Concerned Coworker: What’s up with your boyfriend? I haven’t heard you talk about him in a while.
Amorous Lady: Oh, I’m not allowed to call him anymore.
Concerned Coworker: Why? Did you break up?
Amorous Lady: Well, not really. I was told I had to stop calling him my sexy boyfriend. I’m not supposed to talk to him again.
Concerned Coworker: Huh? I thought you guys had been dating for a few months.
Amorous Lady: Right, I wanted to go out with him – that’s why I told him he is my sexy boyfriend and that I’m his girlfriend and that he couldn’t see other people. Some woman in HR told me I’m not allowed to call him that anymore and that I have to stay away. How stupid is that?
Concerned Coworker: Okay….that’s..uh…wow.
Amourous Lady: I hate Human Resources. They always pick on me.
Editor’s Note – I am so excited that I found Amorous Lady! I have such high hopes that she will be as entertaining as Barefoot Coworker. I think I kind of miss Barefoot since she left to pursue her scrapbooking dreams.
Black Friday will here before you know it. It is the most important shopping day of the year and in case you did not know, we are in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. What better way to help bail out the banks than going out and buying a bunch of useless crap you do not need and can not afford? Far be it from me to call someone Un-American but if you do not go shopping on Black Friday then you are, at the very least, a Communist Socialist.
To prepare you for the shopping bonanza that will shortly ensue the CD will have a three-part series instructing you how to get ready for Black Friday. Do not be fooled by other Black Friday shopping guides! They are all Socialist Communists trying to trick you into staying home and save your rubles…er…um…dollars.
Today we will focus on the first step: preparation. Before you can effectively spend money you must identify which items you want to purchase and where said items will be located. Do you want new bathroom towels or Rock Band? Tickle-Me-Elmo or a new lap top? Which big box chain is selling said item? Wal-Mart? Target? Best Buy?
Ask yourself if you are attempting to obtain the “hot” item the store is selling and weigh out the benefits and consequences of attempting to procure said item. Sure, everyone wants a $3.00 coffee pot but at what cost? If there are only 15 $3.00 coffee pots but forty five people trying to obtain said coffee pot then perhaps your odds of getting your alternate “must have” item on your list is the better option. Clearly I am referring to the Nash Equilibrium Theory. Everyone wants the best deal but if everyone goes for the best deal then many people leave empty handed. Instead, pick the second and third best deals. (I.e. the Comfort Seat Cushion with Heat & Massage for the unbelievably low price of $17.49 or Country Style Holiday Doormats for the everything-must-go-bargain price of $2.99).
If you want to really make Black Friday your bitch you will need to make it a group effort. Enlist fellow patriots to help. Make sure there is a clear leader of the group and delegate responsibilities accordingly ahead of time to avoid confusion. Make it clear from the beginning that this is not a democracy. There is no time for “group think” on Black Friday. Have a back up plan in case someone gets lost or trampled. Bring extra body bags to prevent slippery floors caused by bodily fluids.
Plan, plan, plan. I can not stress this enough. Expect the unexpected. Anticipate roadblocks and deal with them accordingly. Mental preparation is key. Visualize your items and make it happen. If you follow these steps then I promise you walk out of that K-Mart with the $25.00 Martha Stewart comforter of your dreams.
Tomorrow we will focus on store optimization techniques.
The CD will use any-and I mean any-reason to have cocktails. Yeah, it’s raining! Time for a ‘tini! Whoo hoo it’s a day that ends in “y”! Wine me! You catch my drift. Everyone knows the Holidays are all about boozing and getting in and out of awkward situations which is why I love it. But the Holidays aren’t just about drinking too much egg nog on a school night. LOL/JK they totally are but there are other things about this time of year that make it great. Below are the top five reasons I love the Holidays:
1-Holiday Office Parties. Once a year the planets collide in such a way and the Universe blesses you with the best party of the year: The Holiday Office Party. Barista and I like to skip the buffet and head straight to the bar. Too many Lil Smokies impedes the wine ifyouknowwhatimsayin. Last year a guy from IT said he would like to make me one of his “office girls” whilst getting handsy at the bar. The year before that B and I decided we wanted to get one of our coworkers hammer-timed but ended up getting a little too tipsy ourselves. Later on that night I peed in a not so hidden spot off Robinson and fell down attempting to enter Three Monkeys. You guys! Classy!
