Essa Alroc's Blog, page 36

My Day As An Optimist

 

***Side Effects may include excessive optimism, conservatism, reverse touretts and the sudden, inexplicable ability to speak Hindi***

Today started out normally enough. I rolled out of bed after hitting the snooze alarm 40 times and stumbled to the bathroom in a moderate, midweek hangover stupor. Like I do every morning, I cracked open the medicine cabinet and yanked out the two prescriptions I have that keep me from vomiting blood. I quickly fed my ulcer, Steven*, his two prescription strength Prilosec and a Sucrulfate for good measure. Then, remembering I had a mediation this morning, I took another Prilosec, just in case.

It wasn’t until I was brushing my teeth that I realized the Prilosec I thought I was taking was actually a leftover prescription for Wellbutrin that I got during a misguided attempt to quit smoking. So, on a triple dose of anti-depressants, I began my first ever day as an optimist.

I headed off to the gas station I go to every morning, because when you’ve accidently overdosed on prescription meds, the best thing to do is drink as much cheap gas station coffee as possible. For once, I actually understood the guy behind the register.

Amazingly, not only will Wellbutrin help with your manic depression, it also teaches you how to speak Hindi!

After giving the very surprised gas station guy a hug good-bye and issuing a demand that he “have a wonderful day!!!” I literally skipped off to work.

I arrived at my office building and spent about twenty minutes in the parking lot admiring how the sun glinted off the windows. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I hopped into the elevator and joyfully pressed the button for the sixth floor, seeming to have forgotten that I work in insurance claims. I talked about the weather with strangers. I asked people about their children.

I hate the weather and I hate other people’s children.

Amazingly, I made it though an entire day at work without saying the words “I hate this job so much.” Well, not really. But at least when I said them, I was smiling. It was a little creepy though. Think Jack Nicholson at the end of ‘The Shining’ as he’s chasing down his family with an ax.

Then, I got home, made dinner and headed to my computer for an evening of both work and entertainment writing. First, I wrote an article for Yahoo! News. I said positive things about Mitt Romney. I even went to his website and joined his mailing list.

Not only will Wellbutrin teach you Hindi, it will also turn you into a Republican.

After I finished my article, my computer burst into flames. At first I thought I was hallucinating. Then, I realized I wasn’t and that my computer was actually on fire. I immediately jumped into action, putting out the flames the way they taught me in safety class. By dumping a beer on it.

Not once, during any of this did I utter even one curse word. On any other day, I would have unleashed a flood of swears that would have made my computer cry. After all, I am fluent in 5 different profanities’…and also Hindi.

I rolled on. Yanked my moms 1997 thirty-seven pound computer tower out of the closet, hooked everything up and got right back to work. It still has a floppy disc drive for god’s sake. I tried to put my flash drive in it and it was like ‘what the hell is this’.

Right now, I’m watching ‘Glee’. I even caught myself singing along. God, I hope this shit wears off soon. If it doesn’t, I’m sure I can use the emails I get from Mitt Romney’s mailing list to induce vomiting.

Sunday Fun With Nigerian Scam Artists

 

This morning, I jumped in my time machine and headed back to 1997 to check my Aol.com mail account that I never use. As I expected, my email was chock full of letters from foreign lotteries, Nigerian royalty and lonely Russian ladies. As I was reading though one particularly delightful gem, I was brought back to the same thought over and over again. “Do people really still fall for this shit?”

And for the first time ever, I decided to respond.

The message I received was this one.

—–Original Message—–

From: Cpt. John Anthony <Ofiice1N1@alto.ocn.ne.jp>

To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Sent: Sat, Aug 4, 2012 6:57 pm

Subject: From Cpt. John Anthony

I am sorry to encroach into your privacy in this manner. My name Capt. John

Anthony, I am an officer in the US Army and also a West Point Graduate,

currently serving in the Military with the 82nd Airborne Division and Peace

keeping force in Baghdadi. I found you listed in the Trade Center Chambers of

Commerce directory here in Iraq. I want to solicit your Attention to receive

some money on my behalf as my partner in business. Am on the move to Afghanistan

from Iraq as the last batch just left, and I really need your help in assisting

me with the safe keeping of two military trunk boxes which has arrived USA from

Iraq. I hope you can be trusted? I will explain further when I receive your

response.

Best regards,

Cpt. John Anthony

Here is my response;

Dear Captain Anthony,

It would be an honor to work with one of our fine US soldiers to help you secure top-secret military packages in my 2 bedroom apartment that I barely ever lock. What is in these mysterious boxes you speak of? Are they the WMD’s we couldn’t find all those years ago? Maybe the military should have started shipping boxes to private citizens all those years ago, rather than worrying about all that stupid security all the time. Regardless, your secret is safe with me and I promise to only play with the nuclear warheads your going to ship me a little bit.

Also, I wasn’t aware that I was listed at the Iraqi Chamber of Commerce Directory. Must have been that time I bought all those goats for reasons I don’t want to get into right now. Attached, please find a document that includes my full name, social security number, phone number, directions to my house and a listing of my fears and a virus that will cause your computer to crash the next time you try to reboot.

