Category: Humour

Self-checkout fun at Crappy Tire

The new local CT has a bunch of those newfangled self-checkout things. I generally use those when available as they seem faster than the alternative.

Yesterday I was there picking up a bread maker. When I started the checkout process, the attendant for the self-checkout stalls was patiently trying to explain something to the woman at the stall next to mine. Whatever. I scanned the breadmaker box and obediently placed it on the platform at the side of the self-checkout machine. So far so good. Keep in mind that I’ve had problems with these machines before, but usually the reason is obvious. Once a machine gagged on an item I was buying because it was flagged as a hazardous chemical. Thanks to 9/11 no doubt.

Anyway, things were chugging along and then the machine suddenly stopped and said “WAIT FOR ATTENDANT”. No indication of what the problem was. At this point I looked over at the attendant, but she was still wrangling with the woman in the next stall. Clearly she wouldn’t be able to help me until she finished with this person. So I started to pay attention to the conversation. Apparently, the woman couldn’t understand what was happening with her transaction when she tried to use her Canadian Tire money. Here’s how it works, and believe me it ain’t rocket science: you scan your items, the machine totals it all up, then asks if you have any CT money. If you do, you enter the amount. The amount you enter reduces your total. This was what the attendant kept repeating to the woman in the next stall, but she started getting mad and flailing around as if someone was trying to put one over on her. I lowered my head to my cart and started gently banging my head. People in the next line noticed too and I watched one woman start to form helpful words; but presumably she figured out that there was no getting through to this woman and didn’t bother.

Suddenly my machine woke up and my checkout process continued. Yay! So I carried on and was almost finished when just as suddenly it stopped again: WAIT FOR ATTENDANT. Argh! I glanced over at the attendant, who shot me a sympathetic look and continued to try to reassure the clueless woman that she was not being ripped off. I resumed my head-banging. Ms. Clueless finally threw up her hands, declared that “it doesn’t make any sense” and decided to ignore her doubts and move on. At that point my machine once again revived and I completed my transaction. Phew!

On my way past the attendant, I asked if she knew why my machine had stopped twice yet recovered each time apparently on its own. She told me, quietly, that she knew exactly why this had happened: because The Clueless Wonder’s rather large rear end, in all her flailing, had impinged upon the machine I was using and caused its scale to register weights not in alignment with the items I had purchased. So THAT’S why they make you put your items on the little platform!

I do not enjoy making fun of people with physical issues, especially not in public. That’s just not how I roll. But believe me, if I had known that this ignorant, enormously overweight woman was holding up my progress both because she was incredibly stupid AND because her fat behind was interfering with the machine, I would have politely invited her to move her fat, ignorant ass out of the way.

In Victoria

Paul and Katie and I made the crossing – my new boss, may he be praised and adored – another Finn, what is it with the Finns anyway? – let me out early enough that we could easily catch the six o’clock.  It is one of the new boats, the German ones, and it shudders and groans like it was a twenty year boat needing drydock.  Paul of course went and talked to a staffer and learned that the screws don’t submerge deep enough and the damned things burn fuel like a Viking funeral.  Argh, what the hell is wrong with this province?  Didn’t we learn about this kinda crap with the Fast Cat?  Argh I say again.

Work ended, amusingly enough, with me going to my new boss, who is, as far as I can tell, a man who prizes his ability to keep his facial expression under tight control, and saying, “Hey, somebody is going to come by you and say that I’m lazy, incompetent and a menace to the company!” “Which somebody?” “Really?  When she comes to complain can I ask her about the 15 emails I’ve sent her that she’s never answered?” Then his face twitched, and I burst out laughing.  What happened to Patricia?  Alaaaaaaaaaas, she went to the dark side and into Inside Sales.  LTGW said, tersely, “A good fit for her skill set.”  Well, duh.  Anyway, I have to come up with a good nickname for my new boss, because he richly deserves one and I am not going to use his real name because he does not have the same sprightly approach to life, work and all that as my previous (and much missed for the joy of her physical presence, I have to say) boss.

The middle part of work was also amusing.  The new VP engineering sat with my lunch bunch, which freaked the hell out of me.  VPs never sit at my table.  I looked around at the guys and said, uh oh.  New VP sez, What?  “Well I’m not really used to controlling my language,” to which the response was, “It’s okay, I was in the navy.”  “Not like this you weren’t” but of course that just meant that everybody at the table peppered the new VP with questions about life on a fast attack nuclear sub, for which he was the chief maintenance dude.  I should mention at this point that the new VP is in his mid forties, could give George Clooney a run for his money in terms of looks and charm, and is a triathlete.

