Hello, Xanga! I have returned! Not that it really matters since I was only gone for about 3 weeks or something. I was attending a destination wedding in Hawaii, but decided to stay a few weeks longer since that is actually where I’m originally from and where my parents still live. You know, because they really seemed to miss having a free-loader around.

A bit of drama involving my cousin and her boyfriend came up while I was away though, the details of which kind of bother me so I really would like to hear your insight on whether I’m just imagining things and need to calm the hell down.

This all started about a week before I left for Hawaii, when I received an e-mail with the subject “Hello Sylvia” sent from someone whom I will refer to as Apple. I didn’t know who this Apple was, and didn’t want to open the message for fear that it would unleash some kind of crazy cyber attack that would wreak havoc on my computer and spread its evilness to all the people in my address book. Yes, I have zero knowledge of how computers and computer viruses work.

But after I did a quick search on Apple’s name and found a bunch of Linked In profiles–none of which were of people who had “shady computer hacker” listed as an occupation–I thought, “I can view this e-mail without fear!” (See previous “I have zero knowledge of how computers and computer viruses work” comment above).

When I opened the e-mail, however, all I saw was this:

Okay, no–that’s not really what the text looked like. It was actually written in Chinese and not little pictures of a sumo wrestler, geisha, and other icons depicting the bastardized notion of Japanese culture. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t just use Chinese text when I threw that image together, it’s because I can’t read Chinese. And thanks to my illiteracy, my initial reaction to this e-mail was, “Nigerian scam written in Chinese!” and “I bet it says this!”

Pretty freakin’ sad, I know, but points for throwing in “swamp donkey”? Maybe?

While I might be illiterate in both computers and Chinese, I was at least capable of knowing that my interpretation of what the e-mail said was all sorts of wrong. So I cut-and-pasted the text into Google Translate and was able to figure out from the really bad English translation that Apple was actually my cousin’s–let’s call her Orange–boyfriend, and wanted to ask her to marry him for. He knew that Orange and her mom (my aunt–a.k.a. “Aunt Orange’s Mom”) were going to be attending the same wedding that I was (Orange was a bridesmaid), and came up with a plan to surprise Orange by showing up right before the ceremony and proposing to her. His window of opportunity was limited because his flight back to Taiwan was later that afternoon, and he had to leave immediately for the airport afterwards. But he had never been to Hawaii before and did not know how he could make it to the ceremony in time. He was therefore hoping I could help him by fine-tuning the details so that everything would be perfectly timed.

Apple sounded sincere, and I thought his plan was very romantic and something my cousin–who is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet–definitely deserved. The problem, however, came in one of the final lines of the e-mail, when he asked me to keep this a secret not only from Orange (obviously) but also Aunt Orange’s Mom (*alarm bells*).

Okay, I get the part about keeping Orange out of the loop because the point of Apple’s plan was to surprise her, but to ask me not tell her mom anything did not sit well with me. Sure, maybe Apple was afraid that my aunt would be too excited to keep the surprise from her daughter, but something in me made me believe that wasn’t his reason. It felt much more likely that Apple didn’t want me to say anything because he knew my aunt didn’t like him. And if my suspicions were correct, then (1) Apple had not gotten approval from Orange’s parents but was going to propose anyway, (2) I would be enabling this disrespect if I helped him, and (3) if my aunt didn’t like him, what if my cousin didn’t either? What if she and Apple were actually exes, and this surprise thing was Apple’s way of winning her back?

I wasn’t sure how to respond to Apple’s e-mail, so I instead took the politician’s route and “kicked the can down the road”–i.e., I called my mom for help. She and Aunt Orange’s Mom are sisters, so I knew she would be able to handle it better than I could.

