Pinky and the Brain had a plan...

O-kay.

So I want to overthrow the United States Postal Service.

And I need you to help me.

Why? I will tell you.

Because I have the Anger of Injustice burning in my heart (or whatever it is Ginger's have in place of a heart) and I don't really have time to devise an appropriate plan to bring that horrible, terrible, piece of crap organization to its knees while someone punches it in the back.

Hey, that's kind of a plan.

But I need a BETTER one.

Why, you ask.

Remember when they stole and desecrated my mail?

And I swore revenge and promised never to use their (dis)service ever, ever again?

I sort of forgot about continuing education and my explicit need to order those overpriced textbooks online.

I tried to get the seller to deliver via FedEx or UPS, but the freaking fools are so dang fast they had it shipped about two hours before replying to my request.

Jerks.

Anyway, so now the USPS has confiscated my textbook (for Philosophy, which, HELLO, is not a class I can wing based on my own knowledge).

They have had it at their central processing plant for ten days (it shipped a month ago), and after having called about six people, the end result was a bunch of excuses.

USPS: Gee, we just have no way of FINDING it at the plant.

Me: How about this tracking number I gave you?

USPS: No.

Me: Are you effing KIDDING ME? What is the point of a tracking number if you can't do anything with it?

USPS: W can locate your package with it.

Me: Okay. So find it.

USPS: It's not that simple.

Me: THEN WHY DO YOU GIVE TRACKING NUMBERS?

USPS: You sound really mad.

I hate them. I don't hate often, but when I do, I want REVENGE.

Band together with me, Peeps.

Take whatever stamps you have and shove them....

No. I tell you what.

Email. Use your phone. Text. DO EVERYTHING EXCEPT MAIL SOMETHING.

Wait, what? Everyone does that anyway? Fine.

I hope they fold.

In FLAMES.

(This is not a threat. Or anything that can have me arrested or imprisoned or be made into anyone's bitch or have a felony or stuff like that)

(Unless you can't do anything about my complaining and THEN IT'S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG, MOTHEREFFERS!)

Then there was that Day

Sometimes I come here with the intent to write about something specific I saw, or that happened to me. Usually it's funny. Sometimes it's rambling, and every once in a while it's real.

Occasionally I will get the urge to write my story. My life. The real one.

And yet I never get to that point.

I don't think I am ready to put it out there. There are parts of me that read like an open book (or a terrible soap opera playing in a foreign language) that are good for a laugh. There are things I do that make others cringe, which is why I write about them on the internet. It is more of a warning, really. An example of what NOT to do.

But this weight of uncertainty that has attached itself to me for the past year has been dragging me down as of late. It's affected everything. For lack of a shittier cliche, I have realized that I do not know who I am, only that I am drowning.

Don't get me wrong. I can recognize myself in a photograph. I'm the pissy redhead with the half smile that never reaches the eyes.

Ew.

I might yuck it up here on Eloquence, but for a while I've been existing in a state of numbness. Blah.

Last week I stood in my bathroom, just looking at my reflection in the mirror. Staring at my eyes, mostly (this is where y'all can make those Ginger jokes about eyes being the windows to the soul, only Ginger's have so many stolen souls in there we can't figure out which one is ours).  And that's where you can see the effects. The eyes tell everything about a person.

I didn't recognize me.

Who is that, I wondered to myself. Because she looks lost. Sad. And in need of a good stylist. Look at those split ends.

So I made a decision.

I called the salon.

Oh, and also: There is never going to be another today. Ever. This is it. I can sit there, hovering in a state of what-the-eff-ever, or I can stand up and start moving. Any direction is better than none.

Screw this, I finally said to myself. I might not have the life I imagined, or the life I want. But Life is out there and I'm going to go find it, seeing as how I've been letting it lap me for months on end now. I used to have spunk and life and energy once. I guess I just put it down when the weight of my life became too heavy.

Well, I took a rest and now I'm ready to pick those things up again. I might let stupid things intimidate me and I'm kind of sensitive in a lot of areas. But really, who isn't? We all have battle scars from different wounds.

We can't let those things run our lives. Sure, some things are out of our control. It's all in how we handle what is thrown at our faces and what we decide to do with it.

Don't worry. I'm not going to talk about life and lemons and bitter lemonade. That kind of talk can get someone punched in the face.

Usually, you're not ready until you're ready.

Well. I'm finally ready.

So here I go.

Well that took an unexpected turn

SOMETIMES I REALLY FEEL LIKE ONE OF THOSE UGLY YAPPY DOGS WHO RUNS AROUND FREAKING OUT AND EVERYONE JUST WANTS TO KICK IT TILL IT SHUTS UP.

I'm freaking out, Man.

Well...

... I am. And I'm not.

I started back to school today after a three week break and I guess I forgot how to act like a human being because I'm having the usual panic attack over the newness of my routine and the classes where I feel like the syllabus is threatening me and I kind of just want to take a Xanax and pass out.

