At about 9:30 p.m. my boss calls to let us know that there’s been a string of robberies in the past few days. The perpetrator was a Caucasian male in black clothes who told the clerks he had a bomb hidden under his clothes; alternately, he would show them a butcher knife.
Good plan.
Now, I don’t actually tell my co-worker about this, because I don’t want to worry her, and what are the chances this goon is going to pick our store? Right? We’re as prepared as we always are. We have a selection of panic buttons, two phones, state-of-the-art security cameras, and we’re double-staffed.
Half of an hour later, this clown shuffles in wearing an outfit his big brother must not have wanted and insists he has a bomb hidden…somewhere. He flails around on an explosive Easter egg hunt inside his own pants, and while to us this just looks like public masturbation, he clearly thinks this indicates he has a Looney Tunes-sized case of TNT in his jockstrap.
The way he walks and talks sounds like he really hopes he’s the bad guy in a low-budget blaxploitation flick. If you’re going to use the M.F. word as punctuation, and you want me to be threatened by it, you better sound like you mean it at least as much as Samuel L. Jackson does. Especially when you have sweaty withdrawal skin, googly Cookie Monster eyes, and you’re hiding half of your face like an Old West bandit.
I think the poor robber was just trying to hide his messed up meth teeth.
Him: “I have a bomb! Give me all the money!”
Me: “No. You don’t. We already got a call about you.”
(This is the point where I suddenly realize my coworker ‘Tasha actually thinks there might be a bomb strapped to this nervous wreck’s genitals. Oops. Prooobably should have told her.)
He isn’t stunned for long, but his next brilliant move is to pull out his butcher knife… Which is still in the sheath, with two snaps holding it there. If I was the kind of idiot who refuses to give money to an armed robber (I’m only the kind of idiot who tells them they’re a liar), I could have made it to Miami and been sitting in a wicker chair sipping a freaking maitai by the time his shaky hands got that thing loose, and even if he tried to chase me, he would have tripped over his floppy pants and stabbed himself in his penis. (I don’t know how his junk managed to get out of our store in one piece.)
Also good plan.
Me, as I reach toward the button that opens the register: “Okay, I’ll give it to you. But the police are already on their way here. We hit the buttons.”
Him: “You’re [Redacted]suckers. [Redacted] this!”
He throws a plastic bag on the counter and storms out just as awkwardly as you’d expect from someone who is trying to walk inside of a camping tent. He was a two-second wait from getting several hundred dollars. And he left.
Robber: 0. Me and 'Tasha: Plastic bag.
In conclusion,
1. My retired police officer father is going to kill me when he finds out I sassed a robber after the stories he’s told me and
2. This guy is just lucky he didn’t spill anything on ‘Tasha:
Please take my commentary as seriously as if John Cleese was giving it while he wore a wig.
Imagine, if you will, that Amazon is a witch. They have used magic to make it so your cow’s milk is actually carbonated duran juice. Now, no one in the market will buy from you. Your livelihood is suffering, which stinks because this inexplicable buckle on your hat is getting rusty and you can’t afford to replace it. You rightfully call out Amazon as a witch in public. A few other people step forward and agree with you–they heard from a friend of a friend that Amazon tried to sleep with your cow and your cow refused to cooperate, and jilted, Amazon is pouting in the witchiest way it can. (Keep in mind, Amazon doesn’t usually come to town on this day, and in fact, has specifically slept in on weekends in the past, like that time they made all your gay chickens disappear from the barnyard.) You rally together, storm Amazon’s house, and lynch them. Their hangover might be what prevented them from speaking up for themselves, but they also might just have had no excuses to give. Good thing that friend-of-a-friend knew what was going on, so you didn’t have to depend on Amazon. Good old…well, you don’t know her name, but good thing she was there to explain things.
I have seen the same anonymous source cited repeatedly, and fifty snazillion pissed off authors and readers in an uproar over the disappeared books. They’re right to be pissed off, and I am not disputing that Amazon is a witch. However, because neither megacorporation has commented, we don’t know that Macmillan didn’t decide to quit selling through Amazon!
If we were accused of something so juvenile and petty, wouldn’t we want people to let us come back to work on Monday and tell our carefully crafted and yet transparent lies, not let some anonymous, unauthorized source speak for us? This “source” could be the janitor. Please don’t let the guy who files urinal cakes tell you why I make my decisions. I should get to lie to your face myself! I don’t think we’re exempt from the Golden Rule because we’re talking about a corporation–after all, instead of one person, that’s thousands of people.
Nothing new at BoingBoing, however. The comments section ALWAYS looks like this.
