December 31, 2004

Ooh! Shiny!
Or: the point where I realized that I'll be damned if I keep working at NBC.

I generally get along well with whoever I work with, but this drove me to the edge.

I was at work yesterday, ringing up a customer. Some of my coworkers were hanging around outside the cash office. Out of the corner of my eye I see something flitting across the bottom of my computer monitor. Turns out this girl I work with got a laser pointer for Christmas and is fooling around. Fine. I make a joke about her not being much of a sniper if she's 20 feet away in plain sight.

I thought that was the end of it, but she doesn't quit. Since I stopped paying attention to her, she shines it in my eyes.

It hurts. You're, y'know, not supposed to do that. There are warnings plastered all over the packaging on those things warning you to not even think about getting a laser beam anywhere near someone's eyes, and yet this girl's fucking with me. Thing is, I can't snap at her because I'm with a customer so my 'could you please stop that? It hurts,' makes me sound like a wuss. The fact that I wear glasses doesn't help - the damn things focus the beam straight into my eye.

'It burns?' she says. No, I'm covering my eyes and cringing a lot out of the sheer joy of the NBC Experience!

'Yes, it burns, and my glasses make it worse.'

'It don't burn,' she says, and (and this is the thing that made me want to rip my hair out) she points the laser into her eye and hits the trigger...and looks into the beam for a full 10 seconds.

'Yeah, it don't hurt.' Whereupon she resumes trying to shine the thing directly into my eyes.

You know what it takes to make me yell at somebody? I have this voice in the back of my head that I still can't shake, a voice that repeats 'don't yell; she hates that' over and over and over again. It's the thing that makes me good at fast-paced, high volume retail service. My fuse is a mile long and soaking wet. I don't yell, I don't fight. I'm sarcastic and abrasive, sure, in an extremely quiet way. The only time I raise my voice is in merryment. Ok, or self-deprecation, but that's all pointed at me.

My customer leaves, smiling, and once he's down the stairs and out of range, I lose it. 'Are you out of your fucking mind? What part of that hurts do you not understand? Knock it off, you fucking idiot.' She looked at me like I was insane and left.

How hard would it be to find a nice, quiet desk job, something where I get to sit in front of a computer, talking on AIM and spreadsheeting til I clock out at 5pm and get blitzed, some job with co-workers who are, if idiotic, at least not bullies. I've been dealing with this shit for years, is it really that much to ask for? Damn.

2005 can eat me!

(we take a leap in the action)

2024 can eat me!

2038 can eat me!

2045 can, umm...

(the concept of gastric ingestion obsolete)

2088 can demetefeccate my sorongonce in a chip wallahs tring!

(Russians subordinate all humankind to the task of sucking their dicks)

3000 can drip lube in my mouth as I osmote my SOMA

3022 CAN KISS MY ASS (plain old suicide with a run of the mill revolver)

Special people no longer there to bother our hope-filled souls. No one to tear us down, nothing to get in our way.

The farm is out of our life. Too many hassles, irresponsible people, ghosts from 100 years - all made an exit with one move in two days.

A cleansing of the basement, of old memories best be forgotten, old clothes that don't belong to me donated to someone else more in need, along with a slimy, purple dildo that found its way in there somehow. (Cringe!!) Saying goodbye to the hard lessons of life - as well as incongruency.

Business, life and success rolling from an older chapter into a new one with more to look forward than ever.

What more can anyone ask for?

Last night I found out one of my friends died of alcohol poisoning. I don't know how it happend. Obviously she drank too much. The specifics have yet to make it to me. They might never, we weren't that close. I don't really know any of her other friends that well.

My bet is currently on her doing a little too much cocaine. She probably didn't realize how much she had drank. Blacked out and kept drinking. and this girl could drink. I've seen her start and finish a 40 of steel reserve in less than a half hour.

We met at freshman orientation. We both had the same major, the only two at that paticular session. We had similar musical taste, I thought she was cute, I knew she liked to get fucked up, so did I. It was obvious that we'd spend some time together. Get to know things about each other. She wanted to join the peace corps after graduating, go somewhere in South America, make a difference.

We sat next to each other in our social problems class. We'd talk about things. Plans for the weekend, how we were going to get shitty, probably end up waking up next to someone we didn't know. It was a running conversation, between notes and class days. Like we just picked up where we left off last time and kept going.

I've known people who died before, car accidents, heart-attacks, being old, or just some freak mistake. It was always someone I'd just known from school, or a family member I'd never really talked to. Never my friends, "you can't kill a man who was born to hang" that's what we said. I realize that it happens, but I can't really wrap my head around the concept of someone dying from drinking too much. How much do you actually have to drink to die? I haven't reached it yet. The people I drink with every night haven't reached it yet.

Last night after I found out, I went to a convenience store and bought myself a 40. Drank it with a friend who quit drinking a month ago. Tried to have a good time. I did too. The whole time though I couldn't help but think of Lindsey. How I'd never see her again. How she'd never make it to Guatamala or where ever. How we'd never drink together again.

I wish I was there when it happened. I know I couldn't have helped with anything, I wouldn't have stopped her. I just want to know that she was happy.