Only I don't have any Xanax and I don't know how to get any. And even if I did, I would chicken out before I even took it because I've always had the fear that should I ever attempt any kind of street/scrip drug, I would have a terrible reaction and so something weird like knock on people's door asking if they had fresh chicken eggs and proceed to pelt them with a carton of eggs I got from my own fridge. Or I would call 911 and request that I be arrested because I hate the idea of breaking the law so much that my conscience would never rest until justice was served.

My God.

Yeah, so I just realized how I sound and I all I can say is that I hope those of you who know me in real life can appreciate the fact that I tend to exaggerate a little and I am actually not certifiably insane.

Those of you who do not know me... eh. Perceive this mess in whatever way you choose.

I can be a tad obsessive about a new situation (I know. I can hardly believe it either), but after I thoroughly freak myself out, work out all the kinks and what-if's, I calm down and no one even knows about the war inside my head.

Well. Except you guys. Sorry.

I do think I'm in love with my Philosophy teacher.

Because he's funny.

What would you rather subject yourself to: A teacher who nervously tries to engage the class and randomly laughs in the middle of words (true story), or a teacher who, when reviewing the syllabus and making it clear that he will not discriminate based on sex, race, or creed, then stops and asks, "Who here likes the band Creed?" And when I'm the only person to raise my hand, he tells me to get out because I shouldn't even be allowed to enroll in college with that kind of taste in music. Thank God I didn't tell him about my adoration of Nickelback (SHUT YOUR MOUTHS).

I'm not actually in love with him because in a weird way he reminds me of my brother (not Gary. The other one I haven't mentioned because he utilizes his jackassery in California, ten million miles away from Elle and I. And in case you forgot, Gary deployed. It's only Elle and I now). The teacher looks a little like my brother, has the same sense of humor, and great. Now you guys think I have some weird kind of Flowers in the Attic obsession going on.

This post needs to end. Abruptly.

I can't save it.

Good-bye.

The day I nearly got in a gang fight

So I was sitting here, not doing jack crap, just staring off into space when I started thinking about how I used to zone out in school during Geometry (which is probably why I nearly flunked that class) and then I remembered school starts Monday and I got a little icky over the matter.

I don't wanna go to school.

Pathetic, right? Two quarters in and I wish I didn't have to go.

I think it's more to do with the amount of change that I just went through (moving, vacation, other crap I haven't thrown out there for the entire online community to read, etc) and less to do with my apparent desire to return to Burger King.

Because I know that's what would happen if I cut back on school (relax, Mom! I'm not going to. I'm just typing out loud here).

You know, Burger King wasn't all that bad. Sure, it made me hate the public as a whole and I used to daydream about a land where people didn't request thirty packets of ketchup with a value size fry because they just ended up smearing it all over the table, the booth, the tray, the trash cans, and the effing floor, but I did work my way up from a crew person to the store manager. I had to. The sheer amount of idiocy in that place drove me nuts. I couldn't get people to listen to me as a team member so I had to own them. Which I did. Sorta.

Recently a friend of mine asked why I stayed with the company for so long.

For the stories, really. Check this out.

One day, about three months after I started working there, I was running the Drive Thru window. Burger King was doing the Wild Wild West promotion (yes. I am aware that this dates me. To 1999, specifically) and we were selling sunglasses as part of the Wow Factor. There were two colors available: silver and gold. Each color came in a separate case, but arrived two weeks apart. We sold the silver pair first and had yet to receive the other color. This is how marketers get their revenge on fast food workers.

So I was on DT, taking this chick's order and she asked for the gold glasses. I told her we just had the silver and would she like those.

Apparently she did not because her response was, "Bitch did I ASK for the silver? Get your f*cking manager and meet me at the window," and then proceeded to screech away from the speaker and floor her ugly ghetto hooptie to the DT pick-up window.

May I remind you, I was brand-new to BK. I did not yet have a hate-filled heart and I was all about helping the customer. I was perplexed and really wanted to help her. I ignored the fact that she had just swear-vomited all over my ears and I met her at the window, a big stupid smile plastered on my face. Except she was stashed in the passenger seat, with some dude driving the car. Both were dressed like gang-banger wanna be's and there was a bag of weed on the middle console. Except I didn't know that's what it was at the time.

"Ma'am, I understand you want the gold glasses. We have yet to receive those, but I can show you the silver pair."

I was so nice to that crap-bag woman that my current self wants to invent a time machine and go back, punch my teenage self in the teeth and stab the woman in the car. But only in the leg. I wouldn't go to jail for her because judging from her temperment, it would only have been a matter of time before she smoked a bunch of crack, stole a car and ended up in prison. Oh, yeah, I would basically need to be a bionic woman before I went back in time so that I could out-run the police and also so that Crack Whore and I didn't end up as cell mates. I'm still working on that plan.

