Ghost Story

To make up for the fact that I haven't posted in over two weeks (!) I present to you a bedtime story.

So it is late. I've finished my 11:00pm special snack (bowl of Black Cherry Jell-O and Wheat Thins), brushed my teeth, and changed into my pajamas. Before I go to bed, I decide to do a little reading, as my sleep cycle is way off lately for some reason. I settle on a book of short stories that I bought about a month ago but never got around to actually reading, due to my overwhelming workload lately.

The first two or three stories are funny and cute and a little simplistic. Y'know just like I am, so I'm completely hooked. But then the fourth story takes a really dark turn. It's still short, and pretty simplistic, but whoa it is for-serious scary. Actually, not real scary in the way that most people would be scared of it, but in a very Jason Way of Scariness, where it's all about how your imagination can take a story and run with it. Basically, it's a campfire ghost story, amped up in my mind to sudden Blair Witch-like proportions in my very sleepy state.

When I get ghost-story paranoid like this, I tend to take certain precautions (read: insanities). They are, in no particular order:

• I check the closet for any and all monsters/killers/clowns/etc, and carefully close the door behind me.
• I do the same for the bathroom (careful again to check behind the shower curtain, because monsters are clever like that).
• I lock the door to my bedroom (if something is coming in the apartment, it's getting Frank, not me).
• And I make sure that when I get in bed, I sleep right up against the wall, so there's no chance anything can sneak up behind me. (Hey, no one ever said I wasn't crazy).

Steps 1, 2, & 3 are all taken care of in due course. I'm still a little jumpy and worried about monsters, but dagnabbit, I am an adult, nearly a quarter of a century old, I can handle such things. I turn off my computer monitor, and the room is completely pitch black (damn my installation of those heavy curtains).

Again, hey, I'm cool, I'm an adult. I take the requisite four steps to my bed, stepping on various bits of clothing, books, furniture, and the like. The last step right next to my bed has me trodding on my comforter, which, whatever, right? Until all of a sudden there is this horrible WAILING NOISE coming from DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME UNDER THE BED.

I have no analogue to explain exactly how freaked out I was at this moment. Let's boil it down to the basics: Screamed like a little girl, kicked out involuntarily and seriously injured my foot on the base of my bed, fell over backwards while flailing my arms, managing to trip over the chair in front of my desk and knock a glass of water of the nightstand and all over myself before collapsing into an hysterical heap on the floor, certain that I was about to be devoured.

So it turns out that the phone in my room has a speaker phone option. Which means that if the proper button is pressed, it gives you a very loud dial tone. And that if my room is dirty enough, the phone may be buried under piles of clothes and comforter and wedged under my bed. And when you step on said phone, pressing said button, while it is properly buried under said items of clothes and comforter, it gives off a sound that is not entirely unlike a noise that a bloodthirsty monster who has a taste for nerd-flesh might make.

This is not my beautiful life. Also, my foot really hurts now.

So how have you all been?

Serious Business

I hate thinking about money, I hate talking about money, just the entire enterprise of finances drives me insane. In a general sense, I keep track of where my money goes (rent, student loans, food, and blockbuster pretty much), but getting right down to the details and breaking down exactly how much I make and what percentages go where...well it combination depresses me/freaks me out.

#1 because I make way less than I should for the amount of work that I do, so actively not considering the hard numbers makes me less depressed and more likely not to quit my job and join the food stamp line for my share of that delicious government cheese
AND
#2 because when it comes down to it, I waste a lot of money on really frivolous things.

This was brought into sharp relief this last week when I had to budget my entire weekly allowance on the $17 dollars that were in my wallet. There was a payroll mixup at my office, so I was only paid about a third of what I was owed at the end of the month. At the time, because I am the fool that is immediately parted with his money, I thought I had enough money saved up to tide myself over until the next payday.

This was something of a miscalculation, as when two unexpected bills came due on Monday I had no cash in by bank account. Since physically declaring bankruptcy tends to be frowned on in polite society, I instead emptied my beautiful Car Fund Savings Account to cover the difference. Which satisfied the bill collectors, but robbed me of my plans to go to the VW dealership on Saturday and return with a car that a) had air conditioning, b) had a working gas gauge, and c) contained shocks that kept your teeth from rattling out of your skull while driving down neighborhood roads in Dallas.

It also left me again with no cash in my bank account, and no way to cover day-to-day expenses without resorting to my credit card, which at this point is like getting a loan from the mafia, except my credit card company wouldn't just stop at my kneecaps. So I had to go from Monday to Friday on $17 dollars. This should not be hard, right? There is food in my house, the cable & internet bill is paid up through the end of the month. Just stay indoors.

Yeah, so it turns out that my life revolves around throwing away money. There can be no going out for lunch, there can be no movies, no getting Dr Pepper or Coke, there can be no filling up the TOM with gas to drive anywhere, there can certainly be no going out with people for coffee or dinner.