2-Black Friday. What better way to celebrate American consumerism, consumption and excess than Black Friday? A friend compared it to America’s version of the Running of the Bulls and I couldn’t agree more. It’s not a party until grandma gets trampled! If you need me on Friday I’ll be drinking whiskey waiting for Target to open. If I don’t get one of those three dollar coffee pots then there will be hell to pay.
3-Christmas Cards. There’s a rule about Christmas cards that, if violated, will result in immediate expulsion from heaven. It goes like this: if you have a child the power of Christ compels you, nay forces you, to put their picture on a Christmas card. If you are childless, but married and have pets then you should put their picture on your Christmas card because dogs in Santa suits are cute. If you unmarried and childless then no one cares about your Christmas cards so don’t even bother.
4-Secret Santa. Secret gift giving is the very merry passive aggressive way to point out one’s faults without them realizing who is gently telling them to use mouthwash or shower more regularly. Office secret Santas only double the enjoyment. I would give my right arm to have T Saur as my Secret Santa. I would bequeath him the following gifts: cough drops, soap, a mirror, a book on how to reconnect with your child, some beef jerky, a water bottle and some cologne that does not smell like he purchased it from a dance club bathroom.
5-Time off. It’s not just my time off I appreciate but everyone else’s time off as well. Starting today Steal Your Soul Inc. is a veritable skeleton crew and TLW loves! I heart not having awkward morning chit chat, dealing with the impossibly cramped break room, spending an hour parking my gd car, seeing coworkers at lunch, talking to coworkers, being around coworkers, what have you. Conversely I also love not coming to work and, fair warning, yours truly is off for the longest stretch I have had off since I graduated college starting December 23rd 2009. Woo woos for everybody!
We at Cafe Darkness are huge fans. Well, not literally huge, we’re actually kind of petite, but we’re very big fans in the most figurative sense of that word. We are also loyal fans. By loyal fans, I mean we discovered your music about a month ago and we haven’t been able to stop listening since! I don’t think that TLW and I have spent so much time talking about anything ever before, except for maybe her feral cats behavioral issues or Lady Gaga. The point is, we have chatted you up so much that all of our friends now know you and love your music too. Your fan base grows daily!
We need to know when you are playing next. We understand that you have declined several invitations to appear at Tweetsgving next Tuesday. Maybe it just wasn’t enough notice to fit with your schedule. But we have a sneaking suspicion that you may not want to play next Tuesday…if that’s the case, let us assure you that you will be playing in front of the nicest group of hipsters hipster-bloggers blogger hipsters scoooter riders PBR drinking hipsters aarrggh Richmonders around. Everyone wants more Meade!
If you play at Tweetsgiving, your performance may even boost the local economy! If you won’t do it for your fans, will you do it for the economy? We don’t want to beg, but pretty pretty please with a cherry on top of your Twinkie please please please play at Tweetsgiving.
If you can’t answer the Tweetsgiving call of duty, please post your show schedule soon.
Recently some friends and family have expressed concern over my 24 semi-feral cats. They claim that no one should own 24 cats and to that, I agree. I don’t trust even numbers and 25 is an unlucky number so I am actually going to need 27. Technically I already have 27, but only if you count the dead ones in the freezer. I hope to round out the family this weekend with some good old fashioned alley hunting. Who else is going to care and love for those helpless kitties if not for me? They would die on the streets if I did not save them and take them home to my one bedroom apartment!
Apparently some crack pot doctors have done studies proving that cat feces can lead to schizophrenia. I have never heard of anything more ridiculous in my entire life! How could the droppings from my little alley treasures ever make someone go crazy? These “studies” by these “doctors” are always proving something and then disproving the exact same thing a week later. Next thing you know we’ll hear that smoking is bad for you! What a bunch of nut jobs. I think they need to have their heads examined!
