My Timehop has been rife with memories and flashbacks of past Law Firm desk Halloween decorations, like the time a co-worker called my desk a “hostile work environment” and kind of wasn’t kidding. I posted one of the Timehop memories on Facebook last week and said that I regretted not decorating this year, so Sandy and Michele were like YOU STILL CAN. THERE IS TIME. SHOOT FOR THE STARS, ERIN.

But I just didn’t feel inspired.

I started thinking about how I would decorate if I was someone else in the department. Like if I was Wendy, I would probably have pumpkins draped with Stella & Dot necklaces. Who knows.

And then I started associating horror movies with co-workers based on their names, and wondered, “Could I get away with decorating someone else’s space instead of mine?”

I mean, of course I can!

So this year’s theme is THE HIJACKING.

I spent all weekend collecting things from around the house. I wanted this to be as simple and no-fuss as possible since there were going to be more than just one space to decorate. Some things I had to buy, but I think I ended up spending less than $10! Henry was pleased! I was late shift yesterday which awarded me the perfect opportunity to get ‘er done. (I looked like a typical Pittsburgh bag lady on the trolley, ugh.)

Let’s start with Lori!

I changed her name to Lori Strode, after Jamie Lee Curtis’s character on HALLOWEEN a/k/a the best horror movie in the whole entire world. Quick sidebar: we went to Allen’s Haunted Hayride on Friday and when Michael Myers got all up on me in the wagon-thing, I was horrified yet REALLY INTO IT, which is just what I want from my Michael encounters.

Henry’s old meat shop coveralls, forever coming in handy.

Glenn has an ironic pumpkin decoration that Amber2 makes him display, so I snatched that to help make the scene more Halloween-esque.

I EVEN CHANGED “LAURIE” TO “LORI.”

See also: I have no life.

I had to wait until this morning to decorate Lori’s office because she was late shift with me last night. But the fun part about this is that she got to see all the other decorating I did without realizing she was also a target!

Lou is one of my work enemies so naturally I had to go with Ju-On (The Grudge for all you Americans).

Lou is seriously worst.

Meanwhile, I think Glenn thought he was off the hook this year. He knew about two of my ideas and I made it sound like THAT WAS ALL I WAS DOING. And originally, it was going to be, until “Polterglenn” came to me and then I couldn’t stop laughing because how dumb and ridiculous.

That clown was one of my un-birthday gifts from Gayle! And that hat is Chooch’s. I bet Glenn didn’t even notice this right away this morning!!

Holy shit, I was so stoked to decorate Todd’s desk. It’s a nationally known fact that Todd’s desk décor consists exclusively of Qdoba napkins. Or maybe it’s Chipotle. I guess it’s not really all that nationally known.

Anyway.

Sweeney Todd, obviously!

Cardboard straight razor so I don’t get called to HR. Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir. (FUN FACT: That bottle of green liquid and floating fingers is a regular fixture on a table near my Robert Smith wall. I just taped a label on it.)

(Another FUN FACT: That hand mirror was left behind by a previous occupant of my house. I found it by accident when I pulled a chair into the bathroom when I was pretending to clean the unreachable top shelf of the bathroom closet. One side of it is bashed in and I’m convinced it was a murder weapon in another life. Also, this is the third time it’s made an appearance for Halloween decorating at work.)

The wallpaper was left over from the funeral parlor desk theme of 2014.

Henry had to help me with the barber pole because I started doing that “I’M GOING TO DESTROY AN ENTIRE VILLAGE OF ORPHANS” angry squeal that comes out when I’m frustrated and losing my patience after 5 seconds of effort.

This is my favorite part! I was worried though because I always stumble fake bugs around the house but naturally as soon as I NEED THEM they’re nowhere to be found. I didn’t want to go out and buy any because the whole goal for me is to try and accomplish as much as I can with what I have. It makes it more authentic! And laughably rudimentary in some cases. But then I found some ants in my desk at work!

And an extra thumb!

Oh, and cobwebs too!

“Of course you did,” Henry sighed when I got in the car after work that night.

OK, I saved my favorite one for last. This was the one that came to me first and I was so excited about it that I slipped and told a couple people at work because god forbid I should ever keep my mouth shut ever! And I knew it must have been a good idea when Glenn actually LAUGHED AUDIBLY.

I thought I’d have to go to a forest for the twigs, but no! I just needed to go right in my own backyard! So yeah, I lost about two hours of my life on Saturday making Satanic folk art. This was another moment where I threw a fit but then Henry went and plugged in the glue gun for me and then I was fine. This was actually kind of therapeutic.

So if you ever need any of these creepy twig stick figures, I’m your girl.

I knew there was a reason I kept my old, broken camcorder.

Mitch came over and gave me a high-five today. I mean, it’s the best one, so he should be proud!

God you guys, I wish this was my real life job, Ambushing people’s work spaces and aggressively decorating! I think that’s something I would excel at. Why are all the things I excel at so stupidly niche?

It’s been a while since I posted photos from my glamorous afternoon walks so here are some right now, can you stand it.

Was Missy shot?