Once again, I’m not saying Amazon is innocent (it’s highly effing unlikely), or even that they deserve to be defended. And this public discussion about e-book prices is necessary and vital, regardless of the validity of the catalyst. Still, I feel like Twitter is being used as a time machine to bring us all back to 1692. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss the tweets about the boring-ass bagel you had for breakfast, since you actually know that happened. (;
Please, mark your speculation as speculation. (Props to Cherie Priest, for doing that very thing.) Call/e-mail Amazon and demand they explain the disappearing titles, and urge that others do so. The faster we have some corporate bullshit answer, the faster I’ll feel it’s morally warranted to decry their new soulless ways (in addition to the heap of other soulless ways). You can contact them using the e-mail form on their website (I think you must be logged in, though), or you can call them at 1-866-216-1072.
Update: This is closer to being evidence. They’ve done it before.
Update #2: Thanks, John Scalzi, for tweeting a link to the official Macmillan letter. And now I have at least half of a story straight from the horse’s mouth, I am willing to say that yes, Amazon is definitely a witch. Pitchfork is ready.
…And in case you don’t know what I’m talking about:
BoingBoing
BusinessInsider
NYTimes
Whatever
Now it’s time for something funny.
On December 18, 2009, Seamus and I drove down to visit my Grandma Moonie in Everett. Some of my Spokane family had driven there as well. We hung out for a few hours (with Shai, who by then was forbidden from long, fun walks but was still allowed long, fun car rides). At about 11:00 p.m., Seamus, Shai, and I left.
We stopped at Albertson’s, and as we were walking toward the building, we saw one of these:
I don't actually remember if it was an A8, just that it was totally bitchin'.
It came around the corner without headlights on, so I waved at the bespectacled driver, who looked a lot like this guy:
The guy in the car had slightly better hair. SLIGHTLY.
He was busy talking to the lady in his passenger seat, and though he was driving very slowly, he wasn’t looking up.
When he finally did, I guess he thought we looked like this:
BAM! POW! OOF!
because he totally panicked, stomped on the gas, and shot across the parking lot. I started laughing. For those who haven’t met me, allow me to explain: You expect me to be taller. Being afraid of me only makes sense if you have a pants-pissing fear of leprechauns with glittery faux-diamond facial piercings.
For some reason, he circled back around a row of cars, still with no headlights, and drove past us again. Keep in mind that Everett is not a bad neighborhood. It might be a little skeezy, but this guy clearly thought he was about to get carjacked by a gay couple with their dog. His windows were all still up, and when he stopped the car, it was a good twenty-five or thirty feet away from us.
Now the young woman collecting grocery carts started laughing about it too, and she also gestured and yelled. We’re all hollering, “Turn on your lights!” He rolled down the driver’s side back window, presumably to hear us–and then threw money onto the ground and zipped away again.
…DIED. LAUGHING.
I fell down on the ground because I was spasming so hard it was easier not to hold my own weight. I was gasping for air. Even though the store clerk had been yelling with us, and I’d been pointing at his car, not rubbing my fingers together, he apparently thought we were begging. Or that he could pay us off with this:
I guess it's useful if I purchase blow in Mexico, but I want to buy it here!
BUT THE WEIRDEST PART IS YET TO COME. After throwing out what only barely qualified as money, he drove another fifty feet and then slammed on the brakes. Then the passenger side door opened, and guess who got out?
I'm glad it's fashionable in 2009 for everyone to look like ladies of the evening! Now the real ones don't have to feel like Goodwill mannequins.
Well, not her exactly, but you get the picture. Captain Nerdboy of Bellevue Or Some Other Clueless Over-Privileged Suburb decided we were so threatening that he didn’t want his hooker anymore.
In the end, I feel he deserved his azure testicular condition, and I feel like we saved the prostitute from her worst client of the night. After all, if he thought a dollar would stop us from jacking his sweet Audi, I don’t think he was a generous tipper.
I won NaNo at 50,006 words! A day early, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. Audrey put a banana peel on my head as a victory hat, since we didn’t have a viking helmet lying around. (Or we did, she hid it because she just wanted to put garbage on my head.)
I'm having a bad fruit day. ;__;
Afterward, we took my dog for a walk and looked for Christmas lights. We found this house, which is clearly an anime smiley.
^__^
Those were the best parts of the day. Perhaps the worst part was when I realized how carefully I’ve cloistered myself behind a curtain of intelligent people. The barricade is rarely broken (sometimes by customers or friends-of-friends). I made the mistake of following Keffy into the NaNoWriMo chat room this afternoon, in spite of his warnings. Here is a collision of “wry humor” and “absolute idiocy.” I think my respect for humanity was totaled, but at least I’ll get a LOLInternet settlement.
It’s short. » Continue Reading…