In the end, my mom thought it would be best for Apple to propose in Taiwan instead of Hawaii. It wasn’t because she thought he was crazy or anything; she just wasn’t sure if we would be able to help him at all because all of us were already going to be really busy that week, and it would be difficult for us to help him perfectly time his surprise when our own schedules were going to be constantly changing. Plus, Orange was in the bridal party so even if Apple was able to arrive before the ceremony started, there was a strong possibility that he would still not be able to see her because she would be taking pictures, or lining up for the processional or something. The chances of Apple’s plan not succeeding were much too great, and my mom just didn’t think it would be fair for Apple or Orange to have their engagement moment be anything less than perfect. (My mom is obviously a lot more positive than I am…)

Anyway, Apple agreed with my mom, told her he would revise his plan so that he could propose in Taiwan instead, and hoped to meet us the next time we were in town since he no longer had to fly to Hawaii. I felt like a total ass afterwards.

Fast forward to the day Orange and Aunt Orange’s Mom arrived in Hawaii. My mom was outside waiting for them to exit the airport and drive them to their hotel, but just when she spotted them, a young man dressed in a suit and carrying a bouquet of flowers quickly walked over to Orange and asked:

It was Apple! He had reworked his plan so that the timing thing was no longer an issue! How sweet!

And of course, Orange accepted. How the hell could she not, right?

Now, at this point in the story–which was told to me by my mom because I wasn’t there at the time–I thought Apple was a really decent and nice guy, and was happy knowing that Orange would be marrying someone who seemed to really care about her. But then this sh*t went down, as did my opinions of the guy whom I will now refer to as Asshat Apple.

That’s some heinous f*ckery right there! Nine hundred dollars?! That’s a lot of money for anyone–friend, family, fiance–to be borrowing, and the person who is asking for it is automatically an asshat until proven otherwise!

…Right? To be honest, I desperately want to be wrong about this guy. I want someone to tell me that I’m just overreacting because Orange is a member of my family and I want her to only have the best things in life. But I can’t shake the feeling that he’s not a good person. 

So which one is it: Should I be wary of Apple’s intentions or just calm the hell down? It’s not like I’m going to say anything because it’s not really my business, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry, you know? 

 

I’ve always considered children’s drawings to just be fugly by default, but I didn’t realize how truly heinous they can be until two days ago, when I was first introduced to a company called Child’s Own Studios.

Child’s Own Studios makes custom plush toys based on kids’ drawings. If you think this sounds like a terrible business concept, you are not alone. The first thing I thought was, “This is doomed to fail.” Let’s be honest here: children can’t draw for sh*t. You know this, I know this–anyone who’s ever seen a child’s drawing knows that 99.9999% of all kids’ art is really bad. Like, you could be looking at what you think is a crayon sketch of some monster straight out of a Guillermo del Toro movie, only to find out that it’s a kid’s attempt at drawing a circle.

Considering all the sh*tty children’s drawings I’ve seen, it was hard to believe that any parent would willingly pay money to turn his or her kid’s nightmarish pictures into nightmarish toys. So when I checked out the Child’s Own website yesterday, I was expecting to see an “Under Construction” banner that was put up in the early 2000s, or a message like “We are no longer in business because our idea was awful.” I didn’t, however, see either of those things on the website. In fact, Child’s Own didn’t just survive; it was actually thriving.

You might be thinking, “Well, not all children’s drawings are sh*t storms on paper. There are talented kids who can actually draw out there.” And indeed, I found two drawings that were quite impressive, and turned out to make pretty cute stuffed animals.

An 8-year-old’s dragon:

I would actually buy this for myself.

An 11-year-old’s dog:

   

Wait, did I say I found two drawings impressive drawings? I meant I only found two. Yes, there were only two decent pictures on the entire site. The rest of them were pretty much what you’d expect of typical kids’ art–i.e., fugly as hell. As for the plush toy versions, those were literally some of the most f*cked up things I’ve ever seen…And now they will become the most f*cked up things you will ever see.

Artist #1, Age 5

Okay, this is either supposed to be (1) a person sexually assaulting a horrified human-ficus hybrid, or (2) a deleted scene from “Powder” in which Powder discovers that the giant cyst on his left shoulder and hand-shaped skin flaps covering his nipples were really the head and arms of his symbiotic twin, Crack.

