Day 12: The Best Damn Spy

I've decided that I want to be a spy. I can't tell you much more than that. However, I can tell you this, I will be the best damn spy out there; My trunk will always be closed and there will never be any small pyscho-killers hiding in my suitcase. I hear that's a big problem. Oh, did I mention why I bought such a big suitcase? Pillows. Yes, I packed pillows. I was talking about fears the other day and forgot to mention my fear of used pillows. Don't judge me until you take a good whiff of those hotel pillows and then try to put into words what you smell. It isn't pretty.

Ahhhhh, signing off for now, Day 13 to 25 will be spent in Las Vegas, Mexico, and Los Angeles. If I had a job, I would call it a vacation. But I don't have a job. So I will call it the reason I will starve to death in February. Or I can call it a diet.

P.S. I will be very very very pissed off if I have to buy an umbrella in Las Vegas tomorrow.

Day 11: Mondays Always Come

Sorry Korona. Mondays always come. Your idea of staying awake Sunday night in the hopes of Monday not coming is solid. But I tried it all last week in order to slow down the unemployment train, make it last a little longer, but it didn't work. Damn the Gregorian calendar. And the pope who came up with it. Greg, Pope Greg, Greg the Pope, is that his name?

11:00am. I feel like I should be doing something. I managed to get pants on, but I really don't like the feeling on my legs. The fact that I have them on now, I feel like I should be going somewhere or something. I've now decided that I'm doomed finding a job other than at the gas station or grocery store. And if that's what it comes down to, I'm just going to work the nightshift in the worst part of Scarborough and hope I get shot. Or hey, I can go back to school, yet again for another thousand years, for say, engineering. Engineering, that's a good one! Lose all grasp on reality, like we were talking about earlier, become a leg-humper. What happens when an engineer gets together with another engineer? How would that work? I'm not getting a clear picture here of simultaneous leg-humping.

I'm thinking if I really want to go the suicidal route during my tenure on unemployment (don't worry, I'm just PMSing, every month I want to kill myself at least once until the feeling of a tumor the size of a basketball growing on my ovaries goes away), spice up the suicide a little, I should get a job driving taxis around Edmonton. Edmonton is a knife town, so I imagine I wouldn't die right away, I'd just bleed slowly to death. Or I could be an Edmonton cop, but I already see a few problems with that. I wouldn't be able to arrest anyone for speeding, pot, or having darker skin. I'm pretty sure that's the entire population of the jails and all courts cases around here.

Well, at least I'm better with the OCD lately. Except that I've still got a fear of large suitcases (I've got a fear of small pyschopaths who can hide in large suitcases so therefore I've got a fear of large suitcases), small airplanes (coming back from LA via San Fran on a Canadair. I'm a little concerned about that), really large airplanes (Airbus thinks they can fly 500 pax planes across the ocean. Hopefully they can build a plane that can land on water and float this time because they certainly have problems with making ones that fly), churches (they are always getting people to drink stuff, reminds me of Jonestown), wax (I'm afraid of it tearing my skin completely off), high-heel shoes (I'm afraid of heights, and anything that makes me an inch taller or more makes me feel like the air is getting thinner and I'm going to stop breathing or fall to my death), sharp knifes (I only buy dull ones), sharp scissors (I hide them before I go to sleep), and men with mustaches (seriously, that is like 70's-I'm going-to-sexually-harass-you-creepy-dude and very unhygienic, no?).

Things I'm going to do today: Check to make sure there isn't a small pyschopath hiding in my large suitcase, pack my large suitcase for Mexico before a small pyschopath can sneak into it and hide, check my pockets for loose pills and other random objects that might get me arrested at the airport, and open a new jar of peanut butter. There, life isn't so bad.

Day 10: Premonition? or OCD?

Everyone talks about having premonitions. I have premonitions everyday. I call it OCD. Anyone who knows me knows I have to check my trunk 5000 times before pulling out of a parking lot. Just imagine what I have to go through before going to a job interview. But today, I did not have any premonitions and did not check my trunk and then drove right across the city with my trunk open. Yeah. And your like, oh, she's just going to get worse now. No. I'm not. Screw it. I slept 12 hours. I worked out for 3. Screw the damn trunk. Screw the non-existent goiter I have on my face. Screw my zipper or shoelaces. Screw my dilated pupils I always think I have. Screw the boring conversation I'm having with you, I'm just going to blurt out whatever is on my mind. Like, I don't care that your a teacher and you love children. You just won't shut up, this conversation is boring, and you have no intentions of buying me a drink to compensate for my pain. Now, you haven't shut up for 3 hours. So bye, fuck off, I'm leaving. And, oh my god, Mr. Oilrig dude and your stupid shoulder. Your so not cool and you complain too much. Oh, and your ugly. You shouldn't have introduced me to your part of town because now the waitress is going to spit in your food everytime you go there or anywhere else. She hates you and thinks I'm prettier, so bleh!!!!!! (you can be pretty, too, if you tip good). Mr. I'm so hungry I'm going to have, get this, french fries. Cheapass. And those are going straight to your big fat ass, too. Did you even spring for gravy? I don't think you did. You obviously don't care that your fat, but I guess your just a cheapass. Should I even mention yellow taxi or chemical engineer dude x 2? Nah, I'll save that for another day. I've got lots of those stories.

