Ok, so the title sounds a bit ominous....as well it should. I went to work today, and had a pretty decent day. Nothing great, but nothing earth shattering....until it was time to go home.

Since I work at the customer service desk of a home improvement store, part of my job is to use a cash register obviously. In over 20 years, I've never EVER made a goof like I did today. A man comes in to pay off his credit card, so I make the transaction and then endorse the check in the little check thingie..no big deal. Well, when I'm getting ready to leave today, the check has DISAPPEARED!!!! Now, losing a check is bad enough, but THIS particular check was written for $3,200.00!!! I felt like the world's BIGGEST idiot!!

Naturally, not only do I feel like an idiot, but I'm of course worried that I could get shit canned over this. My immediate supervisor didn't seem overly concerned about it, but that doesn't make me feel any better. After I left work, I came back to actually start digging through the trash...that's A LOT of money to just brush off! My supervisor told me though that she had the situation in hand....that STILL doesn't make me feel any better!

So, if my posts tomorrow are full of gloom and doom, everyone will know that it'll be time to start hitting the virtual pavement again. Someone just shoot me now and get it over with. *sigh

I’ve got a family member who’s about to come into a rather large sum of money in the near future. Now, if he used the money wisely, he could start a whole new life, and that life would be significantly better than what he’s ever known. Now, he’s not getting millions of dollars or anything, but definitely enough to make a fresh start of things…he could pay off some long overdue bills, pay his vehicles off, and put a rather hefty down payment on a new home. Even after doing all of that, he’d still have several thousands of dollars left over to put in the bank.
He’s not doing that though. Here’s his game plan: buy a boat ($25k), a new 52” tv ($1500), new Ashley furniture ($7k), new top of the line appliances ($6k), and a 7 day, 7 night trip to Disney World ($5k)……..NOW, before anyone starts saying it’s none of my business, keep reading….
The way that this family member is coming by this money is from the sale of land that’s been in my family since the mid 1700s, on which sits my late grandmother’s house. This property is the very last scrap of what my ancestors had when they came over to this country from Scotland, and quite frankly, it crushes me. Now, again, since I’m not on the deed, it’s none of my business right? I’d agree with that if it weren’t for the fact that I hear about these plans every day. I hear this family member tell me how he struggles every week, and how he is so far behind on all of his bills. Still none of my business right? Well, as I’m sure most would agree, when you are inundated with daily hard luck stories AND asked your advice about how to handle said hard luck stories, it BECOMES your business.
So why don’t I just buy the property and house myself? That’s simple. I don’t have the money. There’s also a matter of back taxes dating to when my family member’s alcoholic father didn’t pay them for a few years. The tax on 25 acres of property in North Carolina is expensive enough without having to pay the late fees and interest!! Stay with me, the story gets even better…..
When this family member buys the boat, appliances, furniture, and the Disney World trip, he’s not going to have a place to PUT the furniture & appliances, nowhere to park the boat, and nowhere to lay his head after the long trip….because he will have spent all of the money he’s getting from doing away with my family’s heritage, without having found a place to live. The list I gave in the beginning of this post is just a fraction of what he’s going to be buying, by the way. I have tried to let him know that BEFORE he gets the extras, he needs to make sure he has a place to live, food to eat, and money to pay his bills. He, of course, has not listened. Ordinarily, I’d just brush it off…unfortunately though I can’t do this with him, because after he’s blown all of his money, I’m going to have to hear about THAT for the rest of my life! Naturally, I won’t be able to say, “I told you so”, because I really am very close to this family member. I’ll feel horrible that he’s made such a huge mistake, but at the same time, I’ll want to throttle him when I start hearing the daily dose of the hard luck stories.
Now, this guy isn’t stupid. He KNOWS he has other stuff to pay and he KNOWS that he should find a place to live before doing ANYTHING else, but the reason he’s so hot and heavy about having all the “things” is because his in-laws have a boat, nice furniture, etc. and he is on a mission to buy things that are not just equal to the in-laws, but BETTER. The funny thing is that the ONLY reason that the in-laws have nice things and plenty of extras is because they have worked their asses off for the last 30 years to accumulate the nice things.

