So I put my crap down on my desk and head to the kitchen to heat up my pop tart. Of course I normally don’t heat them up. They are definitely best served cold straight from the foil to your mouth. Frosted anything is win, cold. But my box of pop tarts was all I had even close to resembling a reason to head to the kitchen at 8:30something in the morning. There he is! Loading the machine as we speak, that evil evil man. So, first, I was right last week, I do hate my Pepsi *guy*. He didn’t look too menacing. Looked like a pretty normal guy. We had the generic-two-guys-who-don’t-know-each-other-head-bob-“what’s up”-moment. I went to the microwave and turned to watch him complete his evil soda machine loading deeds.
And I totally saw him do it with diet Slice/Sierra Mist (whatever Pepsi Sprite is) mixed in with the Dr. Pepper!!!
Me, being of nice, polite, and totally always able to keep quiet and not be outwardly not-bashful or shy about aggressively approaching someone……maybe I did say, “Sweet! More Diet Caffeine Free Flavored Pepsi stuff when I want a Mt. Dew.” Maybe I did say it.
And here’s the shocker. His reply, “Yeah…..sorry about that. That’s what they tell us to do at the distribution center to get rid of the crap that don’t sell. Otherwise it’s just trash and we can’t sell it past a certain date.”
I didn’t reply along the lines of, “well it’s trash either way, before that certain date.”, but I wanted to. But seriously, read that. The local Pepsi bottling/distribution plant teaches their drivers to load the popular soda racks with the stuff that doesn’t sell??? Wow. I mean I guess it makes sense that they might vaguely make suggestions to their drivers on how to move some of the slow moving product. But for it to come off almost like a policy? That’s a little disturbing to me.
I think Jeremy (well at least that’s what the Pepsi patch on his shirt said) saw how taken aback and surprised I was at hearing this. He reached into his crates and handed me a 20oz. Mt. Dew and said, “sorry about that last week.”
What I said, “ah no big deal man, thanks.”
What I was thinking, “HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP. Free soda! Free soda! This dude is cool in my book. Fill that machine maliciously to your heart’s content! Free soda! Free soda! Did you ever know that you’re my hero!!! The wind beneath my wings!!!! Free drink! Free drink!”
Sometime later that morning I returned to the kitchen to heat up some Ramen. Wait, what? You don’t still eat Ramen and pop tarts? I don’t care that I’m not in college anymore. Ramen is phenomenal. Worth every penny of the $0.06 price. I’m not kidding. Anyways, in the kitchen, on one of the tables, were about 6 sodas with a note to help oneself. The diet caffeine free craptastic ones. Wow, this guy not only gave me a free Mt. Dew, he stopped his evil maniacal ways and is giving out the lesser sodas too.
NOPE! Those must have just been the sodas so old he couldn’t even do the loading/selling trick. They must’ve been so old he couldn’t sell them. Because, even after my apology, my free soda, and the other free ones on the table – there was still crap soda blocking the good stuff in the machine. He totally bought my silence! My angst at the Pepsi delivery company can be silenced; I am a soda machine etiquette whore. I’m a damn soda popstitute.
*This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse – My Estrogen Levels are High*
It’s not really this week’s sign, since the events in question happened a couple weeks ago, I’m just getting around to writing about it now. But apparently my Estrogen levels spiked recently. My wife is a teacher. She had some free tickets to a local aquarium for us to use. Basically the aquarium was to be kept open late on a Friday night for local teachers and their families to go for free, outside of normal business hours. She had a flyer for the event. She sent me the flyer on e-mail. We reviewed it, determined we wanted to go. My parents and brother live pretty locally to us. We asked them if they wanted to go too, to see the aquarium with lil HokieJayBee. My mom couldn’t, but my dad and brother wanted to go with us.
We checked into the availability for us to bring additional family members to the special after-hours teacher’s family aquarium event. We had the flyer, we had the aquarium’s website, and we had the recording on the aquarium’s information line. All three differed on the topic. From teacher and immediate family only can come, to teacher plus family all free within reason, to teacher immediate family free with extended family available to attend after-hours but pay normal aquarium entry rates. We had invited my dad and brother, and they were going to come with us – now it was a matter of their entry fee.
Mrs. HokieJayBee and I had made the calls and searched the websites and read the flyer and we were hitting that near-fight a couple hits in frustration at something else. Just frustrated at the whole thing and the incongruence between the aquarium’s information sources, we’re both trying to just get a straight answer. We basically hit the point that we’re bringing my dad and brother, and they’ll probably have to pay their own way in. We decide she’s going to send me the flyer on e-mail and I’ll print it and we’ll bring it so that we’ll at least have one form of proof as to what the aquarium rules were for that night.
