Passive incompetence is one thing, but aggressive Nazi hostility on the corporate level is something else again.

Well, THAT was a needlessly dramatic cliffhanger disappearance, wasn't it? Ha! I'm telling you guys, the hardest thing to do is to find time to write when Kid Gleemonex isn't in school ... anyway. To continue. 

That Time I Met One of Satan's Many Manifestations On Earth: Part Two of Two

So the airport was the pokiest little goddamn thing (I actually called it "hilarious" in one of my interviews -- oopsie), and not in a fun way -- just in a bare-bones, beige 80s ehh whatever this is good enough for the likes of you kind of way. I stepped out of there into, like, an oven. A hot, wet oven. Started sweating immediately, lugging my little rolly bag out across seven miles of asphalt to get my rental car. Then with the AC on full blast, I followed the printed directions to the hotel. I was expecting some sort of segue into a town-like situation, but this was the middle of nowhere, and the trees and grass and whatnot looked a lot like the surrounds of Cowburg, Texass, where I'm from, so that was nice. I drove along two-lane country roads for awhile before finally finding signs of life -- the places you could just tell were the Good (aka white) Neighborhoods (how you know: They had vaguely British-sounding names, like The Duckston Manors At Whingely Wood). Then, closer in, the usual smaller houses, schools, fast-food joints. Got to the hotel, unloaded all my junk and headed back out for food -- nothing but chains available in any direction (except one intriguing-looking smokehouse joint whose sign piously announced outside that it's "Always closed on Sundays!" because Jesus).

So the next morning, I dress in what would be the thing to wear to an interview at my current place of employment -- a sort of dressy casual, brand-appropriate dark skinny jeans, cute flats (pregnant, couldn't deal with heels), cowl-neck shell top and jacket. I even wore makeup, bought in desperation at The Walmart in town Sunday night (because it's been so long since I wore makeup that I actually could not find any of mine in my house before I left). Bonus, what I'm wearing hides my thickened middle.

First interview of seven is at 7:45 in the goddamned morning (who DOES that?). I get up early -- way early, cause I'm on California time, and sofa king tired I almost bag the whole thing right there. Follow directions ... and twice drive right past the goddamned global headquarters of the corporation that "employs" more people than any other entity on planet Earth except the fucking CHINESE ARMY.* I'm expecting something big, distinctive; what it is is, a low three-story red brick bunker, almost windowless,** with only one small sign indicating what evil lies within.

I go inside, check in and get an ID photo (my kid found it the other day -- I could not possibly look more ghoulish, it's hilarious). Then I sit down and wait in what looks a lot like my junior high's east hallway -- vinyl flooring, fluorescent lighting -- with rows of cheap plastic stackable chairs all facing the same way like at the DMV or county court, "History of Walmart" photos all over the walls, and several televisions blaring -- all tuned to Fox TV. My sense of being dangerously, delusionally out of place increases.

The recruiter gal shows up, and she's as nice as she was on the phone. Her face is on and she appears not to notice Fox TV's histrionics as we chat about how my flights were and how hot it is already. She takes me through into the main building and y'all. Y'ALL.

OK, maybe it's worse for me because the building where I currently work -- in the global HQ of a specialty fashion retailer, in San Francisco -- is so lovely: all huge airy spaces, extremely expensive and famous modern art all over the place, marble and glass and hushed pleasantness, views from all 15 floors of the bay and the city. But I think by any standards, this place is fucking TERRIBLE.

It's a windowless, tube-lit acoustic-tile-ceilinged hangar divided into a warren of cubicles, separated by 7-foot-high walls covered in that awful material that's like a Delta airplane carpet from 1979, all of it a terrible blue that is indescribably disheartening -- it's not even that sad blue the Russians used to use; it's worse. It's like -- Morale-Crusher Blueisssh. Signs (Accounting, Communications, Cafeteria, Department of Paying Women Less Than Men, etc.) hang from the ceiling on chains -- plastic rectangles with the words pressed on them in white, the cheapest crappiest signage it would ever be possible to find in a graphic designer's worst PCP-laced nightmare. And the fucking TVs blaring Fox news were at every "lounge" area all over the goddamned place -- truly amazing cultural programming, inescapable like Orwell's telescreens, teaching everyone how to be goodthinkful and be doubleplusgood workers, I guess. It really set my nerves on edge in the worst way.