I just like this side street ok?

This view of Liberty makes Pittsburgh look even smaller than it actually is.

A symbol of my fake Irish heritage. (FUN FACT: I’m 0% Irish. Don’t let my name fool you.)

RIP Altar Bar. Saw some good bands up inside you but you were kind of a shitty venue SORRY BUT ITS TRUE. The sound there was awful. I’ll miss walking by on my lunch breaks, trying to catch a glimpse of the bands performing that night, though :(

Ugh ew disgusting I hate Wholeys. Bleh.

I remember when this area used to be the shit. Long live Metropol & Rosebud. At least Costume World is still there?

Wow guys you’re in for a treat: here is where I buy stamps for the post cards I don’t write anymore! (I ran out of recipients. But we had a good three month run!)

Across from the post office is one of the Crazy Mochas I frequent. This one is weird because literally never the same person is working, I can’t understand it. On this day, the most beautiful half-Samurai bun’d man made me a perfect iced soy latte and be busted me every time I tried to paparazzi him.

Also at this Crazy Mocha, if I get there at 1:30, I will always see this super old man who orders the same no-nonsense thing every time: small coffee, filled up with a little room at the top so he can put in his cream, and he pays with a crumpled dollar. I love that man. Carrying the torch for Simpler Coffee Times.

REFECLECTION OF MY IDIOT LEG in the revolving door of the Westin, where the memories of the furries live on in our hearts.

And then I saw the winner of the day’s best t-shirt contest. Michael Myers All Day Every Day.

***

Meanwhile, back in the office, two of the new copiers had malfunctioned, which was hilariously ironic because hello NEW and also because it was the first day that the Ricoh people weren’t on our floor for trainings.

Everything was eventually straightened out (Barb would have had a fit, though) but all this did was make me miss BECKY the Ricoh trainer even more.

I don’t know, why I got it in my head on Monday that I wanted to be her favorite person on the floor, and it was like totally nauseating to Glenn. Todd said, “Well, I think it worked because I heard her mention your name in some of the other training sessions*,” and Glenn was like, “STOP FEEDING HER EGO.”

*(All of the sessions took place literally right next to our desks so everyone on my side of the floor are essentially Ricoh pros now.)

And also, Becky saw the painting that I made for Ethan when she was standing outside of his office talking to him, so then the conversation shifted to how TALENTED I AM (lol) and I was fucking dying because Glenn had his earbuds in, probably listening to some right wing extremist AM radio show, and he missed the whole scene. I considered asking them to replay it but I had actual work to do.

:(

Todd mentioned the next day that he heard the conversation but then he thought, “This is too much” and put his headphones on.

I’m so underappreciated around here!

I’m going to go look for Becky on Facebook now, bye.

Well guys, it finally happened. We got new copiers/printers at work and everything is NEW and CONFUSING and even though dumb Printer 39 shat the bed all the time, at least we all knew how to use it.

I actually got a headache today from all of the NEW THINGS hullabaloo and I rarely get headaches!

Ugh, learning new things is dumb.

The one highlight of the day though was when the Ricoh lady was hanging around, waiting for the next training session to start, when she noticed the Wall of Glenns next to her. “Oh, who’s the artist?” she asked and I nearly choked on my tongue in my effort to be the first to let her know that–ME! ME! ‘Tis I! Right here! And then I explained to her what the RIP Glenns were all about and she laughed and said, “These are really funny! Patty Duke, haha” and I was so fucking smug because those dumb Glenns are basically the best work I’ve ever done in this place.

I was telling Glenn about it later and he said, “That’s why you have a headache, from your head expanding.”

Before I had my training, I was complaining about “HOW AM I GOING TO PRINT MY LABELS!?” just as one of the Ricoh guys (the one with a beautiful maybe-Australian accent and not deep-Texan like Ethan suggested) just happened to be walking by, stopped in his tracks and said, “I can help you with that.”

AND HE DID AND IT WAS SUPER INTIMATE.

Maybe that’s when my headache started….

Amber2 basically threw a fit when she came in and saw that her desk printer was gone, just want to put that out there. She eventually calmed down, though.

I tried to imagine what today would have been like if BARB still worked here and I had to stop thinking about it because it was making my head hurt even more.

Then Sandy found out that I know how to scan on this new machine and I walked in on her offering up my scanning services to Bridget and I was just like, “Ugh Sandy, stop reminding people that I know how to do basic admin things.”

Everything sucks and is stupid, but one of the machines makes colored copies so this could really elevate the ‘ZINE to new heights.

Now I have to go and make a RIP Glenn for the old printer.

:( It’s just all too much to handle on a Monday.

Wow, guys, wow. I came to work this morning and found a bunch of RIP Glenn party hats on my desk, courtesy of Gayle! I’m at once giddy and also sullen about this, because it means that she remembered my birthday (which is technically tomorrow but ain’t no one coming into the office on a Saturday to shower my desk with confetti).

This is BAD NEWS because that means I won’t get to have another year of monthly un-birthday presents, which was her self-administered penance for missing last year’s birthday. AND I LOVED EVERY MONTH OF IT! My June Unbirthday gifts were off the hook, the total mother lode. All sorts of costume jewelry and flowers even!