Honestly, I just don’t see what the problem is. They are well fed and loved. I feed them a mixture of turkey soup and wet cat food I prepare fresh each night. I make sure I don’t make enough for them all to eat because I don’t want them to lose their ability to hunt for food. I toss the soupy mixture on the floor and let them fight over who gets what. Survival of the fittest so to speak. On Friday nights we do feeding time a bit differently and I feed them off my stomach! As for paying for the food I just use my welfare checks or just steal donations left outside of the SPCA. The SPCA has a ton of rich people donating money to it, so I don’t feel bad grabbing a couple of cans of Fancy Feast for my Littles!
Cleaning up after them can be hard since I only have room for two litter boxes. I used to clean the litter box up to five times a day and even set up my alarm to wake up at night but I got tired of doing that so now I just let them go wherever they can find a spot. I’ve gotten rid of most of my furniture and even sleep on a plastic lawn chair that I can just hose off every so often. They don’t seem to mind that I only sweep up after them once every few weeks and they tend to make their business in the corners anyways. I try to limit their water intake to cut down on that “cat pee” smell. I don’t notice it anymore but apparently it is “offensive to the neighbor”. When it is time to clean up I just open up my back door and sweep all of their poop onto the balcony me and my other neighbors share. My neighbor’s toddler thinks it’s Play Doh!
And for all of you that say I’m using a “wall of kitties” to hide any personal pain I may be feeling I say you’re the crazy one! Just because I’m thirty years old, single and have 24 (soon to be 27!) semi-feral cats does not mean I’m lonely. Who could be lonely with 24 little love bugs around hopping up on every possible surface of my apartment? Not this girl. Sure, it can tough to explain to guys but most of the guys I meet off Craigslist don’t seem to mind when a few cats hop on their backs during lovemaking. Everybody likes a ride now and then!
I sure hope I was able to clear up any misunderstandings. I am most definitely not a “crazy cat lady”. Now excuse me while I start my nightly ritual of singing “Milkshake” to Mr. Paws. It’s his favorite and he gets real bitchy if he has to wait.
T Saur stinks. Like for serious stinks. His odor is hard to pin point exactly but if held under oath in a court of law I would say it is a combination of moth balls, pennies and human decay. He smells so bad that when he gets up and down from his desk a trillion times a day it wafts in my cube and makes me want to gag. I actually think the smell is worse than the hacking. I figured out a way around the throat clearing and that is to listen to my iPod at full volume for nine hours a day. Sure it’s turning my hearing to shit but deaf girls are hot. Right?
Things are not all bad in the Land of the Saur. Because it’s the Year of Aquarius everything is going my way including-but not limited to-not getting H1N1, being super sexy and my manager forcing T to take time off from work. Because he not a real human being he actually enjoys coming to work every day. Last year he took zero days off and was headed for year two of the same until my manager dropped a truth bomb on him that he had to take his vacation by the end of the year. Why they give a rip about employees taking their vacation time when they don’t care I can’t afford groceries is beyond me but for some reason they do and I am not one to question authority! You would have thought she told him he could never see his son again by the look on his face. Sike, he doesn’t see his son. ADeadBeatDadSayWhat? What? Exactly.
He then spent the next two hours figuring out an action plan. In typical T fashion he managed to take time off in the most irritating way possible. Please note that he is here every day that I am. He took one, maybe two, Fridays that I am already off and then proceeds to schedule half days of vacation from now until the end of the year. When I asked why he would bother showering and putting on his three piece ill-fitted fancy suit for 4 hours of work he said that he didn’t know what else he would be doing and, plus also, he “didn’t want to get behind on his work”. I had to walk away from him mid sentence or I would have completely lost my shit right then and there. After some meditation I have concluded that clearly I am on a hidden camera reality show to which everyone else is aware but me because this shit is ridiculous. I’ll take my royalties in the form of cigarettes, woo woos and Red Bull. You’re welcome!
