Pickles & Dimes

A few of you have asked how work is going. In a word? Great.

Anyway, I’ve been here exactly one month today and I’m still marveling over how lucky I am to work at a place doing what I love. So far I’ve written copy for video scripts, presentations, brochures, websites, and a bunch of gloriously goofy and seriously silly health posters. My favorite project so far: naming an iPad app. I love naming projects because it’s fun to try to guess what the client really wants, and to come up with names that achieve that while finding something that hasn’t already been trademarked. Plus, it’s a nice little ego boost to have the client choose something I thought of out of a list of 50 options, you know?

In the middle of all of this, there is one shiny, awesome-as-sparkling-unicorns beacon: a project manager who is pretty much the living embodiment of Susie from Curb Your Enthusiasm. She is the most foul-mouthed, in-your-face straight-shooter I have ever encountered.

And she is delightful.

I get giddy when I see a meeting invite from her. She cuts through all of the B.S. with no apologies. The fact that she is less than five feet tall only adds to her charm. (Direct quote: “I’m so f**king short, when I sit at a restaurant, my f**king chin touches the table.”) Today, when she was speaking about the aforementioned higher-up who needs to micromanage everything, she said, “Well, this project is probably going to get delayed since you-know-who has to spray his f**king scent on everything.” HA. She also routinely starts meetings by saying, “F**kers, don’t mess this up,” or “You b*tches got anything else to add?” I am fascinated by this woman. Every company needs someone like her.

Today we were discussing the possibility of customizing a Magic 8 ball for a client, and she mentioned that she wanted one for herself. Before I could blurt out that hers would be full of swear words, she pantomimed shaking a Magic 8 ball and shouted, “F**K OFF!” followed by another imaginary shake, yelling, “Eat sh*t and die!”

So that’s how the new job is going. Also, there is a farmers market on site every Wednesday, and I just noticed that there’s one of those basketball shooting games right next to the skeeball.

At my new job, I cannot access much of anything online. Facebook? Blocked. Twitter? Blocked. Most blogs? Blocked. LinkedIn? Blocked (sometimes). I can request access to these sites (and there are times I need to legitimately review a site or video, only to be denied access), but I have yet to do so because I feel like I.T. would think I’m slouching around online all day (even though I typically read blogs over my lunch hour).

As a result, I do most of my “fun” computer stuff at home before I leave for work. But it turns out I am not very motivated to be funny or clever and post to my own website. That’s because at 7:00 a.m. my brain is still rehashing my recent dream tendencies of either a) killing someone and disposing of the body in elaborate detail or 2) having a threesome with Charlie Sheen in which I am extremely unsure of what I am supposed to be doing.

So in the meantime, and until I can figure out some kind of schedule that happily coordinates computer time with actual neuron-firing brain time, you get this:

Things that have happened in our home in the past week

We think Sunny has figured out how to get between the ceiling of our basement and the floor of our upstairs. Independently, Jason and I have heard her faint, annoying meows followed by what sounds like a herd of elephants drag racing, followed by a large BOOM!, followed by a cat sprinting upstairs with a bushed-out tail and pupils the size of dinner plates.

Jason discovered a giant puddle in the middle of our basement carpet that could not have come from a leak, which had me freaking out that we had some kind of weird hydrostatic/water table event that was making water ooze through our concrete. The next day it smelled like cat pee, so we then treated it as such even though we were both skeptical because 1) cat pee reeks and it didn’t smell like that at all the first day and 2) the spot was way too large for that. We tried cleaning solutions galore and rented a Rug Doctor and finally got it odor-free.

The day after that, Jason discovered a bunch of water in one of our garbage bins that neither one of us dumped there. This time, it was obviously not from the pets and again, there was no leak source, so our obvious conclusion is that we are going nuts. Or that someone keeps breaking into our house to mess with our heads. Or that one of us has a giant sleepwalking/water bottle spilling/amnesia problem.

This weekend one of our friends casually mentioned something about a “cool dam” near our house. When we were out running errands later, we found ourselves in the general area and decided to find it.

And here it is, the Coon Rapids Dam in Anoka County:

I can’t believe we didn’t realize this place existed. It is awesome. People were fishing, others were relaxing with picnic baskets on blankets, and others were biking or jogging across the bridge above the dam.

Jason and I amused ourselves by watching for pieces of debris to approach the dam, and then sprinting across the bridge to watch them come churning out the other side in the brownish-creamy water that strongly resembled a root beer float.

