Yeah, about tonight's/Saturday night's Lynx Game ... as always, I get up to two tickets, and as usual, I don't use one of them and go by myself because none of my friends are sports fans.  But I got yelled at by one of my friends, or "friends," when I posted about the other ticket I got for the Timberwolves playoff Game in which they eliminated Denver.  He wanted a direct message.  I'm thinking, "Bitch, I have to cater to your ass over everyone else I know?"  I guess I understand that people get busy, but the more I think about it, the more entitled he sounds.  The hell does he get off asking me for special treatment?

And yet I don't want this ticket to go to waste.  And finally, I want to DM him about this offer to see how grateful, or even normal, he will act if we sit next to each other to watch the Game.  I can't believe he'll behave like a dick who thinks he deserves to be waited on hand and foot.  But if he does, well, I'll have proof beyond doubt to never offer anything to him again.  So, should I do it?

Nightmare

This nightmare happened this morning.

I was working, or at least at, a casino.  I was gathering up matchsticks in a junk drawer and gave them to either a security guard who, if I was working there, would be my co-worker.  I then walked around the casino, but it wasn't walking, really.  It was more like floating down the hallway.  Oh, and I guess I wasn't at the part of the casino where all the slot machines and table games were.  I was, like, at the outer portion, the lobby portion (?), where you're getting into the casino proper.  Anyway, I wasn't floating free.  Something was holding me back.  I wasn't floating as fast as I wanted to.

While floating not free, I noticed this person who didn't work at the casino go into, like, a security desk.  But he was told not to, and either as or after I passed this desk, I heard a security guard shouting that this guy was not allowed inside the security desk.  That is when I felt this wave of panic, as if something bad was about to happen.

That's when I woke up.

I haven't had a nightmare in some time.  Guess I haven't slept so deeply in a long time.

Feet Are Hot

I think for the past week, though it might be only the past several days, my feet have been burning up.  I have had to sleep under the covers, but with my feet sticking out through either the bottom or, more likely, the side of my blanket.  And overnight, I actually slept about 6 1/2 hours above my sheets.

I don't know how this is happening.  What I really, really want to do is go outside and put my bare feet in the snow and leave them there until my feet get numb.  It's as if my body is just firing all this heat down to my feet, and by subjecting them to this intense cold for so long, my body will just reset, like a rebooted computer, and my feet won't feel so hot anymore.  But I can't do that because my parents will yell at me.

My feet are still hot.  They might continue to be hot when I finally go out to plow the snow.

Addendum To: Why Doesn't My Sister Just Fuckin' Have My Car, Huh?!

Yesterday/Monday morning I woke up early, or tried to wake up early, to see if I moved all my stuff from my car to the minivan, which I planned to take to work because, again, it looked as though I would have to use the van from today/Tuesday through Friday, so what the hell, why don't I just use the van all week?

As I was leaving, I see My Father putting his shoes on.  Where's he going?  A doctor's appointment, I would learn later.  He didn't tell me this anytime it would have been useful to me; guess I know from whom I get my propensity to keep secrets.  Anyway, it looked as though he planned on using the minivan.  Mother was up at the time and tried to ask him if he should use the car instead, which led to him just bolting out the door, which led to her telling me to tell him if I wanted to use the van instead, which led to me kind of yelling at her that that's exactly what I was fucking doing.

I stopped Father in time to look into the van.  It was clean; I didn't remember, but apparently on Saturday night, I did take time after I came back from the Game I was watching to put all my stuff back into my car.  (Remember, all that stuff about planning on using the minivan all week wasn't a thought in my head until Sunday, when my sister said that she was taking the car tomorrow/Wednesday to meet her friend for dinner.)  Meanwhile, My Father got into the minivan and peeled off to the doctor's like he just robbed a bank; I don't remember the last time he took off for anywhere that fast.

So, I used my car yesterday/Monday.  And it turns out I will be using it tomorrow/Wednesday, as well.  My sister told me that the dinner her friend wants to set up changed from tomorrow/Wednesday to today/Tuesday.  Also, Father has another doctor's appointment then.  So that means that after I come back from work tonight/Tuesday night I'll have to move all my stuff from the minivan into my car (I have already put all the stuff I'll need for work today/Tuesday in the minivan).  And then after work tomorrow/Wednesday, I'll have to move all my stuff from my car into the minivan, which I will use to get to work Thursday and Friday.

Man, life will be so much simpler once everybody leaves.