SIMULTANEOUSLY ScaryClown and I asked if he’d ever been attacked by a giant squid.  Actually I got the question out first, but ScaryClown said, “I wanted to ask that!” Then we burst out laughing and gave each other a fist bump.  Our new squid overlords are turning out quite fine.

The rest of the day I sent angry emails, entered returns, made Tanya laugh, missed Cris, had yet ANOTHER email encounter with the WORST CUSTOMER EVER and wrote one email which triggered another email which said, “Oh yeah, we didn’t actually consult customer service about that.  My meeting, let me show it to you.”  Then I abruptly remembered that I have a new boss, and made a pretence of consulting him, and then he said, “Uh, I think that’s a meeting I want to attend… I have a few questions myself.”  So once again, I poked the bear and lived.  And my boss let me leave early.  And Paul let me drive.

Back to Victoria.  Lexi and Darwin -asleep and thus not evident- were here, as were the parents and Unca Barry.  Unca Barry had brought a really interesting documentary about the last sailing of a four masted cargo vessel around Cape Horn, which I didn’t watch because I was too busy blabbing with Lexi and Katie. 

I had a really good night’s sleep, although I miss wireless, because normally I sleep with my computer (what?  What?) and I just roll over in the morning and start surfing the internet. (Yes, I know that will have to change when the heavens open and I actually have a special somebody to sleep with on a regular basis, in the meantime, it’s how it is in my life.  At least it’s warm.)

Paul went off to stay with his bro, Dr. Filk, and will be back to collect me as we will be flying up the Island Highway to see his cousin Ruth IF the weather cooperates because it’s supposed to bucket snow.

Keith really wanted to come but somebody had to feed kitties.  Also, unlike Katie, he is actually physically and emotionally capable of getting here on his own; thus the requirement to have an adult always accompany her.

 

I can hear Darwin!!!! Time to go be a cousin.

I have Scottish blood, so I’m allowed to laugh

HRNK!

I fed Katie and Dax last night, at Brentwood because Dax is not 100% with the welcome mat here and Katie didn’t bother telling me until I was committed that Dax was with her, then came home and saw Jeff hauling in a ten kilo bag of flour, which is a good thing, because there was no flour in the house, and we all know what that means.  No waffles. I’m not saying that me continuing to live with Jeff is contingent upon me making waffles at least once a week, but I’d like to not take any chances.

The Luddite resurfaced in my inbox long enough to forward about ten links to educational videos from Vivid Entertainment.   I only watched half of one; I am not sure I want to advertise myself as being someone who needs remedial sex ed.

I highly recommend 101 Reykjavik.

Film and links

Last night I viewed for the first time since I heard about it when I was 11, Carl Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc.  Falconetti was as amazing as advertised, and there were shots and parts of the movie that were brilliant, but the parts that annoyed me were many, so I guess I didn’t watch it reverently enough.  Jeff rented it for me; that man indulges me scandalously.  In the end I was glad I saw it for Antonin Artaud’s performance.  Since I was quite small I’ve had a crush on Artaud, cause I thought and still think he was hotter than a two dollar pistol, even if he was severely crazy.

Don’t click here if you don’t want to find out why it’s a really bad idea to have sex with a raccoon.

Now that you’ve had a laugh at some drunken wacko’s expense, find out why you might feel bad about it.

the nut shot

Has anybody ever noticed that one of the enduring tropes of humour is the nut shot?  I’ve said before that anything can be explained by ‘following the genes’ and this one is pretty simple.

What makes a nut shot funny?  Well, it’s happening to somebody else. That’s pretty standard for all humour.  But notice the division of humour.  Men almost inevitably find the nut shot more amusing than women do.  Any action which potentially removes a rival from any activities resulting in offspring is going to be a-ok; if it’s accompanied by humiliation and dominance, that makes it even tastier.

I have heard some women remark that a man could use a good swift kick in the ‘nads, but it’s almost inevitably in the context that the guy is an asshole, the guy is abusing his power, or he’s sleeping around on his pregnant wife, an activity which draws a lot of heat even from women with a relaxed attitude towards sex.

Can you tell I’ve been living with Jeff for the best part of a year?  I’m enjoying it, even if it has me meditating on the nut shot at 4 am.  Not because I want him to experience one – I grew out of that 40 years ago – but because he laughs his ass off every time he sees one. Especially on Robot Chicken, which has a high NSPE rating (Nut Shots Per Episode).

This is how everybody uses a cell phone, including me.

Obama was inaugurated.  He’s doing something about Gitmo, and about bloody time.