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Wherein I Threaten Unspeakable Violence
Argh, Daylight Savings....adding extra hour to my shift.....rage.
See Above
Me: "Good evening, <client> answering service"
SC: “Are you still open?”
Me: “I’m afraid the office is closed, sorry.”
SC: “Well than why are you answering!?”
I believe I already answered that question when I picked up the phone and identified myself as the answering service. Thus I am a service, which answers. Specifically, I answer phone lines. You are calling a phone line. I am answering it. Because that is my purpose. I’m not entirely sure what else you expect me to say here. You leapt upon me like Angela Lansbury triumphantly revealing the true culprit. As if you thought you had caught me in some sort of verbal slip up which revealed the glimmer of my guilt you required to unravel my criminal plot.
Wha?
Me: “Alright, and the box number?”
SC: “Box Nanaday.”
Me: “Pardon?”
SC: “Nanaday”
I…have no idea what that means. It is not a number. At least not as we normal, functioning human beings understand it. I assume inside your simple, possibly damaged, mind it is in fact a numeral of some sort. I may even have recognized it had it not been filtered through the dark, structurally condemned tunnels of your mental landscape. Emerging broken and malformed in the sudden glaring daylight that is my radiant intellect. Before shielding its eyes, mewling forth a pitiful cry and scurrying back into the dark from whence it came.
Me: “..nanaday?”
SC: “Box Nanaday.”
Me: “…….wait, ninety?”
SC: “Yeah.”
Don’t just say “Yeah”. That implies that what I said and what you said actually match. “Yeah” is not a valid response. Try “Oh, you’re right. I’m terribly sorry. I was violating the corpse of the English language and shall endeavour to pursue at least a 4th grade education before I call you again.”
I WILL FIND YOU
Ok….listen, and listen well. Based on the extensive research I was forced to perform ( endure ) over this call I have compiled a few quick tips you may wish to review in order to prevent this call from ever happening again. Which, I should point out, is in your best interest as call centre agents are similar to postal workers in how they may potentially react to long term abuse.
Tip #1:
For the love of whatever gods you believe in be they animal, vegetable or mineral, pick what you want before you call. Sweet chocolate dipped mother of Osiris I do not have the time, will, inclination, patience nor restraint on my ever rising urge to do physical harm to your person to endure 16 minutes of you click shopping on the website for your entire fucking family one by one.
Tip #2:
If you insist on selecting every single item out of the Clearance section, do not be surprised when every size and colour is not available. The Clearance section is the rotting, lion chewed corpse of the consumer sahara. It is composed of things that nothing save the vultures and smaller vermin will pick through. Things even we don’t want anymore. That’s why they’re on clearance.
Tip #3:
Forcing someone to endure 16 minutes of your indecisive ho-humming while you leisurely shop for your entire family one by one, explaining to me the exact reasons that each member would or would not like each item while you compile a list of selections picked off the clearance carcass…….Only to decide at the end you do not want any of it anyway is a fantastic method of getting yourself repeatedly stabbed in the head with a stapler to a soundtrack of expletives liberally mixed with previously unknown facts about your mother’s moral character. I highly suggest from this point on you avoid doing this as the only thing that saved you from receiving a rather extensive low budget Pinhead costume was the fact you are on the opposite coast from me.
How about no
SC: “You cover this cab right?”
No, no we do not. Perhaps it would have been wise to call and ask that question before you got into a cab. Rather than getting a cab and calling us from the cab. The hotel I’m booking you at actually has a shuttle you know. You could have saved yourself calling a cab entirely. Heck, why did you even get a cab in the first place? You were stranded in a city you don’t know, did not plan for and do not yet have a hotel room in. So where are you going? Did you get in the cab and just tell him to drive till you made up your mind? Or did you at least make it exciting and tell him “follow that car!”?
The Point
Me: “Alright, what size?”
SC: “Uhhh……I’m not sure. I don’t want it to be too big…..but I don’t want it to be too small either…..”
Yes, that’s sort of the entire point of clothing sizes to begin with. Might I suggest actually taking some initiative in your life for once and consulting our handy dandy sizing guide to see what size you are? It would be much quicker than ordering each size, attempting to squeeze your rotund form into it, failing, than sending it back to exchange for the next size up.
Nah, I'll Figure It Out
Me: “and your phone number please?”
