Instead of something entertaining, such as a story about puppies or essay on how to hug, I'm going to simply write a standard blog about my uneventful, mediocre life. Oh, vanity.
I got a new job at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It's standard, retail-style work; not anything cool, like lion wrestler or elephant shaver. It does, however, require a lot of interaction with the park guests. Which can sometimes be interesting. Of course, they're probably only interesting to me because I'm a self-centered bastard with no social life. God help the rest of you.
A mother, her daughter, and two sons were returning a stroller. The mother was packing all the belongings up while I stood there, waiting for her. One son, about six-years-old, looked up at me and showed me a scrape he'd gotten earlier in the day. Turned out he was running around near the duck pond and tripped.
"It hurt but I didn't cry," he told me.
"Awesome. You know what to tell your friends at school how you got it, right?"
"Huh?"
"You tell them you got it defending your mom and sister from pirates. Ol' Blackbeard, hisself." I covered one eye and grabbed one of the eight inch retangular magnets next to the register, waving it around like a sword because I'm retarded. "Yaaaar, matey! You bested me this day but soon ye shall be sleeping with Davey Jones!"
He laughed and I chased him around a bit. Well, "a bit" means all of four seconds because his mom got mad at him (and me, although she didn't say so) for running again.
A rather obese man approached me with some items. He had a cane to support him, a backpack, a fanny pack, and two cameras slung across each shoulder. His wife and daughter were looking at books and stuff.
"I don't know how I got volunteered to carry everything."
"It's because you've got the cane. You're best equipped to ward off bandits."
He bought me a candy bar for making him laugh.
Some ten-year-old I talked to today: "I know how to spell 'zoo.'"
"Really? How?"
"Z-O-O."
"Whoa! It took me, like, five years to learn that"
"I'm a fast learner."
"I can tell. But do you know how to spell it backwards?"
"O-O-Z."
"Dude! You are, without doubt, the best speller I have ever met. You need a badge." So I took some register tape, wrote "BEST SPELLER IN HISTORY" on it and taped it to his shirt. He proceeded to rub it in the face of his younger brother and sister. So I did the same for them, only with "BEST READER IN HISTORY" and "BEST MATHER IN HISTORY," respectively.
When returning from a break, some ducks started following me. They followed me across a bridge and into the back room of the building. The room in question is like a garage, only fifty feet long and fifteen wide. The strollers are stored there but at the time the room was practically empty. I tried chasing them out but they would only fly around the room. I spent a good twenty minutes chasing these ducks around.
The park rents out electric scooters for old people and fatties. They have nine of the things but three are currently broken and awaiting repair. Some days they'll all be sitting there, untouched. Others, they're rented out withing two hours of the park opening. When this happens, people get pissed. One of my leads told me a customer actually hit him with her purse. But usually they'll just complain about it to the rest of their party, making sure they're talking loud enough for the rental employee to hear. Passive-agressive bitching, I guess. The worst I've encountered was this guy:
"What do you mean you're out?"
"I just rented out the last two, sir." And I motioned to the people who were in line directly ahead of him.
"Well, how many do you have?"
"Six, sir."
"Six?!"
"Yes, sir."
"I need one, damn it. The last time I pushed my wife in a wheelchair up and down those hills, I almost had a heart attack."
"I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing I can do." (I'm sorry that years of abusing your body has left you a shriveled husk of pansy, ready to keel over at the task of pushing the one-hundred pounds of leather you call a wife up a slight incline, sir.")
To his wife: "Come on, I'll get the wheelchair out of the car. They're not too bright here."
"Yes, sir. Sorry for the inconvenience." ("If you're going to have that heart attack, please make sure to die outside the park gates. Thank you.")
"I was wounded in Korea, boy. THAT'S an inconvenience. This is bullshit. I fought for your freedom."
"Yes, sir. Thank you for saving me from communism, sir."
The last train ride drops everyone off at 5:30. Since everyone thinks the park closes at 5, this leads to a riot of almost 200 people running through the gift shops in a last, frenzied attempt to squander whatever amount of money not yet sucked from them. This final wave of customers is almost universally hated among the employees. I was talking to one of the girls I work with about it and came up with a plan to do away with the train.
So I grabbed a piece of paper, drew a map of the park, and went to work decribing my plan. It was a mad blur of kung fu monks, meat grinders, rooms filled with televisions that only played reruns of Fantasy Island, and Batman disguised as Don Knotts. I don't remember it all, just that she was thoroughly confused. And this:
"That's when the dancing tacos come in."
"You're going to make tacos dance? With strings?"
"No, that's just silly. People would see the strings and know it was a trap. No, I'm going to splice human DNA with taco DNA to create a human-taco hybrid. Then force it to dance. It won't technically be a 'dancing taco.' But it's easier to explain than 'dancing taco-men.'"
"This all seems pretty complicated."
