Leelanau Whippersnapper

The Northwoods Is No Place For A Pink Flamingo

For most of my life I’ve always lived by the mantra that there are no stupid questions.  When someone has a question about something or questions a practice, definition, or some other aspect of life, I’ve always maintained that there truly must be a legitimate reason for asking those questions.  Then I started working in retail.  I’m not going to go into a long spiel here about some of the things I’ve been asked at work but I will say that I am sick and tired of being asked where the bathroom is and why we don’t have one in the back of the store.  I DON’T FUCKING KNOW DIP-SHIT, I didn’t build the store, I just work here.  Now, turn your lazy ass around and walk up to the front of the store and do what you should have taken care of before you left home.

Alright, that’s the most annoying question I get asked 500 times a day.  My rant tonight really has to do with the level of intelligence I see on a daily basis up here in the northwoods. Granted, I’m not highly educated but I do consider the 3rd grade lessons of speaking in complete sentences something that is important in every day life.  I do consider my adolescent years training of knowing how to read, understand, and communicate effectively through appropriate body language something that EVERY person should be able to do.

Alright, thats about all I want to say on that for tonight.  I don’t like to rant too much about work because I do like my job.  It’s just the people I can’t stand.

Most of you know I read a LOT of blogs on line that pretty much span the spectrum of intelligent political discussion to crude humour.  I ran across a quote that I thought was interesting on one of the more obscure blogs that I read.

“The so-called Christian nations are the most enlightened and progressive…but in spite of their religion, not because of it. The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetic in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. And every step in astronomy and geology ever taken has been opposed by bigotry and superstition. The Greeks surpassed us in artistic culture and in architecture five hundred years before Christian religion was born.”
- Mark Twain

Someone said on NPR the other day that Religion today is more important in the lives of people than at any other point in recent history.  I always have a lot to say about religion, especially science and religion.  It’s nice to know that one of the greatest writers in our history also knew of the asshattery of organized religion.

So now it’s off to bed.  Off on Tuesday, hopefully the weather will get better up here.  This pic cracks me up.

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What a GEEEEEEKKKK!!!  Here I am, outside enjoying a campfire at the cottage, and I’m sitting here with the laptop writing a blog!  Can I never escape technology?  The fisherman out in front of the house must think I’m crazy.

So anyhow, I’ve built a campfire and I’m trying not to get burned up as the wind blows directly into my face.  Gavin is asleep behind me.  We had quite a busy day today.  We hiked Pyramid Point today.  It was quite busy, lots of people around.  Gavin did well.  I have to practice waking with him on a leash lately, he’s so used to not having one and now that the Parks have started issuing tickets rather than just warnings, I have to keep him on one when we go anywhere in the park…(unless it’s completely deserted).  It was quite a nice day for a hike.  Low 70′s and a little overcast.  I got some great pictures that I will likely upload later on tonight once I go back inside for the night.  After that we went down to the beach for some stone hunting.  I found one Petoskey today.  They are getting harder and harder to find up here.  I think the tourists must have figured out what they were and they are taking them all.

After the beach we went home where I promptly fell asleep on the couch for 2 hours.  I was rudely awakened this morning by someone powerwashing my garage doors.  Apparently those are going to either be cleaned now or painted.  I don’t know which one but they could have at least waited to start that noisy shit until 8am don’t ya think?  Anyhow, that pissed off the dog and I just decided to get out of the house as soon as possiable today.  What I was getting as is that I was still quite tired.

It’s getting dark so early now.  It’s only 8PM and already it is dark…dark enough to make me look stupid sitting here outside with the laptop writting in my blog.  Oh well, at least it’s possiable to do.  Now that Dad is wireless, I can use all my toys inside and out and I can write in my blog while sitting in the boat!!…not exactly but close enough.

I’ll write more sometime tomorrow.  Look for new pictures at www.leelanauphotography.com either sometime tonight or tomorrow.

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This has been a rough week at work.  This time of year, I always prepare myself for exceptionally busy days, exceptionally rude customers, annoying (and mostly unsupervised) children tearing around the store, and self-professed Do-It-Yourselfers (who should not be doing ANYTHING themselves).  I prep myself each day before work and I tell myself not to take shit personally and for the most part I don’t.  This year is different.  I’ve been up here working in this job now for 4 years.  NEVER in those 4 years have I come across SO many people who are SO oblivious to every single other person around them.  Today alone, I had no fewer than 5 customers storm up to my desk, cut in to conversations I was having with OTHER customers who were there before them and rudely BARK what they wanted.  SO completely oblivious to the fact that there was anyone in front of them in line and so completely unaware that they were doing anything even remotely uncivilized.  This sort of behavior is usually reserved to the rich and privileged who have never worked a day in their pretty little lives but this sort of thing is leaching out of every class of person we see and it’s happening MUCH more frequently than at any other time that I can remember.  Even the day after Thanksgiving is not this full of arrogant assholes.

