Erin The Great

So I was surfing news stories earlier today when I came across this little gem…

OH-MY-GOSH!! You have got to be kidding me! This is just like the woman who sued McDonald’s because their coffee was too hot. What is with all the frivolous lawsuits? I know people get bored and think, “How can I make some easy money? Hey, I’ll get myself knocked out by my underwear and then I’ll sue Victoria’s Secret.” I mean really, if you did indeed have a wardrobe malfunction, and say it did actually cause some damage, most people would write Victoria’s Secret and say ‘Hey, this is what happened, would you mind paying for hospital bills and maybe the time I missed work…’ and then be done with it. Most people wouldn’t keep this ridiculous lawsuit going for an entire year and even stoop so low as to advertise it on the Today Show. I wanted to high-five Meredith when she was merely stating the obvious with her comment about ‘people rolling their eyes’ because that’s what everyone is doing right now. I don’t know how her case hasn’t won what with the content as well as her obvious talent for public speaking and all…

That poor lawyer! You can tell he thinks this case is beneath him and that his client is an absolute moron! Here’s a tip lady! When you wear underwear that fits, you usually don’t have your underwear attacking you! For crying out loud, it’s a tiny piece of metal that isn’t made to receive the abuse you’ve just given it. No wonder it snapped and flew in your eye. If I were that underwear hook (shudder) not only would I have flown in your eye but I probably would have smacked you too! There is no way you are going to be winning this lawsuit. I’m pretty sure not even ‘Denny Crane’ could win this one, so go sell crazy somewhere else!

There is another fellow blogger who had an opinion about this as well Check out ‘Wronged By A Thong‘ if my rant isn’t enough for you.

I love my job. I’m just going to say this before I go off on my tangent. It all started about two and a half months ago when (due to shenanigans in the work place) I managed to get the Internet banned at my bank branch. I know what you’re thinking… you’re thinking about how popular I became and how you’re jealous of my popularity. Not quite!

I would just like to say that my boss knew what I was doing that fateful April Fools day and didn’t care because it was a particularly slow day and all my work was done. I decided to pull a few pranks on my friends and, after trying to sell my friend’s cars on ksl.com, I realized I had been on the Internet a good chunk of the day. Again, it was a REALLY slow day and my boss didn’t care. Imagine my surprise when three weeks later I get pulled into our security offices up in Salt Lake to get absolutely raked over the coals for surfing the Internet. I’m so glad I was able to waste a couple of gallons of golden gas to get my get my butt ripped to shreds by some corporate beast on speaker phone, especially when my daily Internet usage usually only involved my quick celebrity gossip updates, printing off a sudoku puzzle and finally, my blog. That’s right, I like many of you would blog at work… this is no longer the case.

Since this Internet ban, I’m stuck in my very slow bank branch that maybe sees 30 people total on any given day, maybe 31 on Friday. Payday. Are you seeing where I am going with this? That’s right! After almost 2 months of no Internet, no printing off Sudoku puzzles and NO BLOGGING to keep me from killing customers, I have been left with a huge gaping void not to mention being left to my own devices… never a good thing.

To my co-workers I would like to issue an apology. I am so very sorry and would like to thank you profusely for not slashing my tires, keying my car or TP-ing my house! You all are amazing and should receive a couple of ‘Luv Saks’ in heaven, should you make it there… Boyd.

Luckily, after weeks and weeks of looking almost comatose from boredom, I have picked up a few old hobbies. I have always loved reading and now that I have hours at my disposal, I am reading the entire works of Jane Austen. I’ve decided that reading such books like the ‘Twilight’ series while I was at work was shaping up to be a bad idea. Especially if I was in the middle of one of the fight scenes, and of course thanks to ‘Murphy’s Law’ that would be the very second that someone would call to ask an asinine question like ‘Is this the optical section of Costco?’ Breathe Erin breathe. They don’t know that they’ve just interrupted the climax of your book. Count to 10… ok talk. ‘No, this is CENSORED bank.’ Good, I didn’t bite off heads; it’s going to be ok. The customer asks again, ‘You mean this isn’t Costco?’ again breathe Erin. ‘No I’m sorry, this is CENSORED bank, is there anything else can help you with?’ Click! Rude! What I wanted to say was ‘No, you friggin idiot! What part of ‘thank you for calling CENSORED bank are you not computing??’ Thank you so much for trying my patience when I was being nice, even after you interrupted the best part of the book!

