The Game

The following conversation took place earlier today at my local bookstore. Allow me to set the scene:

An attractive, young woman busies herself at the customer service stand. In walks an awkward, shy, boy of a man who has admired the young woman from afar for the past two weeks, and has finally gathered up the courage to say something to her. He approaches the desk.

Jon: Excuse me...

Girl: (Silence. She hasn't heard.)

Jon: (Moves closer to the desk) Uh, excuse me...

Girl: (Looks up, smiles. It's a beautiful sight. Wow.) Oh, hi. Can I help you with something?

Jon: Um, ya. (Yes, actually says YA, like a huge idiot. Pushes on, acts as if verbal slip didn't happen) I was trying to find this one book about hockey by Ken Dryden. I'm not sure what it's called, though.

The girl types quickly on her computer. Even the way she does that is attractive. Jon catches himself staring at her and quickly looks away before she notices.

Girl: Okay, we have one book called 'The Game'. Would that be it?

Jon: Byeah, I think so. ('Byeah'?)

Girl: Great. Umm, now, we don't seem to have any copies here, but I could order one for you if you want.

Jon: Sure, that'd be great. (This sentence is said way too loud. Compensates by clearing throat and blushing.)

Girl: Okay, umm, could I have your phone number?

Jon knows full well that it's solely for the purpose of identifying him in the system, but his heart still jumps a little when he hears it. He tells her, hoping that she'll use it for more than notification when the book comes in.

Girl: Okay, great. I will give you a call when it comes in. Should be about a week.

Jon's brain: Say something, you fool! She's right here! Come on! Use the phone number thing!

Jon: Uh, okay. If you wanna call me before that, though, like if you'd ever wanna go out or anything, uh, that'd be cool too. (Awkward smile.)

Girl: Are you asking me out? (Half-smiling. It's gorgeous.)

Jon: Umm, yeah. I'm trying to.

Girl: (Embarrassed smile, looks down at her desk, then back up) Oh, um, I have a boyfriend, actually.

Jon: Oh, buh, mah, y-, that's cool. Sorry for...ahh.

Girl: Huh?

Jon: No, I-

Girl: Hmm?

Jon: Ahch...I just made this a lot more embarrassing than I had to.

Girl: No, don't be embarrassed, really.

There's an uncomfortable pause. Both parties involved seem slightly confused.

Jon: So, uh, about a week, then?

Girl: Yeah. (This is said pretty loud.)

Jon: Okay, heh, cool. Thanks.

Jon smiles, turns, and gets the hell out of the store as fast as he can.

SCENE

So, that was my latest adventure. I kind of hope she's not there when I go back in, but I also kind of hope she is. Maybe I'll grow on her like some geeky, bumbling fungus and she'll dump her boyfriend. He's probably a jerk anyway.

I'll Show You Mine...

I've been shuffling the songs up on iTunes today whilst online, and it's produced some interesting playlists. In fact, I've been hearing music that I forgot I even owned. Here's my most recent:

Nice Day For A Sulk - Belle & Sebastian
When You Got A Good Friend - Robert Johnson
Cold, Cold Rain - Danzig
And The Angels Sing - Eddie & The Showmen
Working In A Coal Mine - Devo
The Great Wall - Dead Kennedys
Easy, Bruno, Easy - Triplets Of Belleville Soundtrack
Rudy Can't Fail - The Clash
Sixty Seconds 'til Sunrise - The 'Verb
The Breeze And I - The Bambi Molesters
Big Baby - Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet
Portions For Foxes - Rilo Kiley
First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes
My Summer Girl - The Rentals
Myage - Descendents
When I Hear My Name - The White Stripes

What does your Party Shuffle look like?

Crying Over Spilled Chicken

I'm really questioning the common sense and brain activity of the average human lately. I see some of the most mind-boggling things when I'm at work. In case any of you do not know, I work at a big chain grocery store on the night shift. My job is to stock grocery items to the shelves in as many aisles as I can, or need to. After an aisle has been stocked I have to go through and pull all of the items forward to the edge, face everything up, and generally make it look all neat and nice. We call it conditioning. Anyway, I was conditioning the other night in our international aisle, which contains products from around the world. I was working on facing up some boxes of taco shells when an awful smell hit me right in the face. I reached back behind a bunch of cases, and proceeded to pull out a bag of raw chicken. It was ripped a little, and gross chicken filth water (a technical term) was spilling out on the shelf, the floor, and me. I was livid. Why in THEE HELL would a person throw that in behind stuff on a shelf like that? Honestly. And the way it was set up, they'd have had to actually bend over and stuff it back there. It was on the bottom shelf, and the cases it got thrown behind were tall enough and large enough that it couldn't have been merely dumped or tossed in a fluid movement. The moron in question worked for this, which is odd, considering they were too lazy to walk it twenty feet to the meat coolers, where it could've been carelessly dropped. This person ruined at least fifty dollars worth of food with their carelessness and laziness. I had to pull a lot of boxes and throw them out because they had soaked up so much of the filth water. Then I disinfected the shelf, the floor, and myself. I had to waste so much time doing that, and I finished the aisle later than I should've.