I looked at this and was like, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” but then I saw this:

What the f*ck is that?! And really, the best thing you could do to cut the creepy out of the drawing was to make two plush toys  instead of one?! Why not throw in some free therapy sessions while you’re at it, because that’s what this kid is going to need when he sees these f*cked up things in the dark!

Artist #2: Age 10

I’m guessing the only reason why the kid named this beast Mud was because he wasn’t aware of the word “sh*tty.”

It appears that Mud was a plesiosaurus who got too close to a narwhal, crocodile, a colony of marine tube worms, and the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. And look! The kid even drew arrows to point out  the burns Mud suffered when he came in contact with nuclear waste.

As if Mud’s life isn’t already bad enough, he also can’t afford a dentist and therefore must live with five rotted-ass teeth and four yellow ones that are on the verge of joining them.

Here is Mud as a plush toy:

On the one hand, I have to give props to Child’s Own for replacing Mud’s jacked up coal-teeth with porcelain veneers. On the other hand, he’s still Mud. And on the third hand, if we sent a 100 of these to Iran, it would be more than enough to convince them to kill their nuclear program.

Artist #3, Age 9

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Artist #4, Age 5

First of all, is this a homework sheet or something? Because it says “F Words” at the top, so I assume this was used to teach children the alphabet. Secondly, a good indicator that your child’s school isn’t cutting it is when—of all the f-words he could have gone with—he chooses “fart”…not “flower,” “frog,” or “fire,” but “fart.” And then he draws a backwards ass that is farting piss.

As if this picture wasn’t enough of an abomination, here it is as a plush toy:

Yes, someone paid for this…with real money.

What the f*ck?! And not only that, why the f*ck?! It doesn’t help that Child’s Own fixed the backwards ass problem. I mean, look at it! It’s farting yellow tulle! Imagine how a kid would look hugging a fuchsia-colored butt with legs and feet, and seemingly frozen in time mid-piss/fart.

Now imagine that same kid also hugging the stuffed human-ficus monster/Powder and Crack tag team. Why? Because they were both drawn by the same child.

Bleach! I need bleach! My eyes need cleansing!

I’ve never used the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique because it’s complete crap, but it has been used on me a few times and the results were always really bad.

What is the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique? More importantly: why the hell couldn’t I come up with something that was easier to type? Stupid hyphens and stars…ruining my flow. I was initially going to call this the Ninja Silencer, but that would make it sound really cool when in reality it’s a steaming pile of sh*t.

Anyway, the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique is what you use when you are having a group conversation and someone starts talking about something that he should have kept to himself for some reason. It is the universal method (i.e., everyone on Earth knows about it) for inconspicuously getting someone to stop talking by inflicting pain upon him. Yes, pain. It could be in the form of a pinch on the arm, stomp on a foot, kick to the back of the knee, etc. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as it’s done silently but violently…oh, and in case I haven’t mentioned this enough already, it has to cause pain or else it won’t work. You cannot simply tap the person lightly because he’d probably think you just accidentally bumped him or something. The element of pain, however, lets your target know that you are getting Silent-but-Violent for a reason…and ideally, the reason is to let that person know he needs to shut the f*ck up.

That’s a pretty sad description, so I’ll just use a real-life example of when the technique was used on me. It happened a few years ago while I was still in law school. Friend B and I, along with a group of friends, had been invited to Friend A’s birthday party…

 

I didn’t think there was anything wrong my response, but Friend B was all horrified that I was telling Friend C about the birthday party because unbeknownst to me, Friend C wasn’t invited. Friend B therefore didn’t want me to mention anything because he (1) didn’t want Friend C to feel left out, and (2) didn’t want Friend A to look bad. But of course, he couldn’t just outright say, “Stop talking about A’s party! She wasn’t invited!” because Friend C was, like, sitting right there. This left Friend B in a difficult position of figuring out a way to give me a heads-up without Friend C noticing.

But wait! Friend B lives on Earth and therefore knew about the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique! And this was the perfect time to use it!

