Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I wish I were making this up, but someone has invented spray-on bacon. Or, more accurately, a spray-on, bacon-flavored compound that has no calories, fat, carbohydrates, or cholesterol. Apparently, there are a few dozen flavored sprays, with more in the works. It’s the ultimate in diet technology—taking the food out of food.

Pardon me while I have an existential crisis.

It hasn’t been a good week at work for Ed, between the ant infestation and the clue-free customers.

The obvious solution, I pointed out, was to send the ants to the idiots.

I couldn’t have hoped for a more Ed-like or enthusiastic response than this—

I like it. 15 minutes on the phone and then, if we aren’t on our way to resolution…infestation. “I’m sorry ma’am, but truth be told you’re stupid. Therefore, I’m required by policy to send you ants. Further, if you call again without adult supervision, we move up to mice. After that, don’t test us… the hyenas don’t respond any better to the slow and mentally challenged than we do. Actually, to them, slow + stupid = brunch. Thank you for calling the [Company Name] help desk… now sod off.”

Of course, Ed has already decided that when he wants to get fired, he’s going to start answering the phone “Hi, this is Ed; I drink because you call.”

Some help for my erstwhile Ivorian phishing buddy.

8:30 AM
Ed: I came in and my station is INFESTED with ants! Suck factor 9 Mr. Sulu. I’m trying to work and the bastards are trying to crawl ON ME.

9:15 AM
Ed: This ant thing is getting out of hand. I’ve already told the crew, first one I see on “anything I value in the bathroom” and my day here is over. On the other hand, I now have a piece of paper with a row of ant corpses labelled “Ed’s Trophy Case” on my desk. If nothing else, I’ll earn some smartass points.

11:03 AM
Li: Hail the Great White Hunter! I’ll even make an exception for this, and won’t insist that you eat everything you kill.

12:02 PM
ED: 34 kills in the trophy case. I think they are beginning to fear me.

I found a reference to a file named “authorize.war” in one of the systems for the department.

I recently received a $25 gift certificate from the Temple of Shoes, so last night I went over to see what there was to see. I combed through literally hundreds of pairs of shoes without seeing a single size 5. I was about to give up, when I thought I’d take one last look at the more practical shoes. Lo and behold, a pair of simple, navy canvas sneakers caught my eye. Frankly, I think that $29.99 is high for shoes I remember paying $8 for in the not-too-distant past, but my old ones are several years old now, and very grotty. When it was finally my turn at the register, I was amazed when the total amount of cash I had to shell out was…one cent. Hooray for markdowns!

I’ve applied for my yoga teacher liability insurance, which I’ll need to start my required 8 hours of volunteer student teaching. I’ll have to track down a lawyer to write up a waiver for me, but I think I know where to find one or two—possibly even ones who’ll barter some private yoga classes in lieu of a fee.

I’m also trying to sign up for Level 3 training (that’s not a typo—Level 1 is a prerequisite for every other class, but Level 2 isn’t a prereq for Level 3; go figure), if the web form would be so kind as to actually accept my information; however, I’m more or less planning on being in training on September 24th and 25th. (This training is in downtown Indianapolis, so there’ll be no danger of loud hotel parties.) I’ve even got the textbook already; I bought it before I even knew it was the text several weeks ago, just because it looked interesting.

The monitor in the mini-cube next to mine was swapped out as the workstation wasn’t being used, and one of my coworkers was having problems with her monitor.

Sign on the coworker’s old monitor at 9:00 AM: “Bad Monitor.”

Sign on the coworker’s old monitor at 9:04 AM: “Bad Monitor! No Cookie!”

Looks like my next job is lined up and ready to go. I’ll be doing a similar job in a different department of the same company. No nerve-wracking unemployment, no watching the savings account dwindle. Aaaaaahhhh!