So. My first interview is with yet another HR screener, who informs me that actually they want about 25% of time here in Bentonville, and I'm like yeahhhh well we'll see about that, and she says that for a time she actually commuted like that from somewhere else (Chicago?), and it was "kind of nice, because although I missed my family, it was me-time." Mkay. Then I finally meet my direct manager -- a young woman about my age, whom I really hit it off with. We had a great talk, I had great answers to all her questions, a few ideas, some good questions of my own. I'm thinking this one is a winner.

I am escorted by HR Greeter Gal and a clearly junior HR Trainee Gal to some guy who has his own office (exactly like the cubes, but with a door and a ceiling, and still no window). He has some Yankees paraphernalia scattered around, so in the "getting to know you" bit at the end, I work in my own Yankee fandom, mentioning that I got into them in the early 90s when they were awful, and blowin' his mind with my knowledge of players and stats and whatnot. Another winner.

My minders take me to two more people, who are kind of a blur to me, but whom I remember also seemed to like me. Then they escort me -- you notice, I'm being escorted everywhere? Partly because of the Brazil-style warren of utter confusion, and partly because Walmart's corporate ethos seems to include the proviso that everyone is a potential criminal -- to lunch with the lady who would be my grandboss, a woman about 60 whose dress and manner remind one a little of Ann Richards. She's great, and but I can quickly tell that she brooks no nonsense -- as ever, but particularly contrasted with the everlasting roundabout shitshow of my current work environment, I have no problem with that, and could really see working well with her. She sits down first, though, and is the only one of my interviewers whom I catch getting a good look at my midsection -- and as a mother of four, I know she knows and then she knows that I know she knows. Ehhh, well.

But about this lunch -- in the cafeteria, which every one of my interviewers has mentioned as a great boon, a terrific perk of employment: It is a for real, straight up cafeteria, so much like the one in my junior high that I almost have a PTSD episode, wondering where to park my Dooney & Bourke purse before I get in the food line to make sure I get a seat with at least a second-tier group. Long cheap formica-topped picnic tables, fluorescent lighting, industrial tile floor, molded plastic chairs with metal feet. There are several stations -- grill area, salads, sandwiches, etc. But they're all kind of lame early 90s airport type food -- you can tell everything is premade and shipped in, frozen; the salad bar is like the one at K-Bob's where I worked in high school (iceberg lettuce, baco-bits, shredded cheddar, ranch and Thousand Island dressings). And again, maybe it's worse for me because of what I'm used to -- a cafe with a large landscaped terrace on the seventh floor, flooded with natural light, all blond wood and marble and little clusters of wooden tables, with a menu that has to compete with the offerings outside the building in one of the biggest foodie cities in the world; everything's organic, locally-sourced, seasonal, yada yada, and made by culinary school grads and chefs who take their game very, very seriously.

Plus, I hate eating in front of people like that -- where I'm supposed to talk and eat and there's a judgment component, you know what I mean? Also I was FUCKING STARVING, because of the baby and missing my usual second and third breakfasts due to interviews, so I was using all my self-control not to just cram that stupid ham sandwich in my face-hole like it was the last piece of food on New Caprica.

So after that, my minders took me to one more person, whom I do not remember at all, then fail to deliver me to Lucky #7 (the three of us wandered the rat maze of two different floors for nearly half an hour while they try to track down whoever it is, and finally I'm like, ladies: I gotta make like a tree and get outta here). I bail, with many thanks, and drive to that podunk airport like I'm catching the last chopper out of Saigon. My flight is delayed, as is the next one (if I'd've known I'd be at DFW for four and a half goddamned hours I'd've called my family to meet up for some Flamin' Nachos at Frontera Grill or whatever in Terminal D).

And all this -- the late flights, the people who just sat there and let a pregnant gal hoist her own bag into the overhead, the rubbery chicken at the airport TGI Fucknuts that almost made me puke, the weepy phone call to Mr. Gleemonex about the delays and how I would miss putting Kid Gleemonex to bed, the exhaustion, my extremely dangerous falling-asleep, post-midnight 1.5-hour drive home from SFO -- ALL OF THIS I laid squarely at the feet of Walmart as its particular and purposeful fault.

The lesson I learned was that no matter how much they're paying, it's not worth it to work somewhere so deeply, terribly morally wrong and against my own principles. Also I learned that environment can and does reflect and reinforce thought and behavior.

I had danced with the Devil, and felt lucky to have survived it.