The flowers were pretty and made a large chunk of the department reek of a funeral home, so that was awesome too.

Amber 1 and Amber 2 modeling their RIP Glenn hats! I posted this on Instagram and my friend Stacey who does work here asked, “What happened to Glenn?!!?” so I had to explain that this is just what we call the dead celebrity Glenns that I make.

“I don’t know what’s more funny about this,” I said to Glenn. “That someone who just knows you based on The Internet is concerned that you’re dead, or the fact that if that was true, then this picture looks like we’re celebrating your death.”

Amber 2 was looking at all of the hats and said, “Oh, and here’s one with a cat” and I cut off to screech, “NOT JUST A RANDOM CAT, THAT’S MARCY, OMG!” Ugh, Amber.

(Obviously that’s the hat that I chose to wear….for a few minutes before my head started to ache because I don’t have a child-sized head.)

In other work news, the 4th edition of my dumb department ‘zine was distributed last night! I was on late shift last night and not feeling well at all (and the WebMD in my mind had me completely paranoid) so I was determined to get the ‘zine finished and copied before I left just in case I died last night.

Here are some excerpts because I know you’re dying to know:

In this edition of the ‘zine, Glenn is finally exposed as a furry.

And then at the last minute I realized I had one extra page and it was too late to harass someone into being interviewed by me, so I sucked it up and quickly typed  my own crappy list.

Oh! Gayle just got here with the rest of the presents (Glenn called her an obsessed fan) and at the bottom of the bag, there were extra pictures that she printed for the party hats, like of Chooch from Warped Tour. I got all excited because there was also an Emarosa picture, and Glenn  mumbled, “But they’re not dead…” because I guess he thought the theme of the hats was Dead Things.

“No Glenn, all of the pictures she printed for the hats are things that I like!” I sighed. And motioning to one of the RIP Glenn pictures, I said, “Like…pretending that you’re dead!” And everyone laughed but as soon as I said it, I was like, “Wow, that’s some dark ‘get HR on the horn’ type shit right there.” But no one seemed to care.

(Although he kind of had a point about the dead things theme because Gayle also gave me a coffee thermos thingie that she customized with a picture I took of my succulents, pre-cats, so yeah — most of those poor things are dead now.)

***

Just got back from lunch – with BARB!! Oh, and also Wendy, but whatever. I see her every day. We went to McCormick & Schmick’s which means I had to get a salad, but luckily that’s all I wanted anyway, so nice try.

Also, not that this is shocking to me, but I found out that BARB doesn’t like sourdough bread or portobello mushrooms (or maybe ALL mushrooms?! This is why she should let me interview her!).

Anyway, look what BARB got me for my birthday!!!

My chair is modeling this bitchin’ shirt splattered with all the best HORROR MOVIE BABES!! I especially can’t wait to show Chooch because the girl from Ju-On is on it and she’s his ABSOLUTE FAVORITE.

I told Todd I’m going to wear it to work on Monday and he was like, “Ok.”

Anyway, Jeannie joined us toward the end of lunch and we rolled our eyes together when Wendy started showing the waitress every picture of her baby that she has on her phone. I had to make Wendy get out of the booth so I could leave because hello, I’m just a low-ranking peasant around these parts and have to account for every minute of my workday.

Barb didn’t feel like getting up so made the waitress hug me for her and it was SO UNCOMFORTABLE because that lady gives robust hugs and I’m not a hugger.

Then I came back to work and did some stuff, and then 5 minutes ago, Last Mail walked by, noticed the Happy Birthday banner on my desk and jovially wished me a happy birthday TWICE followed closely by a “Have a great weekend” and Todd and Glenn were like, “Wow, just wow.”

SO ALL IN ALL, not a bad day-before-my-birthday. We’ll see how many ways Henry fucks up my actual birthday tomorrow though. HOO BOY can’t wait.

“Are you winning?” an old man paused to ask me.

I was sitting on a bench in Gateway Center during my lunch break, scrolling through my Twitter feed. I had just seen the Tweet in which Trump congratulates the Pittsburgh Penguins for winning the Stanley Cup and felt on edge.

WE DON’T NEED YOUR CONGRATULATIONS! And now some random passerby was speaking to me. It was all too much at once.

Bracing myself for Stranger Danger, I looked up and saw the sweetest elder face peering down at me through Coke bottle lenses; like, if Spirit Halloween were to be in the market for an Adorable Grandpa mask, this guy would need to provide a mold of his dome.

“Well, are you?” he asked again.

One thing that’s for certain is that I am never not caught off guard by impromptu conversation.

The synapses just don’t fire off as fast as they used to.

And so, there was an awkward delay as I struggled to understand what was happening. When I realized he must have thought I was playing a game on my phone, I went with it and, with mock sadness, said, “Nope, not yet.

”

“Well, you will,” he punctuated with a shaky finger-jut in my direction. “Because you look like a winner!”