The moral of this story: be considerate, do the right thing, and have some common fucking sense. And, to the culprit responsible for the mess, listen up: YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON ON EARTH, AND SAID PLANET DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU. PLEASE REALIZE HOW INCONSIDERATE ACTIONS SUCH AS THAT AFFECT OTHER PEOPLE. QUIT BEING SUCH A DOUCHE, YOU DOUCHE.

In other news, I've just discovered that I hate stringing twelve-string guitars. It's quite time consuming, and it sucks when the tenth one snaps on you. I mean come on. Seriously?

...

Hi all,

Well, once again I've been slacking in the blog department. What can I say?

I've been mildly pissed ever since the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, for one thing. I mean, yeah, their skaters played great hockey, and Chris Osgood (damn his insane talent) was great (OsGREAT? No. Shut up, Jon. Geez.) at making those key saves, but I thought this was Pittsburgh's year! Crapcrapcrap*. To make up for it, I've been playing a lot of NHL '08, where the outcome is more often than not in my favor. Is it sad that I'm 25 years old and playing video games alone in my free time? Maybe.

Okay, yes. Painfully so. Still...

I got nothing.

In other sports news, I hate horse racing. There are so many things about it that are wrong or stupid. It's like, "Hey! Let's get ourselves a horse and force it to run a race with a little guy on top! Yeah! The horse would probably be confused and scared, but that fear would just make it run faster, right? That and the thing that the jockey hits it with, heh heh heh! We'll make millions! What's that? Oh, if it got hurt we'd just shoot it. Blam, right in the face. No, it wouldn't even see it coming. That's not the issue, though! We're talking about making money by forcing an animal to entertain people! Haven't you ever seen those circus bears that ride the little unicycles? Those things look so freakin' funny. How about Siegfried and Roy with those tigers, huh? Another great idea. But I'm getting off topic. Racing horses would be a great competitive sport. Come again? No, not so much for them, but we think it's a good idea."

So stupid.

On a completely unrelated, yet more annoying topic, I was told last night about the 'ruination of this country' by my stepmom. Actually, I was glad she told me. Do you want to know, readers, what's ruining this fine nation of ours? Keep in mind, this is the truth. As we all know, facts come from beliefs, so, yeah.

Hollywood and liberals are ruining America. You heard it here first. Apparently, Hollywood and liberals "make everything that's wrong seem right and make everything that's right seem wrong." In "most movies today", people have abortions and do other awful, immoral things, and they make it seem like it's right and cool. Also, I think they say swears. And apparently if there is a movie that comes out that's "actually good", it only runs for "a week, and doesn't even play at the dollar theater".

It's too bad that conservative Christians are the minority in this country. If only they'd had someone to represent them for, like, the past eight years...

Okay, my sarcasm tanks are running on empty, and I'm just starting to get mad now. Maybe I'll revisit this whole topic some other time, but I have to go eat a tuna sandwich and calm down a little right now.



*Not a word.

One More For Today

Just a short one: I just watched the UEFA Champions League Final, and it was amazing. Manchester United beat Chelsea after the game went to Penalty Kicks. It was so exciting. Van Der Sar came up with a huge save to take the game. Chelsea almost had the win, but their captain totally missed the goal on his would-be winning kick. I felt bad for him. I wasn't cheering for anyone in particular; I like to watch UEFA Champions League just to see all the talent. I was surprised, though, to see two English teams in the final. I mean, this is all of Europe we're talking about here. I think it's a fine accomplishment, and I'm happy for the Manchester fellows. I like the fans, too. They get so into those games. You constantly hear chanting, singing, and cheering. I think that's really cool. They sure do love their football.

Probably Misses His Old Glasses

I just got back from the eye doctor about an hour ago. It had been about four years since I last went, and my current job now allows me to make appointments like this one without going broke. Hooray, insurance!

My current glasses have certainly seen better days. The right lens falls out from time to time ever since that haunted house incident a few Halloweens ago where I was shoved face-first into a wall. It was pitch-black inside, and my friend pushed me from behind to make the experience 'more fun'. It was real fun smacking my face on the corner of a wall and crawling around in the dark looking for my damn lens. Oddly enough, though, the place sold glasses-repair kits, so I was in business.

But yeah, you know what's not fun? Getting those puffs of air blown into your eyes.

I suppose eye diseases are even less fun, though, so I can put up with the two seconds of being uncomfortable.

I should be receiving my new specs in about two weeks. I paid extra so that they would fit them to make me look smarter than I actually am. Pretty sweet, huh?

A Poem

My leg hurts
I need sleep to function properly
Did I pull a muscle?
My leg still hurts

Fin

I was looking at digital cameras at Best Buy last night. It's fun to scroll through all the memory cards to see what other shoppers have taken pictures of. I saw a few that made me laugh, and a few that were kind of just inappropriate. I usually try to make sure I leave a good picture of myself pulling a stupid face on every single one. I do the same with the Mac computers, too. Photobooth is fun because you can add neato effects. I actually found a picture of myself from a few weeks prior on one of them, too. I had sort of a funhouse mirror effect going, and I looked pretty much like a mutant or chud or whatever you want to call it. In sepia, too, no less!