See, this is how OCD works. We no longer have to spend all day chasing down a gazelle and kill it with our bare hands. I don't even know what a gazelle is, I just figured it's prehistoric and fits into my story. Please don't correct me, that's annoying and wrong and I'll hate you for it. And we no longer have to spend back-breaking hours working in a factory or plowing the fields (lol. Don't say it!!! Your so rude...) without the machinery and technology we have today. We sit in cubicles all day, we have to account for every second we go to the washroom or smoke a cigarette or, omigod, have a joint to cope with the extreme mundaneness and hopelessness of our working lives. If we are not particularly liked at work or we don't particularly like work, we have to worry about every word that comes out of our mouths (I obviously don't worry too much about that or I would have a job right now). Customers and supervisors and managers and any rich dude on the face of the planet is always right, even when they are ridiculously wrong. Like, "have my plane ready in Kandahar in 1 hour". Now, really, how is that going to work? Your plane is in New York. Should I split an atom and change the formation of the earth for you? Because, really, I only make $12 an hour, I don't see how that could possibly be in my job description. But hey, I'm a team player. However, I did not contribute to the $1000 baby shower present the office gave to some guy I don't know and wasn't even invited to the baby shower and the pilot thinks I'm stupid because I think he's ugly. That could change the dynamics of what you consider a team player. Anyhow, the point of my story is, we have unused energy that needs burned off before it eats our brain and we all become neurotic fat people with bad hair. And it's really all about the hair for me.

Yes, I might never have another date again (well, not with the same guy anyway) nor will I probably ever work again, but at least I won't be checking my trunk anymore. And I can work on my hair. Yeah, it's all about the hair. It really is.

Day 9: Meals on Wheels?

"We continue to develop new menus and programs to meet the needs of a growing population of seniors, chronically ill and others who require meal services to regain, maintain or improve their health."

Thanks for the suggestion, dude, but it appears that I'm healthy. I managed to chase down a rabbit today and eat it. I also chased down a guy in a cowboy hat but I didn't eat him. I just wanted to let him know that I didn't like his hat.

Moving on, Meals on Wheels needs to diversify. I find the only time I am hungry is when I've drunk copious amounts of alcohol. I'm assuming everyone else feels the same way. So, in order to need Meals on Wheels, breakfast needs to consist of a bottle of the martini of the day if the housebound client doesn't already have a keg installed into their kitchen counter (one day, one day I'll have a home. and that home, that home will have a kegger, under the counter, delivering icy cold beer to everyone in need) and eggs, eggs wrapped in bacon. Then dipped in butter. Okay. Forget the butter. I'm done with butter.

I did jobhunt today. It wasn't pretty. I began to froth at the mouth near the end. But I will prevail. Besides, Friday through Sunday are the best days to jobhunt. Your resume will be at the top of the pile. As you already may know, what the HR computer program doesn't chew up and spit out, the 20-year-old HR assistant making $12/hour will read but only up until lunchtime on Monday. Lunchtime, by the way, is at 10:30am. And they start work at about 10:00am. It takes about 3 minutes to go through a resume from the top of the pile and realize that this person is a douchebag, so 3 x 10 = 30 minutes. 1 out of 5 resumes are competition. So basically, your competing with 1 other person if you apply for jobs Friday through Sunday. It's sound logic. Trust me. If you applied for the job on Monday through Thursday, your totally hosed.

At the Rem and drinking a Hog. trying to convince the cook to do Meals on Wheels for me. Indian food for breakfast. Yum. Happy Weekend...

Day 8: Sombrero Required

Nah, it's really still Day 7 but I don't plan on waking up tommorrow. I've rediscovered Peach Schnapps. Thanks J, and thanks even more for helping me reinvent my alcoholism. I appreciate it, and Visa doesn't know I'm unemployed yet so I'm all good. It will take them a few months to figure out I'm never going to pay them again, but by then, my phone will be cut off and I'll be homeless so I'm not too worried.