I laughed and thanked him, and as I watched his labored departure, I was overcome with an odd sense of calm. It was kind of just what I needed to hear, so thank you, Yinz-Elder, for taking a break in your turtle pace to wheeze some positivity into the face of a fellow human being. A nice reminder that in the wake of cruelty and hatred, kindness won’t be silenced.

We all need to be reminded of our winningness from time to time, and you know what? YOU’RE ALL WINNERS TO ME. GO GET ‘EM, TIGERS.

Or maybe that guy was senile and thought he was talking to a goldfish playing Old Maid with Yootha Joyce; I don’t give a fuck, I’ll take it.

My day has been full of annoyances¹ so I decided that I should go and buy something on my lunch break because buying things is the answer to everything.

UP: I received a $25 AmEx gift card from work for Staff Appreciation or whatever they’re calling it these days, so I walked down past the disgusting gyro place that smells like cooked piss and slipped into The Exchange to see if they had any new records I desperately needed.

DOWN: Some creepy pierced and tattooed older man with a broken arm was rifling through crates of $1 CDs, located right next to where I was flipping through records. He was one of those guys that needed everyone around him to know what the fuck he was doing and was going to be doing next, and then started frantically hollering to the front of the store for someone to come and help him. An Exchange employee came over and it turned out the man needed help lifting some of the milk crates out of the way so he could access the ones below. He made sure to explain that he only needed help on account of his broken arm and then repeatedly asked the clerk if his store credit from a different Exchange would be accepted at this one. Then he was pissed because they didn’t have a cheap enough copy of Lady Antebellum.

UP: I found some things I wanted: a pink pressing of the last Pierce the Veil album, and a $5 Phil Collins record. The 70-year-old and 16-year-old sides of me rejoiced.

DOWN: After the blue-haired girl at the register rang me up and I handed her my gift card, she said, “Oh…we don’t accept American Express.” So I had to pay with my own dumb money.

UP: She complimented my cat necklace and cat wallet.

DOWN: Creepy Guy was also getting rung up and took this as his cue to butt in. He hates cats. “My ex-wife’s cat….” and then on and on about a cat doing normal cat things. In order to better illustrate to us what the cat would do when it jumped out from under tables, he SWIPED AT MY LEG. STRANGER DANGER! MOTHERFUCKING STRANGER DANGER, CUT MY LEG OFF, EW, I WAS TOUCHED!

UP: After weirdo left, the blue-haired girl and I continued to talk about our love for cats, and after establishing we both also have cat tattoos, I asked her where she goes and she said, “Kyklops” and I said “THAT’S WHERE I GOT MINE TOO!” and she yelled, “OMG WHO DID IT?!” and I screamed, “ERIN!” and she was all, “SAME!!!” and then we high-fived, but that was an example of an OK stranger-touch.

DOWN: Henry didn’t answer when I called him.

UP: As I crossed the street by the 7-11 to go back to work, some guy in a red shirt smiled at me and said hello, then he asked what my name was. I told him and then asked him what his name was, because I hear this is how conversations go. “Francis,” he said. “Can I get your number?” I laughed and said no but boy, was I happy to be getting hit on by a relatively normal-looking person! I usually get the ones who are one step above the Toxic Avenger. And Henry, after a few beers.

DOWN: I did not give him my number and now I’m wondering WHAT IF HE WAS THE ONE!?

So many more people would probably ask me for my number if I looked like this²:

^{[1] Clearly too much happened to put in a single #greetingsfromerinslunchbreak post card, so it’s bloggin’ time.}

^{[2] I made Wendy take this picture and it turned into A Real Production.}

1 comment

2016 has not been kind to musicians, man. Yesterday, when Glenn mumbled that Prince had died, it kind of felt like time had stopped for a minute, like I was hearing him say those words while drowning in the deep end of a pool.

 The only silver lining to these major celebrity deaths is the brief “coming together” stage of grief. Even if it’s just reading people’s posts on Facebook about the first Prince song they ever heard, or the time they went to one of his concerts—I like knowing these things about people.

So while everyone was sharing their favorite Prince songs on Twitter and Facebook, I’m kind of shocked that my mind didn’t go straight to When Doves Cry, because DAMN, THAT SONG. However, the first Prince-related memory that popped into my head was actually not from my beloved 80s, but the 90s. It was the first album he released after changing his name to the love symbol. I was in middle school and listened to the ever-loving fuck out of that CD on my bad-ass Aiwa stereo.

But most of all, I listened to “The Morning Papers.” It wasn’t a super successful single from what I remember, but there was something about it that resonated with me. Look, I love 80s-era Prince, but his early-90s work was just bananas to my ears and it soundtracked a very pivotal time in my life when I was starting to really piece together my own identity, culminating in my inevitable entrance into the Yo Girl Years. (Junior high was rough, you guys.)

And don’t even get me started on “Love Sign,” his jam with Nona Gaye. So many memories of begging my mom for Karl Kani boots while that song played on the radio.

But of course, I can’t find either of those songs on YouTube so just go buy the albums or make it up in your head if you’ve never heard of them.