------------------------------------
*This is the factual truth.
**Hunter S Thompson describes a hotel a lot like this in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 -- run by penny-pinching anhedonic Germans, with empty mini-bars and every view a wasteland of tarpaper roofs and dirty air vents.

The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth.

That Time I Met One of Satan's Many Manifestations On Earth: Part One of Two

So did I ever tell you guys about the time I went to Wal-Mart Global HQ, in the hip-hop-happenin' town of Bentonville, Arkansas? It's been on my mind lately because of all the worker protests (and consequently up-leveled retaliatory ratfuckery on the part of the corporation) of the last year or so. And as you know, I hate those motherfuckers -- Wal-Mart, not their underpaid, shat-upon, locked-in, dignity-stripped workers, I mean -- and have hated them pretty much my whole life. So why did I go to their HQ?

Well -- I was desperately unhappy at my old day job, as you all were well aware. I had a bitchin' LinkedIn profile and was actively seeking a new gig (I think all the top-tier interviews I got could actually smell -- no, see -- the waves of desperation coming off me). One day out of the blue, I got an email from ... a recruiter at Wal-Mart. Real sweet gal, said she liked my profile a lot, and would I be interested in the attached job description?

In my head I'm all, hell to the fuck no, you guys are my mortal goddamned enemy. But -- desperation. So I looked at the attachment. The job was a fantastic fit, no kidding around. Just, it was for Wal-Mart. And it was in Bentonville, AR. I wrote back and said it looked great, but I am not interested in relocating from the SF bay area, so let me know if this could be remote/telecommute; otherwise, nah. Imagine my surprise when she wrote back a couple weeks later to say that actually, they might could do this out of their Peninsula office and would I like to interview? So -- fighting my gorge -- I say yes. We set it up -- first a quick phoner w/the recruiter (in which we discuss a salary about 30% more than my current one, yay!), then several hours in the Peninsula office (O SHATNER DO I HATE THE 101 FREEWAY) meeting with five different people, as is the custom around here. This seems to go smashingly. I do a Skype-y thing with my prospective direct manager; it also goes smashingly (I think because I go in to the interviews with the desperation-free attitude of, "Fuck all y'all, I don't want to work for you, I'm just  enjoying making my horrible boss paranoid.").

Another phone call with the recruiter, who chooses this moment to lay it on me about their monthly 7:30 a.fucking.m.-to-9:30 a.m. Saturday morning all-hands mandatory rah-rah/cult meeting, and the general companywide 7:30 start time to the workday (WTF?), and the bullshit cheap-ass holiday/PTO policy ... but I'm sofa king desperate at my job, I'm still listening to these guys. They invite me to Bentonville. I decide, whatever, I hate you guys anyway, and tell the recruiter that o by the waaay, full disclosure, FYI I'm 5 months pregnant; I lay out my Californian expectations for maternity leave (the standard 4 months, during which -- because it would be a new job and I'm a real swell person, plus this is my second so I know how this parenthood thing rolls -- I'd keep in touch). They -- because legally I'm pretty sure they have to, to avoid a lawsuit -- say it's cool, no prob, here's your flight details. I take a day off work, fly out on a Sunday, cry hormonally throughout the two (2) flights because of missing a precious weekend day with Kid Gleemonex and Mr. G., and arrive in Old Bentone.

---------------------------------------------------------------
[Stay tuned for part two, in the next post]

I had a terrible vision of Lucy crashing into Barbra Streisand's dressing room at the Americana and laying this brutal story on her.

I took a class at Columbia called Suburbia and Its Cultures, and while it was excellent and one of my favorite classes I took the whole four years, it was nowhere near as hilarious as the thing that happened on Monday night in my 'burb.

Our next-door neighbors, who've lived here for 25 years, are this family, the Whites:* Otto, Angie, and their youngest daughter, Ruth, who's about 19 (the two oldest White children are grown & out of the house). Angie is pleasant and neighborly (to us) but, unfortunately for the world, an evangelical nutter (she, um. apparently writes these "books"? with titles like "The Woman In The House" or something? yeahhhh ... ) who homeschooled all three of these kids; I've never met the older two, but Ruth is a very soft-bodied, soft-personalitied young lady of almost shocking unworldliness. Otto is a nice guy from whom, as it turns out in one of those small-world type coincidences, we happened to buy our hybrid automobile five years ago (and to whom we have now given our godless liberal money once again, in the form of purchasing another new hybrid automobile a couple of weeks ago).