Peach Schnapps smells good, tastes good, and I can actually afford to bathe in it. So I did. Strange, it was liquor I long considered to only be mixed with orange juice in a 2L coke bottle and drunk through a swivel straw at a bush party. I never drank it again after I fell down a ravine and into a golf course. I hitchhiked home that night because I thought I would miss curfew, only to be picked up by a police officer and then dropped off at a bus stop(still made it home by 10pm, and I smelled peachy, toooo peachy...). Now I'm old enough to fill the 2L coke bottle with martinis: 2 shots vodka + 1 shot peach schnapps + 1 mango puree. I'm pretty sure you can clean your bathtub with that, too.

Job search begun. I've plagiarized my resume and applied for every job that allows me to vacation 1 week every month in Mexico. Sombrero required. No, really. I need a Sombrero. Anyone? I want to wear one for my driver's license photo...

You know, maybe I'm going to wake up tommorrow after all. Buy some shoelaces. Sew a button on my coat (I usually just throw the coat out after the third button pops off, never did figure out the whole sewing thing. But I'm unemployed now and need to conserve. Conserve...coats...I guess). I was going to do a little grocery shopping, but I don't really feel like french fries in the mall. In fact, I'm not really a fry person at all. Back to peanut butter, I guess but that requires camping in aisle 73(oh, and I'm never eating butter again. Unless there's a martini combination I don't know about using butter...).

And no, I'm not getting fat from sleeping all day. I feel like freaking Rocky. I eat. I feel fat. I go to the gym because, well, I feel fat, and I don't have a job, do I? What else am I going to do? Grocery shop in the food court at the mall? Then I drink. I feel fat again. Go to the gym again. Then I crush pistachios with my neck and watch Family Guy. Ah, screw the white picket fence, this is the life...living the dream...ridng through the mystical valley on a unicorn...

Day 7: What Happened to Poodle?

First of all, I'd be really po'ed if I found out some of my friends weren't following my blog. My friends that are following and don't have to worry about their car and/or house being toilet papered are asking the very valid question, "What happened to Poodle?". Well, let me tell you this, I am not the same person I was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even 2 years ago. He will survive and I can't be responsible for anything or anyone associated with my past employment.

Let me explain. I've never been fired before. Okay, except when I was 14 I was taken off the schedule for 1 of my 3 part-time jobs for cleaning too much (Korean and German backgrounds rarely see eye-to-eye on whether or not you should be keeping product from 1962. It was a bulk food store...). Oh, and of course, Taiwan, women aren't supposed to argue with a man employing them and I mean, who goes into a job thinking, "I'm never going to argue or speak my mind again?". Well, I'm sure it happens all the time in countries where you run the risk of getting stoned to death, those trendy countries always on the brink of modern socialism. Anyhow, I guess I've been fired a few times before. So never mind my meak little comment, "oh, ooooooooohhhh, I've never been fired before..." F%&# it. I get fired OFTEN. Anyways, I am a firm believer of business karma. Basically, if you are stupid, something bad will happen to your business. The bulk food store closed down a couple of years later. The school in Taiwan, well, their roof just collapsed (apparently the mice in the computer towers were devestated). A few other places I quit and they also just closed up. And this, friends, had NOTHING to do with me. Divorces, maybe. But that's another story and will possibly be a screenplay someday (How to Break Up a Marriage in Ten Seconds). Just takes one phone call...

Soooooooo, what I'm saying is, business karma. If your stupid, and you know it, then be prepared and get your resume ready. If your in denial about how you've screwed the company up, then I hate to say it, your eating sand at the end of the day because your going down with the ship. I can only wish people luck and hope never to see them again. And that's what I'm doing for poodle. Good-luck poodle, hope to never see you again.

Day 6: Butter. Yum.

First of all, ban unsalted butter. People who eat butter should be not worried about their salt consumption. Baking should also be banned or at least called by it's real name, butter dipped in sugar and coated in chocolate. This way, timeless recipes such as bacon-wrapped butter or butter dipped bacon aren't discriminated against. Lets pay homage to butter and stop with the lies, slice ourselves a nice piece of butter and celebrate.

Yup. Haven't left the apartment yet. No, haven't applied for jobs yet. Yup, eating butter for breakfast. And I'm not using the toilet. That's what they expect me to do.