In theory, silent-but-violent shut-the-f*ck-upping should always work. I mean, it’s got like a 100% success rate on scripted comedy shows because the person getting silently-but-violently shut-the-f*ck-upped knows immediately that the infliction of pain is a hint that he is saying more than he should. The victim usually lets out a yelp of surprise and then pretends like nothing happened, while the pincher/stomper/kicker smoothly transitions to a different topic. So if this whole scene between Friends B, C, and me played out on television…

…I would know right away that Friend B’s awfully aggressive pinching is his way of telling me to refrain from saying anything more about Friend A’s birthday party. Friend B then quickly moves on to something else while I bite my tongue and nod enthusiastically at the nonsense words coming out of his mouth.

That sh*t would never, ever happen in real life, people. For one thing, unless you’ve got that disease that makes people unable to feel pain, the first thing you think of when someone suddenly starts going silent-but-violent on you is not going to be, “He’s trying to tell me something!” No, your immediate reaction will instead be, “What the f*ck is this douchebag doing?!” And you’re not going to be thinking it; you’re going to be saying it out loud because who the f*ck does random sh*t like that?!

So when Friend B began pinching me for telling Friend C about the birthday party, it totally pissed me off. This guy wasn’t my friend. He was a douchebag with serious boundary issues!

               

If Step One is to confuse Silent-but-Violent violence for douchebaggery, get really mad and then call the person out, Step Two would be the realization phase. This when your friend makes a face–usually by giving you “Hint! Hint!” Eyes–to let you know that he wasn’t being a douche. He was just trying to get you to shut the f*ck up. Aww…forgiven and forgotten!

In my case, once I saw Friend B’s facial expression I realized he was trying to tell me, “Don’t tell Friend C about Friend A’s party!”

The third and final step is to act like you weren’t just doing Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Uppery and failing miserably. Yes, if this was an instruction sheet, Step Three would literally be “Fail miserably.”

I hate to brag, but I think Friend B and I completed Step Three perfectly…

Remember how I said that the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique was a universal methodology? Well, it’s that universal awareness that makes this technique completely useless. Everyone knows how this works–and that includes all the Friend Cs in this world. The only person who doesn’t know this technique exists is the person getting the Silent-but-Violent treatment because he’s too busy thinking that he’d just been attacked by a douchebag.

The part where this goes awry is somewhere between Steps Two and Three. If I were to reenact those steps in slow motion, it would look like this:

Okay, so I’ve turned around to verbally assault Friend B for pinching me, but he’s giving me serious “Hint! Hint!” Eyes and I realize what he was really trying to tell me.

You know who else got the message from Friend B’s “Hint! Hint!” Eyes? Friend C because unlike me, she wasn’t so mad that she momentarily forgot about something called the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique. In fact, she was already kind of catching on when I yelled at Friend B for pinching me, but Friend B’s facial expression totally confirmed her suspicions that she wasn’t supposed to know about Friend A’s birthday party. And it really isn’t that hard for her to figure out the rest.

And then comes Step Three: Fail miserably.

As I have been saying, the Silent-but-Violent Shut-the-F*ck-Up Technique is just awful and should not be used by anyone. Just outright saying, “Shut the f*ck up” is way more inconspicuous than pinching the sh*t out of them.

As a replacement tool, I suggest using a safe word. Mine is “Voldemort.”

My current position on kids and parenthood can be summed up in a conversation I had with a client during a break in our arbitration hearing. The client was telling me about his daughter recently giving birth to twins and how excited he was to be a grandfather. And after doing some “how time flies” reminiscing, he asked:

To which I responded:

No, the client was not really a giant sandwich cookie. I just drew him as such for purposes of protecting confidentiality and the attorney-client privilege and all that other stuff (plus, that’s what he was snacking on while we were chatting). And yes, I meant it when I said, “OMG, no…no way. Kids are dirty!”

Mr. Cookie Client had a good laugh and said it was great that I knew myself well enough to know that I wasn’t ready to have children. I didn’t think much more about it; I just assumed it was the way most people would react when someone tells them they aren’t ready to become a parent. But then my coworker told me about a conversation she had while having lunch with her former college classmates, and how they reacted when she told them that she and her new husband wanted to enjoy being newlyweds for a few years before starting a family. In a nutshell: they did not take it well.

Maybe it’s because I’m not married, but I totally understood where my coworker was coming from and why. The thought of having a kid in general just scares the sh*t out of me. It should actually scare a lot of people, and not just those kids on “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom.” I recently met a couple who got pregnant immediately after their wedding because they wanted to be the first in their group of friends to say, “We’re having a baby!” I mean, they actually admitted this was their reason for having their baby. And the minute they posted the announcement on Facebook, all the other couples in their circle suddenly wanted to get pregnant too. Judging by the radio silence on their Facebook pages, however, none of them have been very successful. I think they might want to reconsider after looking at pictures of the first pregnant couple, because they’ve become progressively more and more raggedy since their kid was born.

Anyway, when one of my coworker’s married-with-children friends asked her when she was going to start having kids of her own, she told them that she and her husband were going to wait a few years. And the reaction she received in response was nothing like what I got from Mr. Cookie Client. Her friends reacted as if she’d told them that she was going to sacrifice their kids to the devil in hopes of bringing Hitler back to life (that’s exactly how she described it). She didn’t understand why her classmates reacted the way they did, and neither do I. As we all know by now, just because you’re unmarried doesn’t mean you can’t have kids, and just because you’re married doesn’t mean you have to.

I already know I’m not ready to be a parent of anything that doesn’t have four legs. Seriously, the burdens of the baby phase alone are enough to make me swear off motherhood for the next 10 years. The screaming for attention, diaper dootie duty, the drooling—oh, and the expenses! Let’s not forget the expenses. I’d probably have to swear off video games, fast food, and Groupon for, like, forever—and I’m so not willing to do that right now. In order to be a good parent, you have to selfless. Unfortunately for my future children, I’m just way too selfish right now to bring them into this world…through my vagina. UGH! Have you ever accidentally flipped to one of those health channels late at night? Their entire evening lineup is just vaginal births and surgeries. WTF?! Why can’t they blur that sh*t out?!

BUT! I wasn’t always anti-kid. When I was younger, I used to think, “I’m going to have kids when I grow up. Hopefully a son and a daughter!” I never hesitated to accept motherhood as part of my future plans, and I had no qualms telling people this—especially to boyfriends I wanted to break up with. Yeah, I was one those bad break-uppers who beats around the bush because I didn’t have the balls to say, “I want to break up.” Instead, I took the passive-aggressive route:

Back then it was easy for me to say “I want children someday” because “someday” was far off in the future. Now that I’m older, however, “someday” is starting to become “now,” and I no longer have the luxury of being so haphazard with my statements. And I can’t use the Biological Clock Card as a dumping tool because what if the guy actually wants kids? Then what?

When I told Mr. Cookie Client my reasons for not being ready for children, he said I had a good head on my shoulders (he also said, “If your man tells you he doesn’t care about the weight you gained during pregnancy, he is lying. We all care, we just don’t say it out loud.” Bwahahaha!) And while raising a family was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done, it also brought him exponential amounts of joy. But he had all those positive parenting experiences because he was ready for parenthood. Readiness is a definite requirement for good parenting, and that’s true whether your married or not.

So until I’ve attained that level of readiness, my biological clock is just going to have to remain on snooze mode. And if someone acts all dramatic when you tell him you’re not ready to have kids yet, print giant versions of the following pictures, tape them on a sign, and then bitch sign-slap him until he gets it.

I had a rather rude and traumatic awakening yesterday morning:

Ah yes…nothing like starting off your day with a face full of “What the f*ck?!” Breakfast of champions…

So what was it that messed up my morning? Let me set up the scene for you with a bit of back-story.

As you know, I have three cats. Turnip is the orange one, Pepper is the tortie, and Walnut is the grey one. The protagonist in today’s story is Turnip. He’s super sweet and loves meeting people (unless they’re veterinarians), and almost everyone who sees him will tell me things like, “He’s gorgeous!” and “What a beautiful kitty!” And then they see Walnut and Pepper and give an obligatory, “They’re cute too,” followed up by a “But Turnip is such a handsome cat!” *sigh*

Turnip is generally very good, but he’s got really bad habits and they all tend to result in property damage. The most troublesome one is biting thin stringy things like electrical cords, the little rope you pull to raise your window blinds, my hair, brooms, etc. If it consists of anything thin and string-like, it’s fair game.

Although a majority of the items he’s chewed on weren’t at all meant to be consumed by any living creature, Turnip’s never gotten sick as a result. The worst thing that happens is that sometimes I’ll find one of his poop kernels outside of the litter box because it was attached to a piece of hair that didn’t make it out all the way. If you need a visual, imagine a daisy chain (not the electrical engineering one, but the one with actual flowers) is coming out of his butt, except the chain is actually my hair and the daisies are doots. Anyway, the doot kernel falls off the hair it was attached to and ends up on the floor. But it doesn’t stay there for very long because I always, always immediately sweep it up with a little dust pan and broom that I specifically bought for that purpose, and then drench the area with Lysol disinfectant spray. Overdoing it, you say? We’re talking about poop, people, POOP!

Luckily, the clean-up isn’t a big deal because the stuff is usually small and solid. The kernels I found outside of the litter box last month, however…

On the outside they looked like typical cat poop–i.e., solid, peanut M&M’s-shaped brown things–so I just took my little dust pan and broom and started sweeping them up.

Peanut M&M’s my ass! Those turds turned out to be f*cking Cadbury Creme Eggs, and I ended up painting sh*t on the floor!

I know I designated the little dust pan and broom to be cat doots only, but now it was seriously sh*t-specific. Not that I needed a reminder or anything, but still…

Flash-forward back to yesterday morning: I was sleeping when the sound of cats at play woke me up.

I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but the ruckus kept going.

Then I felt something land on me, so I sat up all grumpy-like.

And then I noticed that lying on my blanket was the thing that had landed on me.

And you know what it was? DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS?!

The f*cking doot broom! Dammit! DAMMIT!

P.S. Is this why roosters crow “cock-a-DOOdle-DOO“?!

I had a really bad “Are you f*cking serious?!” moment two days ago. Like, really bad.

It started when I discovered a nasty-ass fly had infiltrated my personal space…

I hate flies. They are like bees except instead of spreading pollen, they spread fecal matter. (Man, I really want to insert “pollination versus germination,” but germination doesn’t have anything to do with germs.) And given that I have three cats, there was a very good chance that this fly would eventually find a way into the litter box and land on a doot kernel that would also be its lunch. It would then be covered in contaminates and dootier than before because it probably came in already covered in poo and pee.

Anything that fly landed on would be tainted, and I knew I had to stop it. I grabbed my electrified bug swatter and tried to electrocute it, but it always flew away before I could even attempt a swing.

    

Flies are pretty fast, but this one was way more agile than those I’d dealt with in the past. Even exhaling seemed to set it off–which would then set me off and I would end up chasing it around my house.

After losing sight of it a few times, I found the fly had returned to the dirty sauté pan where it first introduced itself. 

I took a swing at it…

I know in my heart and soul that I would have succeeded in killing it, I just know it. And I could have gone on with my life if only I had not thrown the swatter down right before it hit the pan. But I did because at that moment I had a sudden epiphany: “Electricity on steel pan!”

(Holy sh*t! I almost electrocuted myself…maybe? Okay fine, maybe the result wouldn’t have been so dramatic, but I’m pretty sure the outcome–whatever it was–would not have been pleasant.)

At that point, I realized for sure that I was not dealing with an average fly. This one was smart. This one knew it could dodge my swatter attacks by landing on the pan. But there was one thing it didn’t know:

I was smarter.

That’s right! I was going to use a dress to attack the fly when it was in the pan, and the swatter when it was out. Eat a d*ck, Fly! My genius was able to negate the protection of your sauté shield!

…Unfortunately, said genius was not enough to overcome my really bad aim.

Dress fail:

Bug swatter fail:

FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

After about an hour of this futility, I was done looking retarded and decided to admit defeat. One of my cats would eventually kill it, or maybe it would freeze to death when I had my AC on. The fly was going to die eventually…just not by my hand.

I consoled myself with some coffee, which I drank using a straw. Yeah, yeah, hot coffee and plastic straws don’t mix, but the potential health risks are nothing compared to the hell I went through when I got my teeth whitened two weeks ago. I had a Groupon for “Zoom! II” laser whitening, and although the procedure worked for me, the pain and agony that followed made it an experience I never, ever want to go through again. So if I have to drink coffee through a straw to preserve the results, fine. I’ll pick PABAs or whatever the hell over “Zoom! II” treatments any day of the week.

Anyway, as I was saying: I decided to console my failed attempts to murder Super Fly with coffee. Just as I was about to reach for my mug, I noticed something:

    

There, sitting on the rim of my coffee cup and batting its wings in what I can only guess was “F*CK YOU” in Morse code, was that damn fly.

I was pissed–and rightfully so, I think, because you know as well as I do that the fly was rubbing its victory in my face. It knew I was incapable of killing it, and that the most I could do was wave it away from my coffee…which I did in a rather peaceful manner.

I picked up my mug and took a sip of coffee from my straw…a sip…which I swallowed.

And then I saw something…

Before I go any further, let me stress again that the sip of coffee was in my stomach and there was no way I could get it out because I can’t throw up. Even when I have really bad food poisoning. So there was nothing I could do but wait for the coffee to pass through naturally–and this detail is important because right then and there I saw one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

THAT F*CKING FLY WAS IN MY COFFEE! MY COFFEE! ALONG WITH ALL THE SH*T AND PISS IT WAS COVERED IN! AND I DRANK SOME OF IT!

WHY?!

Do you think this guy was being a racist or just rude?

I was visiting my parents for the past two weeks, and while I was there they asked me to go to a little shop downtown and order a new set of cushion covers for their patio sofa. My parents had been living with these ugly-ass cushion covers for over 20 years. They were dark grey and covered with an orgy of bird-of-paradise flowers and banana leaves, so my parents were totally thrilled when someone told them that there was a store that made custom-fit cushion covers. But they were always really busy with work and could never find time to make it to the store before it closed at 3:30 PM. Thus, they sent me on the important task of ordering a set of solid-colored cushion covers. I could pick the color at my discretion, but flowers, fruits, surfboards, Mai Tais, or any other bastardized idea of Hawaiiana was not to appear in any form or fashion on the fabric.

I brought one of the cushions with me so that the storeowner could measure it, and spent about 45 minutes sifting through their catalogue of available fabrics. Why 45 minutes? Because this was Hawaii, and every single pattern was a cacophony of loud colors and tropical flora. Seriously, they did not have a single solid-colored anything in there, and would have had to place a special order just for a freaking book of samples!

I called my mom who was like, “Forget it. Just pick the one that isn’t as ugly as the rest.” And that’s why it took me 45 minutes to decide on a fabric. I was flipping through a catalogue that could have been the basis of a very bad Skittles commercial: Sh*t the rainbow! *whisper*

But I eventually found a best-of-the-worst and went to place my order with the storeowner–a man with a really bad comb-over, loud Hawaiian shirt, and who looked to be about 60 years-old.

I just needed him to measure the cushion and give me a bill–a process that could’ve taken less than 10 minutes. But nooooo! He wanted to have a conversation first.

Yes, I call myself Chinese and not Taiwanese, and no, I don’t want to hear your assessment of China-Taiwan politics.

The storeowner began telling me stories about how he used to buy counterfeit goods in Asia, and then started singing the praises of Communism. 

He was quoting Mao and Zhou Enlai, and all I could do was stand there because I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. I mean, the closest I got to learning any Chinese history was when I played “Romance of the Three Kingdoms X”–but I wasn’t in historical mode and basically learned nothing.

Finally, the storeowner cut the crap and decided to finally provide some basic customer service. He pulled out his receipt pad and said:

But before I could open my mouth, the old fart went ahead and answered his question for me:

OMG! You (racist/rude) f*ck! I just wasted over an hour of my time looking at heinously awful fabrics and listening to your mouth diarrhea, and you have the nerve to crack a joke like that?! You want Fu Manchu? Here! Here’s your Fu Manchu!