My God, It's Hot

Feels like summer right now.  Walking out in the Sun this afternoon and the rays have taken all the energy from me.  Don't want to do anything right now, and yet I have everything to do.

This would be hot enough for My Father to turn on the air conditioning.  That means he would have to come into my bedroom to close the window.  From there, he probably will pick up after me, like a goddamn loser.  And when I come home, he'll yell at me for not picking up after myself in the bedroom.  And then we will fight, and I won't have dinner for, like, the next week.  I should have closed the window before I left.  But then again, like I said in my previous blog post, why would that stop him?

Caulking And Not Doing Things For Myself

The last fucking thing I need is to do house maintenance.  I was taking a faux bath to appease My Fucking Father when the entire shower assembly tore away from the wall.  It's not like I destroyed it, but it needs to be re-caulked.  Motherfucker.

I just looked up how to do it.  They say it's easy.  Bullshit.  I need to remove the old caulk, then I need to disinfect it and let it dry.  And then I have to re-caulk it and smooth it over.  And then I have to wait, sometimes (according to the videos I saw) up to two days.  And that's after I need to find all the damn tools to do this, which I probably don't have.

I'm tempted to tell My Fucking Father this, but I know he'll go ballistic.  He will also probably yell at me: "Why are you telling me to do this?  Do this yourself!  You're a grown man!"  Funny, his hypocrisy.  Back in the spring I was putting tabs on my license plates.  I remember a long time ago him telling me, "You should learn how to put the tabs on the licenses yourself!  This is your car, and you're old enough to know how!"  He abandoned me, I learned on my own, and I finally got to learning how to do it, no fucking thanks to him.  But as I was doing it and being very careful about it, not just putting the tabs on the licenses but unscrewing the frames and cleaning all the surfaces of the frame, the license and the car, My Fucking Mother pestered My Fucking Father into helping me.  I didn't ask for this shit, but while I was letting the frames and plates dry, My Fucking Father just took them into the garage.

I was doing this a bit before dinnertime.  I thought I had time because, you know, it isn't that long of a task, and I know how to do it now.  But as I was eating, My Fucking Father went back outside and screwed the licenses and frames back on my car.  And I will tell you that he did a half-ass job; the tabs should line up on top of each other, and he just slapped those stickers on.

I admit I am thinking of ways to get angry at My Fucking Parents, but My Fucking Parents do so much that it's almost an obligation to point it out.  And I will point out that My Fucking Father says I should learn how to do things only for him to do things for me.  Which is it?  Which will it be when I have to tell My Fucking Father the bathroom fixtures need re-caulking?  Is he going to make me do it, or is he going to do it himself, probably do a bad job ... and then blame me for not knowing how to do it?

Addendum To: My Fucking Parents Are Fucking Psychos

What I truly hate about my parents, especially right now, is that they do things, and make me do things, with no advanced warning.  Yesterday, I was woken up by both My Fucking Mother and My Fucking Father to help them clean up my former bedroom, which, for some goddamn reason, is going to be the bedroom My Fucking Mother recuperates in when she gets knee surgery.  She says she can only go up the stairs after surgery and not down.  That's bullshit.

Anyway, even though this surgery hasn't even been scheduled yet, they both decided, out of the blue, that they're going to redesign it.  And that meant both shitty parental units woke me up to move heavy, heavy things around.  That was bad enough because I had a long day working a Gopher football Game.  But when My Fucking Father decided to bang his hammer to get the bedframe aligned, I sighed loud enough for My Fucking Mother to lose her goddamn mind.  "I do everything for you!  I cook and clean and give you beds!  And I ask you to do this one thing, and you get so mad!"  And I realized yesterday that she is a fucking toxic narcissist.  It has always been about her, her, her.  And after years of insulting me, acting hurt over shoving gifts in my face for which I didn't ask is the ultimate sign of mental manipulation.  And she and My Fucking Father tore my bags into shreds because they wanted to get into a locked part of my desk.  They call me unreasonable???

I don't bother arguing with either of them anymore because they can't speak English well enough to understand my nuanced emotional points.  Now, I don't bother arguing with them because they are too goddamn narcissistic to see how hypocritical dicks they are.  Fuck them both.  If they want to throw me out of the house for throwing my stuff on the floor, they have to kill me.  What assholes.

Just had a thought: I've been working so many long hours, including while my boss was away, that, assuming he came back to check my timesheets, he may see this as an opportunity to finally ... well, let's say confront me about my hours.