"Well, that's science for you."
I got a new job at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It's standard, retail-style work; not anything cool, like lion wrestler or elephant shaver. It does, however, require a lot of interaction with the park guests. Which can sometimes be interesting. Of course, they're probably only interesting to me because I'm a self-centered bastard with no social life. God help the rest of you.
A mother, her daughter, and two sons were returning a stroller. The mother was packing all the belongings up while I stood there, waiting for her. One son, about six-years-old, looked up at me and showed me a scrape he'd gotten earlier in the day. Turned out he was running around near the duck pond and tripped.
"It hurt but I didn't cry," he told me.
"Awesome. You know what to tell your friends at school how you got it, right?"
"Huh?"
"You tell them you got it defending your mom and sister from pirates. Ol' Blackbeard, hisself." I covered one eye and grabbed one of the eight inch retangular magnets next to the register, waving it around like a sword because I'm retarded. "Yaaaar, matey! You bested me this day but soon ye shall be sleeping with Davey Jones!"
He laughed and I chased him around a bit. Well, "a bit" means all of four seconds because his mom got mad at him (and me, although she didn't say so) for running again.
A rather obese man approached me with some items. He had a cane to support him, a backpack, a fanny pack, and two cameras slung across each shoulder. His wife and daughter were looking at books and stuff.
"I don't know how I got volunteered to carry everything."
"It's because you've got the cane. You're best equipped to ward off bandits."
He bought me a candy bar for making him laugh.
Some ten-year-old I talked to today: "I know how to spell 'zoo.'"
"Really? How?"
"Z-O-O."
"Whoa! It took me, like, five years to learn that"
"I'm a fast learner."
"I can tell. But do you know how to spell it backwards?"
"O-O-Z."
"Dude! You are, without doubt, the best speller I have ever met. You need a badge." So I took some register tape, wrote "BEST SPELLER IN HISTORY" on it and taped it to his shirt. He proceeded to rub it in the face of his younger brother and sister. So I did the same for them, only with "BEST READER IN HISTORY" and "BEST MATHER IN HISTORY," respectively.
When returning from a break, some ducks started following me. They followed me across a bridge and into the back room of the building. The room in question is like a garage, only fifty feet long and fifteen wide. The strollers are stored there but at the time the room was practically empty. I tried chasing them out but they would only fly around the room. I spent a good twenty minutes chasing these ducks around.
The park rents out electric scooters for old people and fatties. They have nine of the things but three are currently broken and awaiting repair. Some days they'll all be sitting there, untouched. Others, they're rented out withing two hours of the park opening. When this happens, people get pissed. One of my leads told me a customer actually hit him with her purse. But usually they'll just complain about it to the rest of their party, making sure they're talking loud enough for the rental employee to hear. Passive-agressive bitching, I guess. The worst I've encountered was this guy:
"What do you mean you're out?"
"I just rented out the last two, sir." And I motioned to the people who were in line directly ahead of him.
"Well, how many do you have?"
"Six, sir."
"Six?!"
"Yes, sir."
"I need one, damn it. The last time I pushed my wife in a wheelchair up and down those hills, I almost had a heart attack."
"I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing I can do." (I'm sorry that years of abusing your body has left you a shriveled husk of pansy, ready to keel over at the task of pushing the one-hundred pounds of leather you call a wife up a slight incline, sir.")
To his wife: "Come on, I'll get the wheelchair out of the car. They're not too bright here."
"Yes, sir. Sorry for the inconvenience." ("If you're going to have that heart attack, please make sure to die outside the park gates. Thank you.")
"I was wounded in Korea, boy. THAT'S an inconvenience. This is bullshit. I fought for your freedom."
"Yes, sir. Thank you for saving me from communism, sir."
The last train ride drops everyone off at 5:30. Since everyone thinks the park closes at 5, this leads to a riot of almost 200 people running through the gift shops in a last, frenzied attempt to squander whatever amount of money not yet sucked from them. This final wave of customers is almost universally hated among the employees. I was talking to one of the girls I work with about it and came up with a plan to do away with the train.
So I grabbed a piece of paper, drew a map of the park, and went to work decribing my plan. It was a mad blur of kung fu monks, meat grinders, rooms filled with televisions that only played reruns of Fantasy Island, and Batman disguised as Don Knotts. I don't remember it all, just that she was thoroughly confused. And this:
"That's when the dancing tacos come in."
"You're going to make tacos dance? With strings?"
"No, that's just silly. People would see the strings and know it was a trap. No, I'm going to splice human DNA with taco DNA to create a human-taco hybrid. Then force it to dance. It won't technically be a 'dancing taco.' But it's easier to explain than 'dancing taco-men.'"
"This all seems pretty complicated."
"Well, that's science for you."
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
devi:
Happy late birthday, you old fart.
shaggyvixe:
