More Than One Item can Go in a Bag.

I had to stop at Walgreen's on my way home from work so I could get some shampoo, which I was previously out of. Picking out the proper bottle wasn't a big deal, and neither was grabbing that frozen burrito. The burrito was purchased with the thought that I might be getting drunk later and when that happens, I tend to enjoy a late night snack.

So I take my burrito and shampoo up to the counter and the lady begins to ring me out. She scans the shampoo and puts it in a bag. She scans the burrito and puts it in a separate bag. 2 things, 2 bags. "One bag is fine," I said to her.

"But you have shampoo," she responded.
"So?"
"It might leak."
"I don't think so, one bag should be fine," I said as I placed the burrito in the shampoo bag.
"Well," she sighed deeply, "Okay."

What the fuck did she think was going to happen? The lids on shampoo bottles are sealed well at this point in history, and it would take a pretty serious burrito to put enough pressure on it to cause the contents of said bottle to blast out of the top. This is not a serious burrito.

It's not like I bought shampoo and a selection of loose knives. A frozen burrito isn't pointy enough to puncture the hull of a shampoo bottle. I'm not putting the shampoo into a bag with my machete and driving through the jungle. The shampoo was in literally no danger of being compromised during the 90 second drive from Walgreen's to my apartment.

Even if something would to happen to the bottle and it exploded, leaked, or was otherwise compromised, the burrito was in a sealed package of its own. A sealed package of plastic that I could cleanse of the rogue shampoo would something catastrophic happen to the bottle.

Why two bags? What is the purpose of this? Nobody respects grocery bag efficiency. At Stop & Shop, you can put more than just a loaf of bread in a bag, right? This is bullshit.

Although I do respect the potential for danger held in the hands of a late night burrito, I think people are too dumb to bag things in stores. Shampoo and a frozen burrito are not ideologically opposed to each other, as they are not sentient and have NO IDEOLOGY WHATSOEVER! There is no conflict here. I don't think there will be some sort of race war between hair care products and microwavable snacks any time soon, and especially not in the bag I brought home this afternoon.

I didn't need this crap today. I really didn't.

SD

I Hate My Favorite Football Team.

Every week, from the beginning of September through the beginning of January, I live and die with my favorite football team. Everything they do takes a toll on my mind, body, and soul. When they succeed, I am in a fog of elation that could have me smiling at a wake. When they lose, I am in a well of despair that makes a wake look like petting zoo.

I am obsessive. I read blogs about them. I look at more statistics than anyone rightfully should. I pour over each moment of gameplay with the intensity of someone who ACTUALLY works for the team, rather than someone who dreams of scrounging their way into working for the team. I yell and scream at my television as if the players, coaches, and front office staff can hear me, even though they might be thousands of mile away. I plead with them to stop being terrible, and I celebrate with them when they, for a brief moment stop being terrible.

I stay up late to watch them in primetime, even though I know that I have to be up absurdly early for work in the morning. I don't care. That's what being a fan means. It's being so passionate about something that you have literally no vested interest that people think you might be crazy and not caring about their negativity. Being a sports fan is illogical. It's an attribute that has no basis in reason, but it's something shared by tens of millions across the globe. Not just football, mind you, but all sports. The sports industry brings in money by the tanker. Sports is the one thing that will always turn a profit, because no matter how bad an economy might be, people will scrimp and save in order to spend money on their favorite sports team.

Being a sports fan means feeling so strongly about something intangible that you stop what you are doing to pay fast attention to it. At the end of the day, all sports is, for most people, is a hobby. It's something that you attach yourself to for entertainment in your down time. It's something that you can talk about with coworkers that is interesting but not work. It's something that you can try to relax with, but can't because you are so intensely interested that you obsess over the minutiae.

Sports invites envy. Those young people are doing things that you injure yourself thinking about. They have gotten to a point where what they are doing is impossibly hard, but they make it look childishly easy. Sure, I can throw a football, swing a baseball bat, kick a soccer ball, dribble a basketball. I can ice skate a little, and when I had healthy knees, I could run a bit. It seems so easy to watch these professionals do it that you think you can do it yourself. And when they mess up, you don't understand how. "I CAN MAKE THAT THROW, YOU MORON!" "HOW DID YOU DROP THAT, ASSHOLE? YOU ARE A JOKE AND A SCRUB!"

I always think that, if I had made some different decisions, I could have been an elite athlete. This is wrong on every level. If I had made some different decisions, I could have known an elite athlete, and that's about it. So when the players on my favorite football team fuck up, which they do frequently, because the team isn't that good, I think, for some stupid reason, that I could have succeeded. I wouldn't stand a chance. But I don't care. I have to watch them. I have to see if they redeem themselves.