Wait! Here’s a live performance of The Morning Papers from Arsenio Hall, lol:

This sucks. Another piece of my childhood shattered. SOMEONE PLEASE WATCH OVER PHIL COLLINS.

Today at work, Todd strolled over and said that he decided I remind him of Mother Teresa. I LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING, I thought to myself, as I swiveled in my seat to give Todd my full, undivided attention.

He name-dropped M.Teresa several more times, basically insinuating that I might even be BETTER than her, what with how I’m changing the world, one postcard at a time. My head was inflating to Trump dimensions.

Turns out Todd was just trying to get Amber2 riled up, who was standing near my desk but not paying attention, so he eventually had to resort to saying, “RIGHT AMBER?”

Once she was looped in, and after adequate eye-rolling, she asked, “And what would you even be the saint of? Brookline?”

GOOD QUESTION! I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which was something about clowns, but it didn’t originally make sense because nothing I say anymore makes any sense and I suck at everything that requires using any portion of my brain, which turns out is basically everything.

Since then, I have settled on Clown Town. Saint Erin of Clown Town. I am the tart that all the clowns will pray to when they can’t find their red noses or get a pie thrown in their face, maliciously as opposed to comically.

Honestly though, I AM PERFECT FOR THIS JOB.

Todd picked up my employee badge thing and deemed that this will be the picture of me that appears on grilled cheeses, potato chips, and prayer cards:

I was so excited to be a saint, but then a little while later, dumb Glenn mumbled that PRINCE HAD DIED and now I don’t care about being a saint anymore because Prince is dead.

 We’re decompressing at the Country Inn in Lancaster, with a little bit of time to kill before the Silverstein/Emarosa show tonight so here is a quickie. 

I try to make the most out of my lunch breaks at work. It’s when I typically churn out the RIP GLENNS and now it’s also when I work on the Law Firm zine which has survived to see a second issue! I tread carefully with these because they’re fun, most everyone seems to enjoy it, and I don’t want to cross any lines that’ll get my DIY printing press shut down. 

In this current issue, I interviewed one of the mail room guys, had a feature on our old co-worker Nina (“Hello From the Other Side” lololol), gave Chris a full-page spread for his mixtape, and concluded with a SPOT THE DIFFERENCES using a picture that Patrick provided—a screenshot from when he was accidentally on the news after walking past a murder investigation! Amber1 was the first one to find all the differences so she got an Easter bunny lipgloss and a tiny succulent as her prize. 

 These things bring me great joy. And also much stress. 
And my #greetingsfromerinslunchbreak project is going well! I think I’ve mailed 12 so far. So much happens when I’m outside on my break!
  
 
LASTLY, I made an Easter picture for our processing group! I didn’t get a chance to make one last year (probably because I was still in a depressed stupor from BARB quitting), but in previous years, I made a Noah’s Ark, a shepherd (Glenn) with his sheep, and a really epic Last Supper. This was the first year I got to include myself! My employee ID photo is from 2010 and my hair was soooooo dark then—I don’t miss that at all. 

I was cracking up so bad at my desk while making this and Glenn just mumbled, “Wow.” But then when I showed him the final product he LAUGHED. 

Oh, small pleasures. 

Friends and foes, welcome to the quarterly collection of RIP Glenns. My last RIP Glenn dump was back in September, because I’m a slacker. I try to be diligent with the celebrity deaths, but sometimes some fly under the radar or maybe I just determine that they’re too obscure/plain to deface a Glenn. If there’s someone who you feel I sorely dropped the ball on and are desperate to see a Glenn made in their honor, please let me know and I will do my best!

It seems like there’s at least one big horror icon in every round of RIP Glenns. :(  Marilyn Burns died in 2014 so now Leatherface is chasing her around again in…Heaven? Probably not Heaven. Seriously though, look at how effortlessly Glenn transforms into Leatherface.

I woke up one morning and noticed that one of my friends had posted a video from the 2001 Rolling Rock Town Fair. I thought it was just a random thing, and I commented that  hey!

I was at that show too.  And then right after that, another friend posted on my timeline about the same thing, the time we were at this one particular show, and I was like, “Huh. That’s a weird coincidence…” Then it occurred to me that it was because Stone Temple Pilots had headlined that festival….and Scott Weiland had been reported dead that morning….

…and from there, Lemmy. What a start to 2016.

Learned about Bowie’s death from someone I hate-follow on Instagram. It’s such a dumb habit but the first thing I do every morning after I turn off my alarm is mindlessly open Instagram. My life is so rich.

So many iconic faces of Bowie but I went for Ziggy Stardust. Still seems so unreal!

AND THEN GLENN FREY? My first instinct was not to listen to the Eagles, but his solo jam “You Belong to the City.” I used to make Lisa so mad in high school because I insisted he was saying “boobs” instead of “moves” in one of the lines and Lisa would shout, “MOVES. MOVES!” Lol forever.

I’m listening to it right now, and have a strong urge to watch Miami Vice.

ITS IN YOUR BOOBS

ITS IN YOUR BLOOD

YOURE A MAN OF THE STREET

He seemed like a real dick though, didn’t he?