So, with her last child "graduated" from "school," it seems like Angie's got some time on her hands, and she's gettin all het up for our neighborhood to get to know each other. I actually like this idea; I think it's a good thing to recognize your neighbors by sight, find out a couple names, exchange pleasantries, etc. So I go along with the newsletter (including providing its only non-White content so far), and I show up to the "dessert potluck" she organizes -- this is the happening from Monday night. It's at the home of another neighbor couple, 27 years in their house -- Middle Eastern artists with amaaaaazing Brazilian hardwood floors -- and draws representatives from about seven of our street's ~14 households (not bad for a first meetup).

We neighbors all stand around and chat for a bit, eating desserts and drinking; the hostess, the one other neighbor I've met, and I all drink wine, whereas everyone else sticks to coffee & tea. Most people are cool, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that this one guy -- Man Talker -- is used to being Listened To about all things A Man Should Know. One of those conversational dominators who always has the answer and is kind of daring you to try to go toe-to-toe with him, like you even fucking care. Ugh.

Then we get to the main attraction, which is an appearance by a metropolitan police officer Angie apparently used to tutor when he was a teen. He shows up in full uniform, and he's pretty great -- pleasant, calm, down-to-earth, the kind of guy I appreciate being a cop. Angie launches right into "the reason we asked you to come," which was "the homeless encampments" at the creek nearby, and "all the crime they bring."

Now, y'all -- crime. CRIME. I'm from a small town where we used to leave the doors unlocked and the car keys in the car ... but I've lived in upper Manhattan in the 90s, and San Francisco, and London (briefly), and ... let me just say: These fucking people on this high-income, low-density white-ass block don't know a goddamn thing about crime. Or homeless people. The cop was very low-key and reasonable about this paranoid, not-so-borderline racist line of chatter -- he's all, yeah, ok, around here there's the occasional auto theft, auto burglary, home burglary, but not much of that even happens, and if it does, they're just lookin for money or things that're easy to steal and sell, they don't want to tangle with you, etc.

Angie and Man Talker weigh in about "those people," who are, naturally, from "broken homes" ("single mothers with five kids," mutters Man Talker, in pure code for "black and brown people") and "on drugs," and Angie's all "and isn't it true, Officer, that when the economy's bad like this -- and it's getting worse, of course** -- there's more of this type of crime?" which he's forced to concede that yes, in tough economic times people get more desperate, sure, but ... and an older lady says, "Well, what do you do if someone breaks in while you're home?" which is Man Talker's cue to saddle up on a favorite hobby horse, with full panniers of sarcastic verbal airquotes: "You have a duty to retreat. You have to call 911. You can't engage unless --"

The cop interrupts, "No, I mean, yes, call 911, but you know, if you're in fear for your life --"

Man Talker, seizing triumphantly upon what he believes will be catching the officer out on protocol: "California doesn't have a Castle Doctrine [because it's such a pussy commie liberal homo state where Men are not free to be Men]! Blah blah blah top THAT, policeboy!"

To which the cop replies, calmly, "It isn't necessary. Those are completely superfluous laws. In any state, including California, you are well within your rights to defend your life and your family from imminent threat with whatever weapon you have available." Total silence from Man Talker. Awesome.

I wanted to go up and high-five the guy, but I settled for writing "Castle Doctrine" in my notes and smirking to myself. The evening went better from there, although Man Talker went back to bloviating after the officer left (weasel). As a follow-up, Angie emailed everyone to basically order us to write a letter thanking the cop, which -- seriously, F you, lady. We all thanked him in person, individually, and I don't need you teachering me about writing a thank-you note. I am the fucking Empress of Thank You Notes. I'll write a thank-you note whenever I fucking feel like it -- you need to watch less Fox "News" and get out among people you don't personally homeschool every once in awhile.

Then I walked home with the cool neighbor, whose kids go to the schools my kids will eventually go to, and we talked Hawaii and how awesome it is that the middle school is an arts magnet school.

Suburbia, y'all. Suburbia.


---------------------------------
*Not their real names.
**Which is code for, "Thanks, Obama!"

I love lamp

Oh Internets, I love you and your horses and bayonets sofa king much!

EHRMAGERD! WERMERN!

All previous declarations of things having won the Internet are now rendered null and void.

