An Awkward Moment

This is Cary Russell. In addition to being my Home Depot customer service representative today, he was also a kid I went to high school with.

It was a somewhat awkward situation because in high school Cary and I got drunk and made out at a party. While my reputation for being - uhhhh - more likely to perform a homoerotic act for the enjoyment of others was common knowledge - it wasn't so good for mormon Cary.

Basically, thanks to me (and NOT jungle juice or drunken girls cheering for us) Cary was going to mormon hell or something.

How do we handle our Home Depot interaction? Ignore it. I don't know you and you don't know me.

Wonderful.

I was thinking to myself at least I don't run into these people when I'm at my WORST.

I have a scenario in my head that is the epitome of my worst fear - well - awkward moment-wise.

This is a true story. The only way my fantasy/nightmare is different is that I am the ptient and the X-ray tech is someone - well, like Cary the mormon

Once, when I was an x-ray tech I was called to a state run nursing home in Commerce City. The exam was for an abdominal series of a middle aged woman with schizophrenia. I had to rule out an intestinal obstruction.

(Apparently she was VERY constipated. Ewww)

I arrived and was met by an odor plume of diarrhea that nearly knocked me over.

Is that . . . ? Please tell me that isn't coming from the room I'm on my way to. Please. Please.

It was. I pushed my x-ray machine next to the room door where a team of orderlies were combatting large smears of liquid brown before I decided to stall going inside by instead going to the nurse's station to copy and sign my orders.

I saw a nurse who was choking back vomit from the smell. After exchanging hellos she informed me that the terrible fecal explosion came from MY patient.

Well, this could be a good thing, yes?

"The order is for an abdominal to r/o obstruction. Looks like the obstructions gone! Do you still need the exam?" says a toothy grinning Chad with his fingers crossed

The nurse said "yes". One of my crossed fingers was flipping this nurse off now.

I slowly walked into the room of doom and saw the scene. most of the shit had been cleaned quickly - but not very well. It had to be cleaned from the bed, the floor, the walls, the door, and the patient herself.

The patient - we'll call her "Lois" - was a behemoth. Towering over me and weighing at least 4 of me. Great. The orderlies gladly rushed away while I got her positioned and took the first shot. I had her sitting in a wheelchair while I put the x-ray plate behind her and shot my first picture of her unobstructed GI tract.

It seems that while she was sitting in her wheelchair she was also shitting in her wheelchair because the smell made me start to dry heave and she stood up, lifted her hospital gown, and stuck her hands down the back of her XXXL diaper and started removing barely solid poo.

Orderlies rushed in to prevent a repeat attack. I was just trying to get my plate back without getting crapped on.

Eventually, Lois got tired of swatting orderlies away like King Kong and just shoved them all away. Then she took off her diaper. Took it the hell off and smashed it to the floor with a very heavy sounding splat.

Then she turned around to fight with a nurse who had crept into the room. The nurse was trying to physically move Lois, but she was like a mac truck. Wouldn't budge. Well - she did start to chuckle a little when diarrhea began to ooze from her uncovered sphincter and drizzle down her leg, plopping on the floor.

I gave up. I walked out of there, missing 2/3 of my exam.

It turns out they were able to use my one image to rule out obstruction. Oh, and the fact that she was a hydrant of runs.

This? Is what I think of when I imagine how I NEVER want to run into someone. A towering, mentally disturbed beast with a flowing rectum - flinging my diaper around with my poopy hands.

It would be kind of entertaining if I were the tech though. You know - for the stories afterwards...

You'd better stay regular, Cary.
(How much do you LOVE that I'm standing there, taking pictures of Cary?? Haha. Its like I have no shame!)

My Secret Fear of Spiders

Yesterday Matt called me - and even though I was at work - I needed to answer so he could distract me from how I almost gave myself a heart attack and/or crapped my pants with 4 hours left before I could punch out and change clothes . . .

Lets meander towards my story, yes?

First of all - I'm a zookeeper at an invertebrate center. I specialize in entomology and arachnology. I teach little kids about spiders and bugs, I show them how to hold tarantulas, I let them touch starfish, etc.

But my favorite things to do at work are my back room chores. Helping newly emerging butterflies, feeding miscellaneous creatures, and cleaning their little homes for them.

The way our cleaning schedule works is on a basic rotation. Monday mornings means you feed millipedes and clean an aquarium of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Monday at midday you feed tarantula spiderlings. You get the idea . . .