And when she sent it to me on e-mail, it was attached, and her note in the e-mail said: “Here it is…”
Note the three .’s.
What she meant by the … “I am so done talking about this, I’m frustrated we can’t get a straight answer from the aquarium, so here’s the flyer, print it for us tonight, we’ll take your dad and brother, see you soon, love you.”
What I read in the … “Hey fucktard, here’s the flyer. See how it says immediate family free and others can come but have to pay. Why are we still talking about this? Why are you fighting me on this? Why do you hate me? Why are you such a jerk? I hate you. You’re a stupid idiotic fool and I regret ever meeting you. I’d rather poke myself in the eye with someone else’s trimmed toe nails than go to the aquarium tonight with you. Die in a fire.”
So I commenced to then start a real fight back at her on e-mail over the … and what she meant by it and why is she so mean and why does she hate me and do I look fat in these pants.
High estrogen levels.
*Got Me. Again.*
We have a decently fancy phone system where I work. I mean, I’m techno enough to be ok on computers and like with the home theatre system. But I don’t know anything about telecommunications. We’ve got these decently fancy Nortel Networks phones at work, and they’re hooked in through the computers and such. Never had a problem with them. Except, the clock displayed on the big screen on the phone is off. It’s been off for a long time. And it’s not off like an even amount like there’s a daylight-savings-time thing.
They’re off by an hour and 17 minutes. Yeah. All day every day, they’re off by an hour…….. and 17 minutes. WTF? I say, “Got me. Again.” because the phone clock gets me like 5 times a day, every day.
“Sweet! Lunchtime!”……”Damn, nevermind, only 10:45.”
“Sweet! Time to head out!”….”Damn, nevermind, only 3:30.”
*Speaking of Clocks Being Off.*
Am I behind the times? Or really far ahead? Someone catch me up. Am I really really really behind the times? Or am I so far ahead of the times I never caught up to fall behind? Am I so late to the scene to make fun that I’ll seem late for still even talking about it, even if it’s negatively?
What the hell is the fascination and how the hell is “The Jersey Shore” popular? Seriously people.
Ok. So the reason I even bring it up is I got an e-mail from a friend I really respect. (i.e. wouldn’t expect them to send me a “Jersey Shore” related e-mail) I googled the application that is becoming popular as the “Jersey Shore Nickname Generator”. Yes I did.
Put in my name. If I were a steroid filled, fake tanned, hair gelled idiot on MTV right now, I’d be “Juice Box”. I put in my middle name the second time, since I technically go by my middle name, and I’d like to introduce you to “Juice Springsteen”. Hell yeah.
*Catch and Release, or Keeper.*
In last week’s cornucopia post I alluded to things being hectic at work lately, with more to come. I’ve decided to limit the novel to a few simple lines. I worked for Company DDD. Company DDD was owned by Company BBB. For reasons they haven’t even totally told us, there were some super secret squirrel meetings and Company DDD had to go away – quick fast and in a hurry. So Company BBB sold Company DDD to Company AAA. Company AAA is also under Company BBB. So now I work for Company AAA, still under Company BBB. Same desk, same job, same clients. Different letterhead. Get it? Neither do I.
Anyways, in the weeks leading up to all this, needless to say, it’s been quite stressful around here. There were some layoffs. There were some people leaving. No one had a guaranteed seat at Company AAA. And frankly, if the lawyers and all the super secret squirrel stuff didn’t go down straight, all of us were out of a job. It was a very stressful time.
Two days before the acquisition, my Manager came up to me and needed me to come by his office, he needed to talk to me.
So I stroll down to his office. He shuts the door. He proceeds to ask me which new logo I like best for our new Company AAA.
“I’m a KEEPER!!!!!” I got to voice my input on the new logo!!!!!1one11oneone1!!shiftone!11!!1111!
I think I moonwalked back to my office.
Sweet. Glad to hear you're still riding your desk and not out looking for work.
ReplyDeleteHa ha! Good post, loved the Mt. Dew story. Yes, Ramen is still awesome, and I eat Pop Tarts all the time (strawberry, with frosting)! Sometimes the chocolate ones are good for a snack.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Jersey Shore? I kept seeing clips on the Soup over the weekend, and to me, it seems kind of like watching a train wreck. You just can't turn away. This chick Snooki, who is totally not even halfway self-aware, is pretty amusing. Oh, and not all of them are even Italian anyway. I don't normally watch anything on MTV, but I might have to watch the 2nd season just to make fun.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I meant about the Jersey Shore. Am I ahead or behind the curve in hearing about it, and by hearing about it, I mean learning enough about it to make fun of it.
ReplyDelete