I've come to the conclusion that I have to stay to complete the work.  Measures supposedly were taken to lighten the workload, but with one important but small (when it comes to the workload) difference, it hasn't changed at all.  The main issue, to me, remains that there isn't a second person helping out day after day to take stuff off my plate.  Without that, everything falls on me to do.  That's why I stay late and accrue overtime.  If I don't and leave early, all the stuff I left will be waiting for me the next day, and you can add that to all the other stuff that comes in that next day.  The work accumulates, and if there's only one person doing it, well, that person is doing it.  So, if I don't stay late and do it all that day, I'll have to stay even later and do it all the next day.

I hope my boss understands that, but because my co-workers are apparently superhuman beings who get all their stuff done on time, I am becoming more and more confident he is going to come down on me -- either set new rules, set an ultimatum about ... something, or just yell at me like he has before.  And all because I'm just doing my job to the best of my ability, huh.

Glad Last/Sunday Night Is Over

So after lunch and learning that I'm helping Father stick an EKG monitor on his bare chest, I hear Mother screaming at Father, over something.  I have never known what they've ever argued over, but I haven't heard Mother yell like that in a long, long time.

We eat a very early dinner (four hours after lunch, which is insane).  I was the one who attached this EKG on Father; Mother was in her office doing her own thing.  I go up to my bedroom and eventually take an early-evening nap before going out to exercise.  Mother bangs on my door to wake me up.  I'll expound on this hopefully in a different blog post, but never wake me up from sleep.  I hate that.

She gets me out to the dinner table.  She needs help booking their flight, although she actually said, "You promised to help me with my frequent flier miles," which is something I don't ever remember her saying.  It was obvious she was in the kind of mood she has often been in after yelling at Father -- wounded, feeling like a victim and lashing out because she felt entitled.  And this type of thing My Fucking Mother ropes me in to doing for her is the type of thing she usually ropes me in to do for her, which is something that has to do with not understanding English words and some elements of the task I believe she knows how to do, but doesn't want to do them because she wants to act helpless.  Besides all that, I feel like I've been dropped in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm figuring what the hell I need to do, but, and this is also typical of her, whenever I run into a roadblock or something I don't understand, she goes, "Well, what are we going to do?"  And I've gotten a little better at pointing to her, "Um, we are not doing anything.  You brought me into this because you don't want to do this.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do."  (She also has this tick where I say something to her and she goes, "I know."  She clearly isn't using that phrase when she's supposed to, but I still get triggered because I take her literally at her word, and I want to say to her, "No, you don't know!"  But that's another blog post.)

I can't book a flight online.  Mother asks me to call for her, fuckin' A.  The call wait time is 2 1/2 hours.  They invite me to text instead, so I tell My Mother I'm going to leave for the gym and just text the airline about this.  So as I'm putting on my shoes, my sister calls My Mother.  There is another matter my sister wants to talk to her about.  "Has Unforgivable Wetness talked to you about it yet?" my sis says.  "No," Mother replied, "He doesn't want to talk to me about it."  And I had to shout from the bottom, "That's not true!" and I went back up to the dining room to get my face on Mother's phone to tell my sister Mother's lying, and then to tell Mother that if she wants to talk about this other matter, she should talk to me, otherwise I'm assuming she's handling it herself.  Goddamn.  I've always thought I've gotten my self-pity from Father.  But I might be wrong.

Anyway, I got the gym but had to delay exercising because I was busy texting with the airline rep, or the bot, who knows?  There are no flights available.  So I come home, see Mother at the other side of the front door ... and she's all calm and stuff.  If she weren't calm, she wouldn't even look at me.  So maybe she's gotten over what she needed to get over.

At any rate, this was a Sunday that was a little too eventful.  Glad it's over.

The Place Where Pop Bottles Are Still Cheap (Well, Not Anymore, At Least Not Quite)

As I've gotten older, I have gotten more attuned to how much things cost.  I guess I could have been more aware of that earlier, but maybe that ignorance is a sign of how blessed/privileged I am.  Still, inflation is a thing (though it shouldn't've been enough to throw Joe Biden out of the race), and even I am beginning to grouse about the price of things.

To wit: Pop.  It increased the past several years to the point where I reconsidered that a second reason (the first being that it's bad for you) to cut back on drinking it as much as I have.  Emphasis on the past tense: I might be a caffeine addict or have a sugar tooth, but after cutting back, the withdrawal was too much for me to take, and I have been back on my pop tip since.  But still, I notice.  And I have tried to counteract that by keeping a mental list of how much a bottle of pop is at the grocery stores and gas stations I buy them from, so that maybe I will patronize places that sell it regularly for cheaper.