OK, usually when people are assholes to me, I will step back, and take a look at my OWN behavior.  Maybe I’m the one with the problem here, maybe I have the attitude and my existence is just pissing people off.  Once I determine that I’m in reasonably good spirits I look at the bigger picture, what’s my team doing? Is anyone else having these issues.  When it turns out that EVERYONE is having the same problems with customers then there is something much bigger going on, something beyond my direct control.  That’s where we are folks.  EVERY single person I talked to at work is having the same problems with rude, arrogant, and completely oblivious customers.  A LOT of these customers come in to the store just pissed off at the world and ready to fight with anyone who even DARES ask them how they are doing.

Reason:  Its the economy stupid.

So my rant for today is WAKE UP WORLD.  Your lives are ALL way too short to be so pissed off all the time.  You WILL NOT automatically get your way by being rude and inconsiderate of everyone around you, in fact, you will likely end up quite embarrassed that you were so foolish to believe you were ANY better or more important than the person in front of you.  YOUR behavior is the problem, it’s not my fault that you don’t know what the fuck you are doing, it’s not MY fault that you can’t read directions, it’s not MY fault that you are an impatient bastard.  GROW UP FOLKS, love each other…make love not war…

Fucking bastards.

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The following has been stolen from Wally’s Joke Mail and reposted here without permission.  I did not write these but I’m not sure Wally did either since I’ve seen these same things posted elsewhere.  Pay attention to the highlighted ones.  These are statements I find particularly disturbing and true in my neck of the woods.  Traverse City is not by definition a conservative area in the same way that Grand Rapids is but some of the back woods boys up here would sure like you to believe it’s all about American Flags and guns!

1. You have to be against abortion, but support capital punishment on demand.
2. You have to believe that governments create oppression and businesses create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that the man wearing a turban in the airport is more of a terrorist than the white man carrying a concealed gun.
4. You have to believe that federal funding is a handout and that disadvantaged people should be able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” just like you and your daddy and his daddy before him.
5. You have to believe that someone made up global warming to scare you into not driving that gas-guzzling SUV.
6. You have to believe that being sexually confused is an abomination that God hates.
7. You have to believe that the people advocating those afflicted with AIDS should “stop whining.”
8. You have to believe that if schools don’t provide sex education and/or condoms, then kids just won’t think about sex and it will all just go away.
9. You have to believe that animal rights activists aren’t doing “what God intended,” but hunters are.
10. You have to believe that if someone has fallen on hard times it is their own fault and they should be given no help.
11. You have to believe that God lives in your own little box and that He hates all the same things and people you do.
12. You have to believe that the ACLU is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the NRA is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that the tax on your yacht is too high and that the homeless man isn’t being taxed enough.
14. You have to believe that the contributions to American history made by Caucasian men are more important than those made by women and African-Americans.
15. You have to believe that Black History Month is reverse racism, but the Confederate flag is just a historical symbol.
16. You have to believe that any war we fight is for a good reason, because the president said so.
17. You have to believe that God loves everyone, except for gay people.
18. You have to believe that this message is part of a crazy, left-wing revolution.

Some people are just irritating.  Others are just plain stupid.

The population is beginning to change now up here for the summer.  Today I pulled into The Coffee Bean to grab a cup of coffee on my way home from work and I had to park next to what I think was the BIGGEST SUV I’ve ever seen in my life.  It was the size of a small school bus, it was BRIGHT white (I hate white cars) and it was clearly driven by someone who cares nothing about how that vehicle makes them look when gas is now at $4.00 a gallon up here.  I would venture to say that the owner of that car has been made rich by the stupidity of others and is now showing off his ego. The only thing missing from this truck was a set of bulls balls for the hitch. (I don’t know who the woman is below, this is just to show you what bulls balls are).

Summer time up here brings with it some pretty crazy people.  Some even more so than the back woods meth-heads that populate the area in the winter.  These people have money, love to show it off, and care about nobody but themselves.  To the locals these people who come up here only on the weekends and then somehow think they live here are known as Fudgies…a horrendously bad nickname in the first place.  These are the folks who whistle at me at work in order to try and get my attention to help them.  Guess what folks, I don’t stop for people who whistle at me.  I’ll loose a sale before I am treated like that.  I’m not a dog, I don’t have a tail.  If you want to treat me like you would a dog than you had better have a treat for me in that fucking bag of yours or I’m going to jump on you, bite you and give you rabies you stupid fucks.  Pardon me, will you help me?.. works much better.