Sports is a battle. Watching sports is akin to the people who would go watch the battles in old school wars from a safe place atop a hill. I sit on that hill every week and watch my favorite battalion of uniformed gladiators go to war with the favorite battalion of another man. I root for my side to be victorious. When they do, they gain something, and by proxy I do as well. I am obsessed with this feeling. I can't get enough of it.

I can't stop it either. Football fandom is my heroin. I know that it's unhealthy to be this way, but I can't stop it. I am a junkie and I know it. I don't care. I know that what I do on Sundays isn't the most productive thing to do on a day off, and I know that I sit on a couch and stare at a television for 10 straight hours, which has to do a number on my eyes. I don't care.

My hatred for my football team stems from the fact that I have loved them. I have been loyal to them for 34 years, and every week from September to January, they have been there for me. They have taken me away from my life, given me an outlet from the things that get me down. I can focus on them, devote myself to them, and immerse myself in the game. They don't know me, and I am only one of millions of fans worldwide. I don't care.

They cause me stress. They make me scream until I am hoarse. They make me eat my feelings, and drink away my other feelings. They make me say things I don't believe. They turn me into a maniac. And I still don't care. They are my drug. They make me hate myself for giving this much of a damn about something out of my control. They make me superstitious. They make me irrational. They make me forget all the things that I know to be true and I turn into a raving lunatic of conspiratorial nonsense and raving madness.

And I don't care.

I hate the New York Giants. But I love them so so so much. And I don't care.

SD

Donuts!

While waiting in the lobby of the 6th floor in one of the towers I was assigned to today, something magical happened. A man showed up, out of the ether, with a very large clear plastic storage box.

Full of donuts.

A little history about me, before I proceed. I am a slave to donuts. They are my biggest food related weakness. I got fat because of donuts. And pizza. And beer. And a slothful lifestyle. And probably several other things, but donuts are really high on the list of fattening agents I indulged in without mercy or trepidation. I love donuts. If you want to convince me to do something terrible, a box of donuts is a really strong way to open that door.

So when this crate of donuts, full to the brim of delicious and serendipitous joy, entered my life, the pain went away. The pain and frustration of the Giants fucking up an easy win and causing me to sleep angrily wormed its way into my morning, and talking about it with coworkers only hastened my inner sports turmoil to a simmering, under the surface rage, that could have exploded.

But then donuts.

Then this trough of glazed, frosted, filled, and sprinkled goodness found its way to a counter close to me! I looked at it longingly. I feared that they were special donuts that I didn't have a high enough clearance for. I started to salivate like a dog. The wonderful person, this khaki clad angel man, said,"Hey, if you guys want some donuts, help yourselves."

I rejoiced inside. My brain became a Mardi Gras parade of joyous rapture! I GET DONUTS! I tried to keep it together. "Thanks, man," I said, keeping my shit together. Coolly, or as coolly as a donut fiend can, I strode over to the box. It was so full. It was so full of donuts that I couldn't believe it. All kinds of donuts! Glazed, frosted, filled, sprinkled, some combination of those traits. And I get to devour as many of them as I can fit into my donut starved food hole.

My coworker opened the box first, I was holding on to my dignity with all the strength I could muster, so I forced myself to not sprint over there and attack it like the Tasmanian Devil. I wanted to lay siege upon the donut treasure chest with the force of 1000 armies. So I went second.

And then my turn at the gates of donut Nirvana arose, and I took my prize. I grabbed a donut, chocolate glazed, and while I held it, I eyed it like the apex predator I am. And I attacked. I took a very large bite. And I took another. And as I ate, I realized.

These are day old donuts. Rejected donuts, in a clear crate for whatever sucker would dare defile themselves with less than perfect confections. I am that sucker. I didn't give a single fuck. I was in a donut fueled bliss. I understood that I was eating the breakfast treat version of the residents of the Island of Misfit Toys, and I stopped caring as soon as those donuts entered my eye line.

They were there for the rest of the day. By the time I left, about 4 hours later, I had eaten 5 donuts. I am only moderately ashamed of this. But the reason I am ashamed is not for the reasons you might think. I am ashamed that I was not able to eat MORE! I wanted to do nothing but bury my face in that donut trough like a piggy. But I couldn't. And my wasteful ways are shameful.

Maybe there will be more tomorrow! Maybe I can get another donut fix! Probably not, but the thought of it is enough for now.

SD

Lurking Guy is Lurking

Part of my job is to go out to the offices of EB and replace existing computers with newer, smaller models. Each one is customized to each individual user so they don't lose the work they have already done and continue to do things I am vastly unqualified for. This is all fine and dandy, and usually, nothing weird happens.