Second of all, I have nothing. Really, I don't. I've really just been drinking. Definitely humpday for the unemployed. You can smell us coming in the malls. The denial of having a beer for breakfast, the realization that the wait time for the fifth department that Roger's has transferred you to is causing a small tumour on the side of your head (kind of weighs you down, my head will always be hung to the side now, slowly becoming the hunchback/goiter image of the unemployed), and the reality that you actually have to leave your apartment and go to the mall to cancel your internet to pay for your alcoholism(I can steal internet from anywhere, I have no idea why I bought the internet stick to begin with) or your car insurance (your basically too drunk to drive when your unemployed and if you do end up driving drunk, there is no point having car insurance because your ass is going to jail anyway. Kind of like jumping off a 3-story building with a parachute, it's not going to stop you from landing on the neigbhor's car)

No, didn't apply for jobs. Lay off. But I copied and pasted a kickass resume off the internet today. I'm no doctor, but really, how much skill does it take to prescribe pills that make you impotent or make you kill yourself anyway?

Day 5: I Want to Be a Ballerina

They took my airport pass away from me today. I don't have children, but I'm pretty sure it was like losing a child. I've always had an airport pass. Hamilton, Toronto, Edmonton, Chihuaha... It was like cutting my heart out with a dull knife, leaving the veins and arteries flapping in the wind, blood everywhere. Kind of like that really strange looking dead rabbit on the side of Trans Canada 1, otherwise known as the Ottobun (I'm speaking Leducian). And then it dawned on me, I want to be a Ballerina. I mean, I really want to be a ballerina. They have the perfect shaped heads. They really do. Nothing like a penis (just because your head is shaped like a penis, Mr. Pilot, doesn't mean you had sex before and I'm pretty sure that hot chick you were with at the company party was a prostitute. And that just doesn't count). A little plastic surgery, and I can be a ballerina too! The skills. I could maneuver the beer cans on the floor in my living room with such grace, I would never have to take back empties again. Because, I am, a ballerina.

Okay, so I hate airplanes, I hate flying, and I'm deathly afraid of heights. Maybe aviation wasn't my best choice in careers. I will, however, miss sitting in the cockpit strapped on top of 40,000lbs of flammable liquid. That, somehow, was fun for me. Kind of like skydiving for beginners, someone pushes you out of an airplane and you really have nothing left to do except fall. As long as your heart doesn't stop, the ride down is quite smooth. Nothing like skiing, you've got a better chance of missing the trees.

Other Things I Will Miss: 1. Losing my car in the airport employee parking lot. 2. Feeling the breeze through the crack in my windshield driving along the highway, rejoicing as the 20th stone chip hits my windshield because it justifies why I haven't replaced it after the big and little dippers joined together in harmony (I can still see distant objects through it) 3. Parking my car in the bosses reserved parking space with "I embezzled a million dollars from xxx company and don't pay my taxes". 4. Dancing naked at midnight in the office lunchroom.

Those days are gone. Although I'm starting to enjoy the unemployment office. A very nice gentleman complimented my hair today as I was slowly losing my will to live. He asked me if I chose that colour myself. I really didn't know how to answer a question like that, though. I mean, should I have said yes? Or should I have said that my 12 staff colourists chose it for me but since I'm unemployed, they're not so happy anymore?

Day 4: Communist Meeting at 9pm

I can't imagine me ever succeeding. Ever again. Reality is, I won't ever make it to management, holding power over people, manipulating them, and then firing them. Firing people doesn't exactly improve your skills as a manager. However, it is extremely handy when your trying to cover something up. Like the fact your never at the office yourself. Or your related to everyone in the office except for the person your firing. I just don't have enough family members to make up an entire office faculty. And besides, when you become management, your head takes on the form of something else. Like the shape of a poodle. Or something two-dimentional, like a fishhead. Having a fishhead in places like Taiwan would be a good thing, fishheads being a delicacy there. You would have some sort of special expat status and they would take you to karaoke. Mind you, wouldn't want to go to Hungary with a head the shape of a sausage. That's just an old fairy tale waiting to happen, you know the ones, the ones that gave you night terrors. Hansel and Gretel.

Oh yeah, Communist meeting at 9pm. Uprising against the Bourgeoisie class and yada yada yada. Bring cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. Can't uprise without them. And coffee flavoured vodka, that stuff is awesome. Someone bring that, too. And we'll need a vacuum cleaner. Ah, don't bother, my roommate somehow has 3 of them in the closet. They must have some sort of magical powers, I can't see any other reason for keeping 3 vacuum cleaners. I have enough time, I can convert the motors to power a small scooter, perhaps?

No, I did not apply for jobs today. I spent most of my day at the unemployment office, waiting in line, just to find out that everything is done online now and there is no longer any human interaction. And I'm okay with that. It's much easier to impress a computer then it is a human being. Humans make judgements without even knowing it, like, your nose is way too big so therefore you can't have unemployment, or a job. Like starving to death will make your nose smaller or your 3 degrees are made obsolete and irrelevant based on the size of your nose. People with small noses have way better degrees.

