In which we depart from reality land with a sick little whimper. Oooeeewwwieeee...

If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.
- Jack Handey

Having been reminded that I am not particularly funny on more than one occasion in my life, and again, last week, being reminded that I am rather pathetic, this was the first time I was specifically instructed to go buy a gun. Thing is, I already have one. Now what, troll?

Fans. Goofy, silly oddballs.

Note, Flysters: I. Have. A. Job. Interview. Very excited, although I wonder a little about the place. I have worked there before, and it's a company which is locally famous for it's nickname: Dysfunction Junction. Seems they need a guy with my skills, though, and let's hope they admire my not-very-funny-patheticfulness and gun ownership to boot. I have friends who work there too – that'll be a nice bonus. Interview is next Monday. Panel style interview, 6 people in a room for an hour with questions like “what's your greatest attribute?” and “have you ever killed anyone?” and “what's that smell?”

Nice to be looking for a job while I still have one, is all. I might ask one and all to cross a couple fingers and toes if you have a moment.

It all leaves me with a semi-hopeful feeling – while the realm of Charlotte, North Carolina isn't and never has been the employment hot spot of the nation, it's a good barometer of things, given the horsepower expended by banking here. If the fat cats who fucked everything up are hiring, you know the bonuses were paid and appreciated and the wheels are ready to turn again. This bodes well for us all I trust, working or not.

For me, personally, it means the house is probably saved and I have to buy a car (there's a story in itself) and maybe, just maybe, I can get myself a Kindle, although that's still a little frilly around these parts. Sigh.

Dear Prudence is the vapid black hole of Cheez-whiz trepidity it's always been, with the added bonus of the hysterically idiotic tale of ESP-laced intrigue. Slate fed it's editors a little psilocybin this week I fear, and they invented a whole hash of entertaining dickheadery aimed straight to the soul of the heartiest bong-wielding stoner. Amazing.

So. Read HERE. And then read on.

***

The Grim Dreamer – This turgid little fabrication is about as idiotic as it is mundane, and I salute Slate for dropping it on us like a perky little turd in a bowl in their weekly dipshit-fest. Recap: you are Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, and every twerpish little fuck that ever “saw” things on the midnight TLC and A&E lineup. You dreamed that the (oh, gawd) ex-love of your life went all “Scanners” style head blowed up scene while in Iraq, and (cue scary music) it happened! I mean, it didn't happen, but he got work in Iraq after much unemployment, and he will certainly, positively, absolutely, without a doubt be blown to little gobbets of gloopy ex-boyfriend meat if he goes.

Also: you, and only you, can save him.

Also: you are pretty fucked up, know that?

Ah, la-di-da. What's a prophet to do? Oh – by the way, I have a job interview next Monday. How's that gonna go for me? Or is my head gonna get blowed up if I go? Huh? Emotions always, the future.

I recommend before you take any significant action on this matter that you revisit your medications – dosages can be tricky and it can take years for your shrink to find the right cocktail of drugs to reacquaint your obviously deluded brain with a version of reality, or at least something close to it.

OHH! Wait – I'm a big Indycar fan: who's going to win the 500? I got a little stash of cash and need to get my money on a sure thing.

Meanwhile, go back to your room, Jean Dixon. Lockdown's at 8:00.

***

Confused – another case of bad naming conventions for Prudie letters. You are not just confused. You are ignorant. Recap: you dislike your boyfriend's son. Blah blah blah.

Ignorance is a word that evokes strong reactions in people – it sounds like I am saying “stupid” and “unteachable” in one word that really means neither. Ignorance simply denotes a lack of knowledge. That's you. Let me help there.

You mentioned he won't speak to you when his dad's not there. Now, why would that be? He's not confused and lost, is he? He's wouldn't be a little nervous around a woman who isn't his mom, and at all of age 6 it couldn't be that he cannot quite get comfortable with the breakup of his parents? Any of this sound about right? Have you spent your entire life locked in a pretty pink room with your dollies?

I mean, at six, the bastard should have a fucking job, get out of the house more, get a goddamn girlfriend. Shouldn't be loitering, eating your food, messing with your life, right? Loser.

Listen up, Mommie Dearest: he's six fucking years old, and you intimidate him. He's unwired from a family that he used to have and cannot be expected to plug into a new family without some emotional rewiring. It is stunning to me that you do not know this.

In short: he's six, you idiot. He doesn't need you, he needs to be six. He doesn't need to be liked by you, he needs to feel safe around grownups. He would be neither happy nor sad if you got hit by a fucking bus, because (you guessed it!) he's six, and you aren't his mother.

He's not the interloper, asshole. You are.

So I will turn the tables a bit: you say you don't know if you want to get married to his dad since you feel this way? I say that unless you grow a brain and become the grown up, the best thing that could happen to this kid is for you NOT to marry his dad, 'Cause frankly speaking, you aren't good enough.