Until today. I was in an office of engineers, who were doing, I don't know, engineering, on something I didn't recognize. I find the person whose computer was due to be replaced and had him save and close out of what he was doing, shut his machine down, and chill out of a few minutes while I did my thing. Not a problem. This is all standard procedure and literally every other time I have done this, nothing has gotten weird.

So I was doing my thing, unplugging cords and plugging new cords into cord holes and I feel something strange, something unusual. I look up and there is a younger guy watching me. "How's it going?" I ask cordially (well, cordially for me anyway).

Nothing. Just standing there, looking. He was wearing tinted glasses, the kind that adjust to the ambient light in the space you are in. They were oddly dark for an office, but it was bright, so I guess that is okay. But I couldn't see his eyes, even though I was convinced they were trained directly at me. It was...unnerving.

He then started to walk away. Slowly. "Yeeeeaaaahhh," I thought to myself. So I went back to work. As I finished up and found the owner of the desk again, I noticed this guy in a corner, watching my every move. "Huh," I said. Out loud. The guy who's computer I just switched thought I was talking to him, that there was some sort of problem. I assured him it was nothing and had him log back into the system. Everything worked fine.

I went on to the next guy, a few desks over. It seems that the people who get new computers, and all of them will eventually, are drawn randomly from a deck of cards. I think whoever schedules the work tried to get as many in the same general vicinity as possible, but it rarely works out well for us in the field.

Anyway, onto the next guy. Creepy sunglasses man strolled past slowly and softly, and by the angle of his face, watching me. I began to wonder if this guy was an engineer or something way weirder. I started to second guess what I was doing, I was getting freaked out a little. This guy was just quietly watching me work, like he had never seen someone do this before so he needed to capture every single angle with his mind camera.

I was no longer amused. Each PC I replaced was met with more lurking, more watching. It took a lot of effort to not start fucking with him or asking him for advice on random things, like the best way to clean a hat, or the tastiest food for goldfish.

Luckily for me, and him, too, I guess, I was able to move on to another, less lurky, office. But for the rest of my day I was a little creeped out.

In his defense, it was around lunchtime and he might have just been a hungry cannibal.

I'm good eatin'!

SD

Starting Over

I've come to a crossroads. After going through an August that was dominated by disappointment and various other bullshits, I have decided it is time to get it together. Everything. I need to restart my life. I need to start thinking about larger things and work to make those things come to fruition.

I have a job now. It isn't much, and I can barely pay my bills, but it's something. I essentially open boxes all day. I work for a company that does all the IT contracting at EB. I'm on the team that is replacing all the computers there, something that happens every four years or so. There are a lot of computers there, something like 8000 of them. So there is work to be done. It's entry level work, but like I said, it's something.

However, the money isn't good. It doesn't allow me to live the lifestyle that I want to live. I don't need to be extravagant or toss money around, but some modicum of comfort would be nice. I would like to have a little more security in my day to day life. So I am going to look for a second job. Something small that will provide me with an extra few hundred bucks a month to mitigate the weeks where I am more strapped than others. My crazy knee surgery was expensive, and paying it off little by little is terrible, so having some extra money coming in will help me greatly.

I want some stability in my personal life as well. I don't really discuss my personal life with anyone, because it's personal and I don't think that it's anyone's business. At the end of the day, I don't think anyone really gives that much of a shit about what's going on with my relationships other than those who are in them, so I won't bog down this post with words that most people don't care about. Either way, I want some sort of normalcy there. I need to start looking towards the future. I'm 34 years old and have very little to show for it.

I've skated along for too long just getting by. I need to stop doing nothing. I've done nothing of importance or influence in my time on this planet. I have no legacy. I have nothing to be proud of, really. I have a Bachelor's Degree, which I don't use, so I can't really say that those years have led to anything noteworthy. I haven't been able to use that knowledge, not yet anyway. Not for lack of trying, mind you, it's just that any time that I have tried to get a job or do anything that involves my education, I have been shot down.

Getting rejected that much is demoralizing. It's difficult to handle the constant stream of "No" that I have. I think part of the problem is that I get frustrated and start to give up. Not entirely, I just shield myself from the rejection by doing things that are mindless and small. I want to do something bigger, be part of a bigger life. Unfortunately, I am a little lost on how to go about fixing this problem. I guess I can just continue to put myself out there and hope something sticks?

I guess what this is all about is my need to start anew. I have to hit the refresh button and go into the remaining days of my life, however many there are, with a new energy and outlook. I need to stop dwelling on the things that have gone wrong and start looking for ways to balance them with things that go right.

How do I do all this? Beats the Hell out of me, but it's something I am going to have to do. If I don't, and continue on this lazy, useless road, I will turn into a lazy useless person. I don't want to be useless anymore. I've had enough of this crap.

It's time to start over.

SD