This is why I don’t read really intriguing and complicated books at work… Usually I’m pretty good at holding my cool when I’m dealing with rude people. I realize that, even though I’m reading on the job, that the customer comes first. But when they’re rude, I can’t help of thinking up ways I could meet them in dark alleys… Thanks again Internet Ban! Without you, I’ve managed to forgo all my stress releases until after I get home from work. It’s cool! I’m sure my roommates love me coming home in really foul moods after dealing with the world’s rudest people on earth. It’s ok that it takes me almost 2 hours to calm down from my day. Whatever. I hope you’re happy!

I may or may not work at one of the slooowest bank branches known to man…. At least as far as walk-in traffic goes. As far as phone traffic? That’s another story. That phone rings constantly! Unfortunately only about 70% off the phone calls are legitimate; the other 30% are solicitors, debt consolidators, people looking for the Utah state prison and/or Costco. I’m not sure why we get calls for Costco but we do.

Anyway, I arrive at 12:30 every day, and I can count on one hand how many people walk through the door in just a couple of hours… Until I start telling a story. Every time I start a story I can guarantee that at least 3 people will walk in and at least 2 people will call. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like the general populous has this ‘story’ radar and must come in when and only when you’re telling a story.

People will also walk through the door if you’re the only teller and you really need to go to the bathroom. When nature calls, so do the people… every frickin time! Thank you Murphy’s Law!

I received a knock at my door the other day. As usual I yelled at the person to enter not wanting to get off my lazy butt, and like usual there was no reply. Usually when this happens it is either one of three types of people. There are the people that I kind of know that don’t feel comfortable walking into my apartment, the serial killers (which I have yet to encounter *knock on wood) and the panhandlers… or solicitors if you will.

Around here in Provo just blocks from BYU campus there are a lot of students who have taken the desperate job of going door to door selling what ever they can trying to make ends meat. I commend these people but I feel sorry for them because most of the time they run into extremely poor starving college students who can barely scrape enough money for tuition, food and bills. I love the life of college bliss, but I feel really bad when there is a knock on the door and it’s a little kid trying to sell things like cookies, newspapers or magazine subscriptions. Being one of those kids many many moons ago, I feel obligated to at least try to purchase what ever these kids are selling.

With this in mind and proceeding to the end of my story, I wasn’t surprised to find a couple of pre-pubescent teenagers selling newspaper subscription when I went to the door. Unfortunately I was in the middle of paydays so I was strapped for cash. To make matters worse the little extortionists started to send a carefully placed guilt trip as I tried to explain why I couldn’t buy their newspaper and how bad I felt about that fact. I went several rounds with these boys before I finally stopped caring about sparing their feelings and started into a diatribe that went something like ‘are you pulling a guilt trip on me? Listen you little punk, I am a college student that just got done paying my bills and tuition. I know you’re trying to raise money for college and I commend you for that, but before I waste money on something that I’m never going to use, might I tell you that I still need food and I have a very angry cockroach I’ve named Maurice whose been giving me the finger for a week because there is nothing for him to feed on! So thank you for the offer but I’m going to have to decline buthaveagreatday’.

I at least had reminded myself that I probably shouldn’t slam the door in their now very stunned faces because that would be rude, so I gently closed the door hoping my hair was working for me that day so they wouldn’t feel compelled to egg my door. Luckily they didn’t which I was very happy about, but I remember going around door to door with my sales pitch and big brown eyes and not once did I slap someone with a guilt trip. I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing something like that. There is a right and a wrong way to do things and pulling a guilt trip like you’re a mother from Brooklyn just isn’t one of them.

Domestic Goddesses beware!! There has been an infiltration of poser wannabes that have hit down on our turf. We’ve had our mad skills for years! We learned from our mothers, aunts and Grandmothers to cook, clean and sew, while these impostors are going to college to be as cool as us!

This is ridiculous! You go to college to learn an actual major like History, Pre-Med, English, Child Education… stuff like that. You don’t go to college to learn crap you should have learned in Home EC back in High School! You don’t come to BYU and enroll in the MFHD (Marriage, Family, & Human Development) major and think that it’s going to have some profound impact on your life! It seems more often then not, these girls are only going to college to appease their parents and end up just floating through college until some poor sap comes along, puts a ring on their finger and gives them their MRS degree.