There was one place that consistently sold it for cheaper: The mom-and-pop grocer not too far from here.  While a bottle was going for $2.79 and up, this place was selling them for, get this, $2.19.  Whoa!  Now I fully understood the concept of comparison shopping.  Why in the hell would I buy the same bottle of pop for sixty cents more -- sixty?!  The problem is that I did not patronize buying bottles of pop here as much as I should have.  I usually succumbed to convenience -- for example, since I was already at the gas station to get gas, I might as well buy the pop there, even if it is $2.79.

And now I feel regret about not exploiting that financial disparity.  For one thing, I went to a gas station to get gas for my car late last/Thursday night, and I noticed that they are, ugh, $2.99 there (although you can buy two for $4.50 or something, I think).  More unfortunate, however, is that the mom-and-pop grocer recently, and finally, raised the price of pop bottles they sell -- to $2.49.  Yes, it's still a pretty sizable bargain compared to what you'd get at other places around town.  But I swear a bottle was selling for $2.49 everywhere not too long ago.  And the reason I didn't hoard bottles there at $2.19 is that my parents would yell at me for indulging in such a sugary drink, and they're coming back soon, so I can't hoard at $2.49, either.

At this point, the grocery store will ratchet it up to $2.79 soon enough, and then I'd have to question how much of a difference it would be to buy there instead of anywhere else.  But for the longest time, a bottle of pop there (and it was both Coke and Pepsi products) was just $2.19.  Those were the days, man, those were the days. ...

Hot MAGAts

The election has made me finally decide to do something I only dreamt about.  I am compiling a list of all the Facebook friends I befriended only because they posted pictures of themselves in bikinis who also were proud to have voted Republican, or at least Trump, but probably both.

Why?  I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  I'm still contemplating publishing a manifesto/screed about how people who voted for him are dumb.  I've also thought about finding anti-Trump memes and sending them to all these women through Messenger.  I might wait until he actually, gulp ick, gets to be "President" again and send these hot MAGAts a news story about him saying or doing something stupid and/or cruel, then going, "This is the asshole you voted for???"

Basically I want to scold them.  Because more often than not (there are a few hot MAGAts I will not do this to because, and this is self-serving, they've been nice to me), they are fully in the cult and exhibit the worst characteristics of this dumb fucking movement: The inability to think critically, prizing selfishness over the greater good, the unearned cockiness, and the idea that they know something we "normies" don't, and bless our souls for being so innocent and doe-eyed.  It's really, really sad to see so many gorgeous women that are, well, fucking stupid.  And so I'm torn between calling them out for the ignorant, racist and sexist filth that they are ... and hoping they send me nude photos of them.  Yep, I'm a hypocrite.

Have I Mentioned How Much I Hate Going Into The Lab?

I don't know why my work schedule is getting to me this week, but it is.  I was in The Fourth Department to start off the week, and then yesterday/Wednesday I was in Filing for the first half of the day, then keying the back half.  Today/Thursday I am in The Third Department to start off, but only for two hours, then I'm in My Main Department the rest of the day, working the scanner in the afternoon, and I don't know how good I feel about that.  Finally, tomorrow/Friday I'm out there all day, including my weekly trip into the lab to cut open packages and reach into piss.

My time in My Main Department increases throughout the week from zero to four to six to eight, and while I usually like varying my workday because it keeps me awake, seeing my workweek end in the lab this week puts me off.  It ends my week with a thud.  I prefer (at least right now; my mood can change if you ask me another time) getting the worst part of my job out of the way in the middle of the week because my workweek only gets better from there, while this week will end in a nadir.

It probably is my own fault, but I have made little to no effort to make my time back there a good or even an endurable one.  Case in point was my time in there last week.  I unfortunately had to work next to the old hag, the one who threw a package I shoved her way in order to get all the work done.  Partly because of that, uh, incident, but also because I was in hell, I just kept to myself -- I didn't grouse or bitch, but I certainly wasn't gregarious.  I just did my job in order to be done with it.

It is possible that this, uh, lab worker was making entreaties to me, but I admit that any time she said something to me, I kept my comments to a brief "OK" without making eye contact.  Was it possible that my terseness was the reason that, when I moved over an open package from one side of the table to the other, she angrily yelled, "Leave that over there!  We are closed!"?  Probably, possibly, who knows?  All I know is that because of that moment, I am justified in not acting totally friendly to her.  Seriously, what is her fucking problem?