What do you do when someone you love so much is about to make a huge mistake??!!

My roomie is in the other room (within earshot of me) and so he says, "Hey Bry..listen to THIS"....at which point he pushes a button on the computer and what sounds like horny aliens starts echoing throughout the house.

Turns out that he had gotten bored and found a porno site that has free movie clips. He downloaded a bunch of them, spliced them together, and put them on fast forward.

Of all the times that I have been bored in my life, I don't think that I ever entertained the idea of splicing porno clips together and then playing them at super speed. Hmmm...... Maybe there's a market for that! "Porno for the Bored" I could call it!

I'm guessing genius manifests itself in the most bizarre ways!

In other news:
I had the day off today and did absolutely NOTHING. Why is it that when I have the whole day to do anything I want, I end up doing nothing at all? Meanwhile, if I'm at work, I can think of a hundred things I really NEED to do!

Things at work are moving along...I've gotten a basic idea of how to do a few things, but unfortunately, I'm a cheat sheet kind of person and I never have enough paper to jot stuff down on! Damnit.

The end of an era for my family is coming up soon, and I'm not really prepared to deal with it. When my father's side of the family came over to America in the mid 1700s, they had a land grant for a couple thousand acres of property. Over the last few hundred years, all but about 50 acres was sold off to various families. So from my great great grandfather's time, my family had held onto that last 50 acres. Now, my first cousin has it all, and has just sold every stick of it, including my dear grandmother's house. I'm crushed.



Now I'm depressed. I'm going to bed.

Pick the month you were born:
January------I kicked
February-----I loved
March--------I smoked
April--------I spit at
May----------I choked on
June---------I murdered
July---------I did the Macarena with
August-------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1--------a birdbath
2--------a monster
3--------a phone
4--------a fork
5--------a Mexican
6--------a gangster
7--------my cell phone
8--------my dog
9--------my best friends'boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19-------myself
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------an ipod
28-------my brother
29-------a permanent marker
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White--------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink----------because I'm NOT a homosexual.
Red-----------because the voices told me to.
Blue----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Green---------because I hate myself.
Purple--------because I'm cool.
Gray----------because I was drunk
Yellow--------because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars.
Orange -------because I hate my family.
Brown---------because I was high
Other---------because I'm a ninja.
None----------because I cant control myself

Now, put the three together to form a sentence and see what you come up with!

Ok, I did something this evening that I feel REALLLLY bad about. Well, I also feel kind of stupid too, but mostly I feel bad.

I decided that cooking anything for dinner was out of the question..of course that could have had more to do with the fact that the only thing to cook was canned ravioli, but I digress. So, I call my roommate and ask him if he'd like to have Chinese takeout..a silly question, because he practically lives on the stuff! So, I look on the handy refrigerator magnet and dial the number of my favorite takeout joint. I order a couple of the General Tso's combinations and head out to pick up the food. We'll call this place, "China Good".

Not long after, I arrive at my favorite takeout joint to pick up the food. I have been going there for years, so they all know me. I was a bit puzzled when they looked at me and asked, "what you like order?" I cheerfully gave them my phone number (so they could look for the takeout) and tell them what I'd ordered. They didn't have it. I pondered for a moment, and then made a dreadful realization.

I'd called the WRONG restaurant! You see, the place I'd called was "China Better", another takeout joint that I'd frequented at times in the past. They are quite a bit further from my house than "China Good", however, so I just placed an order with "China Good"...no big deal.

Wellllllll.....I get home with the food, tell the roomie what I'd done, and though I was horrified by the mistake, and really meant to call "China Better" to cancel the order, my hunger overtook my thinking and I forgot all about it. Forgot, that is, until after finishing my dinner, the phone rang.

Yeah. The caller ID read "China Better". I am ashamed to admit that I just let it ring. In my defense, however, I was definitely not in the mood to be cussed out in Chinese!