Well, yesterday was the first time ever that my shift fell on something I was subconsciously dreading. Cleaning the display spider cages.

My mind started going through all of the numbers I have stored in the "nerd" section of my brain.

34,000 species of known spiders in the world

4 number of medically important spiders in the world

2 number of medically important spiders in the exhibit I'm about to manhandle. All alone. Locked in a back room with only an audience of tarantulas to rely on for help.

6.5 average number of spider-related deaths in the U.S. each year

100% of those were children, the elderly, or someone with an already compromised immune system (at least as far back as 1986)

53 average number of bee/wasp related deaths each year in comparison

Millions dollars to be made if drug companies could harness the venom of the Brazilian wandering spider (deadliest spider known). Their venom causes elevated levels of nitric oxide in the human body which causes involuntary erections in males that can last for hours.

I'm psyched. I take the four spiders I'm scheduled to clean into the back and open them each one at a time.

Cellar spider: No problem. Check

Jumping spider: Piece of cake. Check

Black Widow: Kind of nervous. I should say that their tanks are 1 gallon. About the size of a shoe box. And they are in there while I have to change their water, clean up a bit with long forceps, and the worst part. Cleaning the glass - inside and out - with my bare hands. In a one gallon enclosure with a black widow.

Check.

Brown Recluse: Holy crap. All my reassuring numbers have left my head and been replaced with the following:

A brown recluse bite will cause a necrotic ulcer that can take months to heal. There has, however, been one case recorded in 1966 where the reaction was not localized - but systemic because the spider punctured a vein. The victim was a man who lived for nine days after the bite.

First - brown recluse venom is hemolytic. It kills blood cells. The blood cells literally burst in your circulatory system, releasing hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is was carries oxygen inside the blood cell, but released into the open is toxic to the kidneys. Hemoglobin in constantly increasing levels will eventually cause renal failure and the lack of working blood cells will cause asphyxia to every part of the body. Skin turns blue and organs shut down one at a time.

Back to me: need to clean the recluse tank. I remind myself that they are non-aggressive animals and I thrust my hand inside. Clean clean. Scrub scrub.

There's an expression of crapping oneself in moments of fear. I was ready to crap myself, people. But I'm totally getting over my fear! This isn't so bad. If I don't bother it - it wont bother me!

Then a renegade fruit fly buzzed into my face while I was concentrating so hard on the recluse.

Crapping myself? We're past this. There is proverbial diarrhea exploding out of my ass.

I couldn't have thrown a more girly fit if I was being attacked in the shower by a deranged, cross-dressing motel owner.

This? Is why we have fly paper in the back room. It not a tragic irony - its to prevent me from peeing myself.

I ended up cleaning them all without incident. At least I got my first time out of the way.

Phew.

Matt's response when I told him about my bravery: What kind of insurance does that place have?

Matt and Chad

You know - those little chipmunks from Disney?

Have you ever wondered how they came to be such a pair? More to the point - why the more straight laced Chip would put up with the seemingly more immature Dale?

I think that they balance each other out.

Oooooh!! Or like Peter and Sidney from "I Love You, Man"!

(Awesome movie!) There's the career and relationship oriented Peter and his complimentary buddy Sidney - the guy with a puggle and a masturbation station.

They have a lot of common interests and enjoy the other's company - but their personalities are completely opposite.

Such is the case of Matt and myself.

I give you email correspondence from today between Matt and me...

From Chad to Matt. 2/19/10 8:49 am

Hey Bub-

Well, here I am at the Dodge dealership. Since no one in the free world carries after market battery cables or splicing kits large enough for a Dodge Ram- I'm here having the terminal repaired.

The last time I was here was awkward for me- remember?

We were next door at the VW dealer to drop off your car for service after hours- but we didn't have a pen to fill out the drop-off form?

So I came over here to borrow a pen and they couldn't believe how bold I was?

Remember?

More awkward than that.

I'm wandering around inside, waiting for the service department to come get me, when this sleazy car salesman struts up to me (reaching chin level so I got a perfect view of the BAD dye job of his oily hair)...

In mid-beeline to me he breezes past the girl at reception.

"Hold all my calls! They can wait while I help this gentlemen pick out his DREAM"

Uhhhhhh...

He can't be talking about me right??

Crap. He totally is.

After politely telling him to scram (Chad: Get outta here!) I got sad. I totally could have killed time telling him that I need a vehicle to go with my "Tough girls have tough toys" bumper sticker!