It’s like these girls have seen one to many episodes of The ‘Donna Reid Show’ or ‘Leave it to Beaver’. These girls didn’t here through their whole lives, ‘Put your shoulders back’ and ‘Sit up straight young lady’. It’s cool that you want to be like us, but take classes that will learn you these skills, don’t dedicate your whole major to it. That is just stupid!

I have seen too many girls brag about how their in the MFHD major to some ‘NASA employee’ looking Mormon boy that comes along and eats it all up, meanwhile while actual Domestic Goddesses such as myself, look on this poor and pathetic sight and just sigh, shake our heads and laugh to ourselves that we didn’t need to flaunt out talents as a desperate act to catch a man. Our men will just be pleasantly surprised that they caught one of us unknowingly as they find out later that yes, we can cook! Booyah!

Eat your hearts out Posers! In my stolen Apron and everything!!

I saw a cat in my courtyard yesterday. Ordinarily I wouldn’t think anything of this except that this morning I left my apartment and there was another cat sleeping my ‘Mini garden’ right outside my door. I know what most off you are thinking… Is she crazy? There is nothing wrong with seeing cats. WRONG! As not many of you might know, my birthday is next week.

Let me tell you a little bit about Provo Utah. In Provo, if you’re not married or at least dating someone by the age of 19 or 20, everyone looks at you like you should be wearing a ‘recall’ stamp on your forehead… You’re not married yet? What’s wrong with you? Don’t get me wrong, I have several friends that this has worked out well for, and I’m extremely happy for them and they are some of the lucky ones, but for the love of Pete!

For me it started at the age of 21 when I moved here from Oregon. In Oregon if you get married before you’re the age of 30 people start to question your sanity. I never feel old and decrepit when I’m back home, but the second I step foot back into Utah Valley, I get the ‘Eye’. Haven’t you been able to nail down a man yet? Ok rude, first off and second, No, but I do have a butt you can kiss if you’re interested.

In light of this constant annoyance, and with the Universe so clearly mocking me, I hold fast as I turn the ripe old age of 26. I’m beginning to think that for my birthday this year, the Universe has offered up a whopper of a practical joke by sending me cats to usher in the next phase of my life in Provo. Thank-so-much! Like I already don’t feel the years waning with the constant reminder that most of the people I know are either engaged, married or having kids. Thank you Provo for making me feel so great and secure about turning yet another year older, single in Provo… Awesome! To this I give a middle finger salute and a bow because I’m in no hurry to rush into anything that could potentially leave me stranded, hopeless and divorced because I was to eager to fit in with the status quo. Happy Birthday to Me!

What do you do when you get to the point where you have SEVERAL stories to share, but you can’t because of who reads your blog. You don’t want to get in trouble with family and friends, or even worse ‘Dooced’. You pass off your lack of creativity as, ‘Writer’s Block’ when all you really want to do is scream.

Which should I talk about first? I have a really good friend needing additional treatment for his cancer that should have went into remission. How about getting in massive amounts of trouble at work over ‘excessive internet usage’ when the one day it was in excess, was the day I tried selling my friend’s cars on KSL as a practical joke. There’s always the story of the ex (that’s now married) that made me feel like I was never good enough, so much so, that I almost literally killed myself for 2 years straight with no break from school even though I had multiple hospital visits and a few surgeries. Now I have to take a few semesters off just to recover. No, I know! You want to here about the time I borderline alienated one of my favorite men that I absolutely love and admire because I decided to turn into a jealous bag of crazy. Maybe I’ll tell you about the time I battled hard-core depression because my body decided it didn’t need to sleep for almost 6 months. I didn’t even know that lack of sleep could amplify depression…who knew?

I realize that I have a tendency to blow things out of proportion, but unfortunately this is just the last couple of weeks in the life of ‘Erin’. The only reason I’m even going off about all of this, is because If I DON’T get this off my chest, I’m going to explode! I’m usually used to life hitting hard, hitting fast, but this is ridiculous. I’m grouping them all together because the last thing I want is for my blog to become a ‘Complain O’blog’. A blog where people check it and think to themselves ‘what is she complaining about now?’ I don’t want that! So, I group the crazy stories together, eat my favorite comfort food (Totino’s pizza bites), watch a chick flick, cry and go to bed. Hopefully I’ll wake up, feel rejuvenated, move past my crazy month, become a good friend again, and turn back into myself. Wish me luck and thank you for listening!

In my place of employment, we have the misfortune of having what is called Musak. Musak is a cornucopia of crappy music that some higher realm of establishment has deemed worthy and appropriate for the work place.

