Drunken Escapades, Pt. 2

A few days later, the drunk girl called me. I had to call her phone to find it, so presumably she misdialed off the incoming call list. I got a call from a number I didn't recognize and answered, with hopes that it was a job calling to hire me.

Me: "Hello?"
Drunk girl (clearly drunk again): "...it was Travis.  I... I paid my [expletive] bills!"
Me: Confused silence
Drunk girl: "I had so many [expletive] bills!  There was the [expletive] DirecTV bill and I [expletive] paid it."
Me: Awkward silence
Drunk girl: "So... so don't [expletive] worry!"

Then the call ended.  What have I done?  Does this mean I can add drunken confidant(e?) to my resume?  Cause I think that would be kickin'.  Maybe I would have finally been hired to the job at a bakery downtown I really wanted to work at.  Does drunken confidant(e) not add a little spice to a resume?  Tell me I'm wrong if I'm wrong, but I think this will really help me in the professional world.

The moral of the story is that I am never going to do nice things for anyone, ever again.

Drunken Escapades, Pt. 1

But don't worry, they're not my drunken escapades.

One night on my way home from work I decided to take a detour through the sketchy part of Pocatello (aren't they all?), when I passed a car pulled over to the side of the road.  After much internal debate, I turned around and went back to see if I could help them with anything (despite the fact that the only useful thing I might be able to provide is a cell phone with internet capabilities- my car knowledge is seriously limited).

The car had stalled, and the two girls who were driving it needed some gas.  I offered to drive them down the road to the gas station about half a mile away to fill a can with gas.  This is where things started to go downhill.  One of the girls asked me to push her car to the gas station... with my car.  Well that was definitely a solid negatory.  I talked them into riding in my car to and from the gas station, after which, I would take off.

I have had very little experience with alcohol, so I didn't realize exactly what I had gotten myself into until we were on the way to the gas station, and I started paying attention to what was going on.  One of the girls was moderately sober, but the other was very intoxicated.

Much thanks to my daddy, I had an empty gas can in my trunk for emergencies.  We filled up and then filled their car.  I waited to make sure their car would start and I could go home with a clear conscience.  If only things were that easy.  The car didn't start.  I pulled up next to them to see what was going on, and patiently waited at their side while they got into a drunken argument about what to do.  They decided to push the car out of the road and walk home.  So they started pulling valuables out of the car.

That was the point at which a cop pulled up from the other direction. DrunkenPants (hereby known as DP)  panicked and immediately got into my car while the more able minded girl tried to explain the situation.  The police officer asked us to get out of the road and moved on.

In her panic, DP dropped her phone on the pavement.  But wasn't able to comprehend what I was saying and insisted I call her phone while she drunkenly searched my car.  Meanwhile, Girl 2 started checking their car for her phone, which she was unable to find.  Then, DP confided to me that she had Girl 2's phone and insisted we weren't going anywhere until Girl 2 returned her phone and made me promise not to tell G2.

I found the phone on the pavement, where I knew it was going to be, and returned it to DP, who then returned G2's phone.  At this point, DP begged me to walk them home.  Even though their house was across the street.  So I accompanied them across the street.  And by "accompanied," I mean I navigated DP up and down the curbs and stairs with several "step up here" and "step down here" whilst half dragging her.

The best part was how they thanked me once we were finally inside- with shots.  They insisted I join them in taking shots, and when I politely declined, they asked if I wanted to watch them take shots.  Surprisingly, I passed on the second offer as well.

Such lovely folks in Pocatello.  I really think I bonded with those girls that night.  They also invited me to their garage sale the next morning.  I should probably look them up on Facebook or something, I sense a lasting relationship in the works.

Ornithophobia.

My sister works at a fast food restaurant in town.  It's a little drive in with the best fries in town.  It's also a little drive in with the most annoying pigeon infestation in town.  Pigeons get into the roof and nest.  You would never know unless you go into the bathroom, where it's quieter.  If it's the right time of year, you'll hear the incessant little chirps of a million baby pigeons.

One of her coworkers decided to take the matter into his own hands a few weeks ago.  He got one of the baby pigeons out of the roof and put it in a box outside the restaurant.  He claimed he was going to take it home and kill it.  My sister, animal whisperer, protested and decided to bring the bird home until she could find someone else to take care of it.

We kept it in the garage at first.  Just for a few days, until the pigeon grew out feathers and could fly on its own, at which time, she would release it into the "wild."

A few days turned into a few weeks, as pigeons don't actually grow that fast.  In that time, my dad secretly started bonding with the pigeon... he's a gentle soul.  He took the pigeon out of the cage we kept it in and started petting it and cuddling with it sometimes.  Needless to say, by the time the pigeon actually was old enough to leave, he was attached to us.  My brother even named him.

By the time Archibald T. Chirps had enough feathers to smerf the coop, he was part of the family.  One of my siblings even made him a Facebook page (does it get much more official than that?).  That was about the time we learned that pigeons are not dynamic animals.  They settle in where they are raised and won't be moved.  Our multiple attempts to forcibly relocate him were unsuccessful- someone would drop him off away from our house, and about half an hour later he would be back.

What's worse though, is that Mr. Chirps decided he is the kind of family pet that should live inside.  On multiple occasions, he has made his way INSIDE our house, much to my horror.  My sister quickly shooed him out while trying to calm my frantic screams.  Turns out I'm terrified of birds (add it to the list).  But really, the thought of a pigeon breaking into your home and making itself comfortable is frightening. It's enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

Wish us luck, hopefully the bad weather will drive Mr. Chirps away.  Until then, avoid the deck.  It's his territory now.