Meanwhile, my problem is that I hate this part of the job so much that it's beginning to affect my whole job.  I don't have to do this crap until tomorrow and I'm allowing it to piss me off.  But I can't help but think about it because I know I will have to do it.  You know, that reaction should be impetus enough to find a new job.  And I guess I will ... when I have the time and the energy to do it.  Which is not now.

Yesterday/Wednesday Was A Low-Key Not-Good Day

Despite having a relatively slow and easy day at work, it was a bad day.  Why?  Allow me to list them:

• Well, the world.  I just don't understand how a fucking demented, racist and convicted felon who has vowed to do the bidding of conservative oligarchs to implement what basically is fascism to America isn't thrown into the fucking ocean instead of being nominated for President, and, more weirdly, everybody looks at one debate, doesn't look at what Joe Biden has done, and is demanding he drop out by insinuating that everybody close to him wants him to drop out.  (Seriously, the journalism surrounding this ... for lack of a better word, "plan" is so coordinated that it seems fishy.  Really, it feels like some trick a Republican would make up.  And it sure as shit ain't journalism.)  Everywhere, no one cares the fire is spreading, and no one wants to speak about it.
• Got yelled at by a customer.  I was doing my job, making sure a test gets run, and she goes, "You are delaying testing."  Asshole, I am doing my job.  Also, you are not the one who gets to tell me how I'm doing my job.  I would rather not shunt dealing with prick customers to someone else, but I think I only do it for, like, two companies.  I think I can add a third.  I really think I need to so long as I am at this job, because I was close to saying something I should not have said.
• During the day I called the ticket rep to whom I'm coordinating this mass purchase of tickets for my alma mater's football Game here.  I still don't know what to expect, but I got some clarity, and it's bad news, too: Most of the seats some of us want to sit in are already gone.  In fact, we might have to sit in the upper deck, and I don't know if they want to sit up there.  Also, we are going to pay a hefty convenience fee.  Oh, and we don't know when we can buy them.  All those factors are really harshing my mellow.
• Saw the Loons lose.  They lost handily and awfully, to Vancouver, 3-1, and it wasn't that close.  The Whitecaps scored their first Goal when they pounced on a piss-poor slow backpass to the Goalkeeper, who is the third-string one called up from their MNUFC2 reserve team.  Add a header where the guy out-jumped our guy by a full head, then add a completely unmarked guy getting a golazo from just outside the box, and these fuckheads have now lost five in a row.  And I'm giving these guys money as a season-ticketholder!
• Ate a lot.  I ate a whole lot the day before -- a roll Mother made for me to eat at work, then dinner, then a Cheez-It Crunchwrap from Taco Bell (although I don't think I got the Cheez-It), then I ate peanuts to keep me awake for the Colombia-Brazil Copa America Match, then I ate the banana Father made for me to eat at work.  Yesterday/Wednesday I had another roll.  On the way to Allianz Field some kids were selling cookies, so I bought one.  I ate this smashburger and mac 'n' cheese at the United FC Match.  Because they lost, I went to Kwik Trip to drink a Wild Cherry Pepsi.  Then I ate a banana Father packed for me.  I was wearing a medium USWNT jersey, and I could feel it wrap around my fat stomach, and I think I getting fat around my sides, too.  God, I need to exercise again.
• Finally, my car's acting up again.  The short rattling noises when I accelerate are back.  I haven't heard them for a while, but I have been accelerating slowly when I can.  If this is something getting worse no matter how much I baby my car, I will have to bring it in sooner than I want.

But hey, it's a midweek holiday!

Goddamn Pothole!!!

Last/Friday night I went out after dinner just because my parents were fighting extremely loudly.  I hadn't heard that scream at each other like that since they both got home.  I had to leave, just to get away from that bullshit, even though I was scared I would come back home (after only 20 minutes) to see police cars and yellow tape around the house, then Father staggering out the door holding Mother's head in his palms while crying.

Anyway, I took that occasion to drop off the check I had to pay for my almost-towed car, and then I decided to drive a bit to a gas station to pick up a bottle of Coke.  There are two ways to get back home from this gas station; instead of the side streets, I decide to pick it up a little and go on an on-ramp that gets me onto a road that has a higher speed limit.  Well, I drove on it once before, and I forgot that there is a pothole or a giant fucking grand canyon (one of the two) on this on-ramp because I just felt a huge drop and whomp! on the left side of my car.  In the morning (or afternoon) I'll have to check if my tires are still inflated.  It was that deep and disruptive.  And since this is the second time I've done this, I have to make sure not to take that route home again.

Partial side note: Nearly all the cars I have ever driven never felt smooth running over a pothole.  Maybe it's me, but I feel as though a good car would keep it steady as she goes while driving, always.

Sidelined This Week

For the first time in months, if not years, I am scheduled for a full week away from The Fourth Department.  Lot of changes for me, even though I started off with such a schedule.  I cannot help but think that my boss is sidelining me because of all the overtime I am forced to accrue back there.  And so that, to me, seems like a demotion.  And I don't like that.

On the other hand, I don't have to worry about him getting on my case over OT.  The Main Department is very time-controlled; unless that day's work doesn't get done, overtime there is next to impossible unless it's allowed for some other work that needs to be done.  But I don't want to feel relieved that my boss can't yell at me anymore because that would make me feel like a coward for not being able to put up with his crap.  So, no, I shouldn't like this week, especially since I now need to wake up an hour early, which I hate.

The only other upside (which has nothing to do with my boss) is that I get to go home immediately after work at a certain time.  That means, ironically, I have time to not go home and instead watch, say, Dune 2, or talk to my therapist over the phone.  I will probably complain to him about how I hate my job and need to find a new one.  Yeah, that's what I'm going to do after work this week.

And This Is Why I Hate Calling People At Work

Overall, my interactions with people when I need to get on the phone at work have been good and professional.  I get what I want, and I usually don't get any shit.  But then bullshit like what happened yesterday/Tuesday happens, and I'm like, "Ugh."

It was late in the day.  After spending the first half of my day catching up on all the crap I had to leave from work Monday, I finally got through the new work when I saw an e-mail that had been sitting there for a few hours.  A supervisor in the lab wanted me to call a collection site because they received a bag of ... well, I shouldn't say too much, I'll just say that in that bag there were unusual but non-illicit things that the sender might or might not want to be tested.  It wasn't the ten-hour slog that Monday was, but seeing that e-mail was one final frustration I didn't want to deal with as I was winding down my day, but I did have some time and it had been sitting around, so I called.

This was near the end of the workday.  That is the only logical reason I can think of for how the person who picked up reacted to this situation and how I described it.  I laid out what's going on ... well, actually I just retold what was on the e-mail to me.  Anyway, she interrupted me and said, "Stop!  Stop!  Stop!"  The hell?  Don't tell me to stop, woman.  I swear I wasn't yelling at her.  I didn't even raise my voice to her.  But apparently it was the end of the day, and she had to pick up her kids or buy her daily crack from her dealer or something, because she was rudely overwhelmed with me telling her we got a box of crap from her company.  My fucking God, it isn't a big deal, and yet she was screaming at me like it was the end of the world.  Or the end of hers, I don't know.

Anyway, she needed some time away from me and from work and this situation, so she asked if I could call her tomorrow, which of course I could, go get in that meditation session.  In the meantime she demanded pictures of the stuff that came in.  I e-mailed the lab to see if I could get those sent to me before I called her, for which I (smartly or stupidly) arranged to set a time to call back.  Talking to her for as little as possible seems to be the wise way to go, lest she go off on me even after getting a full night's sleep.  Man, all I fucking needed to know from her was what she wants us to do with a fucking bag.  She needs to calm the fuck down, shit. ...

Now I Know I Should Have Gone To The Concert ...

... because I flooded the basement.

Well, I don't want to say that I flooded the basement.  Anyway, since I wasn't going to the Fleet Foxes concert, I figure I should do a load of laundry.  What I didn't notice -- and I guess I should have -- is that for some dumb reason, one of my parents moved the drainpipe.  I've blog posted about this before: Other families have their washing machine drainpipe shoved into their standpipe which takes the dirty laundry water out of the house.  We don't, and I think we're one of the few who just hangs our drainpipe in our sink.  Well, either Father or Mother was doing something in the laundry room sink and thought that drainpipe was in the way, so he or she tucked it behind the faucet and didn't aim it back into the sink once he or she was done.  I should have noticed this because whoever was doing work in the sink left some things in the sink, stuff I thought needed to be moved so that the drainpipe had room to spray into the sink ... even though I didn't check to see if the goddamn drainpipe was aimed into the sink.

Yes, I should have checked, but it didn't have to be moved in the first fucking place!