Winner and Champion Forevermore:

Binders Full of Women

And a new silver medalist, strangely apropos:

Jenna Maroney's summer dance jam, "Balls"

Things I thought about at 3:45 a.m. while Mr. Gleemonex snored like a stableful of cartoon horses

IOW, Potpourri Thursday

--The extremely sexually-excited way Megyn Kelly presented during her interview with "the Romney boys," aka the five asshole sons of Willard Romney. Seen (thankfully not heard) on the TV that's always tuned to Fox "News" at the gym. The girl's eyes were huge and flashing wanty looks, her nips practically sproinged little smoking holes through the front of her blouse, and she sort of squirmed in her seat the whole time -- christ that was disgusting.

--Wonder Woman's backstory is total bunkum. All that insanity about "Amazons" and invisible jets (does it also have invisible fuel? wouldn't you run into it on the tarmac? wtf) and talking to animals and Greek gods ... srsly what is the deal.

--I have a desperate desire to punch Paul Ryan in his stupid punchable face. It's a face that BEGS for punching. Hard punching and lots of it. Those stupid limpid eyes, that goddamn Munsters cowlick, that earnest idiot expression -- christ do I want to punch him so bad.

--It's possible our new dentist is a crazy person. She's great, don't get me wrong, but there's something a little nutburgery about her. Nobody but a crazy person wears pants like that. And what's with all the Barbies all over her office? Actual Barbie dolls. Krickety-krackety kray.

DRUGS are an ILLEGAL NARCOTIC!

Christ, Mitt Romney is a fucking dumbass dickface moron.

I mean, in case y'all didn't know that yet.

Wanna know what you're playin for?

OK, goddammit, Internets, this is getting serious.

This total utter bizarro-world, would-be-funny-except-it's-fucking-real birth-control-coverage "debate." And "debate" is in quotation marks because goddamn, a debate is supposed to have two sides. This is just a whole bunch of nutbags shouting about sluts and whores, whipping themselves into ever-tighter circles of spittle-flecked frenzy, making less and less sense but revealing with each word that the issue at the heart of all of this is the desire to control women.

And on that note, I reject the argument from "my" side that "people use birth control for things besides prevention of unwanted pregnancy, and that's why it should be covered." Because yes, obviously that's true, but the point -- the FUCKING POINT -- is that IT'S NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS WHY ANY PERSON EXCEPT YOURSELF SEEKS, FILLS AND/OR USES ANY PRESCRIPTION EVER. And if we allow people like this Gestapo bitchwheel to introduce the idea of having to explain yourself to anyone but your doctor, then there is no end to what she and every other bugeyed cholesterol clot shartstain will try to do. These walking advertisements for abortion will never stop.

The Repuglicans are apparently going to fight and die on this hill, which in one regard is fine by me; every time some fathead with a schlong or some cunty cunt-regulator gets in the ring with warthog diarrhea like this Arizona bill, more votes are going to disappear come election time. Maybe the base won't vote Obama ... but they're not gonna vote Santorum/Romney/Misogynist To Be Named Later either.

The problem, though, is that this is still a Thing, and it's going to continue to be, and a lot of people are going to be hurt, not to mention that the line has now been crossed -- they know that they get to talk like this. They get to propose these awful, awful, misogynistic laws and watch us try to bat them down. They're playing a high-stakes Whack-A-Mole game that just keeps speeding up and we have no choice but to try to swing the mallet faster -- no time even to go around the back and unplug the fucker so we can hear ourselves think. GodDAMMIT.

Go on, bow to 'er -- the queen of filth! The queen of slime!

Y'all.

Y'ALL.

Newsflash: Chili's is AWFUL.

Maybe you already knew that, but maybe, like me, you hadn't eaten there in like fifteen or so years and still had semi-fond memories of it being a pretty OK place when you went there with your friends or on a date back in high school or with your boyfriend for a $4 happy hour pitcher of beer and some free chips & salsa during grad school.

I had to go to Target one last time yesterday for some baby-related odds and ends, and after shuffling around in there, leaning on the cart for actual support, feeling like an obese 103-year-old for way longer than this type of errand normally takes, it was 2:00 and I was fucking starving. I didn't feel capable of making my own lunch, so when I spotted the Chili's directly in the path between me and home (o, the suburbs ... my heart weeps), I stopped in. I thought, I'll get some sort of poppin'-fresh appetizer something-or-other, or like a quesadilla, and that'll do it. How bad could it be?

It was so. bad.