I love that I didn’t have to do a single thing to Glenn’s plain face and this one is still recognizable.

I had Punky Brewster high tops when I was a kid. Man, she was such a cooler role model than all these gross Miley Cyrus fembots girls idolize nowadays.

Sorry George Gaynes. I really have nothing else to say about you. Thanks for taking  care of Punky…

?

I’m going to be 100% honest here, I thought he was already dead….?! I bet that Mayberry tourist trap we visited over the summer was poppin’ off when this death occurred.

OMG the day Harper Lee died, I had posted a different RIP Glenn because I was trying to get caught up and people were like “WHAT ABOUT HARPER LEE!” and I was like, “FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, GIVE ME A SECOND, FUCK!!!” People are hungry for the RIP Glenns, and I love it.

What a strange thing to be the subject of so many death hoaxes that an actual death watch website is made for you. Much like Don Knotts, when Abe Vigoda legitimately passed away this year, I was like, “Wait….didn’t that happen in the 90s? And then he came back for Good Burger? And then died again?” I’m so confused.

But what I really miss are the “This is your brain on drugs” commercials with the sizzling egg in a frying pan.

Man, this one hurt. I know he had a long and storied career full of brilliant character portrayals, but I gotta be That Guy and go with Snape. What an icon.

Crazy fact about me: I don’t really care about the Beatles one way or another. I don’t hate them, I don’t love them, I won’t turn the station if they come on the radio, but I don’t own any of their albums. I know. I’m a fucking monster.

Man, sorry Angus — he had the worst timing possible for giving up the ghost because it was right smack in the middle of the whole world shutting down in remembrance of David Bowie. And then I forgot to make his RIP Glenn until YESTERDAY. Amber1 said she didn’t know who he was, and I told her that the horror movie Phantasm was really the only thing I knew about him. “He was one of those actors who made a living on the horror convention circuit,” I said.

“Oh, kind of like Andy from Child’s Play,” Amber1 said.

“Yeah—-hey!” I cried, when I realized that she was making light of my BOYFRIEND ANDY FROM CHILD’S PLAY. And then we all laughed.

 Alternately titled: Another Dumb Idea!
Last week when I was meandering about town during my lunch break, I kept pausing to either tweet or text Henry about all the perils in my path. You know, like Planned Parenthood protestors, city school kids, an errant paper bag skipping across the pavement. (I COULD TRIP!)

And it made me think about how much more fun it would be to SEND A POSTCARD instead of these electronic means of communication. Like my lunch break is a vacation and oh motherfucker, do I wish you were here. 

Perks: 

-snail mail is never a bad thing and gives the mailman something to read other than Pennysavers and campaign mailings. 

-I love handwriting things and it will give me something other than my name to scribble over and over again at my desk. And let’s be real, I don’t have the time/attention span to write full blown letters. 

-I’ll have something to give Last Mail!

-WHAT A PERSONAL WAY TO STAY IN TOUCH!

If I have your address, don’t be surprised if you get some weird sketch of the Stalker of the Day (I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE SOMEBODY’S WATCHING MEEEE) or a poem about the trash in the river. 

And if I don’t have your address and you want to get a random post card, email me! Butgavincantdance@gmail.com

I’ll probably also send them to random addresses as well because that’s not creepy it’s sweet. 

I’d like to send one a day and I’ll start as soon as Henrh buys me stamps, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. #HenryProblems

And if you wanna send one back from your own lunch break, PLEASE DO! Postcard frenzy!!

Penelope Ann Killer has mostly adjusted to our house. I mean, she plays and eats and poops like her crazy-ass sister Drew, but the moment I try to approach her, she’s on like HIGH ALERT. Sometimes she’ll let me pick her up but she hates it so I try not to even though she’s so FLUFFY AND ALL I WANT TO DO IS HOLD HER AND SQUEEZE HER.

However, every single night, she makes herself comfortable in my bed, usually right between Henry and me, and this is when we’re allowed to pet her. Come morning, though, we’re back to being on a stranger basis with her. So annoying.

Earlier today, I thrust my phone over the glass divider behind me and said, “Look how cute Penelope Ann Killer is!” to Glenn, who looked extremely unimpressed.

“That’s what you named her?” he asked.

“Uh yeah,” I said, like way to pay attention. It was even on our department’s Wiki page! “You know, like Penelope Ann Miller?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Glenn mumbled, nodding off at the sound of his own monotone.

“FROM KINDERGARTEN COP?!” I cried, because hello, is she not a household name in everyone’s wigwam?

“I’ve never seen that,” Glenn gurgled on his ennui-generated drool.

“OMFG, are you serious!?” I yelled incredulously. “Well, what about Adventures In Babysitting?”

“Nope.”

“She was Brenda, the best friend!”

“Didn’t see it.”

“DON’T YOU REMEMBER SHE RAN AWAY FROM HOME AND GOT STRANDED AT THE BUS STATION AND BROKE HER GLASSES?!”

He had pretty much dropped out of the conversation by then. I almost posted on Facebook the simple (YET COMPLICATED) statement that Glenn has not seen Kindergarten Cop but I was trembling with too much rage.