OK, got that off of my chest.  I had a large-enough load to set the wash cycle for 90 minutes.  I checked the washer at Halftime of El Trafico, which I seeing on Apple TV+ on my phone.  Thank Buddha I did; I stepped into the pantry, which is on the way to the laundry room, and then I put my foot down and splashed water, and that freaked the shit outta me.  The drainpipe was aimed out the door of the laundry room.  But there was enough water that there was standing water on the floor of the laundry room and the pantry.  I thought that somehow the sink was so clogged that the water came over its walls.  That's when I noticed the fucking drainpipe shooting out where it wasn't supposed to be.

So fuck watching the rest of that soccer Match, and to hell with listening to "4th of July" before the end of the 4th of July.  I had major water clean-up to do.  I had some Shamwows I thought I left in the laundry room, but I couldn't find them.  They would have helped a lot, but apparently I put them in storage.  So I need a mop.  The mop is supposed to be in the laundry room, but I couldn't find that, either.  But there was a tiny mop I saw, and I had to use this inadequate, shrimpy thing instead.

The next big concern besides trying to mop up the standing water is moving the stuff on the floor of the pantry.  I hadn't really noticed until last night that there is a lot of stuff everywhere, including the pantry.  And unfortunately, most of the things on the floor are boxes, and so the water ruined them.  So I had to get to moving those and hopefully saving whatever the hell's in them.  But I saw stuff on top of these boxes, namely shoeboxes -- piles and piles and piles of shoeboxes.  These belong to Mother, but I damn sure know she doesn't use them.  Why in the hell does she have so many?

That small mop wasn't working, so I relied on this childish trick to get Father's attention without actually going over to ask for his help.  I just started moving the shoeboxes over to a dry area in the basement really, really loudly.  He finally got up from the computer room, where he was, to ask me why I was making such a commotion.  That's when he saw the piles of shoes in the exercise room and that is when I asked where the hell the mop is.

I suspect Father was the one who moved the drainpipe and didn't put it back.  I am still in a stage where I reflexively blame my parents whenever I can prove they have done something wrong.  That is in reaction to all the times I was a kid and they yelled at me for doing something wrong, and not wrong.  But I have to give him credit.  He helped with finding the mop and then mopping the whole pantry floor.  And he said he would put everything back where it was once everything was dried up.

That's real cool, seeing as I have work in the morning.  But he may be, in fact, too chill.  For example, there are a lot of bottles that we put underneath the sink, and the dirty water got down there, too.  One of them put paper bags underneath the bottles because some of them contain cooking oil (don't ask).  Those got super wet, so I figured I would replace them.  But I was going to wait until I finished drying my laundry to do that.  Well, I met Father when I went upstairs to wait, and by the time I went downstairs to get my clothes, he had already put these wet bags in another bag, but they were so waterlogged that they were leaking through that paper bag and onto the tile floor.  I think he knew that  was going to happen but didn't care, he was just going to clean that all up in the morning.  I happened to sweat my way through mopping, and so I was going to take a shower I didn't plan on taking, so I figured I would take those bags out to the recycling bin and clean up the dirty water with the, well, Shamwow that, turns out, was in the laundry room.  I didn't look hard enough.  That's further proof that I maybe should have looked to see where the drainpipe was before I started the wash, and therefore I might need to take some responsibility for all this.

Look, I think I have done all I can do.  I wonder if I moved the stuff back under the sink too quickly.  I wonder if we should mop that area with clean water before putting everything back.  What I'm really worried about is how much water damage there is in the pantry.  Water might have seeped beneath the floorboards and into the walls.  There is no standing water, however, and the humidity is going to come down a lot the next couple days, thank God, plus Father says he's going to mind it, so I hope there is nothing lasting.  All in all, could be worse.  And, again, Father really did help out a disaster I didn't help avoid, to be diplomatic.  But if I were at the concert instead of washing my clothes, this probably wouldn't have happened.  

Can't Be A Perv To A Stripper Who Jerked Me Off

OK, so she's warned me about this before, and I might have even blog posted about her warning me about it before, who knows.  But I just got yelled at by ... oh, I'm not going to even type her name with asterisks because I'm already in the doghouse with her and if she catches wind of this she'll never masturbate me again.  Anyway, she had on her Facebook a quick video of her and her friend sunning themselves on a beach.  They both were in two-piece bikinis.  This specifically is on Messenger, and so any comment I make will be between her and me.  So I'll just send her a couple eggplant emojis to show my approval.  Right?