Mmm Digestives.

I have the largest room in my house.  Bigger than my parents.  This makes it a sort of dumping grounds.  No room in the store room?  Put it in Katie's room.  No room in the other store room?  Put it under Katie's bed.  No room in the under stairs storage closet thing?  Put it in Katie's closet.  I try to be a good sport about it (minus one very angry incident that I would not like to rehash.  Jessie and Sara can tell you all about how mad and bratty I was though.), because I have a room big enough to house a small African village.

For nearly two years now, I've had a package of caramel "Digestives" sitting on my chest of drawers.  My sister, Anna, left them there one Christmas, and I always assumed they were some weird baking ingredient or something, and presumed she would eventually reclaim them.  I should know better, I've had a ten pound block of melting chocolate in my closet for two and a half years now.  So these "digestives" have just been sitting.  Untouched.  For years.

Flash back to my self discoveries post in which I went on a reading binge.  One of those books was a British book in which she ate "digestives".  Context led me to realize "digestives" are also known in the US as... cookies!!  I still didn't put it together until this morning, when I was lying in bed really hungry and too tired to go all the way upstairs for food.  Those strange "digestives" on my dresser are potentially delicious, albeit very old, cookies!

They're all gone now.  I ripped the strange packaging open in seconds and smerfed those bad boys in like ten minutes because I was so hungry and they were so weird- but the kind of weird that has you eating more to see if they're still weird.  I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I clearly have not changed at all since last school year.  No patience, no sense of restraint.  It's cool, it generally gets me into some wonderfully strange predicaments.  Now I'm off to clean all the "digestive" crumbs off my bed.  And by clean, I mean I'll eat the big ones and brush the rest off to the carpet.

P.S.  I'm not sure why I keep quoting "digestives," except that I'm so baffled that anyone would call a cookie a "digestive."

P.P.S. To Anna- I'm not sorry.  I would do it again.

Francesca.

GREAT NEWS, EVERYONE- WALMART HAS A SALE ON RAZORS.

BETTER... THEY'RE SELLING PINK RAZORS!

For only $30, we could buy Jorge a girlfriend!!!!!

Marina and I decided she would be named Francesca.  She and Jorge would be best friends/soul mates for ever and always.  They would smerf together all day, every day.  All in favor, mail us $1.  Then I'll bum $30 off my parents, and we'll be good to go!

The Bathroom.

Now of course it wasn't anything like this.
The monster was yellow.

Sometime this week, I realized that in the last nine weeks I've been working at this call center, every time I use the bathroom on the main level, I always go to the exact same stall.  Don't ask me why, I can't explain it.

When I noticed the tendency for the middle stall, I decided to smerf things up.  I went a different stall... and found some sketchy toilet paper on the handle.  So I went back to the safe, standard stall.

The next day, I tried to break routine again by going to a third stall.  Nothing was wrong with the toilet, but it felt all wrong. I actually felt claustrophobic, and became convinced that the stall was smaller than the usual stall.  Then I counted the number of tiles across the front of both stalls and compared- exactly the same.

That was when I realized I was standing in a public bathroom, staring at the floor in front of the stalls, silently counting the tiles with my feet.  And looking like a nutter.  Business like usual.

Self Discoveries.

This summer, I've taken up employment at a local call center.  During my long days of training, I came to several conclusions while I was supposed to be learning how to engage, be empathetic, and listen.  Yes, I recognize the irony in not listening to a lesson about listening.  But if I'm being honest, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on customer management- pretend to be interested and above all else, don't ever tell the customer he/she is an idiot.  Even if he/she is potentially the dumbest person I've ever smerfed with in my life.

But I digress.

The following are very important life lessons I will remember always.

1. Long nails give me the heeby jeebies.  Maybe it's because I played piano for a very long time, and the importance of having consistently short nails was ingrained to me in third grade when my piano teacher would not allow me to continue playing until I cut my nails, washed my hands, and was thoroughly lectured on the negative effects long nails have on performance.  One of my coworkers has freakishly long nails, and every time I see them, I shudder and all I can think of is the disturbing picture I saw in a Guinness world records book once of the longest nails in the world.  Am I alone here?  Long nails are the worst.  
2. I have very little patience.  We played twenty questions as a bonding experience one of my first days, and I was interested for the first three questions or so.  Then I lost all hope and spent the rest of the game calculating how much money I was being paid per minute to listen to my coworkers try to identify a taco in twenty questions or less, completely tuned out.  Which brings me to my next point.
3. I have a breaking point when it comes to learning new material, after which I am decidedly done.  I am unable to continue paying attention, and I zone out.  I quickly realized if I sat at the back of the room and leaned in to my cubicle, it looked like I was just following the lecture on my computer, and my instructor was not able to see anything I was doing.  That is how I read upwards of a dozen books in three weeks of training.
4. According to my instructor, adding "mundo" to the end of any word basically makes it Spanish.  True storymundo.

As a bonus, I found this on my second day.  What a great indicator of my time as an inbound phone technical specialist.  Smurf this, indeed.

Awwww, Yeah!

I'm back.  It's been a long month of non-posting, but I have about seven inspirational stories that might make for very rambly, very confusing blog posts.  One of them might make some actual sense.  Don't quote me on that.

Since it's bothering me that the text I've written doesn't extend to the bottom of the picture, I'm going to include my latest favorite joke to fill up room.

What do you call a fake noodle?
Impasta!

Cheers, y'all.  See you later this week!