Considering how my regular job is drifting towards the deep end of the toilet, my reserve weekends up in Willow Grove aren't that bad anymore.  I can get away with just about anything at drill now-- rank has its privelages, and so does a boss who just got promoted to E-7 that can cover for you.

Alan's promotion wetdown party came up to an approximate $1,200 bar tab, which I covered about $200 of it myself.  I say splitting among 20 guys that kind of bar tab isn't so bad (At least compared to the $8,000 bar tab we hit up in one night in San Diego among 30-something of us).

I spent all weekend dodging people left and right.  I was hanging out with a buddy who was on duty that day in the duty office, and hid behind the fridge anytime someone came-a-lookin'.  One of the Majors kept looking for me all day, I have no idea why, and I never found out why either.  Guy would walk into the duty hut and ask for me every 30 minutes, while my buddy would shoo him away.  And he never found me at all for the rest of the weekend.  As Borat would say, "Great Success!"

I got so bored yesterday that I tried lighting my own farts on fire.  It worked, at the cost of my ass-hairs and Jenny, the cute WM from Tool Room walking in on me with my legs spread open, pants down, and a lighter in front of my ass.  Didn't look very professional to an outsider.

And she had the nerve to call my shop the "Cockpit".  How rude.

.....................

I think the whole point I'm trying to make here is, I haven't had more fun at "work" in a long time.  When you start liking drill weekends better than your regular place of employment, maybe it is a sign to get a new day job.

I was training the three biggest shit-for-brains in the world that get paid more than me.  Now they can all eat monkey turd for all I care.

I have not had a full weekend off for the last few months.  In fact, I was never supposed to be scheduled almost any weekend for the last two months, but I always had to cover someone's shift.  And every time I tell them "NO" in big bold letters accompanied with the universal "finger", they bitch to King Tweedledumb, the branch manager, and guess who gets voluntold to cover their goddamn shifts anyway?  It's always the same shit anyway, like the classic one from an anonymous coworker--

Her:  "oh I have a doctor's appointment (sleeping with a doctor) tonight, can you cover my shift?"
Me:  uh, NO.
Her:  "oh ok, I'll just let the boss know and he'll listen to me because I'm female."

I shit you not, I'm not lying.  You just can't make something up like that.  So much for respecting gender equality at the workplace.

.................................

I thought this was a regular civilian job, not the silly Marine Corps all over again.

Happy late Turkey Day.  Gobble Gobble Burp Belch Gimmeanotherbeerplease Bleh Heybaby Puke Slap Yeehaw Snore.

I'm glad I'm working today, and there's hardly that many customers today, since the mall is keeping 90% of the American population preoccupied all day.

And word to the wise:  don't let me find out that you were one of those that lined up at zero-five-A-M in front of Macy's this morning.  Because well, you're probably not going to get any sympathy from me when you find out that the shoes you wanted was either snatched away by the evil wench in front of the line, or get laughed at if you're dumb enough to line up and get trampled by the stampede of mothers ready to maul the cashier at Coach for a handbag.  And the worst part of all is, most of the "sale" items aren't any cheaper than usual anyway.  Black Friday is just a big scam, just like all the other "holiday" sales events that the average American gets tricked into.

Buy your shit online, its less hassle anyway.

$5.00 Jaegerbombs specials + surrounded by women with big fake boobs = trouble.

"Heyyy, are those real?  Let me touch them!!..."

*SLAP*  *KICK*

"owwwww......"

They weren't drunk enough to roll with my all-too "friendly" demeanor.  They must have been real.

..............................................................

By the way, I think Miss Kelly here could make any grown man cry on sight:

..............giggedy giggedy..................

So I walk into work this morning, and only two of the Tellers decide to show up.  Along with Tweedledee and Tweedledumb, the two managers-in-training, decide to lock themselves in Tweedledumb's office and having a grand old time in there, while I'm stuck outside here sitting here at my desk, listening to Teller #1 getting bitched out by some ungrateful fuckstick in the lobby.  I could walk over there and defuse the situation, or let Teller #2, who has this silly notion that makes her think she's running the whole branch (yes, a Teller), take care of it herself.  Last time I tried to help, she insisted that she knows what to do and I was "getting in her way".  Well, this is why i'm continuing to type right now, instead of trying to help out-- I'd just be "getting in her way" anyway.  She's looking over this way like she needs backup, and I just shrug my shoulders and well..... keep typing.

So I'm still mildly seeing double right now, my head is pounding, and the Financial Advisor is sitting with his head down at his desk in his office for the last forty minutes.  I think he missed like two phone calls, I hope none of them was his boss.  I'm to blame too-- we all went out for happy hour, and we got two shots of Patron and that kind of did him in.  Oh yeah, this may be a reason why some of the coworkers didn't show up.  Lightweights.

Tweedledee and Tweedledumb looks irritated when they found out we all went out last night.  Like I care what they think.  I need a new job.  Because you KNOW something is wrong when you're training two people that are paid double your own salary.

And they're just as sharp as a pile of bricks.

A day late, sure.  But better late than never.

As any vet would tell you, they would rather be sitting on a tropical island with topless women serving them girly drinks, rather than playing in some bombed-out shitstain of a country.  But you know what-- if they gave us topless women serving us alcoholic drinks on our time-off in Iraq, my time there wouldn't have been so bad.  Maybe I'm asking too much.  Shit, even asking for a hot meal out there sometimes was damn near impossible sometimes.  I was however, blessed with a Gunny that is a union worker in his civvie job, so we still had hot showers-- half of the time.

Ironically on Veterans Day two years ago around this same day of the year was actually my first taste of combat.  Maybe I should rephrase that-- my first taste of almost getting blown out of the sky while I shat myself when something from Black Hawk Down almost happened to me and my flight.  No seriously, I had to burn my flight suit because I really did soil myself.  Hey, shit happens, literally.

Two years later on the same day, I'm trying to pick up my own drool and simultaneously not to harass too many drunken women at a bar.  I celebrated one less day spent in the Sandbox!

.................

A View from my office, 800 feet in the air-- circa 2004:

Starboard side of a CH-53E, Fallujah, Iraq (Nov. '04)

I found out why my date never showed up for the Marine Corps ball.  Quite a surprise to me actually, refer to my protected post if you want to find out.

As common courtesy, I put the toilet seat down after I'm done with it for the ladies.  But have they ever showed me the same respect back?  No!  Never did a woman lift the toilet seat back up for me in my life.  This is an outrage. 

As every Marine Corps Birthday Ball goes, similar things will happen every year.  Things such as:

• Got drunk


• Ate alot


• Got drunk


• someone passing out during the Ceremony


• Got drunk


• Go out in town and gamble in Atlantic City, NJ


• go back and wax off your date / spouse / wife / hired prostitute for the night.

However, my date this year, who swore up and down that she will show up saturday afternoon in time for the Ball, decided not to show up.  I called her cellphone in the morning and her psychotic ex-boyfriend picked up the phone.

So first we play the "who the fuck are you?" game.  (For disclosure reasons, I will name him TB, short for "Turd Bag")

Me: Who the fuck are you?
TB: Who the fuck are you?
Me: No, who the fuck are you?

Followed by,

Me: Where the fuck is "D"?
TB:  Where the fuck is D?
Me:  No where the fuck is D?

So he was equally as confused what the hell she went.  But hold up...

Me:  Ok.... why the fuck do you have D's cellphone?
TB: :::random, garbled profanity directed at me, with occaisional threats inserted in:::

Well, I say I really dropped the dime on him this time.  Bring it on, fat man.

..............................................

So, the date didn't show, I'm sitting at my table being the only single guy there, it was quite awkward a little bit, but at least everyone had the time to be social, instead of hugging and making out in front of others due to copious amounts of alcohol involved.

Other interesting things that happened:  (remember, I was drunk when all this happened)

• I danced with two attractive and very drunk female Marine Captains.  In fact, I was the enlisted guy sandwiched between them on the dancefloor.  I had lots of envy pointed towards me.


• I told some Staff Sergeant to go fuck himself after he asked me if he could have my complimentary beer mug, b/c somebody stole his.  He just walked away.  I think he came back later when I wasn't paying attention and stole mine anyway.  So I went ahead and "tactically acquired" someone else's mugs.


• Lost $60 within three minutes out in town at the Hilton casino on the roulette table.  It landed on green the second roll.  How the heck did it land on green?  In fact, where the FUCK did green come from?


• Going out in town with Blues on didn't turn out to be such a bad idea after all, in a way.  Everyone was buying us drinks left and right, I didn't pay a single dime for any drink out in town.  How I got back to my own hotel, and woke up naked on the floor however, is a mystery to me.  I just didn't think too much about it and climbed back into bed.


• How I drove home from Atlantic City to Baltimore on Sunday morning is beyond me too.  I woke up seeing double, mysterious bruises on my elbows and shoulder, and I think I still saw like 1 and 1/2 by the time I was on I-95 southbound.

Many blackmail-worthy pictures coming soon. 

I had a new boss today, after all, yesterday was my original boss's promotion and i'm stuck with the new guy.  Sure my old boss was a perky hardass, but at least I personally got along with her.  This new guy is just a complete tool.  In fact, he's a tool BOX.  Oh hell, this guy might as well be Home Depot.

......

Some people say dressing up on Halloween makes you look like a tool.  Others say if you didn't dress up, it makes you look like a snoozefest that hates life.  What if you dressed up and yet you still hate life?  In fact, two days in a row.... how about that?

Yes, I was a pilot last friday, which is probably a very uncreative costume, considering how flight suits is pretty much what I wear to drill weekends anyway.  Saturday I got to borrow a clock with a chain on it, and put on a tracksuit-- yes, I was Flava Flav.  My lady-friend was a scantily-clad lady cop.  Wow.

However, I disliked many of the costume-bearers over the weekend.  Halloween means that any girl-- hot, ugly, fat, enormous, etc. could dress up like a slut.  No originality comes to play, because as long as you add something like "naughty" or in front of the name-- Naughty Nurse.  Naughty Schoolteacher.  Naughty Secretary.  Naughty Gynecologist.  Whatever.  Just say you're a street prostitute and it would make more sense to me.  Because as a man, I really don't care.

I do care however, if some chick the size of Phobos should NOT be seen in a tight, Cheetah-skin jumpsuit that wraps around mountains of rolls on her side.  Unless of course, she was posing as a Cheetah that just ate a fat human being, then yes.... maybe that is quite creative after all.

And good lord, I have SexyBack stuck in my head after they kept playing it at Padonia Station last night.  Bastards are going to make me download that stupid song.

A customer was screaming and cussing at a teller while making a deposit the other day, and I went over there to see what was wrong.  It turns out the customer wanted cash back in $50 bills, and the teller gave him $20's.

"Look at the fucking deposit slip," he tells me.  "It says I want $50's on it, not fucking 20's."  In those exact words, which I didn't think was very polite.  I'm looking through his deposit slip and notice that it looks like Arabic or something.  Actually I figured out that it was really English, except the customer has handwriting so bad that even an autistic six year old could write better than him.  I had to stare at it for a moment just to see if I could translate any of the words into real English.

"Its right there, can't you see it?  Aren't you supposed to be the fucking manager or something?  Tell your goddamn tellers to learn how to read," he screams at me while pointing at the slip.  I kind of see where it says "50's" on it, the rest was illegible.

"Well sir," I say to him.  "I'm confident enough to say that the Tellers are fully capable of reading and writing in the English language.  Also, they are also kind enough to treat customers with the best customer service and respect.  So before you accuse my Tellers of anything, I suggest you work on your attitude before conducting any business with anyone at this bank."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he tells at me and looks like he's about to jump over the counter.  Ok, that's it, no more nice guy.

"What I mean is, you should work on your piss-poor conduct of yours and learn how to fucking write legibly."  Shit, big mistake.  Maybe I shouldn't have used profanity.

Guy storms out of the branch and apparently I get a debrief from my manager the next day saying that the asshole called corporate office and complained about MY poor attitude and bad customer service from the Tellers.  And since this coming from corporate office, my manager's hands are tied and she was forced to write me up.  Using profanity is definitely a no-no in the world of customer service.  *I* have poor attitude?  I don't think so.  I told her my story, with witnesses from the other Tellers.

I almost forgot though, but I just had to abuse my power to put a freeze on somebody's account, and write them up for "Suspicious Behavior".  I gathered all his information, wrote my affidavit, and sent it to the head of corporate security downtown, and ZING!  Problem solved.  The asshole has a big surprise waiting for him.  Something in the lines of 'permanent check hold', 'frozen account', and 'suspicious individual-- warning!'.

Hey, everyday is a learning experience, right?

..................................................................

Other that that, I'm proud to announce that with my unwavering bad influence, I managed to get the manager, assistant manager, head teller, and one of the VPs of Financial Services drunk all in one night.  Nothing like turning strong, professional career-minded women into speech-slurring sorority sisters with a few pints of liquor!  woohoo!