Obviously, I didn’t stab the man in the eye with his own pen, although I really, really wanted to. Of course, that’s assuming his “Fu Manchu” comment was actually racist. I honestly don’t know if I was right to be so offended, or if the reason why I thought he was being racist was because he was a non-Asian making a joke about an Asian’s name.

By the way, his wife was a young Filipino woman, but that’s about as helpful as saying “I have gay/black friends” in defense of making a crude joke about gays/black people.

So which one is it: Was he being rude or racist?

My friend told me a story about some workplace drama one of his coworkers was involved in—a story I would have found totally amusing had it not set off my Potential Psycho Alarm.

As the name suggests, my Potential Psycho Alarm is triggered by people who are barely balancing the fine line between extreme creepiness and crazy-ass-wielding-a-samurai-sword-in-the-middle-of-Disneyland. It doesn’t go off very often because I don’t live in Florida, so on those rare occasions when it does, you can bet I’m not taking that sh*t lightly.

With this recent alarm, however, I’m not quite if it was triggered because my friend’s coworker has genuine psycho potential, or because I’ve been binging on the Investigation Discovery channel, which has a lineup entirely dedicated to shows about famous murder investigations (super interesting stuff!). So I’m going to share the story with you to see if your Potential Psycho Alarm goes off. If it doesn’t, then I need to cut the cable cord. If it does, then–hmm…then I’ll just draw some more Paint pictures and ask you guys what I should do next.

In this telling, I will be using Apple, Orange, and Pear to illustrate the pivotal moments.

Apple is the coworker and the star of this story. He’s not very good at socializing with people, and is even less skilled at attracting women. He recently took up photography, and spends his weekends going to clubs and trying to convince drunk girls to model for him (Holy crap! Did your Potential Psycho Alarm go off when you read that sentence too?!). Wait, it gets better! Before becoming a “photographer,” Apple used to be a “party promoter.” Oh please. Everyone knows that “party promoter” is just a fancy way of saying “douche bag who sticks party fliers on your windshield.”

Anyway, the apple of Apple’s eye (hahaha…ugh…) is Orange, the office receptionist. Apple has been trying to woo Orange for awhile now by asking her repeatedly, “Are you busy this weekend?” He has occasionally given up and turned his attention to Orange’s friends and family, whose pictures she keeps on her desk. But in the end, his heart always returns to Orange.

Pear is Apple’s project manager. The company they work for does financial projections or something for businesses, and employees are grouped into teams. My friend, Apple, and a few other people are all on Pear’s team.

Because the company had been renovating half of the office building, the entire workforce was crammed into the other half. And in order to make everyone fit, they ended up putting desks in the break rooms and reception area (I imagine it looked kind of like the setup on “The Office,” but way more crowded).The workspace for Pear’s team was in the reception area, and Apple’s desk was adjacent to Orange’s. Yeah, I know: dun…dun…dun!

Okay, so all this drama went down when the company announced last week that the renovations were complete, and the teams that had been displaced by the construction would be moved back to the other half of the building.

After Pear left, Orange tried to talk some sense into Apple…

Yes, he was not going to move under any circumstances, even if it cost him his job.

Having cut ties with his old team, Apple started making the rounds to all the other project managers in the company and asking them if he could join their teams. No one, however, would take him on. In fact, they actually all told him he was being unreasonable.

There is no way you could have heard that story without your Potential Psycho Alarm going off in your head. Apple is crazy! All Pear was asking him to do was move to the office down the hall, but he reacted as if he was being told that the company was relocating him to Syria! Syria!

This situation screams impending workplace violence, and I told my friend that he should be careful. But he thought I was overreacting because “Apple’s not like that.” Well that’s really comforting. What’s the most common thing people say when they are interviewed after someone they know has committed mass murder? “He didn’t see like the type.”

So…was my Potential Psycho Alarm a false alert?

P.S. Pretend the purple box is a bunch of grapes. I got lazy…sorry…