else has! You actually DID find a new place to do your taxes this year...and it has the rapid refund option!! WOOOOOHOOOOO!! Plasma TV here I come!! Oh? You say that the tax refund money was supposed to go for paying off the boat? Oh don't worry about that right now---you've got a television set to pick out!! Once you arrive at the electronics store, you make a beeline towards the plasma sets, but make an abrupt halt when it dawns on you that you will ALSO need a surround sound system! This is of course due to the fact that you DESERVE a new surround system after having been cheated out of your share of "things"!!

• All of this shopping makes a body hungry, so your next move is to find THE most expensive restaurant in the area so that you can recharge your internal batteries! It'll be ok when you get the check and see that you've just spent another $75---remember...you've got MONEY now!!
  

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                   Ahhhh yes...the good times, eh? You all, there is NO way I could make this stuff up even if I really TRIED!! Ok, well maybe I could if I *TRIED*, but I promise you I'm NOT making this up! My cousin (though I love him very much) is a real bonehead. I just don't understand HOW he does it---!!!

                   Well, that's it for now!

                   Have you ever reached a point in your life where you feel like if just ONE more thing goes wrong you are going to come completely unglued? Such is my life as of today:

                   ---> I am sick to death of being expected to shoulder the blame for things that I had nothing to do with. I'm also sick of having to prove to the tiniest detail that I was NOT responsible for whatever it was that I supposedly did (or DIDN'T do) ...and even THEN it's like some of these boneheads STILL don't believe me!!   At one point today I was so frustrated that I thought I was going to break out into hysterical crying!! I've got a customer that absolutely REFUSES to set a schedule for her maintenance work with me. This has been going on for over a week and a half now and I've been asking to nullify the order because the customer refuses to schedule the service. This past Friday my boss tells me that I should get the field guy to schedule the appointment himself. SO I call the guy and tell him about it and he says he'll get in touch with them. Today rolls around and my boss starts bugging me about it, so I send an email to the field guy. That wasn't good enough for my supervisor--he wanted me to CALL the guy. So I did...and got his voicemail. It was only by chance that he happened to call me a while later & I ask him if he's called the customer yet. "No, I haven't had time to.....you might as well just cancel the order." I tell my boss this, and he THEN says that I should go to the field manager for the area. Of course he's on vacation---back to square one. My supervisor tells me that I should just keep trying to call the customer for a time & date. HELLO??????!!!!! Have I *NOT* SAID FIVE TIMES ALREADY THAT THE CUSTOMER REFUSES TO SET A DATE?????!!!!"

                    -----> I spoke to 2 different healthcare "professionals" who didn't even know what kind of equipment they are running!! This is getting to be a regular thing lately!! I'll call to set an appointment and I'm asked, "what piece of equipment is that?" or "we don't have that equipment here" -----even when I tell the customer "yes, you do have the equipment because you just called in for repair service on it yesterday...." And they STILL insist that they don't have our equipment!! How many would like to take a guess at WHO ends up shouldering the responsiblilty for this type of situation??!! Apparently I am supposed to badger the customer into setting a maintenance check or upgrade appointment for equipment that they are convinced they don't have!! I kid you *NOT*!!

                     -----> A colleague of mine who has been doing this job for about 5 years has been helping me out with some of the more difficult situations that I've encountered, which I am EXTREMELY greatful for. HOWEVER----she will tell me at 9:00 a.m. that there is an order that I need to take care of AT ONCE---then at 9:05 when I'm in the middle of doing THAT task, she insists that I drop what I'm doing and do ANOTHER task!! Then five minutes after that, she gets upset because the FIRST task wasn't done!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! MAKE UP YOUR MIND WHICH ONE YOU WANT DONE FIRST YOU STUPID BITCH!!

                    ------> Nuclear medicine machines are VERY tricky at times when it comes to maintenance checks. Radioactive magnets have to be installed once a year and have to be ordered at least 8 weeks in advance and have to be onsite the day before the maintenance is scheduled, otherwise the magnets will go bad and there just went several tens of thousands of dollars down the drain. Each nuclear medicine machine is SUPPOSED to be flagged as such, but they RARELY ever are---yet I'm getting bitched at last week because I was *ALMOST* late ordering the magnets for one machine! So I ask, "how do I know if it's this type of machine when it's not even flagged as one??" The response? "I don't know--but you should be able to tell."   Again: GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

                     -------> I was asked today about a order that was supposed to have been completed by December 30th. I look at the order and find that it didn't even EXIST until January 22nd--which means whomever created the order backdated the due date--which is not only a great big NO-NO on an FDA mandated service, but it's also a huge NO-NO with my company!! Even after I point this out to my boss, I still got the feeling that he just didn't believe me--even though I just showed him the numbers that proved me right!!

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                   Enough about work-----

• Things got smoothed over between Cindy & Todd today, thank GOD!! Cindy told him her reasons for not having hired him to do the fence---apparently the guy who is doing it is giving her one HELL of a deal and Todd could not have even come CLOSE to matching it. She actually HAD planned on telling him this week, but that plan was scrapped because the guy who's doing the fence wasn't actually supposed to start until NEXT weekend!! So the cul-de-sac is now back to the peaceful place it once was!  
  