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Wow, what a day at work today.  It was really busy but nobody was buying much.  You can tell this economy is in the shitter or headed that way, lots of lookers but very few serious buyers.  That makes my job quite difficult.  Over all it was a decent day and I’m excited.  The garden center was open today for the first time this season.  That means I can start looking at the summer goods and seeing what fun things I can buy (although since I’m moving this fall, I likely won’t bother spending my money).

Spent this evening outside raking leaves out of my garden pit.  I’ve got to pick up some mole traps again this year.  They’ve not started yet but I can feel that I’m going to have problems again.  I don’t think the random cats around here will do much to control the problem.  I will be doing another vegetable garden again this summer.  Since I’ll be here for pretty much the entire growing season, it doesn’t make much sense to just let those expensive raised garden beds and premium soil sit there to be used as a big cat box.  Not sure what I’m going to plant, hopefully I can start just about everything from seed this year.  Last year I could not do much form seed because my team member got hurt and I was working 80 hours a week.  I’ve already told the GM’s that I refuse to pull that shit again this year.  My team is perfectly able to run the show when I’m not there…well most of the time they are…they will be after my department meeting with them on Tuesday.  That’s another post.

Here’s some music to listen to while you look at the picture below.

The Winter’s Gone

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Why do I always have to work and be around dip shits?  Some readers will say – loose your fucking ego David, you’re nobody special and you’re working in retail what do you expect?  OK.  Now tell me why, when you have the opportunity to make a sale – you don’t- but rather you send the customer on a search through the store to the WRONG department (mine) so I get to deal with their attitude at having to walk BACK to YOUR department because you don’t have a fucking clue what you sell.  You know, sometimes it’s just too much drama to even be interesting.  Grow up folks, this is the real world now not fucking high school.  If you can’t do the job correctly, don’t fucking do it at all.  I REALLY hate having my time wasted by idiots.

I expect dumb ass, inconsiderate, and stupid behavior from kids.  I don’t understand why I’m supposed to expect it from 30 year old adults too.

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I thought about doing a pictoral essay on Christmas Eve 2007 but then I figured a big sassy picture of the Grinch would just not do justice to my day.  I had only one pleasant part of my day and that was a nice fat steak dinner at my parents.  Yum.

Work was, well, stupid to put it nicely.  It was slow as expected.  What I had forgotten about however was that the typical Christmas Eve shopper is a complete ASSHOLE with a capitol A.  Not only have they put off shopping for Christmas until just a few hours before, they all seem to forget that we employees have families too that we would MUCH rather be spending time with for this holiday.  Even if you are not religious, this holiday in America is about spending time with family.  Do you really think that ANYONE working today actually wanted to be there?  Do you really think that ANY of us give a flying fuck that you are pissed off because we are closing early so WE can spend time with OUR families?  No, you people don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.   FUCK ALL OF YOU, start shopping earlier next year you MORONS.

Here’s the part where I had a great meal with my folks.

Now on to the part where I am home at the computer and all I can smell in the house is CAT PEE.  I couldn’t take it anymore tonight.  I spent 3 hours cleaning the basement where my roommate lives.  I cleaned the laundry room, her bathroom floors, the entry way (where the cat pee was), I vaccummed for what I guessed was the first time since she moved in.  I had resolved ONLY to keep the laundry room clean since that was a common area of the basement.  She is a grown woman, I am not her fucking housekeeper.  She has free reign of all the other rooms and I don’t feel by any stretch that it is in any way my responsibility to clean her living space.  I clean my living space daily (thanks Mom for training me not to be a complete slob).  I keep the floors clean, I pick up after myself, I do the dishes, I make my bed, I clean my clothes, I fucking shower DAILY.  She does none of those things and I have a FULL vacuum bag to prove it.  Sadly, when she returns from her little holiday, she will not have noticed that anything is different.  I will not be thanked for cleaning up her cat’s pee and litter that was all over the floor.  I won’t be thanked for throwing out a dipping sauce from 3 months ago that had things growing on it.  I won’t be thanked for clipping the dead leaves off her pathetic looking house plants and watering them.  She won’t notice that the floor is clean, her laundry is folded, the cat boxes are clean and they all have food.  She won’t know that I threw away 5 really old orange peels that had dried up or that I spent 30 minutes cleaning the carpets with spot treatment to get who knows what out of the floors that weren’t there before she moved in.

The fact that I’ve still managed to remain civil to her is amazing.  I should in fact receive a gold star but alas I won’t.  She’s been bitching lately that it smells in the basement.  WELL DUHHHHHHH dip shit.  When you don’t pick up after yourself things STINK.

Anyhow, I’m done now.  Now I’m going to relax and finish preparing for Christmas Day.  I still have a couple of things yet I need to do with the gifts and I’ll be good to go.  Have a Happy Christmas readers, I’ll be back on the 26th or soon there after with more from my crazy life.

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