WRONG!  She's all, "Don't text me like that!" (I'm paraphrasing because I don't want to get caught), and then I remembered that I thanked her through Messenger after she and ... her unnamed best friend gave me a tandem handjob, and she played dumb.  And the more I think about it, the more I think she said something similar a long time before after another tryst we had.  Anyway, I guess I should have remembered that she doesn't like to talk about it.

But I'll say this: That is fucking weird.  I don't know why she's acting like this.  Does she not want people to know?  I haven't told anyone, and if she feels as though she caught wind from some other guy that we do shit, he doesn't fucking know, because I don't talk to other stripperhounds about the HJs I get.  (She's a churchgoer too, and maybe she's trying to live in this hypocrisy, to which I say, fuck it, do what you want.)  Is she playing dumb?  To who?  And why?  People are slowly getting more receptive to sex work.  And I'd recommend her too, she's that good.  Does she think someone will see her messages?  This is Messenger, for fuck's sake!  I really don't get pretending we didn't do shit.  I don't want to feel ashamed that I got jacked off by her, because she makes me happy, and I want to tell her that she does.  And I get hard whenever I see her in a swimsuit.  That a problem?  She makes money off of her drop-dead gorgeousness.  What's to keep on the down low?  Damn.

I don't know how mad she is.  As of press time we're still Facebook friends.  But if she doesn't think I'm discreet, she can stop inviting me to parties, or just defriend me altogether.  And maybe that's better because I don't see why I she's blowing up over goddamn eggplant emojis, for crissake.

Addendum To: Goddammit, My Sister's Coming Home To Visit

Yeah, my fucking sister does seem to think I am her goddamn maid.  I did ask her about these sheets that was lying on her bed.  She told me to wash them.  I don't think she uses sheets.  I don't use a sheet.  I mean, I do have, like, a sheet around the mattress, but then I lie on it, and then I put a blanket on top of myself.  I don't need no sheet.  But she says to wash them.  It'll piss me off so bad if she doesn't use the sheets that I'm washing as I type this.

Moreover, she says, and I quote from her text, "Wash them all."  I don't know what "all" is to her, but I saw two towels laying amongst the sheets, too.  I don't feel like asking if she wants the towels washed, because I will totally fucking resent her if she says yes.  But I can't not wash them and have her pissed at me all week.  She's such a petty bitch that she'll complain to our parents that I didn't wash her bath towels, and if they start yelling at me, I'll start yelling at them, and then goddamn motherfuckin' World War III will break out.  Fuck that and fuck her -- and I will wash the towels.

She's not even here and I fucking hate my sister right now.  This bullshit pisses me off so bad. ...

You Need To Say Something, Dumbass Low Talker!!

OK, so I was kind of out of it Saturday/Christmas Eve as we decided to head to a waterfall on the other side of the Big Island.  After getting there, we all kind of agreed that we would go to the bathroom before beginning our hike.

When I got to the men's room, there was a guy standing there -- on the other side of the bathroom door, waiting for the guy in the only urinal there to pee.  Of course he didn't want to leer behind the guy while he was whizzing, but he was giving him more than, you know, six feet of distance.  He actually looked like he was waiting for his friend to finish peeing.  So I said to him, "Are you in line?" to which he said ... something.  Honestly, I have no idea what he said.  He grunted or some shit.  And I was still fighting off the flu; my head was in a fog and all my joints were aching, and so I guess I just ignored whatever he snorted out of his mouth and waited until the guy got done at the urinal.  I stepped out and this little bitch screamed out, "Hey!  I was waiting here!"  And I was all, "Sorry!  I didn't understand you!"  Thankfully, the guy using the stall got done right after the guy at the urinal, so it wasn't as if I was waiting there for weeks or anything like that.

But I made sure I peed really, really slowly.  And when I got out of that stall, and my whole entire time at the waterfall, I was looking around, sometimes putting my head down, and frequently balling up my fist in case I saw that motherfucker walking down to the waterfall with us.  It would just be my luck that that asshole would be arriving at the same time we do, so I had to defend myself in case he didn't want to let this go.  Thankfully I didn't see that prick, but if I did, I was ready to throw down, flu bug or no.

Look, I think he was a goddamn low talker.  If I was cutting in line, speak up!  And get a little closer to the urinal, would you, pretty please?  I don't want you looking over his shoulder, but close that fucking gap so it looks like you need to pee too.  Jesus fucking Christ. ...