I ordered a combo appetizer plate as my lunch -- the Southwestern egg rolls, the hot spinach & artichoke chips 'n dip, and something called "chicken crispers." The "egg rolls," while not anything that any reasonable person would recognize as egg rolls, were OK -- basically pastry dough wrapped around black beans and cheese and some kind of corn-based salsa. But the alleged spinach/artichoke dip was yucko blucko -- I can't imagine what was actually in there -- and the chicken strips were fucking horrifying. The chicken, though cooked white all the way through, was ... soft. Squishy. Like -- was this even chicken? Or was it Chickie Nobs? The fact that I ate two bites of the Nobs, not just one, should tell you how desperately hungry I was. Eeeeegh.

You could not possibly do worse with this shit -- it was clearly all manufactured in a Chinese nail-polish factory using whatever is left over after they finish making McNuggets, Payless shoes and feline leukemia meds, then partially frozen, shipped over here, warmed in an Easy-Bake Oven, and sold to me for $10.79.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is one of the keys to what ails Republicans -- if THIS is what you think food is; if THIS is what "going out" means to you -- then it's no wonder that your inner life is arid, mean and bankrupt from the very most basic level.

If I'm going to keep living here -- and chain restaurants aside, I do love so much about it -- I might have to quit my job as a professional verbal tap dancer and open a few real restaurants in which actual food is sold to people with functioning taste buds. I'm hereby soliciting spare change, donations, investors and backers of all kinds ...

He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.'

Wow.

This -- the below -- is what nearly half of the country believes. They're CHEERING the thought of an uninsured person dying for lack of health care.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/indecent.html

Sully has the video. You can hear these vile swine cheering -- the applause drowns Ron Paul out.

It's times like these that make me wish I believed in an actual, literal Hell. Instead, it's right here, like a bunch of guys who brought smallpox and hunting knives and rabid pitbulls into a mosh pit where the rest of us were pogoing around and bouncing off of each other, and they locked the doors so nobody gets out and as they all thrash around and slash each others' and innocent bystanders' throats, we're all gonna get stomped and crushed and bleed out along with them.

Killed a spider with a dollar cause I didn't have a tissue

Dear Mean, Pissed-Off-Looking Republican Women Driving SUVs In The Far South of the Silicon Valley, Harshing My Mellow:

What is y'all's deal? Why do y'all always look so pissed off taking the curves on a 40-MPH-speed-limit street at 65 MPH? Is it cause somewhere deep inside, you know your stupid fat behemoth of a car seats the exact same number of people and hauls the same amount or less cargo my Prius does, but costs fifteen grand more to buy and a lot more to fill with gas, thus leaving you less money to get a good haircut? (Cause seriously, y'all all have bad Suburban Mom Hair. Honestly.) You don't wipe that mean look off your face, it could set permanently like that.

Sincerely,
I Could've Seen and Judged This Human Vista Every Day in Texass for About One-Quarter the Money, GOD.

---------

PS, in honor of one of my favorite tags, via one of my favorite blogs on the entire Internets: the First-World Problems rap.

Oh boy. They have sequins.

So I'm watching actual, live/real-time network TV on Friday night in the Emergency Room,* and something terrible called "Wife Swap" comes on.

And I can't decide which is worse:

--The self-described "all-American Texas football family," with the laughably self-described "trophy wife" (I think you bought it at the wrong trophy store, dude), the members of which prided themselves on being "hard-working" Republican Christians (with that ugly & disgusting assumption such people have, that anyone who isn't at least upper middle-class just doesn't like to work and is a lazy commie welfare cheat) who love football above all else, and having a mom/wife who literally does nothing but cook meat-based meals, clean the tract house, and attend various football-related activities for the two hulking porcine teenage date-rape suspects they called sons.

--The "hippie" family from Georgia, the members of which (especially the dad) do drum circles and "clowning" (not "clowning around," as in, goofing off -- I mean "dressing up like fucking MIMES and putting on little mime shows and shit, unironically, for spectators' presumed wonderment and delight"), have no actual jobs, and have a mom/wife who hasn't shaved her armpits in 20 years (because she doesn't believe in gender roles).

--The very concept of the show, designed to exploit everyone's worst preconceptions and prejudices for trainwreck-style entertainment under the guise of busting those very notions down. BULLLLLLLLLLLSHIT.

