Slow Food

Dear Fast Food Service Employees-

Good fast food service is like (according to all I've learned from watching The Wire) a good drug deal. Quick, dirty, and with as little eye contact as possible. Both parties involved are ultimately left unsatisfied while a hidden third party at the top rakes in the monies. You heard me, Wendy. Yes, I am comparing that little red-haired Pippi-Longstocking-wannabe with Avon Barksdale, notorious fictional gangster with a troubled soul.

All I want from fast food personnel is for them to swipe my magic piece of money plastic and give me my greasy bag of shame so I can drive away as quickly as possible. Let it drench my entire car, still half filled with stuff I'm too lazy to move into my new house, with its potent fried aroma. But do not, do not, attempt to converse with me. Yes, the regular pleasantries are fine, such as, "Have a nice day," or, "Thank you," and please allow me to respond "thank you" to the latter because apparently I don't understand how language works.

But for Jeebus' sake, please don't do anything more. Being treated like a human being might just make me rethink the entire purchase.

The Pen Dilemma

I take my school/office supplies very seriously. By this, I mean I take somewhat of a perverse joy in buying them. Two weeks (minimum) before the start of each semester, I begin to stalk school supplies like the determined hunter of a Hemingway story. My prey: pens, notebooks, folders, and of course, tabs. Once, I spent the entire afternoon in an Office Depot.

This is why I was happy, nay, thrilled, to encounter a fellow pen connoisseur tonight at the grocery store, of all places. I was pretending my mini-cart was a scooter, semi-surfing it down the office supplies isle just like the faceless people on the child seat tell you not to, when I overheard a rather good looking young gentleman on the phone. He was standing in front of the pen selection, lamenting to his phone compatriot the difficulty he always had when choosing a pen. "The line can't be too thick and the ink can't smear, because then my writing just looks a mess," he muttered with exasperation. Okay, maybe he said "is messy" instead of "just looks a mess", but a girl can dream.

Needless to say, I was tempted to propose on the spot, or at least give him a crisp hi-five. But sadly friends, I didn't even say hello and share pen buying tips with him. Foiled again by this cursed shyness!

I know you are eager to hear what I consider to be the best pen after my years of searching, so I'll let you in on this most precious secret; my favorite pen is the Uniball Jetstream. I prefer a nice 0.7 point, but the 1.0 is good for those who like a bold stroke. No smearing, friends! Check-forging proof!

Also, it turns out Uniball is not owned by Lance Armstrong. I've also been told they don't appreciate tasteless Lance Armstrong jokes.

Isn't it beautiful?

The Mall

 Once in a while, I forget how ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE the mall is. My brain (the eternal traitor) convinces me I really need something only the mall can offer me.

If you go to the mall in my hometown, here are a few things you will find:

1.     An interesting variety of people, including the power-walking elderly and goth teenagers

2.     Mannequins with eyes that follow you like a painting from a Scooby Doo mystery

3.     People with fanny packs

4.     People with mullets

5.     People with mullets and fanny packs

6.     Voldemort behind the Clinique counter

7.     A friendly Asian woman who is ALWAYS cleaning the food court bathrooms, seemingly stuck in The Twilight Zone

8.     Children running amok and smearing their jam covered fingers on your nice sweatpants (children like jam)

9.     Sales people who will ask you multiple times if you want to sample their perfume, and then spray it directly into your face regardless of the answer

10.  SPANX. For women who enjoy feeling like a sausage.

11.  Someone from your past you really didn't want to see...ever

The mall is a cauldron of blatant consumerism and human misery. You can quote me on that.

A Game of Thorns

So. I am 100% confident that I have zero people reading my blog because not even I want to read my last awkward posting. There might be some aliens reading or something. Or like, really smart chimps.

Anyway. I started reading the book "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin. I've been seeing this title floating around because there's a new HBO series based on the book series of which this book is the beginning. I originally thought the title was "A Game of Thorns" because of a misunderstanding between my eyes and my visual cortex. So for awhile I thought this book was some kind of Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes-type saucy British inspired mystery. Which is like, my FAVORITE. I imagined garden parties, women with lace dresses, hedge mazes, and shocking turns of events. I was very excited, as you can imagine.