Monday, June 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Pertaining to the Subtle Realities of Mysophobia
I'm a mysophobic, otherwise known as a "germaphobe". I can pinpoint my phobia back to my employment with Kroger between March and October of '04. I was the only male under 50 working the day shift in a building full of women. The movies would make me out to be the strapping young stud that did all the heavy lifting, spending my lunch period flirting with the pharmacist and shirtlessly drinking Diet Coke. However, in lieu of backroom trysts and mediocre cola, I was branded bitch-boy. My duties were plentiful and unfulfilling, including an hourly rain-or-shine shopping cart retrieval session. The rewards were minimal, as in minimum wage, but I digress.
Long story short, when I was assigned the task of cleaning the unholiest of storage room sinks, which contained a two-week-old broken jar of light mayonnaise, the overwhelming odor forever embedded in my mind an eccentric fear of bacteria. To put into perspective the severity of this abomination, I spent two years in high school working for a QuikTrip location in a heavily populated area, and not one of the bathroom horrors I witnessed presented a viable rival to this sink. It affected me, and every subsequent custodial duty performed within the remainder of my tenure with Kroger only served to worsen this condition.
I turn door handles with my pinky, making sure never to touch the worn spot.
There's no 5-second rule. There's a law, and it's "Throw it away if it touches the floor".
I get nostalgic at the scent of Germ-X.
I'm not kidding.
Long story short, when I was assigned the task of cleaning the unholiest of storage room sinks, which contained a two-week-old broken jar of light mayonnaise, the overwhelming odor forever embedded in my mind an eccentric fear of bacteria. To put into perspective the severity of this abomination, I spent two years in high school working for a QuikTrip location in a heavily populated area, and not one of the bathroom horrors I witnessed presented a viable rival to this sink. It affected me, and every subsequent custodial duty performed within the remainder of my tenure with Kroger only served to worsen this condition.
I turn door handles with my pinky, making sure never to touch the worn spot.
There's no 5-second rule. There's a law, and it's "Throw it away if it touches the floor".
I get nostalgic at the scent of Germ-X.
I'm not kidding.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
No News is Good News.
404-526-2010. This is more than a phone number. It's the calling card for a team of outsourced, unstoppable hounds who want $10 a month for something I can get by clicking the next browser window.
It's "A Marketing Resource" calling on behalf of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They're calling with tidings of discounted renewals. These calls have gone on and on for two months now, and I just continued to ignore them, hitting the decline button. You think they’d take the hint. However, the calls have not stopped, and the calling window has been getting bigger the last few days, and they’re now calling me at 9 in the morning until 9 at night.
I enjoy sleeping in on my birthday, and I would have done so today if not for the early morning call I received from that number. Without hesitation, I “slide to answer”, and open the conversation with "I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOL-” *click*, they hung up. Haven’t gotten a call all day.
A simple, barely noteworthy victory. It reminds me of the time I called to cancel my subscription due to paper thieves. I live in an apartment, so my newspaper was subject to theft every second it sat at my front door. Too often, my paper would be gone before I even woke up. Three weeks, no paper, and I had a four-day-a-week subscription. It was time to cut ties with the AJC.
This is normally where I’d say “hilarity ensues”, but it was really just a whole lotta stupidity.
First, they offered to put the paper closer to my door, because we all know the key to stopping newspaper theft is altered proximity. I thanked them for their ruthless dedication to crime-fighting, then declined their suggestion, as all the mastermind paper thieves I know have evolved and are more than willing and able to walk that extra foot or so for their trophy. Subscription remains cancelled.
They then suggest the possibility of installing a box just for my newspaper. Who wouldn't jump at the idea?! My very own locked compartment, RIGHT by my door, for MY newspaper. That'll stop those pesky thieves. I'm in. Renew that bad boy! Papa needs his funnies!!!
This is like crack to me -
Woah, wait, what was that? There's no lock? It's just a box with a lid? The AJC's impenetrable, newspaper-shielding forcefield is an unlatched plastic lid? AJC, you sum tricky sunsabitches, but I'm confident that my paper thief has at least one arm, which I feel is a standard prerequisite for opening a FLAP. Hear me now - if my paper thief has no arms, he can have my newspaper. He earned it. No box. Moving on.
I presented the next option. Living on the second floor, I suggested that my delivery driver throws the paper on my balcony. It's a win-win. I get my paper, and the driver doesn't even have to come upstairs. Oh, that can't be done? It's not procedure? Five minutes ago, your "procedure" was to nudge the paper a foot closer to my front door. Do I really want to get my news from these savvy problem-solvers? No thanks.
With no viable solution in sight, and a quickly waning interest in hearing this phone jocky babble about their anti-theft strategies, I respectfully resigned my place in the conversation.
Call me when you put a lock on that box, moron.
It's "A Marketing Resource" calling on behalf of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They're calling with tidings of discounted renewals. These calls have gone on and on for two months now, and I just continued to ignore them, hitting the decline button. You think they’d take the hint. However, the calls have not stopped, and the calling window has been getting bigger the last few days, and they’re now calling me at 9 in the morning until 9 at night.
I enjoy sleeping in on my birthday, and I would have done so today if not for the early morning call I received from that number. Without hesitation, I “slide to answer”, and open the conversation with "I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOL-” *click*, they hung up. Haven’t gotten a call all day.
A simple, barely noteworthy victory. It reminds me of the time I called to cancel my subscription due to paper thieves. I live in an apartment, so my newspaper was subject to theft every second it sat at my front door. Too often, my paper would be gone before I even woke up. Three weeks, no paper, and I had a four-day-a-week subscription. It was time to cut ties with the AJC.
This is normally where I’d say “hilarity ensues”, but it was really just a whole lotta stupidity.
First, they offered to put the paper closer to my door, because we all know the key to stopping newspaper theft is altered proximity. I thanked them for their ruthless dedication to crime-fighting, then declined their suggestion, as all the mastermind paper thieves I know have evolved and are more than willing and able to walk that extra foot or so for their trophy. Subscription remains cancelled.
They then suggest the possibility of installing a box just for my newspaper. Who wouldn't jump at the idea?! My very own locked compartment, RIGHT by my door, for MY newspaper. That'll stop those pesky thieves. I'm in. Renew that bad boy! Papa needs his funnies!!!
This is like crack to me -
Woah, wait, what was that? There's no lock? It's just a box with a lid? The AJC's impenetrable, newspaper-shielding forcefield is an unlatched plastic lid? AJC, you sum tricky sunsabitches, but I'm confident that my paper thief has at least one arm, which I feel is a standard prerequisite for opening a FLAP. Hear me now - if my paper thief has no arms, he can have my newspaper. He earned it. No box. Moving on.
I presented the next option. Living on the second floor, I suggested that my delivery driver throws the paper on my balcony. It's a win-win. I get my paper, and the driver doesn't even have to come upstairs. Oh, that can't be done? It's not procedure? Five minutes ago, your "procedure" was to nudge the paper a foot closer to my front door. Do I really want to get my news from these savvy problem-solvers? No thanks.
With no viable solution in sight, and a quickly waning interest in hearing this phone jocky babble about their anti-theft strategies, I respectfully resigned my place in the conversation.
Call me when you put a lock on that box, moron.
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