-------------------------

*The kid had what turned out to be croup, fixable with a few 'roids, some ibuprofen, and boatloads of Yo Gabba Gabba. But it was after-hours, so off to the ER we went, on the alarmed say-so of the advice nurse after we held the phone up so she could hear the kid breathing her horrible terrifying rattly wheezy breaths. Good times!

Stuck in my craw. (As it were. Heh.)

Look out – Sandy-Vadged Old Lady ramblings ahoy!

1) Listen up, young people: When you are at table with me, put the GOD DAMN PHONE IN YOUR GOD DAMN BAG. My colleague and I were lunching with the new intern yesterday, and the girl kept her phone on the table the whole time, texting while talking, flipping through screens, the whole nine. I was like, why are we even here? This is supposed to be a business lunch, and she might as well have been at her little four-roommate pansexual-house-party/reality-show apartment or wherever it is you kids live these days. I mean, the girl is great, very accomplished and presentable and does good work, but holy app-downloading SHATNER is that rude.

2) My friend, the lovely and truthful J., told a story recently about a very large meeting at the Very Large Global Bank where she works, a meeting which has come to be known around the company as “The Basic Instinct Meeting.” What happened was: A senior-level woman in her late 30s/early 40s (i.e. old enough to know better) was one of the people seated on a dais on chairs that were hidden by no podium or table. The woman was wearing a skirt. There was a Basic Instinct moment. My question is: WHO DOESN’T WEAR UNDERPANTS TO WORK? WHO? WHO DOES THAT? I need to have confidence that the people with whom I work are WEARING UNDERPANTS. I don’t ever want to think about it – I just want it done. UNDERPANTS.

Nobody drink the beer, the beer has gone bad!

Internets: Hey, Gleemonex!

Gleemonex: Sup!

Internets: You mean, besides the LOST finale?

Gleemonex: Yeah. [moment of silence]

Internets: [wiping away a tear] Ahem. So. Just one quick question. Take your mind off things.

Gleemonex: Shoot.

Internets: Do you think it would be possible to pack any more douchebaggery into one brief LTTE, whether it was to the Hometowne Bugle-Noisemaker or not? Read, weep:

Cheers for [fellow ignorant letter-scrawling teabagging motherscratcher] and his ability to rebut inferior logic and plain old illogic as is evidenced by his latest letter against the putrid raving and ranting of the most obnoxious left wing regular in your paper's viewpoint section.

As native Americans, his people met the boats of the first immigrants. This should qualify him to attend, organize and speak at a patriotic gathering and label it a tea party. Also, it should permit him to define his intentions without some itinerant soothsayer attempting to mislabel his true intentions.I nominate his latest epistle for letter of the year honors.

Gleemonex: Nope. I think that's max capacity right there.

Internets: [vomits a little in its own mouth] Yup. Boy, does that bunch like their thesaurii.

Gleemonex: Using words like "putrid" and "epistle" makes them sound smartsk. Well, gotta get back to work. Later, dude.

Internets: See you in another life, brotha.

Gleemonex: [sheds tear, does sad little terrorist fist-jab with Internets]

Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?

WHAT a bunch of ASSHOLES. Some kids in Morgan Hill, CA, were sent home for wearing (and then refusing to take off) these in-your-face "patriotic" T-shirts w/American flag stuff on them to school on Cinco de Mayo.

I don't think they should've sent them home -- that's giving them more airtime than they ever should've gotten, and the FOX news demographic is already eating it up with a spoon and dribbling it down their fat white blubbering chins -- but A)you cannot deny that this stupid little stunt was designed to provoke, especially with racial/national tensions so high right now (fuck you, Arizona), and B)I do hope their fellow students will take this as a lesson in what raging shitheads these kids are, and shun them accordingly.

You ask your gods for / peace that is everlasting / I am their answer

Threefer Madness
... I may have been spending some time on the Internets lately.

Fuckyeahlost
I trust I don't need to explain this.

Godzilla haiku
Fuck yeah, Godzilla haiku -- awesome and oddly touching, like the big bad nuclear lizard himself.

Tea Party Jesus
The words of Christians in the mouth of Christ -- I have long thought that Jesus would go on a smiting rampage were he to actually come back and see what his alleged followers are doing and saying with his name as a shield (remember, like how he wrecked the ASS of that temple that one time?).

Or, like these guys said:

www.marriedtothesea.com

Sapping all of our precious bodily fluids

Who are these paranoid delusional submentals who are sent into a sweaty belligerent ignorance-frenzy by the idea of filling out the fucking census?

