Someone on Twitter expressed disappointment in me today. My initial thought was, “Mom?” But I quickly realized that this was coming from a guy who lives “near St. Louis” which really means, “the closest supermarket is 35 miles away and is actually a gas station.”
I’m thinking, “Oh, he’s probably disappointed because he, too, wanted to start a website dedicated to adult diapers and artificially sweetened snacks. I get that.” But to be sure, I ask him.
And bless his urban dictionary heart, because he promptly responds with:
So now Mr. Best Buy Credit Card wants to start doling out critiques just because I go to one of those asshole banks that don’t accept prolonged giggling as legal tender. But just before I begin the process of canceling my accounts, I see he has concluded with the decree that paying for things with people money does, however, “make sense.” What a relief. Although, this is the same guy who also thought a Best Buy credit card made sense so I’m still feeling pretty insecure at this point.
He must’ve detected my, “Why was I even born” themed pity party and followed up with this:
Wait a minute. Not that nice? Okay so he’s mistaking, “accurate” for “nice.” I don’t claim to be able to understand this brand of myopia, but I do feel the need to apologize for ruining his fantasy that my body maintains itself by recycling the same Aristocrats joke. It’s unfortunate, really, because I clearly don’t make any money from writing Vagina Drum.
Even so, I’m at least able to pay my bills on time. Which is more than I can say for my new friend.
I do most of my writing in two places – my couch, Al Bundy style with one hand down my pants and Starbucks, Al Bundy style with one hand down my pants. I typically favor Starbucks because I’m able to people watch and say things like ‘grande.’ So I was at least passively interested when I came across an article outlining a few rules for using Starbucks as your office. While what I do is more fitting of something in between a Denny’s and bathroom of a public library, I figured it could be somewhat useful. But if I had to rank my judgment in terms of how not right I was, this would even surpass the time I thought the guy working at Victoria’s Secret wanted to touch me in my bathing suit area because he called me ‘hun’ and was oddly dedicated to lifting and separating my breasts.
I was hopeful. I thought maybe these rules would slightly resemble mine. For instance – Never add “on the rocks” to a frappuccino order because no one ever ever thinks it’s funny. Unfortunately, what I saw instead was a cocktail of common sense and self-congratulatory irrationality.
I mean, some of them are just insulting. “Don’t spread out your stuff and take up too much space at the store.” Right, because when I go to Starbucks, I beckon the barista to help me put on my Snuggie, use the low-fat and 2% pitchers of milk as bookends for my reading material and usurp the counter as a makeshift clothesline so my bras can air dry.
Are you fucking kidding me? I couldn’t believe that this guy was even allowed an email account, much less an entire blog dedicated to the ‘Trusted Insights and Conversations on the Next Wave of Technology.” Here’s an experiment – try saying, “Next Wave of Technology” and replace “Technology” with anything. Next wave of pizza. Next wave of hair. Next wave of waves. All of that still makes more sense than the original jumble of words dedicated to convincing people that they should tip up to $10 a day during their time at Starbucks in order to “ensure that folks at the store don’t view you as a freeloader and a pest.” I know – it sounds absurd but you’re missing out on his other erudite tip, which is to “buy coffee or something at least three times a day.” See? Makes sense now that you’re only tipping around 120% instead of just giving it away.
And I hate to get technical here, but a freeloader is anyone who “takes advantage of the charity, generosity, or hospitality of others.” So if the paradigm for buying a $4 cup of coffee has shifted from “gouged” to “in need of a hot meal and an even hotter quad split-shot grande in a venti cup, one pump mocha with whip and mocha drizzle” then I stand corrected. Until then, Om Malik and his tips on how to turn money into a bad credit score are full of shit.
Although, he was at one time Customer of the Week at his local Starbucks. I mean I’m not winning awards for spending over $400 per month on coffee and acceptance, but I’m surely not going to take advice from someone who has.
I accomplished this on an aluminum MacBook Pro. I’m guessing it works on other MacBooks but I haven’t tested those yet. To make this even more satisfying, you can sweep your hands over the screen as if you’re directly controlling it. If you don’t have a MacBook, invite me to your next party because this is totally my new ice breaker. Makes you feel like David Blaine but…talented.
For about 6 years, I had the same phone number. No one ever called me and it was awesome. When I moved out of Orlando I decided that, along with the box spring that I kind of illegally disposed of in the dumpster of my apartment complex, I’d also leave behind my old phone number. My new Portland area code worked well for a few weeks, especially because I was finally rid of the bill collectors who would call looking for my ex, who was considerate enough to pass along my contact information as his own.
But I slowly realized that the person who had my number before me did their best to collect the most illiterate friends in the Pacific Northwest, which is actually hard to do because it’s all Yerba Mate this and sustainable agriculture that. It seemed that every week, I was getting a call from someone mumbling about something I figured had to do with either that hilarious new song, “I’m On A Boat” or Free Slurpee Day at 7-Eleven. At best, I was only passively interested in the latter, so I’d politely tell them that they had the wrong number and they would hurriedly hang up on me as if I were their parole officer.
Texts were much harder to come by. The only one I received, aside from the magnum opus below, was one stating, ‘I want u’ and I knew that wasn’t for me so I didn’t even bother responding. But once I got two texts from the same number, I finally felt compelled to say something with the hope that this person would relay the message to the remaining network of recreational cough syrup abusers.
In this exchange, I play the part of unnecessarily verbose asshole:
In hindsight, I feel lame for doing it. But I was hopped up on three cups of green tea and ultimately, I’m lucky that it kept me distracted long enough to prevent me from cutting my own bangs or buying discount art supplies. I did find time to research what a “marebear” is and, aside from someone who can’t take a fucking hint, Urban Dictionary informs me that it’s, “an extremely cute but rare creature that duels in san diego but can also be found in mississippi.”
So yeah, I have to change my number again.
If you’ve been reading the site for at least the last two weeks, you know I talk about Craigslist a lot. Which probably makes you suspect that I spend most of my days cruising the Missed Connections, trying to negotiate myself into being a “tattooed Filipina” or someone who has a reason to go to a bank.
Harsh realities aside, sometimes I’ll take a break and comb the writing gigs for something that suits me. I haven’t found any ads looking for someone who knows way too much about Blossom’s hat collection yet, but I have found this:
It’s brave to actually come out and admit – in caps lock – that you have a story so devoid of quality that you’re unanimously told that it needs to be on Lifetime. Unless they’ve left out “TEEN PREGNANCIES AND A CYBER STALKER” in between “HARDSHIP” and “FUN LAUGHTER,” I don’t see it taking off. But I’m probably just bitter because no one seems to want “Tall blonde with numerous ranch dressing stains.”