This prompted me for the next hour to share the jarring news with everyone who walked past my desk.

“Well, I can kind of see that,” Michele said, insinuating that he’s too old to understand the critically-acclaimed cinematic game changer of IT’S NOT A TUMAH.  And then Todd agreed with her and I was like, “STOP DEFENDING HIM! STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR GLENN BEING A LAME. GLENN IS A LAME AND WE ALL KNOW IT!”

Unbelievable.

Anyway, my whole point was that the credits of Kindergarten Cop marked the first time I ever saw the name Penelope spelled out and I distinctly remember laughing, “PENNYLOPE? What a dumb name!” and then shockingly, my mom corrected me instead of letting me go through life pronouncing it that way. Because that’s a thing my mom would do.

Realizing that probably a whole hour had passed without me bragging about something, I spun around in my seat and smugly announced, “I got invited to the Castle Blood cast holiday party, and I’m not even a cast member, NO BIG DEAL.”

“What’s that?” Todd asked in a mildly disinterested tone. He’s been trying to work on that though, I feel like. 

“Oh come ON, Todd!” I cried exasperatedly, as if I have never talked about CASTLE BLOOD before. “It’s that haunted house I go to all the time!”

“Look, you got too many things in your life, OK. I try to keep up with all of the bands, and then you go and throw a wrench in it with this haunted house now.” Todd sounded defensive, and Amber² was laughing at her desk.

“I wish Henry could hear this,” she said.

SORRY THAT I TRY TO LET MY CO-WORKERS INTO MY FABULOUS LIFE.

God.

Glenn was gone for the day when I made my announcement, which is why there isn’t a single derisive sentence up in there. 

“I think I need therapy,” I said in lieu of normal morning salutations.

“Well…yeah,” Glenn said, implying that this was the most obvious statement.

“No seriously, I’m so paranoid anymore that I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. Take this morning on the trolley, for instance…” and then I told him the story of the guy in front of me, this white thug-looking dude with a neck tattoo and all dressed up in a gray sweatsuit, who had two metal stick things that I went back and forth between thinking was either a part of a gun or a fishing rod. One of the sticks had rings on it, so who knows.

But he was doing stuff with them, prepping them, I don’t know. And at one point he was doing something with … Thread? String?

I’ve been like this, moderately-so, for probably the last 10 years, but lately the DANGER WILL ROBINSON portion of my brain seems to be usurping whatever dying area of rationality is left up in that dusty cavern and I’m controlled by wild flights of fancy and panic-inducing paranoia. My senses are particularly heightened while I’m downtown, and at least once a week I’m convinced that the person walking beside me has a bomb detonator in his hand, or the man with the casual stride behind me is a serial killer, or the tired man on the trolley is going to stab me and ruin my favorite sweater. (OK, that last one was a valid concern, you have to admit!)

This happens at home too. Let’s never forget the time I freaked out when an old man was knocking on my door because I thought he was a zombie.

There have been times I’ve come back to work from my lunch break early because things just didn’t feel right out there, like two days ago when I was on the phone with Henry and started to walk past this one building but a well-dressed man, standing alone near the entrance, sternly said  to me, “Ma’am, you can’t walk over here” and sent me packing to the other side of the street. I described the scene to Henry, who remained calm and unflappable.

“Maybe he just doesn’t like you,” Henry reasoned, but he did the same thing to the man in front of me!

Once I crossed the street, I pretty much ran as fast as I could because I was convinced that there was A Situation unfolding inside the building and that the man who yelled at me was SECRET SERVICE. He was dressed like he could have been, OK!? And he was staring up at the building like he was waiting for something to happen, and that’s when I noticed that one of the windows WAS OPEN!? I was actually on my way to the Point when this happened, and after that, I changed my mind because if something was going down in this building, I didn’t want to be trapped with the RIVER on three sides of me.

I went back to work, out of breath, and relayed my latest precarious situation to Todd and Glenn, who each answered with various versions of “You make this shit up.” And after I told them what building it was, I admitted that I only knew that because I sent Henry a picture of it so he could tell me.

“That’s the only believable part of the story,” Glenn said in his Yelp review of the most recent visit to Erin’s Delusion Theater.

Anyway, back to yesterday.

I texted Henry about the morning’s scene and he was like, “OK?” And then “You watch too much Homeland.” I wasn’t satisfied with his response, so I called him later that day on my break so that I could try to better paint the picture for him.

“COULD THAT HAVE BEEN A FISHING ROD MAYBE?!” I asked him, near-hysterics, praying that he would say yes and that I hadn’t been sitting in such close proximity to military-grade weaponry. “THE ONE METAL STICK THING HAD HOOP-THINGS ON IT!” It looked like it could have been that thing that stick down the barrel of shotguns. WHATEVER THAT THING IS. He had two of them!!

Henry considered this. “I guess it’s possible….” he said with little conviction, and then started asking me questions, like what color it was, and if it could have been fiberglass, etc.