So her response to my inquiry was to call me a bitch, again, and to scream through the window that she just knew my boss was hiding the glasses in his office (which he wasn't, but the fact that she knew exactly where we kept promo items makes me now realize that she had to have worked for a BK in our area. Which makes me even more depressed that I was classified with people like that. Ew)

The Crack Whore then threatened to "kick my lily-white ass" if I didn't get her a pair of glasses.

Peeps, I was 19, naive, and scared of human beings. I thought I was going to die.

Besides, did she ACTUALLY think behaving in that manner was going to make me bow down, run to the office and acquiesce full heartedly to her request?

Um, NO. Because I was paralyzed.

There were a lot more swear words that I don't specifically recall, so I started to shut the window while I called out to my supervisor, Rich, for help.

At that point, homeboy sped off in the car (sans food) and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until about 72 seconds later when the front doors blew open and homeboy came flying into the restaurant, screaming that he was going to kick my ass. He actually climbed up onto the front counter before two of my supervisors grabbed him and shoved him off.

Did I mention our district manager was there to witness this ordeal as well? It was the middle of lunch rush, so about half the city saw it as well.

I stood in the DT area, stunned and unable to comprehend what the hell was going on in front of me. The guy was screaming that I had called his wife a b-i-t-c-h, and I was flabbergasted. Back then, I didn't use a lot of swear words and I was upset that this individual was accusing me of calling his wife names when I had done nothing of the sort.

Eventually, the police showed up and hauled homeboy away (he happened to have two warrants for his arrest. Interesting) and I went about my business.

Only later, when my bosses pulled me into the office to see if I was okay, did we work out what had most likely set homeboy off.

What swear word rhymes with my boss' name, Rich?

You guessed it. When I was closing the window, I was also calling out to my boss for help. Dude totally went to jail thinking I was a liar. For about a week I was slightly concerned he would come back and stab me with his straw, but I never saw him again.

This is by far NOT the worst situation I encountered during my 12 year stint in the fast food business, but it's the most memorable. Because after this incident, I began to turn numb.

It's okay. You can't really work around people if you feel things.

The Moving of my Stuff

Okay, so I kind of went on hiatus. Or took one. Or ... whatever it's called when you are Hiatal for a month. Wait. Doesn't that have something to do with hernias? I don't have that. I've just been busy. Let's roll with that.

So I moved. Yep. About three weeks ago I received a 20-day notice to vacate (no cool story there. My landlord was selling the townhouse). One night, I came home from slinging Girl Scout Cookies (AKA Devil's Fodder) and found a notice taped to my front door. Sweet. Such a personal way to find out you're about to be out on the streets.

But. I didn't even really freak out. Which is new for me. Because after the crap I've been through this last year, I expected myself to do something epic like burn the house down around me, or fill it with molting parrots or something equally weird.

I just pulled the paper off the door and went about my business.

And over the next few days, I fully expected to break down and lose it in some weird place like in line at the bank, or while sorting laundry.

I didn't, though, so instead of sitting around wondering why I wan't losing my shit, I went house hunting. Which suuuuucks.

I got pretty discouraged and was sharing my woes with a new friend when she just blurted out, "Well, I have a house."

Uh. Thank you. THAT MAKES ONE OF US.

"No, really." She said. "I have an empty house. You can totally live there."

And so I am.

Wanna know how that went? Well, over the course of three days, Elle, Rawr and I packed up my house, threw everything into the new house, cleaned the old house and the next morning I took off to California for a week. I needed to escape from my life, knowing full well that I had a disaster waiting for me at the end of my week.

Going back for a sec, I'd like to point out that whilst loading the moving truck, I only had one episode of crazy where I may have "thrown" a table off the back of the truck. Only substitute "thrown" for "tripped over the lawn mower and almost killed myself by falling off the back of the moving truck and while I was flailing my arms trying to save myself while my father watched the entire exchanged with a perplexed look on his face, I knocked my arm against the table and it crashed to the ground and broke into twelve pieces."

I said "thrown" because my dad thinks I was throwing a temper tantrum. I could see where he may have had that idea because I only grew up with a Ginger Temper and was slightly prone to psychotic episodes (THEN. Not now) and so he is basically always on the defense.

Anyway, so that's that. I'm on break from school for about three days, so I plan on relaxing and regrouping.

Except I have three kids, three "extra kids" to care for 5 days a week, a cat (who really was lost in the insulation for 36 hours) and a house to put together. I don't even want to TALK about what a nightmare I've had trying to transfer utilities. I guess you don't even need a kindergarten education to hold those jobs is all I'm saying.

So much for relaxing. I don't think any regular folks have time for relaxing, anyway. Everyone has too much crap to take care of. How the heck did we all get to busy and out of whack, anyway?

Hey. Do any of you like cardboard boxes? You can have as many as you want. Bonus: They're all full. And nothing is marked. It's basically like Bingo for Crap.

The way I see it, I'm looking around my new house and have no idea what's in those boxes. How bad do I really need that stuff if I can't even remember what it is?