***

Not a Model – Not a rocket scientist either, are you? I have to assume the executives were typical corporate suits, and you rabble are all minimum wage trolls. Recap: management, in a stroke of brilliance, took the shop floor staff to a seminar for wealthy tie-wearing people and a fun time was not had by all.

Lets put something to bed here first: anyone around you whining that “you don't have a nice complexion” means “you are dark skinned and we'll be at your house with a cross to burn next Tuesday” is just looking for a frivolous suit and something to bitch about. Just tell them to shut the fuck up. Jesus.

Next: management is famous for doing a lot of very, very stupid things in the business space, including sending high school dropouts who hired on for the summer to leadership seminars intended for the country club set. Now, while good personal hygiene is a fairly accepted best practice for the workplace, I think we can assume there is at least one exec (there always is) who forgets to shower or has nose hair long enough to braid, and I have good money here says there are any number of less-than-slender managers at your little start up, so let's all quit whining about the weight thing.

And you ask if there is anything you can do about it? Like what, sue them for being typical executives? Beat them up in the parking lot after work? What the hell do you think you're going to do?

Look, if you accidentally wander into a Scientology event and get preached to, are you instantly a Scientologist? If you attend a seminar on bass fishing with a friend, do you have to go out and buy a rod and reel after? Seminars, see, are informational only. Frequently the information garnered at them is pedantic drivel couched in excitable tones and disguised as useful information. Regardless, what you hear at a seminar can all be ignored safely – you know how to shower and brush your teeth, so fucking deal with it.

***

Unemployed Bridesmaid – Schuyler The Cat has a belief, and it is a belief he holds sacred, regarding weddings: the moment – the absolute moment – a couple announces they are going to marry, every human being within earshot becomes a full-fledged fucking retard of the worst imaginable type. Recap: you are a reluctant and penniless bridezmaid, chained to a tearful bridezilla, and you can't escape the madness (or cost).

I just might rant a bit.

Weddings are sickeningly stupid, overblown, haughty affairs that should be banned. Brides are whimpering, demanding, vicious taskmasters on a good day, and God forbid you meet one on a bad day. Grooms are oafish, grinning tag-alongs who serve no particular purpose other than to act cordially to those he bumbles into and eventually pose as a typically incapable dance partner. Mothers and fathers of the bride and groom are puffy, brutally obnoxious tear-stricken dolts with little to do other than foot the various bills and try to out-joke each other about the costs.

Guests are frequently no better – the Drunk Dancing Guy who everyone pretends to like but calls a “fucking jerk” when the videos play later, in private. There is always The Hot Chick – always – and she's, you know, Hot, and that's all she is. Sometimes there are several Hot Chicks, and they smarmily act out scenes from ”Mean Girls” while making certain their cleavage is low enough to gain attention without being “slutty,” all the while acting slutty. There will be two little kids dancing at some point, cute little boppers between two and five, and they will possibly kiss and giggle for the cameras and then fall over, and the entire room full of people will simultaneously melt and say “aaaawww.” Video magic.

The Bridal Party, the modern equivalent of indentured servants in formal wear, like to wear cowboy boots or Converse Hi-tops or argyle socks to be hip, but offer no particular support other than additional roving color swatches to enhance the mood and provide a ridiculous cost model for the liquor they consume.

Somewhere in there is a wedding coordinator. This individual should be shot between the eyes and buried in a shallow, unmarked grave. I will add, though, for the record: this is the only person at a wedding with any intact brain matter whatsoever.

Eventually someone with a video camera will saunter up to everyone in attendance and say “what do you have to tell the newlyweds?” Roughly eighty percent of the people will choke back the urge to say “this is the tackiest goddamn wedding I have ever been to – I mean, really, Dusty Rose Taffeta bridesmaid dresses? And who the fuck serves potstickers at a wedding? Look there, get a shot of Beth. She's at the Hot Girls table arranging her tits again. Oh, and look at Buffy with her pockmarked fat ass hanging far enough out of that $7500 wedding dress to knock over the gift table! Her ankles hang over the straps of those Jimmy Chu's like a hairnet full of cottage cheese, don't they? I bet she rented them. Did you catch a shot of Jimmy drooling all over Beth's cleavage? Some groom you are, Jimmy - what a fucking pig!”

Then everyone goes home and says “that was an okay wedding.” A week later it is forgotten.

Six months on begin the divorce proceedings, and wedding coordinators everywhere feel it happen, like Obi-Wan felt the destruction of Alderaan (“...there was a disturbance in The Force”), and subconsciously they begin rubbing their hands together like Scrooge goddamn McDuck in preparation for the follow-up event.

So there's that.

Anyway, tell her she has to pay for everything or she can fuck off.

***

Off I go, Flysters, to research the more recent nature of the company I am interviewing at, all the better not to look like a complete moron when they pin me down and grill me. I want to walk out of that conference room with people saying “there's much power in this one, he is the one! Hire him now, and reward him richly!”

And may you all enjoy a beautiful weekend replete with...you know, lots of, um, beautiful...stuff and all that.

Kisses,
STC =^oo^=