This is a far cry from when I started almost 3 years ago. We were lucky enough not to have the musak stations. We had to make due with a stereo that enabled us to listen to good but also appropriate music. When our corporate first put in the evil system, we had access to over 900 music stations. This was nice especially since you could find just about anything you wanted to listen to. Now, we only have access to 20 of the worst music stations alive. The music changes daily depending on who is working. It firsts starts out with really bad country, really bad emo, and then moves toward the oldies. When we’re sick of oldies we change it to the top 40 station where the music variety never seems to change.

Everyday my fellow co-workers and I go verbal rounds against the really bad variety we have been stuck with. I imagine hell having Musak… or a compilation CD with Yoko Ono, Sinead O’Conner, Muse, Hilary Duff, and Courtney Love. Ask ANY music lover about Musak and they’ll all tell you about the evil poser-istic nature that ‘is’ Musak.

I miss the good old days of decent music that didn’t have me secretly hoping someone would come to rob the place and then shoot us all, putting us out of our misery.

I know the last thing you want to read is ANOTHER blog about the crappy weather, but too bad!

For many people like me, we suffer from a form of depression called SAD, or Seasonal Depression. I know I’ve talked about it before but I’m just going to talk about it a little more. Like many depression sufferers, the sun is absolutely necessary to help raise the serotonin levels in our brains, thus helping us rejuvenate. Let me tell you, nothing feels better then being in the bright sun after a ridiculously loooong winter such as this one. For anyone who lives in Utah valley, you know our weather has been nothing short of odd. One day it’s mid 50’s with overcast then the next day it’s 80 degrees and sunny and the next day it’s back down to lower 30’s and snowing and then it’s back up to the 60’s, just blustering away. You would think that I could just savor the sun while it lasts but, the fact that it has not only been extremely cold but really dark and gloomy, we haven’t had enough sun to make up for this factor thus leaving the sufferers of SAD longing for some seasonal stability.

Thanks to Mother Nature’s nasty bought of PMS, we, like all people are suffering the affects of a woman suffering from ‘Mad Cow’ disease, and I think she needs to take some Midol quickly so the crazy will stop! So, while Mother Nature is insisting on having piss and vinegar running through her veins, the rest of us are just trying to keep a float by doing things that usually make us feel better. Today I did just that! I sat in the parking lot of my work with 10 minutes to spare, guzzling Dr. Pepper, eating French fries with ranch dressing and air guitaring to Led Zeppelin. It may sound weird and I really don’t mind sharing because I know everyone has their own way of surviving less then thrilling circumstances…. I think it would be nice to hear a few anecdotes… please leave a comment and share with everyone a relaxation technique of yours! Audience Participation time!

There is a land called Passiveagressi-ville. Passiveaggressi-ville is occupied by billions of emotionally repressed people around the world. This is the land of people that look happy on the outside, but are basically walking time bombs just waiting to explode on the next person that ‘crosses’ them. It’s a land where people get put out at the slightest inconvenience to them because off all the pent up emotion with no outlet…. until they lose it on something or someone that has nothing to do with what they are actually mad at.

Today just so happens to be passive aggressive day at the bank. Ordinarily this wouldn’t bother me, I’ve grown up around various degrees of this mind set, but today it is particularly bothersome. Basically my ‘open hostility’ mindset wants to beat the crap out of every person who is offended by the small things. Small things like the fact that we don’t have a coin counter, the person our customers want to talk to isn’t immediately available, or my person favorite, why don’t we have a drinking fountain? If this weren’t annoying enough, they then give me the ‘why are you doing this to me’ look, like I have some sort of control over what is going on. Apparently it’s MY fault these things aren’t available. On the surface I of course have a pasted on smile while I apologize for the inconvenience, when all I really want to say is ‘well, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other… and just see which gets filled first, so quit your complaining!’

You think after living with my brother (the current reigning mayor of passiveaggressi-ville) I would have developed a sense of when the storm is coming instead of wondering why there is a BYU student on the roof of a grocery store ready to shoot up the place. Instead I laugh and walk on my merry way. I’m beginning to wonder how many of these types of people now want me dead because of my lack of compassion. Well here’s the thing. After walking into my kitchen one day, and promptly stepping on a shard of glass from a glass that got thrown across the room because of a passive aggressive induced rage, I started loosing my compassion. Do what everybody else does and take up kick boxing or yoga. Leave me the heck alone!