Hindsight is 20/20 my friend.

So out comes my cell phone so I can sit in a chair and not be bored INSTEAD of wandering around the sales sharks waiting for one of us to walk away annoyed.

Chaddy

P.S.

How's the job going? Get any mannequins to take home yet? Save one for me

Sent from my iPhone

From Matt to Chad. 2/19/10 8:23 pm

Awesome.

Work is going good. They won't let me take home any broken mannequin parts. My job is to make a negative mold of the original sculpture then to take a mold of that negative to make a positive "master". The master is then highly polished and finished to then make a tool. The tool then makes thousands of units. Right now I am working on a project for Nike. I molded Ronaldo Cristiano from a clay sculpture. Pretty fun. It is a mandatory 48 hour week with as much overtime as possible. If I end up staying there after 2 months, there will be lots of hours.

Talk to you later.

Matt

From Chad to Matt. 2/19/10 10:01 pm

Remember when I wanted to get that kit to make a dildo from my penis so I could mail it to Heather for her birthday! (Should STILL totally do it . . .)

Your job sounds just like that!!!

Fun!

Call me when you get a second to breathe. I'll be feeding spiders. Or making penis molds. Maybe even looking up who Ronaldo Cristiano is . . .

Bis bald!

See what I mean?

P.S. It turns out that Ronaldo is a soccer player from Portugal (or something)

P.S.S. With a six pack that I totally wish I had (I wish in one hand and cram Doritos down my throat with the other)

P.S.S. Oh. And he's 4 years younger than me. (Which means he's pretty much a little prick. I hope Matt gives that mannequin a tremendously small bulge.)

Gone With the Wind vs. Twilight

Here I am - working diligently on Davey's truck in the snow.

Which means the hood is propped up, but I'm inside watching "Gone With the Wind" with my sister.

I forgot what a good ass movie this is!

This is how romance should still be portrayed. Mind games, pride, clashing personalities, roaming desires, and the occasional prostitute. In a word - attainable and realistic.

I think that people set themselves up for failure when they strive for the "romance" found in movies today - especially for the youngins.

Twilight.

Fucking Twilight is what people want. I just saw the first Twilight recently and still haven't seen the second.

While I enjoyed it more than Matt advises I should admit to - I don't watch it and swoon.

I don't think now that is true love.

Know what I think? I sit and watch and wonder:

"Hey. This guy has been claiming to be 17 since 1918. So he must have been born in 1901 which really makes him 109. What does a 109 year old man have in common with a 16 or 17 year old girl?"

Everyone looks at Edward Cullen and says: Ooooh. What a sexy sexy vampire!

I look at Edward Cullen and think: Ewwww. What a dirty dirty old man.

Well, back to the car fixin'

fiddle dee dee.

Settling

In this economy....



Right away sir.... the bathroom is this way... can I help load that in your car?.....it's my turn to empty the trash again? Absolutely, I'll wear blaze orange everyday.... Chad and me and a LOT of other people these days are stuck working jobs for far less than their potential.

Where 40 years ago, companies were hiring right out of college, these days you have to claw your way out, grappling to each stepping stone as if is your only hope - and it might just be.

I recently was offered a better job with potential - after 2 interviews months ago, printing resumes, portfolios, touring factories, countless emailing and a little networking. Because of the (maybe temporary) nature of the new job, I couldn't justify leaving my current, lesser, job. I had to have a meeting with the head manager at my current job.

The Jaba-the-Hut-esqe man proceeded to give my both financial advice and general life advice when all I asked for was a temporary schedule change. Thank you for the unsolicited advice you 300-lb douchebag.

This all goes back to the difference between a job and a career. These people have settled. They have decided to make their job their career. That's fine I suppose. In a way I envy these people, they are happy working for $9.00/hr. And we need people to clean our bathrooms, empty garbage, be cashiers and unload trailers full of merchandise etc. etc. Jobs only leave the career-bound restless and hungry for more.

I feel sorry for those who get backed into a corner financially and have no other choice, but there are those out there who can do better. A co-worker of mine has been working this job for 10 years! My restlessness/dissatisfaction has spread to her thinking and now she is looking for something better.

So don't huddle in a corner everyone, keep looking, don't lose your motivation people!

Why Chad Can Never Be a Barista . . . Again

Okay. Ordinarily I rule out career paths from simple observations I make while observing others. (Remember my AMAZING "Why I can never be a mailman" blog??)

