God, People Are Disgusting

That's it. That's really all I have to say. They slobber all over themselves, breathe like dying wildebeest, have boils all over their skin, reek like halitosis and decay, are hirsute beyond comprehension, and worst of all, WILL NOT LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. STOP IT. STOP BEING DISGUSTING. YOU PEOPLE HAVE HEPATITIS C AND GIVE ME NIGHTMARES. YOU DISGUST ME AND I HAVE THE STRENGTH OF SEVEN MEN WHEN I AM ANGRY.

From the Night Files: Strand Dream #174

It is evening. I am asked to go to the sixteenth floor to help bring down one hundred boxes of books as part of some annual competition. It takes no fewer than three different elevator rides to reach the roof where the boxes are stored. I do not question the logic of any of this.

Piles of Monopoly money are stashed in various denominations along the way. Apparently this is some sort of quasi-Easter-like hunt, and a small cash prize is given to whomever retrieves the most loot by the end.

I duck into an elevator with a hand-truck and arrive at the tenth floor of a pristine office building. As I exit, the doors close on my cart, mangling it and very nearly taking my arm off. I start to panic because I am being timed, by somebody, somewhere. A digital timer appears at the bottom right-hand corner of my vision, but I can't make out any of the numbers.

I crawl around on the floor looking through boxes and pull out handfuls of fake cash, and to my great delight, I find a huge cache of orange five-hundred dollar bills. Cha-ching. I feel ten again.

As I stand up to run down the stairs, a crack-addict levels a handgun at my chest and demands the loot. As I am abjectly poor, and Monopoly money is all I have in the world, I refuse. The crackhead shoots me in the chest, and I go down, whimpering like a small child. All is lost.

Or so I think. A fairly fit lesbian appears and trades gunshots with my assailant. Her hand is completely blown apart. I am not one to look a deus ex machina in the mouth, so I dart away as quickly as possible, money in hand. As I make my escape, I wonder how I was able to discern her sexual orientation in such a short, violent period of time. I mean, really, it seems rather irrelevant given the situation we were in. Nevertheless, I resolve that in the future, I will be nicer to all females clad in army-green tanktops.

When I reach the ground floor, I run directly into another gun-wielding maniac, who relieves me of all of my Monopoly money. I hand it over without issue, as I have already been shot in the torso at close range, and doubt my body's resilience.

. . . And that's about it. There was a bunch of other weird crap, like eating insect-covered pizza, and dogs biting me all over my body, but I think that's just residual issues from when I was abused for several years as a small child.

Fortunately, today I woke up without any large wounds, or at the very least, no new ones.

AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH GET OUT OF MY MIND. I am going bat-shit insane. I need to get the fuck out of that place.




Monopoly money.

Personal Message: Disregard

Nancy, you cannot be my Valentine. Please stop calling.

Also, I had no clue those little candy hearts came in "Cold and Black."


Delicious.

St. Valentine, Pervert

Ahhh, what a way to spend one of the crappier holidays ever invented. I haven't been this mad since I had to work on Arbor Day.

To my fellow coworkers who have not done so already: I encourage you to use this highly dubious opportunity to spill as much of the company ink in your lap as is humanly possible. You have my utmost assurance that nothing bad whatsoever will result from your actions.

Good idea.


I mean, c'mon, we're not exactly the most attractive group of people in New York City at this particular moment in history. Good looking people don't work cash registers at the Strand-- they gel their hair or show some cleavage*, and get paid to flip bottles of Sauza around like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Very often they are treated politely, because they are beautiful, and I daresay it, better than us.

I say it's high-time for us to band together, drink some a lot of Jack Daniel's, and pretend we're not disgusting circus freaks for just long enough to break our hideously long streaks of waking up alone. Yes, even if that does mean going to bed with the loud/pretentious/psychotic boy/girl/shemale/leper who leers at you in between the shelves. You owe it to each other.**

But let me be perfectly clear that when I say "we", I actually mean "you." Because I totally get laid all the time. Losers.

*Register people: please don't attempt either of these activities.
**Quite possibly.

Oh, Life is Fucking Terrible Funny Sometimes

So when I first glanced at this page a few minutes ago, I noticed that one of my recent posts is entitled "It's Okay to Drink Whiskey at Work Now, Right?" A somewhat autobiographical piece of investigative journalism at its finest.

Well, to answer the question in question, it turns out that is in fact not okay to drink whiskey at work, as at least one employee discovered recently. According to certain sources of mine-- that actually operate inside the Strand (you'd be fucking amazed at some of the resources I have at my disposal)-- last night a few workers faced a choice all-too-familiar to those of us that get paid to wear stupid fucking red name tags and inhale asbestos just to scrape by. The dilemma? On the one hand, a relatively slight personal physiological alteration, and on the other, STABBING ONE'S OWN EYES OUT WITH A GODDAMN PEN OEDIPUS-STYLE, EXCEPT WITHOUT ALL THE COOL WEIRD SEX STUFF PRECEDING IT.

It seems a few persons decided that it would be less-than-professional to commit hari-kiri at the front cash registers, so they instead retired downstairs for a nightcap . . . or nine. I won't dwell on the matter, suffice to say . . . well, shit happens I guess.

(On a personal level, even were they detained by our Disney-esque authorities, I love that termination isn't even a credible threat at the Strand. Everyone knows that it would only mean having to hire and retrain some other scumbag to do your job, while at the same time giving you a much-needed, long-overdue kick in the colon to go do something with your life already.)

Look, I know I'm a bit biased here-- I love liquor as much as I hate humanity. It goes with the territory of being a brillyunt righter and an abusive lover. However, I am not entirely without a heart, so I will offer these words of advice: forget that furtive hide-the-bottle-in-the-corner-behind-some-books shit. Drink openly, early and often. It's far less suspicious and far more fun. Also, you'd be amazed at some of the stuff that comes out of your mouth to people when you're stumbling around the aisles. I once asked a customer if she would give me a piggyback ride up to the second floor. (Her mother informed me that the young lady was turning eight the following weekend.)

Everyone there smells like some combination of urine and death anyway. We should be allowed to mask that in whatever way we feel is proper. The union should issue Jack as part of our health plan.

"Manicures and Pedicures are a Pretty Good Buy"

If you're like me*, up until this moment every day has begun with a futile, early-morning attempt to summon the will to just get up go about your pathetic lonely life. Not today, my friends. The wait is over. The stars have aligned in such a way that you can forget about the weight gain and the open sores on your face and discover what your entire existence has been one, long, disappointing lead-up to. . .

Via Gothamist, the "Nancy Bass Interview." God, my spine gets all tingly when I say it. . . although I did just swallow a handful of pills.

Believe me, I'll have much more to say about this one later. Not the least of which will be asking Nancy today if she's had a chance to check out the site yet.

(Thanks to CM for the link.)

*Also you probably have a thing for hard drugs and hookers, but lack the money for either. So you lie awake at night in a cold sweat, convulsing & weeping, praying for a quick death rather than live another instant thinking about how your entire life can be measured in missed opportunities and people you have disappointed (i.e., everyone). God, you are fucking sick.

Yikes!

It's a cookbook!

Two Interactions I've Had With Strangers on My Way to Work This Week

"You want another one, buddy?"
"No. . . no. . . I have to go to work now."
". . . . . . . Oh."
__________________

"Do you have a minute to stop human rights abuses?"
"No. . . actually I'm about to have them perpetuated against me for the next nine hours."

Charles in Charge

I thoroughly encourage those of you in charge of this sort of thing to write as many ridiculous descriptions of books as you can for the website and send them to me. Typos and inanity are welcome:

Sweet.


Really sweet.