Because I am poor super healthy I like to work out during my lunch hour instead of going out to lunch every day and actually enjoying my break. Today’s lunch time fitness yielded two separate but exciting events that compelled me to write the people responsible for these events letters of gratitude.
Dear Ball Boy:
Thank you so much for showing me your nuts today. It really helped me pick up the pace on the treadmill. I haven’t done a 7:30 mile in a long time but it felt good and really got those endorphins going! Question for you: Are you a ballerina? Because you were certainly stretching like one with your leg up on the railing like that. Was it necessary to stretch so intensely and in so many different positions? Also, while I dig your super short gray gym shorts they are not necessarily conducive to the squats you were performing in between your groin stretches. Lastly, I certainly hope you were sufficiently warmed up before doing those stretches-you wouldn’t want to pull a muscle!
With Love Always,
TLW
Dear VCU Student I Almost Hit With My Car:
You never saw me as you lazied across Franklin St without a care in the world but I certainly saw you and, in case you were wondering, the contents of my purse are still strewn across my floorboard since I had to slam on my brakes to avoid turning you into Lil Baby Hipster Road Pizza. You were too busy texting, listening to music and smoking your cig to see me driving down the road. Listen, I know being in college is tough. It’s hard drinking every night, sleeping in late and going to class for a few hours each day and that’s why I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed. The next time I yell for you to, “fucking look before you cross the god damn road!” I would like you hear me. Listening to music that loud is bad for your ear drums young lady and can lead to permanent hearing loss!
Listen up, ladies of Richmond. In certain parts of the country, our reputation is well-known and widely recognized; free from the blemishes a day spent on the links at CCV or hollering at RIR could bring. In fact, I am in one of those places today. The town has a charm that can best be summed up by the local cable channel programming, which features episodes of The 700 Club followed by The Hills followed again by The 700 Club a few times a day. It kind of makes sense. I would need to call on Jesus for strength if The Hills were in syndication in Richmond.
Anywho, I went tripping merrily down the street this afternoon when an elderly woman stopped me and asked if I am from Richmond. I gave her my debutant smile (sike) and said, “why yes, I am from Richmond”! I asked the older woman how in the world she knew I was from the RVA, and no shit, she said “You’ve got that high-heeled Richmond walk. You all wear the same high heels and you have a walk. I knew you were from Richmond two blocks ago”.
She carried on across the street and was gone before I thought to offer to buy her badass a woo woo.
It was a big weekend musically in the RVA. Meade Skelton-Richmond’s own Man of Mystery played at his record release party on Saturday night. At a church. I mean! I would have turned into a pillar of salt! Even though the CD could not attend the show plenty of other Richmond bloggers about town went and, from I hear, the show was a hit! He even played my favorite song, “Sweet Tea” twice. Double trouble! Read OMGWTFRVA’s review of the show here.
I’m not sure what it is about Meade that makes him, as Barista says, like catnip, but we love him and we can’t get enough. His love for sugar, Nicole Kidman and Mama’s Family have us intrigued. Even if you don’t agree with his politics (which I don’t) if you aren’t reading about all things Meade then you’re missing out. Fingers crossed Meade plays somewhere-anywhere-in the RVA soon so I can see “Sweet Tea” live!
*We respectfully request you please play the accompanying musicwhile you read this post in order to get the full experience. Thank you.
Cafe Darkness takes journalistic integrity very seriously. Therefore when we erroneously publish something and this error is brought to our attention, we rectify the situation immediately. Recently I discussed my Top Five Irritations. Included in that top five was Daylight Savings Time, something I still don’t fully understand. Are we in it now? No? We were? I can’t remember. Regardless, I inadvertently misrepresented my opponent’s position. If you recall, I stated that their main argument for the implementation of DST was to save electricity. Apparently this was not 100% accurate. Their argument was that DST helped, and I’m quoting here, “People in factories”. I apologize for the error and thank you for the tacos last night.
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