SC: “xxx”
Me: “……alright but what’s the entire number?”
SC: “Oh, did you need the whole number?”
Nah, you know what? Don’t worry about it. Phone numbers are like DNA. Every individual number actually contains the entire genetic sequence. It’s just a matter of taking the vague handful of numbers you gave me, sequencing it and than cloning the entire phone number in some sort of test tube or possibly vat filled with some kind of unidentifiable yet nourishing liquid.
@H)(H(FJFKLEW
Me: "Alright, anything else?"
SC: "xxxx"
Me: "Ok, what size?"
SC: "XL"
Me: "Alright, anything else?"
SC: "Uhh, xxxx"
Me: "Ok. Anything else?"
SC: "Ummm.....xxxx"
Me: "Aright, is that everything?"
SC: "Uhhh......wait......uh, ok scratch all those."
Oh my God, don't you DARE. I swear to whatever dark Gods are listening that I will hunt you down, climb through your window in the dead of night and punch you in the taint with a grouting trowel. Than while you're laying their clutching the grand opening sale in your scrotal outlet I will dance a dance above your quivering form celebrating each excruciating second of your suffering as if it was a bountiful summer harvest.
SC: "Uh, can I get xxxx and xxxx instead?"
Me: "Sure"
Oooh, you may be spared yet. If only you knew how close you came, my simple minded friend.
Halloween Round-up
Whelp, it’s that time of year again. Halloween. Which means it’s time for my annual Halloween costume round up where I serve as the unrelenting judge and jury of every masquerade I bore witness too on my way here. Documenting each victory and each miserably failure, of which their were many.
3 Blind Mice:
I was forced to share a bus with these 3. They fall into the category of “It’s ok to dress like a total whore because I added a $4.99 Halloween accessory”. Namely, mice ears. Which obviously go with miniskirts and fishnets. On top of that they were the type that uses “Like” and “Omigod” as commas. As I learned, painfully, when Slut Mouse #2 did not believe she was pretty enough or cute enough to be seen in public this evening. So #1 and #3 were feverishly assuring her with dialogue such as, and this is a direct quote: “No no, you are like SOOOOO cute. Oh my god, SO cute. Seriously you are like SOOOOOO pretty. Don’t worry it looks SOOOOOOO cute on you. I like can NOT believe how pretty you look.”
Hobonana:
I don’t think this guy was actually trying to dress up. I think someone found a passed out drunken hobo and managed to get him into a giant banana costume before shoving him out onto Granville street. He was stumbling around the entrance to the Skytrain with a bottle of whiskey steadily eroding any shreds of dignity he still possessed.
Captain Morgan: Head Coach
1 guy dressed as a pirate with 6 of his friends dressed as the New York Mets. Someone didn’t check his voicemail in time.
Pirate Booty:
Once again, dressing like a whore and adding a $4.99 plastic pirate hook from Walmart does not a costume make. You likewise had 3 miniskirt clad companions with you who took similar routes but used a pirate hat, eye patch and pirate flag respectively. As if you all pooled your Skytrain change to buy a $15 costume and divided it up amongst yourselves. As far as I can tell your primary purpose this evening was to wander around and shake jiggly parts of yourselves at guys that cat called you. Such as the above New York Mets.
Captain Tracksuit:
An Adidas tracksuit is not a costume. Try harder. Your friends are in costumes. You are shaming them. You are the person in the circle of friends that nobody likes but everyone keeps around just so they can talk about how much they don’t like you when you’re not around. You’re the hate glue that holds everyone else’s relationships together.
Slut Bunnies ( Slunnies? ):
Once again, adding $4 plastic bunny ears to a miniskirt, knee high boots and fish nets does not a costume make. You even went through the trouble of getting your friend in the same outfit and ears. Thereby creating a sort of stripper bunny dynamic duo that patrols the city at night fighting crime and shivering in the biting cold rain neither of you are even remotely dressed for.
Ken & Ryu:
Ok, points to you two. You really look the part and people kept passing you and shouting “HADOUKEN!”.
Captain Morgan V2:
An admirable costume. However you are the only one in your group of friends that dressed up. Leading me to wonder if it’s really a costume or if it’s simply the way you dress normally. If so, more power to you my scurvy friend.