We have plans to come back soon because they have tandem bikes you can rent by the hour. If our tandem biking ability is anything like our ability to row a canoe, we’ll be finished in 14 minutes and won’t speak to each other for the rest of the day.

Any places near you that are considered tourist attractions you have yet to visit?

(I wasn’t going to write about this, because it happened nearly a week ago, but here we are, six days later, and it’s still bugging me, and I’ve got a million work-related deadlines and can’t even begin to think of anything else to write, so I’m going to launch this tirade like a wobbly milk carton boat.)

Last Friday, Jason and I took off from work early because there was a bobblehead giveaway at the Twins game. It was this bobblehead, specifically. Which, for me personally, is the best bobblehead ever, because I remember watching that game and thinking the Twins got very, very lucky with that call (made nearly 20 years ago, oh my god). (Never mind the sad fact that it has been nearly 20 years since the Twins were in the World Series.)

Anyway, they were only giving away 10,000 bobbleheads, and Target Field holds more than 40,000 people and almost always sells out, and we were playing the White Sox that night so there’d be some Chicagoans honing in on the giveaway action, so we figured we’d get there early.

Like, really early.

We got there at 12:30 p.m. The game started at 7:00. The doors didn’t open until 5:00.

Why yes, we are crazy! How did you know?

A couple of our friends had gotten there before us and were literally 10th in line. There were maybe 20 people total waiting at our gate, so we stopped briefly to chat with our friends, and then, because I’m not morally capable of doing a “chat & cut” ala Curb Your Enthusiasm, I told Jason I wasn’t cutting. So we went to the end of the line.

Which looked like this:

Everything was fine for the first few hours or so. More people arrived and obediently tacked themselves onto the end of the line. But then Jason left to go talk to our friends and take a walk around the stadium. And four guys immediately sidled into the spot he had left, even though there were maybe only 20 people behind me.

So now the line looked like this:

As I sat on the ground staring at them incredulously, thinking, “Are you effing serious?” the four men debated whether this was a good place to stand (no), whether they should move (yes), and whether the fence directly across from the gate entrance is where they should go (definitely not). Right as I opened my mouth to say something, they ambled off in the opposite direction, presumably to be jerks elsewhere.

That’s when I realized that this was going to turn ugly. By 4:00, humanity’s true colors began to show. More people were arriving, and even though they could clearly see the line, dozens and dozens of them decided they would form their own line. How stupid we were, the people standing in line! Ha! Clearly, we could just push in front of others because common decency is no longer an important facet of a functioning society!

Whenever anyone managed to flag down the (always-rushing-in-a-different-direction) ushers or security guards to complain, they were met with vague shrugs.

Meanwhile, I (not surprisingly) was starting to seethe. I wasn’t afraid of not getting a bobblehead – I knew we were still going to be one of the first 75 people, but I am the type of person who would rather die than inconvenience anyone else. (Case in point: if I am driving and cannot get over to an exit in time, I will drive to the next exit rather than cut someone else off. True story.) And yet scores of people were purposely cutting in front of people who had been there for hours. HOURS.

So now the line looked like this:

When the gates opened, our (legitimate) line started moving as fast as possible in the hopes of boxing out the interlopers. But they were a surly bunch and started shoving their way to the front. Right before we got in, Jason put his arm in front of a guy, holding him back, and said, “Hey! You don’t belong up here. Go to the back.” And the guy, whom we watched step off the light rail not even 5 minutes earlier claimed, “I’ve been standing here for hours!” No remorse, no apology, no sheepishly leaving like the 15-year-old kid we all called out earlier and shamed into doing the right thing. Instead this guy acted like we were insane for caring about such a trivial matter. He puffed himself up and denied everything – until about 10 other people behind us started yelling at him. Then he shut up and played dumb by whining, “Where do you expect me to go?” like the whole concept was utterly confusing to him.

To be honest, I was kind of hoping for him to touch me, or try to push me out of the way, or shove Jason, because I was dying for someone who deserved it to get punched, and he seemed like a fine candidate. But I think he felt so chagrined at getting caught and yelled at by numerous people that he just kind of slunk to his seat with his ill-gotten bobblehead. Jerk.

Target Field really needs to fix this problem, which I propose could be solved easily by doing this:

Or, even more effectively, by implementing this:

Or, as a cheaper alternative, just letting me punch people in the face who try to cut in line.

I feel it says a lot about a person if they cut in line. What do you think?