Barista, however - is one that I have some hefty experience with.

I spent nearly half a decade working in coffee shops.

I loved it.

Well . . . I loved the atmosphere and the people I worked with.

The reason I can't ever be a barista again is for the good of mankind.

I'm going to need to break this down chronologically.

I was first hired as a barista when I was 19 at Peaberry Coffee.

I was incredible! Perky, talkative, and sucking down more iced florentines (chocolate milk and iced coffee) than I care to remember. My previous job was at Gunther Toody's Diner so I totally already had the training for dickhead customers. Smile while your serving their food that you sneezed on.

It's a simple gear shift from food to drinks. If you are a dickhead I can still get back at you - so don't.

We used to use Puro Caff to clean our milk pitchers and backflush our bar. A white, tasteless powder that strongly resembles vanilla powder when put in a shaker. It's meant to clean portafilters, steam wands, and bar heads - but it also gives people the wicked shits. Or as MSDS says: "gastro intestinal reaction. Do not induce vomiting if ingested."

I usually closed - but when i had to open I was not happy. (Usually because I had closed the night before)

When someone is hard at work so they can have everything primed and ready for your ass to come in before work or whatever - have some respect and don't be a prick. I had to get the bar primed, fill a pastry case, set out newspapers, clean whatever had to be soaked the previous night, fill 5 urns of drip coffee, count up two registers, do paperwork for the previous day's sales, God knows what else - all by 5 am. The least you could do is not coat the condiment bar in a fine layer of nutmeg and half & half.

ANYWAY - eventually I left my Peaberrys for a new one. A mall Peaberrys!! This was where I got an added benefit! In addition to my normal petty get-backs (like giving awful cheerleaders whole milk when they want skim or giving someone decaf shots when they bitch about how tired THEY are when I've been up since shortly after they went to sleep . . . )

What the hell was I talking about?

Oh yeah - my extended arsenal. In addition to Puro Caff we had a roach problem (thanks to the Wetzel's Pretzels next door)

Did I ever put live cockroaches in people's drinks? You bet your ass I did.

You see, Matt (who ALSO worked with me at Peaberrys) took the passive aggressive route. If someone asked Matt for a cappucino in a snooty way Matt would make it as dry as he could until it felt like an empty cup.

I've never been as good with the passive aggressive stuff.

Enter my roaches. We had a ton of drinks that came with crushed up Heath bar.

In the case of "Dan", the douchy shoe salesman from Dillards - he got a cup of frozen coffee treat, chocolate, caramel, heath bar, and an American cockroach.

Drink up, dick.

Admit it - you've either done the same thing to these assholes who have it coming or you've wanted to. Go ahead. Seriously consider it. . .

If, after really thinking it over, you haven't ever wanted to do this and you think its absolutely wrong no matter what - that probably means its because you're one of those asshats and you've probably consumed someone's bodily fluids without your knowledge.

And maybe a bug.

Matt's Crazy Theory #1

I grew up watching the Indiana Jones movies, particulary the Temple of Doom. For those of you who may not recall, the movie takes Indy on an adventure through the orient, on a plane which is then abandoned mid-flight to a remote village in India. The villagers have these three egg-shaped stones that were stolen by the creepy guy in the Temple of Doom who is busy leading cultish chants, force feeding the hypnotized victims blood-like hallucinogenic juices and ripping out their hart through their ribcage, and dipping the victims down into a firey pit of fire.



I was more thinking back to the 'McGuffin' of the movie the three glowing rocks. These rocks, when combined, would start to heat up and glow white hot until they caused a fire. You may recall at the end of the movie Indy is making his getaway with the 3 stones across the rope bridge, when the stones catch fire! It was only when the stones were in close proximity.



This leads to my theory. Being as it is perpetually winter here in Colorado, I thought about designing a suit with a number of long, tube-shaped compartments. Each of these large compartments would hold 1 wiener dog. 1 person may need 4 or 5 total wiener dogs inserted into these compartments all over their body to create enough warmth to survive the Colorado winter (assuming you don't want to contract Ricketts by staying inside for 8 months out of the year). This design concept led me to wonder that if like in the Temple of Doom, you got too many wiener dogs together and a person or wearer of the suit, may spontaneously combust, contracting 2nd and 3rd degree burns to the wearer of the suit (the wiener dogs will be fine). You then would fall off a rope bridge to hungry crocodiles below. Hmm, something to think about...