Devilish:
$4.99 plastic devil horns. Fishnets. Miniskirt. Knee high boots. There is a definite running theme going on out there this evening.
Captain Morgan V3:
The most authentic of the 3 I saw, as this one was in fact slugging back a bottle of rum. Though he did seem a bit worse for wear. It’s possible his Halloween party was actually yesterday and he just woke up in the ditch near the Skytrain station an hour ago.
Self-proclaimed “Kittens”:
Because we hadn’t yet witnessed every part of the slut animal kingdom.
Improvisation:
It appears you have added a monocle to the tuxedo from your high school prom that has been in the back of your closet for the last 7 years. Still, at least it looks like you tried. Unlike tracksuit guy.
Stripper Bee
Kudos to you, no one had yet ventured into the insect kingdom. So you’re breaking new ground. However, I must point out that in order to qualify as a “skirt” the hemline has to at least come down past your navel. Otherwise it's merely an umbrella for your panties. I should also point out that you are horribly under dressed for this weather and should have least brought a coat. But apparently we can’t let hypothermia get in the way of bringing sexy back.
Barney the Dinosaur
Good costume. Bad choice of character. I’m not sure you want to be wandering the city after dark dressed as a character whose popularity among adults is due exclusively to an overwhelming desire to inflict physical violence upon him. A movement so wide spread it has its own 5 page Wikipedia entry detailing the various ways and organizations that hate him.
So you might want go as Dino or something next year. If you survive till sunrise this evening, anyhow.
The Hulk
Ok, there are two fatal flaws with your costume. Number one: The Hulk is a rather large, green, angry half naked engine of destruction. You have the half naked part right, however you have the physique of a coat rack and are more like The Twig. Number Two: You’re wandering around outside in October without a shirt on with only a thin layer of poorly applied green body paint to ward off the cold. Perhaps you and Stripper Bee should huddle together for warmth if you’re going to attempt to survive the night without dying of exposure.
Spiderman: The Later Years
Oh lordy, you poor boy. Where to start. Ok, first of all you should not be in a skin tight latex body suit under any circumstances to begin with. You look like someone stuffed bread dough into a tube sock and left it out in the sun for a couple hours. Second of all: You’re not wearing the mask and you have no definably neck or chin. So the bread dough has risen out of the top of the sock and someone rolled it in the dirt before sticking lit cigarette in its mouth. Thirdly: Please god don’t scratch there in public.
Smurfette
Good costume. But suffers the same fatal flaw as the Hulk and Stripper Bee. However, on the upside, you’re already blue so the onset of hypothermia won’t ruin your outfit.
The….Magic Kingdom?
Good: Every single Disney princess, traveling in a pack. Bad: Every single ( likely for life ) guy behind them, traveling in a pack chanting “gang rape!”. Classy.
Zombie Clowns
Creative. Will haunt my dreams. Point for you.
BJ Hooker
Miniskirt, fishnets and a police hat. I suppose we’re at least venturing out of animal ear and devil horn territory.
Technicolour Masquerade
These are a special category of “zero effort” Halloweeners who rather than suffer the crippling expensive of a $4.99 plastic accessory to at least bump them up into “Slut” territory, they simply take 2-3 non-matching items out of their normal wardrobe and combine them. Viola! Whacky “costume”. There was an embarrassing amount of them out this evening including:
Normal clothing + Silver stockings = How you probably look during the week anyhow
Red sweatpants + Yellow boots = Get it? The colours don’t match! It’s so whacky!
Pink miniskirt + neon green tights = Not sure if bad attempt at costume or normal colour blind day to day fashion
Rainbow stockings = Rainbow Bright from the waist down. You go girl.
Two different coloured stockings = Ok now you aren’t even remotely trying.
Sunglasses = I take that back. You aren’t even remotely trying.
Culturally Sensitivity:
Oh wow. Dude, really? Did you really look in the mirror and go “Hmmm….I’m a skinny white guy, what would be the best costume…….oh, I know! A burqa!”. I can’t comprehend how you could possibly have thought this was a good idea. I’m not even sure how you came up with this idea to begin with. Were you just sitting at home going “Hmmmm…..you know, I want to cross dress, but I want to be able to offend other cultures at the same time…..” before this stroke of questionable brilliance hit you?
annnnd rest. Much needed glorious rest.