• The household electric bill came today. It was $164.00----the highest it's been in a VERY long time!! It seems that since we had a bit of a cold snap here in North Carolina, the folks over at Progress Energy felt the need to jack up everyone's bill--due to demand of course. Yeah. Right.
  

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                  I've decided that from now on, my Monday entries are going to be strictly bitch sessions. Mondays just SUCK so I might as well just blow some steam off once a week!!

                  That's all for now...a quick update over on "Writing" and then I'm going to bed!

                    As if my life at work isn't enough to keep me on edge, NOW there's a situation at HOME that I am going to have to contend with:

                     Cindy & Kevin had been talking for quite a few years about fencing in their front yard, but for various reasons they just never got around to doing it. After Kevin died last October, Cindy decided to have the fence put up so that she can let her two dogs run around in the front yard without worrying if they are going to roam around the neighborhood. Coincidentally, my OTHER neighbor owns his own fence building company. Todd and Cindy do know each other fairly well so Cindy asked Todd to come and give her an estimate. Two weeks later Todd finally came over to do the measurements and give Cindy an estimate. Cindy was a little annoyed that it had taken him so long to come by, but in Todd's defense he IS extremely busy the last few months...especially when you take into consideration that his "company" consists of exactly one person: HIMSELF. Busy or not though I do agree that he should have at least called Cindy.....   or at least walked over (she lives directly across from me & Todd lives next door to me).....

                     Apparently Todd's failure to come by for the estimate sooner than 2 weeks still didn't set too well with Cindy because yesterday morning Todd walks out into his yard and sees one of his competitors building the fence! Todd was pretty upset about it because Cindy hadn't called him to let him know she'd decided to hire someone else for the job. Ordinarily it wouldn't have been a big deal but they're not only friends, they're neighbors as well!  

                      So where do *I* come into this little situation? Keep reading....

                      The subject of the fence building is one that I've purposely avoided discussing with Cindy because it really wasn't any of my business AND also I didn't want to be in the middle of any hard feelings if Todd didn't get the job because he's also a very good friend of both me and Chris.

                        Last night I get an alert that someone had sent me an email on my MySpace page so I went to check it out. The email was from Christi--Todd's wife. She tells me in the email that Todd was not only hurt by not getting the job but also kind of pissed off because Cindy hadn't called him. She goes on to tell me how shitty it was for Cindy to do that, etc etc etc. So now there are hard feelings from both Todd AND Christi about the whole situation.   Naturally, I'm going to continue to stay OUT of this one because I definitely do NOT want to lose either Cindy OR Todd as a friend!

                         Stay tuned...I'm sure this little drama has quite a bit more to play out!

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                    It's a phrase that many of our favorite childhood stories ends with...."and they lived happily ever after". Well call me cynical, but I just don't believe it. You want to know what I think REALLY happened? Of course you do....otherwise you wouldn't be reading this!

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                   Little Red Riding Hood: after the hunter brutally hacked up the big bad wolf and cut granny out of its belly, the police arrived and took the hunter into custody. He was tried, convicted, and then given the death sentence. Red was so traumatized by the incident that she turned to a life of drugs, prostitution, and rock & roll music. Granny didn't fare to well either. She turned senile and was last seen wandering off the beaten path.

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                   Cinderella & Prince Charming: as it turns out, this couple was doomed from the beginning! Shortly after their marriage, Cindy began drinking and abusing prescription medicine while the Prince was discovered hold up in a seedy motel with Peter Pan and Little Jack Horner. The divorce was a messy one....the children were taken by social services and placed into foster care, Cindy was in and out of rehab 12 times, and the Prince eventually started up his own gay male bondage website.

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                   The Three Little Pigs: once the wolf realized that he couldn't get to the pigs inside the brick house, he devised a plan. He approached the Home Owner's Association and told them that the pigs were in violation of the covenants of the subdivision by having livestock in their home. The accusations were investigated and it was determined that the pigs had to go. In a strange twist of events though, the pigs moved into a trailer park just a few miles away but were all killed when a freak F5 tornado destroyed the trailer park!

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                   Rapunzel: after being rescued by her suiter, Rapunzel discovered that she had a wicked case of alopecia. Once all of her hair fell out, she lost her boyfriend, pierced her nose and became a militant lesbian. Many years later she was found unconscious in a hotel room in Spain with three bottles of liquor & a gram of cocaine.

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                   Hansel & Gretel: the mayhem that ensued after the wicked witch tried to cook the siblings alive proved to be too much for poor Gretel. At the age of 22 she overdosed on gumdrops and lollipops and has been in a diabetic coma ever since. Hansel went into acting, appeared on several television shows, and then gained 100lbs before he was 30. He was last seen roaming the streets of Los Angeles auditioning for bit parts in floor wax commercials.

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                   Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs: after realizing that she was in love with Dopey, Snow left her husband and returned to the woods to be with her TRUE love. Things weren't too swell though...Snow began illicit affairs with each of the dwarfs (who eventually demanded to be called "Little People") resulting in multiple pregnancies. Eventually Snow tired of the constant bickering among the Little People over who was going to "bang the bitch" each night and she took her 33 children, moved into government housing, & started collecting food stamps. She eventually went back to college and got a degree in business.

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Snow White at age 33




Prince Charming, circa 1990




Little Red Riding Hood...all grown up at Al's House of Whores



Cinderella doing a little number for Hansel and his cousin Bo