“I DON’T KNOW! I’VE ONLY EVER SEEN CARTOON FISHING RODS!” I cried, and then Henry was pretty much done with the conversation by then, plus I was standing near all of the smokers and they were starting to notice my conversation at this point, so I figured it was time to say goodbye.

The most alarming part to me is that no one else on the trolley seemed to care that this guy looked shady as fuck and was taking up TWO SEATS with his backpack and SUSPICIOUS RODS. Never trust a motherfucker who needs TWO SEATS on public transportation.

I went back to work and tried to resurrect this topic because, like I said, I think I need therapy and spreading my conspiracy theories around the department is the closest thing I’ve got to that right now.

“Well, I haven’t heard anything about a mass fishing rod murder, so you’re probably safe,” Glenn sighed, and it was clear that he was done talking about it, too.

***

This blog post is brought to you by Google searches of “fishing rods” and “metal things that stick inside guns.”

ETA: My friend Regina has informed me that I was correct to assume that dangerous things were happening at that building because WINDOWS ARE FALLING OUT. She assured me that I wasn’t just being delusional. I told Todd and he was like, “Wow! I was really sure that you were just over-dramatizing the situation, but it actually is dangerous!”

SEE!?

I was met with a grisly sight this morning when I arrived at work.  I mean, even grislier than Glenn’s Monday morning face:

MY CANDY URN, SHATTERED.

“It wasn’t me,” Glenn said. “It was fully intact when I left here on Friday.”

I was devastated. My beautiful cheap vase thing that Henry bought at Goodwill and then spray-painted black because I couldn’t find an actual funerary urn that was within my Halloween desk budget, PULVERIZED.

DESECRATED.

SMASHED TO SMITHEREENS INTO FOUR LARGE PIECES!

And then I got angry and started bitching about the meat-fisted cleaning people while Glenn and Todd just sat there, amused and thankful that they have nothing of worth on their desks. Although, I could see Todd getting pretty riled up if one of his Qdoba napkins got torn in a vacuum brawl.  (Assuming that the cleaning people ever vacuum around here!)

Whining about my broken urn consumed roughly the first 30 minutes of my morning, so I didn’t notice that there was an email waiting for me about this very alarming matter.

So now the perp has a name! Lawrence. It figures. He probably goes by Loose Limbs Larry.

But then something came over me: compassion? mercy? clemency?

One of those things. Because I suddenly felt very sorry for Larry and imagined him falling to his knees and punching himself in the head after The Cleaning Incident occurred. Kind of like every time Henry breaks something of mine, which is OFTEN.

I became extremely giddy after reading this email. I even read it out loud to Glenn and Todd, and then began forwarding it around to other concerned co-workers, because a damaged candy urn is a very big deal. I think the only person who felt a true sense of loss over it was A-ron, because he really enjoys jamming his hand into the urn for a delightful snack. But then even he started cracking up after reading the email.

“There could be 5,000 of those things around the department and hers would be the only one that breaks,” Glenn muttered. I think he was secretly happy to be off the chopping block though, now that the offender was known.

And then the “facilities coordinator” came down to my desk with a copy of the accident report for me to fill out.

“I swear to god, I don’t need reimbursed for this,” I laughed. I mean, YES IT WAS A TRAGEDY AND LAWRENCE SHOULD GET FIRED, but my conscience is pretty loaded so Larry, it’s your lucky day. You’ve been spared.

I still had to fill the stupid thing out, with my comments and $0 next to “value of broken/lost item.” I considered putting “PRICELESS” but this facilities broad was standing there watching me and I knew I would start laughing.

“I could take the letter back for you too and throw it out,” she said, holding out her hand for the APOLOGY LETTER that Lawrence Grant was required to fill out. I blurted out, “No! No, I’ll keep that.”

“Whatever you say,” she sighed. Her job must be so goddamn annoying.

Anyway, here’s the apology note:

Man, I was really disappointed to see that this was a form letter and not something more heartfelt. But there are two different usages of “sincere,” so…

I left the urn shards on Gayle’s desk. She’s going to glue it back together, but I told her not to do it too well because I want Lawrence to see it sitting on my desk, looking all Frankenstein’d, so he’ll be forced to come face to face with his clumsy actions every time he’s on our floor. At least he didn’t knock over my bottle of Bela Lugosi’s grave dirt.

God, this was the best Monday morning ever.

I wanted to talk about it in our meeting today because this is something that affects all of us as a group, but people were too busy talking about work stuff.

(FUN SIDE NOTE: the Law Firm uses the same cleaning company that Tina & Eleanore, Inc. employed and I was obsessed with one of them. I wonder if this is Lawrence?!)

(ANOTHER FUN SIDE NOTE: Todd just now, hours later, admitted that he’s had no idea what exactly broke. “Oh, THAT thing! Yeah, I had no idea what we were talking about.” Then he asked me if I’m going to leave an “Apology accepted” note in the bare space on my desk where the urn once sat, and I mentioned that I have indeed been considering starting some type of correspondence with Lawrence. “Oh, I think you definitely should,” Todd agreed emphatically. “This is the perfect breeding ground for a new friendship.” CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.)