See Above
Me: "Good evening, <client> answering service"
SC: “Are you still open?”
Me: “I’m afraid the office is closed, sorry.”
SC: “Well than why are you answering!?”
I believe I already answered that question when I picked up the phone and identified myself as the answering service. Thus I am a service, which answers. Specifically, I answer phone lines. You are calling a phone line. I am answering it. Because that is my purpose. I’m not entirely sure what else you expect me to say here. You leapt upon me like Angela Lansbury triumphantly revealing the true culprit. As if you thought you had caught me in some sort of verbal slip up which revealed the glimmer of my guilt you required to unravel my criminal plot.
Wha?
Me: “Alright, and the box number?”
SC: “Box Nanaday.”
Me: “Pardon?”
SC: “Nanaday”
I…have no idea what that means. It is not a number. At least not as we normal, functioning human beings understand it. I assume inside your simple, possibly damaged, mind it is in fact a numeral of some sort. I may even have recognized it had it not been filtered through the dark, structurally condemned tunnels of your mental landscape. Emerging broken and malformed in the sudden glaring daylight that is my radiant intellect. Before shielding its eyes, mewling forth a pitiful cry and scurrying back into the dark from whence it came.
Me: “..nanaday?”
SC: “Box Nanaday.”
Me: “…….wait, ninety?”
SC: “Yeah.”
Don’t just say “Yeah”. That implies that what I said and what you said actually match. “Yeah” is not a valid response. Try “Oh, you’re right. I’m terribly sorry. I was violating the corpse of the English language and shall endeavour to pursue at least a 4th grade education before I call you again.”
I WILL FIND YOU
Ok….listen, and listen well. Based on the extensive research I was forced to perform ( endure ) over this call I have compiled a few quick tips you may wish to review in order to prevent this call from ever happening again. Which, I should point out, is in your best interest as call centre agents are similar to postal workers in how they may potentially react to long term abuse.
Tip #1:
For the love of whatever gods you believe in be they animal, vegetable or mineral, pick what you want before you call. Sweet chocolate dipped mother of Osiris I do not have the time, will, inclination, patience nor restraint on my ever rising urge to do physical harm to your person to endure 16 minutes of you click shopping on the website for your entire fucking family one by one.
Tip #2:
If you insist on selecting every single item out of the Clearance section, do not be surprised when every size and colour is not available. The Clearance section is the rotting, lion chewed corpse of the consumer sahara. It is composed of things that nothing save the vultures and smaller vermin will pick through. Things even we don’t want anymore. That’s why they’re on clearance.
Tip #3:
Forcing someone to endure 16 minutes of your indecisive ho-humming while you leisurely shop for your entire family one by one, explaining to me the exact reasons that each member would or would not like each item while you compile a list of selections picked off the clearance carcass…….Only to decide at the end you do not want any of it anyway is a fantastic method of getting yourself repeatedly stabbed in the head with a stapler to a soundtrack of expletives liberally mixed with previously unknown facts about your mother’s moral character. I highly suggest from this point on you avoid doing this as the only thing that saved you from receiving a rather extensive low budget Pinhead costume was the fact you are on the opposite coast from me.
How about no
SC: “You cover this cab right?”
No, no we do not. Perhaps it would have been wise to call and ask that question before you got into a cab. Rather than getting a cab and calling us from the cab. The hotel I’m booking you at actually has a shuttle you know. You could have saved yourself calling a cab entirely. Heck, why did you even get a cab in the first place? You were stranded in a city you don’t know, did not plan for and do not yet have a hotel room in. So where are you going? Did you get in the cab and just tell him to drive till you made up your mind? Or did you at least make it exciting and tell him “follow that car!”?
The Point
Me: “Alright, what size?”
SC: “Uhhh……I’m not sure. I don’t want it to be too big…..but I don’t want it to be too small either…..”
Yes, that’s sort of the entire point of clothing sizes to begin with. Might I suggest actually taking some initiative in your life for once and consulting our handy dandy sizing guide to see what size you are? It would be much quicker than ordering each size, attempting to squeeze your rotund form into it, failing, than sending it back to exchange for the next size up.
Nah, I'll Figure It Out
Me: “and your phone number please?”
SC: “xxx”
Me: “……alright but what’s the entire number?”
