Bye Bye, Crap Factory

Well, so much for my perfect arrangement of "freelance in the morning, work part-time at soul-snatching, life-sucking Crap Factory in the afternoon." The glorious arrangement that allowed me to (pretend to) be an artist without the starving part lasted a total of . . . one day. The Crap Factory giveth and it taketh away. Apparently it was just kiddingeth. They gave me the old "40 Hours or Else" ultimatum, and I told them where they could dunk it. Ok, I actually pretended to hem and haw for 24 hours, I "thought about it," I "gave it serious consideration," and then I sadly, with great reluctance and a private happy dance in the disabled stall, chose "or else."

The decision actually took about 24 nano-seconds, but I wanted to let them down easy.

Seriously, the junior high kids are nice. They offer me bubble gum and candy necklaces and they invite me to sleep-overs and try to trade my veggie burger for the pb&js their moms made them for lunch, and my boss says we're "like, best friends forever!" but as soon as I finish signing all the year books tomorrow, I'm outta there.

There have been great things about the job. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a paycheck soon. And as I'm culling their on-line catalog (that's what I do -- I cull the catalog) I occasionally come across things like the Disney 4-pk High School Musical Panties which cracked me right the heck up there at my stupid desk. Or today's Friggin' Pants. Not just any pants, mind you, but Friggin Chino Pants! Or the Prissy Sandals! Seriously, is no one paying attention but me? Am I alone on this, or are these fucking hilarious?!

But, as Toasty mentioned and DK seconded, the job has been a gold mine for bloggable moments. The other day I decided to take the bus to work. As usual, I was running pretty late, so I quickly made myself a scrambled egg sandwich and raced out the door. I hurried several blocks to the bus (nearly having to do a self-Heimlich at one point when a chunk of egg tried to wrestle its way down my windpipe), jumped on the bus and thought to myself, "Did I turn the stove off?"

I dithered. I called my upstairs neighbor to go check for me, but she wasn't home. I'd have to get off now or the bus would carry me away. No one was around that could help and I wasn't about to enlist poor E. to save me AGAIN. So I got off the bus and hoofed several blocks back to my apartment. (Hey, I have cats. If I leave the stove on, the next thing I know, they'll be stir-frying a tufted tit-mouse in there or something.) I race in the door only to discover that yes, I did actually leave the stove on. I shut off the stove, lock the back door which I've just discovered is open and offer up gratitude to the universe. But now I'm going to be late for work. It's my first day of working part-time, and I REALLY don't want to discuss the fact that I'm running this late to be at work at NOON, just shaddup about it, I know, I know.

Anyway.

The only option now is to ride my bike. It's raining, I don't have time to locate my rain gear and change clothes and pack up the good clothes, blah blah blah, so I just change into my bike shoes, loop one of those goofy velcro thingies around one ankle and take off. Halfway down that giant hill by PacMed/Amazon.com, I discover that my brakes aren't really working very well (translation: not at all) on this wet day, so I do a semi-truck-style-escape-route and duck into the Amazon driveway which is mercifully free of traffic. I scoot up their drive (speed dropping now from world-is-giant-blur to world-is-hazy-plus-my-glasses-are-foggy-and-covered-in-raindrops-which-might-explain-some-of-the-haze), zoom across the front of their building, and rocket out the other side. OK, not the greatest strategy, but I did slow down a little bit, at least. I manage not to broadside any of their shuttle buses, and I'm off and racing down the hill again, this time on the east side. My brakes still aren't gripping too well, but I'm late and don't care anymore. After all, the Crap Factory awaits!

I was 3 minutes late to work. I was dripping, sweaty, red-faced and incoherent, but I was (nearly) on time. Never mind that I nearly splattered myself against the far side of the parking garage because it's a pretty steep ramp to get down there and my brakes STILL haven't dried out. Never mind that I'm soaking from the knees down and my bike shoes make squealing sounds like maybe I store cat toys in them. Never mind that I still have to navigate the three elevators and two escalators it takes me to get to my desk in this building that's more paranoid than a pot addict in a room full of mirrors. As I grumbled and squeaked and dripped my way to my desk, I comforted myself that this was great blog fodder.

I won't miss the job. But I will have to go back to making shit up.