Unfortunately, I am a little short on funds right now. All my extra cash is tied up because I recently won a $300,000,000 jackpot in a lottery I never entered and had to pay handling fees to the Prince of Nigeria to get the money released. What I can do is send you a money order through western union for $5000. You can keep $2500 of that, then send me the rest.

I really look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Completely Retarded American Citizen

It still amazes me that people manage to fall for this over and over again. If they didn’t, then I wouldn’t continue to get these completely ridiculous messages. But they do, and they lose thousands of dollars because of it. It completely blows my mind.

Sometimes, I think a license should be required before your allowed to operate the internet.

Celebrity News That Wasn’t Even Remotely Surprising

Ok, so I LOVE celebrities. I think I’ve made that pretty clear from the amount of restraining orders I’ve amassed over the years. But there are a few ‘shocking’ stories that I’d like to call out for not being shocking at all. I think everyone will agree with me that we all saw every one of these things coming.

Nobody that ripped is straight.

 

Anderson Cooper is gay – So, um Anderson Cooper has been openly gay forever! He lives with his boyfriend, Benjamin Maisani, in NY and has been living with him since 2009. Also, his boyfriend owns a gay bar. Kind of a dead giveaway that he’s not straight. I guess the reason this is news is because he’s never come right out and said it before.  Ok, he said it. Big deal. Can we go back to him reporting stories rather than being them? He’s really good at that

 

Wall – 1, Situation – 0

Mike Sorrentino, AKA, The Situation, nearly died due to a drug addiction – I’ll admit it. I watch Jersey Shore. Mainly because when I watch it, for one hour every week, I know I’m smarter than at least 8 people on the planet. The Situation nearly dies on every friggen episode. I once saw him run full speed into a concrete wall head first. The only thing shocking about Sorrentino’s life span is that he’s made it as long as he has.

I like this picutre becase Holmes looks like one of those cult wives. Oh, wait, she WAS one of those cult wives

 

 

 

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes broke up – I’ve been expecting that since the day I heard they were getting married. To be entirely honest with you, I’m never surprised when a celebrity couple breaks up. Half the time, they’re in a relationship contract for publicity and never see each other anyway. When the publicity dies, they get more by getting divorced. Seriously. It’s not a marriage. It’s a merger.

 

Hey Pattinson, you know how we know Kristen is cheating? She has her legs wrapped around another dudes neck.

 

 

Kristen Stewart is kind of slutty – What? You mean she’s not just like Bella on ‘Twilight’? You know, boring as fuck. She’s a pretty, 22 year old millionaire. She should be taking all the ass she can handle while she can still get it. And I don’t care if the dude she was screwing was married. It’s Hollywood. Everyone screws around there. I picture that place like a giant, writhing mass of worms, all getting it on with each other at the same time. I can’t wait to visit someday.

 

 

John Travolta is into dudes – Have the people who have been reporting this not seen “Saturday Night Fever’? Enough said. Also, you’ll notice I didn’t put a comment on the picture. Honestly, I think this is truly a case of a picture saying 1000 words.

They weren’t even at a costume party. This was taken at Denny’s

 

 

The Jackson’s are crazy – Does anybody actually remember what Michael Jackson was really like, or did he get elevated to sainthood once he died? The dude was fucking nuts. That had to come from somewhere.

 

Gee, but she seemed so happy….

 

Marilyn Monroe may have been murdered…no, really this time – Enough with the Marilyn Monroe crap. If she had lived, the chick probably would have died of old age by now. She was a depressed drug addict with access to an unlimited amount of prescription meds. Hmm, I wonder what happened. No, the government didn’t organize a hit on her. They would have to get their shit together to actually pull something off that seamlessly. While we’re at it, you know who killed JFK? Lee Harvey Oswald. Let’s get the fuck over it already.

 

Of course, I am fully aware of the irony of me complaining about all these news stories, then spinning them and telling them again.  I just like to contradict myself. It’s kind of my thing.

I Don’t Want To Be A ‘Free Jeans Friday’

Last week, somebody in my office died. Dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 55. To start off with, I didn’t know him. Couldn’t have pointed him out in a line up.

RIP Dave. I hope all the angels in heaven have gigantic boobs.

But now I’m obsessed with him. With his life, what he did. Did he have dreams? Regrets? Are people going to miss him now that he’s gone? Are they even going to know he’s gone? Or was he just another cubicle worker who’s going to disappear from existence like he never was?

Those thoughts were so depressing, it was almost enough to make me take up drinking. Then I realized I’m practically an alcoholic anyway and just continued drinking. I had a beer in his honor, then another, then 12 more.

As I was sitting on the couch with a buzz so heavy I couldn’t even concentrate on the plot line of ‘Two and a Half Men’, I was hit with a frightening thought. Was this his life? Was this what he did every night? Went home, after a shitty day at the office, getting yelled at by people he barely knew, trying to keep up with a workload that even an 8 year old Vietnamese kid in a Nike shop couldn’t handle, and drank until it was all blurry. Did he always tell himself he’d have more time? Take that vacation when he had more money. Start his own business when the economy got better. Tell his family he loved them tomorrow.