SC: “Oh, did you need the whole number?”
Nah, you know what? Don’t worry about it. Phone numbers are like DNA. Every individual number actually contains the entire genetic sequence. It’s just a matter of taking the vague handful of numbers you gave me, sequencing it and than cloning the entire phone number in some sort of test tube or possibly vat filled with some kind of unidentifiable yet nourishing liquid.
@H)(H(FJFKLEW
Me: "Alright, anything else?"
SC: "xxxx"
Me: "Ok, what size?"
SC: "XL"
Me: "Alright, anything else?"
SC: "Uhh, xxxx"
Me: "Ok. Anything else?"
SC: "Ummm.....xxxx"
Me: "Aright, is that everything?"
SC: "Uhhh......wait......uh, ok scratch all those."
Oh my God, don't you DARE. I swear to whatever dark Gods are listening that I will hunt you down, climb through your window in the dead of night and punch you in the taint with a grouting trowel. Than while you're laying their clutching the grand opening sale in your scrotal outlet I will dance a dance above your quivering form celebrating each excruciating second of your suffering as if it was a bountiful summer harvest.
SC: "Uh, can I get xxxx and xxxx instead?"
Me: "Sure"
Oooh, you may be spared yet. If only you knew how close you came, my simple minded friend.
Halloween Round-up
Whelp, it’s that time of year again. Halloween. Which means it’s time for my annual Halloween costume round up where I serve as the unrelenting judge and jury of every masquerade I bore witness too on my way here. Documenting each victory and each miserably failure, of which their were many.
3 Blind Mice:
I was forced to share a bus with these 3. They fall into the category of “It’s ok to dress like a total whore because I added a $4.99 Halloween accessory”. Namely, mice ears. Which obviously go with miniskirts and fishnets. On top of that they were the type that uses “Like” and “Omigod” as commas. As I learned, painfully, when Slut Mouse #2 did not believe she was pretty enough or cute enough to be seen in public this evening. So #1 and #3 were feverishly assuring her with dialogue such as, and this is a direct quote: “No no, you are like SOOOOO cute. Oh my god, SO cute. Seriously you are like SOOOOOO pretty. Don’t worry it looks SOOOOOOO cute on you. I like can NOT believe how pretty you look.”
Hobonana:
I don’t think this guy was actually trying to dress up. I think someone found a passed out drunken hobo and managed to get him into a giant banana costume before shoving him out onto Granville street. He was stumbling around the entrance to the Skytrain with a bottle of whiskey steadily eroding any shreds of dignity he still possessed.
Captain Morgan: Head Coach
1 guy dressed as a pirate with 6 of his friends dressed as the New York Mets. Someone didn’t check his voicemail in time.
Pirate Booty:
Once again, dressing like a whore and adding a $4.99 plastic pirate hook from Walmart does not a costume make. You likewise had 3 miniskirt clad companions with you who took similar routes but used a pirate hat, eye patch and pirate flag respectively. As if you all pooled your Skytrain change to buy a $15 costume and divided it up amongst yourselves. As far as I can tell your primary purpose this evening was to wander around and shake jiggly parts of yourselves at guys that cat called you. Such as the above New York Mets.
Captain Tracksuit:
An Adidas tracksuit is not a costume. Try harder. Your friends are in costumes. You are shaming them. You are the person in the circle of friends that nobody likes but everyone keeps around just so they can talk about how much they don’t like you when you’re not around. You’re the hate glue that holds everyone else’s relationships together.
Slut Bunnies ( Slunnies? ):
Once again, adding $4 plastic bunny ears to a miniskirt, knee high boots and fish nets does not a costume make. You even went through the trouble of getting your friend in the same outfit and ears. Thereby creating a sort of stripper bunny dynamic duo that patrols the city at night fighting crime and shivering in the biting cold rain neither of you are even remotely dressed for.
Ken & Ryu:
Ok, points to you two. You really look the part and people kept passing you and shouting “HADOUKEN!”.
Captain Morgan V2:
An admirable costume. However you are the only one in your group of friends that dressed up. Leading me to wonder if it’s really a costume or if it’s simply the way you dress normally. If so, more power to you my scurvy friend.
Devilish:
$4.99 plastic devil horns. Fishnets. Miniskirt. Knee high boots. There is a definite running theme going on out there this evening.