Day 3: Lost: My Job. If anyone sees it, please call me

Today is Sunday. Tommorrow is Monday. Which means, EVERYONE is going to work tommorrow. Everyone except me. But really, is that such a bad thing? All the times I wanted to sleep in past 4:30am, this is my big chance to do it. Live it up. Get drunk. And if all else fails, go to Ikea and live in their living rooms for a while. That always makes me feel better, pretend that I had enough money to remodel my living room in my new condo which I don't have. I also love waking up to their Swedish breakfasts. Roll out of bed (I prefer sleeping in the children's department, in the race car bed), be the first in line. That's the life.

No. I'm not applying at Ikea. Mind you, it probably pays better than my last job did. Selling furniture takes so much more skill than putting planes in the sky.

No, it's Sunday, I am NOT jobhunting. It's only day 3, give me some time.

Day 2: Let There Be Cheese

I've decided after yesterday's little discussion about cheese that I'm going to go on a cheese diet. Meaning eating strictly cheese. So, for breakfast, a little cheese on crackers, for lunch, the cheese grease fried grilled cheese sandwich, for dinner, just a block of cheese. A big block of blue, stinky cheese. Makes grocery shopping easy, which I desparately need help in. I have problems when the grocery list is longer than 5 items as I've usually lost the list the second I've written it. I eventually find them, like on the back of my college diploma. It's confusing and nothing is ever in the same aisle or within a mile radius of that aisle. Aisle 73 is a good aisle, lots of camping equipment. Take a nap, heat up some soup. I don't recommend a campfire, though. I've been told not to on a few occasions.

Oh yeah. So Day 2 of unemployment. It's Saturday, so I've decided that it is a good time to drink. I mean, I tend to drink everyday but everyday is not always a good time to drink. Like when your grocery shopping. You've got no chance in hell getting more than one item into your cart while blotto. Unfortunately, that one item is usually not cheese and it then becomes a complete waste of gas.

I've decided to start cooking again, too. My toaster chicken was quite popular and my fans have recommended that I wrap it in bacon. However, I have become somewhat of a toaster expert in the last few years and I know, I know that bacon will set the toaster on fire. So, sorry to everyone out there hoping for bacon wrapped toaster chicken, it won't be happening in my apartment. It would be safer to set up a meth lab.

So, really, I did nothing today. Get off my back. I only got fired 2 days ago.

Day 1: Pantless in Edmonton

Do you need to wear pants if your unemployed? Really? I mean, I'm finding it difficult seeing the point of it. Everything is done via internet now, I don't need to even leave my apartment. The only face I had to see today was my manager's poodle head as he fired me. His head is so little, must be difficult to form sentences for him. Maybe he's got some sort of poodle powers. I really should send him a thank-you card, I was so rude, forgot to say thank-you as I was walked out of the office. I'll do that next week. Put it on the list of things that require me to put pants on. Mind you, it's Edmonton, I don't think it's necessary to wear pants to the post office. Ah, but it's winter, people tend to wear clothes when it's colder than -20C. Makes sense. I don't want people to be concerned about me. But just wait until the next Chinook - I'm going to be so naked.

Things I No Longer Need to Do: 1. Come home from work. 2. Put pants on. 3. Bathe. 4. Speak full sentences. 5. Drink vodka from a sippy cup (I can drink right from the bottle now). 6. Pay my Visa bill. 7. Call my boss a poodle. 8. Eat with a fork or spoon. 9. Remember names of people (that gets a little tricky dating, but pick a name to call all of them, like dude, or man, "hey dude" "hey man", can't go wrong with that). 10. Dial a phone (unless I have to order pizza. but chicken wings are disgusting, no chicken wings. You know that they don't even kill the chickens anymore? They just grow like 8 sets of wings on them and then cut them off when they're big enough. I'm serious!!! Someone told me.).

Haven't thought of any job prospects yet. Oh, okay, I have...prostitute, stripper, drug-dealer, they are all great high income opportunities. I'll have to explore those a little further though before I make any final decisions. That's a mature thing to do. Like eating Brie cheese. I love cheese. Just not blue cheese in the microwave. I thought my roommate had a serious intestinal disorder until I realized the smell was coming from the microwave and not the washroom. Ahhh. Okay, Cheese Tester. I would never have to buy cheese again. I taught my roommate today how to make grilled cheese sandwiches without ten pounds of butter. If you shove enough greasy cheeses inside the sandwich, the grilled cheese fries itself in it's own cheese grease.

No, I did not look for a job today. I just got fired, leave me alone.