I mean, I know who they are – they’re what used to be the Unabomber fringe element, the dozen or so backwoods crazies, but over the past decade or so the fringe has become the base and they’ve been whipped into an ever-growing tornado of shouty spittly ignorance by the likes of the pustulent swine-shits Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, et. al., and we are now to the point in this terrible freakshow that there is a significant number of actual American citizens who think that being asked to tell anyone in the government how many people live in their house is the basest, most egregious and horrifying outrage ever perpetrated on free men. Holy Chinese-made-sweatpants-wearing, Funyun-eating SHATNER, y’all.

A few fun facts, Census-deniers:

1) Barack Obama did not invent the census.
2) The census does not exist for the purposes of separating the socialists from the Righteous True Americans. (That would be the Rapture. Y'all should get ready. It's going to be awesome.)
3) The census envelope does not contain a poison which will become aerosolized and kill your family when you open it.*
4) It does not actually wound Barack Obama OR Nancy Pelosi in any personal or significant way if you burn, tear, or rend asunder your census form, or send it back to the government unread with a large ugly word fingerpainted on the front in freshly-shot deer’s blood, so you can save that energy and put it towards making some more misspelled dumbshit protest signs for the next teabag party.

-----------------------------------------------------
*Too bad, eh?

Witness Exhibit A: My 8th Grade science project - a working rain forest. Mike Dexter threw it out a third story window. It rains here no more.

Internets: What up, Gleemonex?

Gleemonex: Not much. You?

Internets: Eh, just laughing my ass off at that awesome video of that walking advertisement for abortion, your former president George W. Bush, wiping his hand on Bill Clinton's shirt after he shook hands with a black person.

Gleemonex: OMFG, right?

Internets: I know -- how you guys STOOD that vile swine shitting all over the White House for eight years --

Gleemonex: Let's please just not fucking talk about it, OK?

Internets: OK -- suits me just fine. [ptui] So actually, I was gonna ask -- any idea why the nutbags in the Olde Hometowne didn't get their "OMG OBAMA IS HITLAR WE'RE ALL GONNA BE DETH PANELED BY TEH GAYS AND TEH MEXICANS STEELIN OUR HEALTHCARES" letters in the midweek edition of the Bugle-Noisemaker?

Gleemonex: No! I know -- I'm surprised too! That shit happened on Sunday (and by the way, FUCK YEAH OBAMA!!!) -- you'd think they'd have some ignorant-ass shit to say by the pub deadline on Monday, right?

Internets: Like a fill-in-the-blanks Dumbass Ignorant Racist Fucktard LTTE Form No. 534(b)?

Gleemonex: Yeah -- with, of course, the Christianist Hate-Sentence Generator rider, Schedule 1143(div).

Internets: Well, maybe they were just busy clearing a path to their front doors for the Rapture. I'm sure Sunday's edition'll be a doozy.

Gleemonex: I am very, very much looking forward to that.

Internets: Heh. Me too.

College chicks are totally different, bro. They're all serious and shit. They all talk about world issues and "ecolomological" crap.

Internets: Hey, Gleemonex! Keepin it real, I see -- how're them potato chips for breakfast?

Gleemonex: Pretty good, actually. Shut up. How you doin?

Internets: Awesome as always, what else, DUHHHH.

Gleemonex: Mkay ... so what brings you here?

Internets: Heh. You.

Gleemonex: Me?

Internets: Yeah, I totally saw what you did there, and it made me laugh more than it really deserved.

Gleemonex: Huh?

Internets: In the Olde Hometowne newspaper -- the Bugle-Noisemaker?

Gleemonex: Oh, thaaat. Heh. Yeah. I kill me. It's just that this half-smart numbnuts was going on and on about stuff --

Internets: I know! He's all "led by the most dangerous man to our freedoms that ever occupied the White House" this, and "slip it under the table and backdoor it in" that --

Gleemonex: And besides laughing at the mixed and unintentionally suggestive metaphors, I had to respond.

Internets: You always do, don't you?

Gleemonex: Hell yes. Compulsive sassmouth here. But it was so stupid, what he was saying, that I couldn't do like a point-by-point critique, so I focused in on one of his stupider rote little sayings --

Internets: "'Drunk sailors on shore leave', eh? Why must you insult our troops?" Ha!!!

Gleemonex: Thanks, man. Just doin my part.

Internets: Much appreciated.