Captain Morgan V3:
The most authentic of the 3 I saw, as this one was in fact slugging back a bottle of rum. Though he did seem a bit worse for wear. It’s possible his Halloween party was actually yesterday and he just woke up in the ditch near the Skytrain station an hour ago.
Self-proclaimed “Kittens”:
Because we hadn’t yet witnessed every part of the slut animal kingdom.
Improvisation:
It appears you have added a monocle to the tuxedo from your high school prom that has been in the back of your closet for the last 7 years. Still, at least it looks like you tried. Unlike tracksuit guy.
Stripper Bee
Kudos to you, no one had yet ventured into the insect kingdom. So you’re breaking new ground. However, I must point out that in order to qualify as a “skirt” the hemline has to at least come down past your navel. Otherwise it's merely an umbrella for your panties. I should also point out that you are horribly under dressed for this weather and should have least brought a coat. But apparently we can’t let hypothermia get in the way of bringing sexy back.
Barney the Dinosaur
Good costume. Bad choice of character. I’m not sure you want to be wandering the city after dark dressed as a character whose popularity among adults is due exclusively to an overwhelming desire to inflict physical violence upon him. A movement so wide spread it has its own 5 page Wikipedia entry detailing the various ways and organizations that hate him.
So you might want go as Dino or something next year. If you survive till sunrise this evening, anyhow.
The Hulk
Ok, there are two fatal flaws with your costume. Number one: The Hulk is a rather large, green, angry half naked engine of destruction. You have the half naked part right, however you have the physique of a coat rack and are more like The Twig. Number Two: You’re wandering around outside in October without a shirt on with only a thin layer of poorly applied green body paint to ward off the cold. Perhaps you and Stripper Bee should huddle together for warmth if you’re going to attempt to survive the night without dying of exposure.
Spiderman: The Later Years
Oh lordy, you poor boy. Where to start. Ok, first of all you should not be in a skin tight latex body suit under any circumstances to begin with. You look like someone stuffed bread dough into a tube sock and left it out in the sun for a couple hours. Second of all: You’re not wearing the mask and you have no definably neck or chin. So the bread dough has risen out of the top of the sock and someone rolled it in the dirt before sticking lit cigarette in its mouth. Thirdly: Please god don’t scratch there in public.
Smurfette
Good costume. But suffers the same fatal flaw as the Hulk and Stripper Bee. However, on the upside, you’re already blue so the onset of hypothermia won’t ruin your outfit.
The….Magic Kingdom?
Good: Every single Disney princess, traveling in a pack. Bad: Every single ( likely for life ) guy behind them, traveling in a pack chanting “gang rape!”. Classy.
Zombie Clowns
Creative. Will haunt my dreams. Point for you.
BJ Hooker
Miniskirt, fishnets and a police hat. I suppose we’re at least venturing out of animal ear and devil horn territory.
Technicolour Masquerade
These are a special category of “zero effort” Halloweeners who rather than suffer the crippling expensive of a $4.99 plastic accessory to at least bump them up into “Slut” territory, they simply take 2-3 non-matching items out of their normal wardrobe and combine them. Viola! Whacky “costume”. There was an embarrassing amount of them out this evening including:
Normal clothing + Silver stockings = How you probably look during the week anyhow
Red sweatpants + Yellow boots = Get it? The colours don’t match! It’s so whacky!
Pink miniskirt + neon green tights = Not sure if bad attempt at costume or normal colour blind day to day fashion
Rainbow stockings = Rainbow Bright from the waist down. You go girl.
Two different coloured stockings = Ok now you aren’t even remotely trying.
Sunglasses = I take that back. You aren’t even remotely trying.
Culturally Sensitivity:
Oh wow. Dude, really? Did you really look in the mirror and go “Hmmm….I’m a skinny white guy, what would be the best costume…….oh, I know! A burqa!”. I can’t comprehend how you could possibly have thought this was a good idea. I’m not even sure how you came up with this idea to begin with. Were you just sitting at home going “Hmmmm…..you know, I want to cross dress, but I want to be able to offend other cultures at the same time…..” before this stroke of questionable brilliance hit you?
annnnd rest. Much needed glorious rest.
I write, my friend Red draws. Comments welcome. Leave them on their, or on my profile here. 
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