The only things there can be: Buying new kitchen sponges to replace the last one we had (which had to be thrown out due to plague), getting a 99 cent chicken sandwich from Wendys and making it into a full meal by taking really small bites, and putting $8 dollars worth of gas in the TOM and reeeally hoping that you can keep track of the MPG ratio in your head because of the aforementioned gas gauge malfunction.

And y'all? Sponges are expensive.

I made it through, though, and still have $4.75 to my name. So, y'know score.

Now begins the reconstruction process for my beloved saving account, because seriously, I really want a car with air conditioning. But now that I know that I can make it through the week on $12.25 dollars, I think I can speed the process up a bit.

And I'm pretty sure that I won't have to buy new sponges every week, so that'll make it go even faster.

8 Excerpts From my (Would-Be) Blog Entries Lately

If I wasn't so damn busy....

#8: ...so I've realized that the mortgage industry is basically a twisted sociology experiment. Take the most difficult short term event you can think of that does not involve physical harm to your body (moving), combine it with the largest financial event of your life (buying a house). Tack on the most convoluted, confusing, and draconian business you can still muster in the 21st century (mortgages). Then throw in a couple of Real Estate agents (the human equivalent of a ferret on coke crossed with some sort of deadly snake). And roll it all into a 3 week span wherein you are actively soliciting companies to enslave you into crippling financial debt. I get that this is going to be traumatic for you, but just imagine how I feel...

#7: ...is it possibly to completely love and be completely against a movie at the exact same time? Because don't get me wrong, I loved almost every single minute of The Devil Wears Prada without exception. Streep continues to prove that she can act circles around everyone else in the world with one hand tied behind her back. Emily Blunt is steals every scene she's in without fail, and Anne Hathaway is not necessarily bad at what she does. But what were they going for here? Meryl Streep = evil? or Good? Or intensely misanthropic while still being very good at her job. Because I got #3 out of the movie, which I'm not thinking is what they were going for...

#6: ...and it wasn't just a sneeze, it was like the most violent sneeze ever visited upon a human being. I mean it sent my entire upper body into a forward seizure like I was going to to a double flip off a diving board. In response to this, my hands swing up to shield my mouth, as spewing spittle across any office is considered bad form. And I swear to God, I managed to jab my finger in my eye so hard that I thought I was blind for over a minute. I imagined my life from here on out wearing an eye patch like a mortgage-pirate. It was not an enjoyable fantasy, believe me...

#5: ...because what else do you do after you've already been in the office for 10 hours and your weekend still will not begin until you water the plants? Obviously the answer is to take the two Starbucks cups that you use to get the plant water, affix them to both of your ears like you are listening for the ocean, and then wander down the hall to the water fountain. It's not like there is anyone there to notice you at 5:45 on a Friday. Except for perhaps the cleaning crew. And the late appointment family in Conference Room B, and that guy from...

#4: ...you would like to think that the process of stapling is not that difficult to master. Well, if you are anyone else other than me, you would be correct. However if you are Jason, you will find a way to screw it up, even if you've been doing it professionally for two years now. Here's a hint: If you are using your index and middle finger to press the stapler down and encounter resistance, do not decide to slam your first down on the stapler to help it along. Because it will basically break your fingers in half if you are off by even the slightest bit...

#3: ...no joking, no hyperbole, all serious, the worst book I have ever read in my entire life. Not even humorously bad, or train wreck bad, or let-me-read-the-prose-to-you-out-loud, Anne-Heche-autobiography-style bad, just horrible bad. Like, when I am on my death bed, I will curse the author for the precious 5 hours of my life that I devote to the dreck that he had the audacity to call a book. No characterization, poor plotting, poor sentence structure, completely half-assed attempts at scares, and an ending that rivals "And it was all just a dream" for the worst possible way to close a novel. Someday I will find that "author" and when I do...

#2: ...are you allowed to name cacti? In any case, I love him greatly and despite Frank's insinuations that I am killing him, he is still totally alive, with his shiny orange top and multiple layers and vicious-looking spikes. This may not seem like the largest accomplishment, keeping a cactus alive for just over 9 days, but believe me, it is up there in the Jason Book of Impressive Deeds. I have now moved him off the patio, though, because while the instructions do say that he likes sunlight, I'm pretty sure the amount of heat outside right now is enough to make him spontaneously combust, and even cacti probably have issues with fire...

#1: ...any yet here it is July 8th, and I still plan on going into work next week. The vow has been broken, I've officially crossed the two year deadline at this place with no apparent plans of quitting. My office has apparently become absorbed into my being and I am now actually my job. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl: literally two full years in the same place, doing the same thing. 730 days. I can actually quote you interest rates off the top of my head. I have opinions about the best type of financing options on houses. I have used the phrase TGIF unironically (although, only once, I swear). I have a Tuesday outfit. Wow, this entry got real depressing real fast...

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Some day I might actually get around to finishing an entire entry, but I wouldn't hold my breath.