And then tomorrow never came.

Today my office put up a chalkboard next to his desk so people could write messages they didn’t mean to a dead man who would never read them. In honor of the occasion, our manager allowed us to wear jeans to work for free, rather than paying the $2 we usually have to. What a way to mark the end of a life. Being told we’re allowed to wear a garment that most of us would have worn anyway.

Next week, some new cubicle worker will be moved into his spot, the chalkboard will come down, and we’ll all have to pay $2 to wear jeans again. But that isn’t going to be Dave’s* only mark on the world.

I’m about 60 days away from getting fired. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not getting laid off. I’m getting fired and it’s happening because I am very bad at my job. Both I and my manager know I’ll never meet the standard and right now we’re simply going through the motions to please HR.

Now ask me if I’m afraid. It’s a bad economy. I’m in one of the most economically depressed states in the country, jobs are scarce and my salary would be impossible to match. The termination will be a black mark on my record that will probably forever bar me from working in the industry I’ve been working in for the past 8 years.

I’m not even a little bit scared. Why? Because failing at my jobs is like failing at masturbating. Sure, I could be good at it with practice, but it’s so much better when someone else is doing it.

There will be no more cubicles. There will be no more resumes talking about my ‘multi-tasking’ abilities and interviews that are really lying contests. Instead, when that termination day comes, I’m taking it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to live in a little blue box. I’m going full time with writing. I’m going to finish the sequel to my first book. Then I’m going to write another. I’m going to expand my freelancing business and when worst comes to worst, I will type out 100 SEO articles a day at some crappy content site to make ends meet. I’m going to live my life by my own terms and I will never, never, become someones “Free Jeans Friday”. The world is going to know I was here.

Thanks Dave.

*No silly pseudonyms tonight. His name was really Dave. I just think people should know that.

Rudeness – It Saves Lives

There’s a reason that I’ve made it to the tender age of 32 and have never been the victim of a violent crime. Its not my license to carry. Everyone in Florida has one of those. It’s not my knowledge of how to choke a man with his own shirt, which has actually only come in handy one time.

Airplay, anyone?

Nope. It is one tiny personality trait that has saved my white girl serial killer bait ass time and time again. Simply put, I am a massive bitch.

As always, I like to get started off with a little anecdote. Last night, I went to the store around 10 PM due to an emergency, the emergency being that it was 10 PM and I was still sober. Of course, anyone who’s been in a grocery store shortly before closing understands the demographic of patrons during that time period. Pretty much a bunch of shit faced dregs of society buying frozen hot wings and beer with EBT cards.

Anyway, as I’m standing in line with my six pack, there was a pretty blonde in front of me. Couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. In front of her was this 60 year old, pot bellied, wife beater wearing loser who was cashing out his one can of miller lite. She gives this guy a polite half smile and he took it as encouragement to start a drunken, rambling, creepy/flirty conversation with a girl half his age. This douche is leaning all over her, bitching about how his kids never call him and she’s looking awkward and uncomfortable the whole time.

But she was still attempting to be polite.

I wanted to ask her ‘Why?’ Why are you being nice to this guy? Best case scenario, you waste ten minutes of your life listening to some drunken asshole bitch about his kids while he tries to feel you up. Worst case scenario, you’ve just made yourself a target. Why? Because you didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Fuck his feelings. Here’s why;

Ted Bundy

John Wayne Gacy

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ted Bundy, who murdered more than 40 women between 1974 and 1978, faked injuries and would request help and gain sympathy from his victims, then would knock them unconscious with a crowbar before strangling them to death.

John Wayne Gacy, AKA the killer clown, murdered 24 people. He got his victims to voluntarily put on handcuffs when requesting help practicing his act. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what happened after the handcuffs. Hint: It did not include balloon animals.

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, murdered at least three women and raped 20 others. They would lure their victims into their vehicle under the pretense of asking for directions.

Ridiculously, I could go on and on with that list. And it bothers me. It bothered me that the girl in line would take a risk of being shoved into the trunk of some asshole’s car because she didn’t want to be impolite.

Occasionally, you just have to say screw politeness. My life is more important that what the guy who lives behind the CVS thinks of me.

Need directions? Try Google.maps. Lost your puppy? Should have had it on a leash. Help with your groceries because you have a broken arm? Do I look like your fucking butler? Those are the reactions I give when a stranger asks me for help. I am a bad, bad samaritan. Judging from the statistics I read tonight, there are thousand victims out there who would have been better off being bad samaritans’ too.

So, when it came my turn to go up to the register and drunken wife beater loser locked eyes with me, he was met with a vacant, slightly hostile, ball shrinking glare and a suggestion that he ‘move the fuck out of the way before I stab him with my car keys’. He called me a bitch under his breath and moved on.

And I’m pretty sure I’m ok with that.