Tag Archives: Home depot

10

Feb. ’15

Mastering the Art of Fan Fiction: Fifty Shades of Grey Edition

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Valentine’s Day countdown, kittens! You know I love this day even if you think it’s just an excuse for the charlatans that run the diamond industry to peddle its lies. Whatevs, me likey shiny things, even the fake shit. I just went through my giant fishing tackle box filled with bling memories, all tarnished and busted up. Why does conventional society insist that earrings have to come in pairs?  Hardly any of mine match and if they do, one of them is missing a rhinestone or an essential dangly bit, that makes me so fucking sad. I found a pristine pair of gold Playboy bunny earrings, I bought them them for myself, ironically style-wise even though I am actually a cheap whore (no, I’m not). But! I can’t shove them in my ears because MY HOLES HAVE CLOSED, is this some sort of natural metaphor that has the gods of fertility laughing at me? I shall show them, later on today I will slam down a bunch of vodka and thrust them into my ears whatever it takes. There will be blood. By the way, you know that the original Valentine’s Day was to honour ancient Christian martyrs but that whole dance got tiresome so that in the High Middle Ages, Chaucer and his poet hos decided to make it all about boning, although they called something else back then, like “bownyng.” These were simpler times, when the one you wanted to betroth your boneage into was the one that had your heart in a romantic way. Now all our modern feelings are repressed by constant communication punctuated by those diabolical emoji emoticons and everyone is so fappingly confused. And afraid. And there’s no boning, not even for the wicked. SIGH.

I like chocolate, too, even if I have to buy my own Toblerone bar. The giant one, the size of a quonset hut. Fuck and ouch.

This Valentine’s Day, my fantasy would be to take some olde tymey ecstasy and go see “Fifty Shades of Grey” with an audience full of bitches also on chemical drugs.  I think it would be epic, let’s make it happen. This has got to be one of those times when you can honestly say the movie is better than the book, but judging by the trailers, that’s not saying much. I’m not sure even that awesome Beyonce song can save this mess. But drugs can!

I’m trying to read the book right now. I am actually charmed by how badly written it is. It reminds me of the sardonic stories based on Harlequins I used to write as a hobby when I was a teenager. I used to give them to my English teacher, who looooved them, but I always wondered if she got the joke or she got swept away by my jacked-up romance bullshit. Anyway, I think even in grade 9, I was a better writer than E.L. James and that’s not saying much. If you made a pie chart out of the content of this book, 75% would be descriptions of breathing. I get so bored, I can only flip through it, trying to find the juicy bits. I can’t fucking find them, SO MUCH BREATHING. And eating, which I am pro.

I don’t think I respond to contrived erotica, it’s kind of like watching professional porn, it’s just too slick to feel real. Even trying to make Barbie and Ken hump (when you were a kid because no, you did not do this as a grown-ass mom when you were cleaning up your daughter’s room while she was in kindergarten) is more titillating cuz Ken doesn’t actually have a weenie much less a boner and Barbie is so rigid, she can’t even starfish. The thrill is in frustration. GRIND DAT PLASTIC! Remember?

Anyway, I personally have never had a fantasy where “my breath hitched” when a man said “Let me make love to you, Anastasia,” while stroking his beautiful cock in one hand and holding a cat o-nine tails in the other. Every word that last sentence closed every hole in my body, even the ones I didn’t now I had. And my eyes bled.

Okay, there’s no way I’m going to read this book but I will write the fan fiction! Isn’t that how it started, as X-rated Twihard prose? Mine goes in another direction, it’s  middle-aged milquetoast erotica, set in where else? The Home Depot, hold on to your moobs, middle pudge,and mudflaps, here goes:

Beverly Shipman walks into the Home Depot, the giant doors automatically opening for her. She is disheveled, her hair, still smooth from her Tuesday blowout is in need of a root touch-up and is in a high ponytail. Underneath her black parka, the one with what looks like a pair of metal scissors on the left upper arm, she is still wearing her flannel pyjamas pants, boldly coloured and emblazoned with cartoon monkey faces. And stuffed into a pair of Uggs. If this wasn’t a sight you see every day, and you came here from a time machine, just by the outfit, you would think this woman was  50 shades of cray. But she barely registers and she slips through the doors like a ghost.

Furnace filters? She wonders where and looks around the big box warehouse. The smell of freshly cut pressurized lumber fills her nostrils and goes straight to her temporal lobe which triggers a memory response that sends a rush of blood straight down to her blowfish. WTF. She tries to ignore this sensation as she looks up at the signage and makes her way down the giant aisle.

Even though the store is cavernous and confusing, the colour orange whets her appetite. There’s a Harvey’s inside this one, beyond the self-serve cash registers. Maybe when she finds her filters, she will pick up an order of fries. Too bad there’s not a Swiss Chalet, she could really go for a quarter chicken with extra gravy, yes, bitches, EXTRA gravy, it turns out it’s all just liquid and cornstarch, not fat, she can drink it if  she wants, fuck the sodium content and fuck her nutritionist. She salivates. Breathes, more lumber smell, blowfish gets bigger, tingles now. Focus! Snap out of it! Find the filters!

Finally someone in an orange apron is standing in front her. On his bib, written in a black Sharpie is “Al” which could be short for Albert? Or is he being tongue-in-cheek and he is A-1? He smiles in a kind peepaw way, he has sparkling blue eyes surrounded by crowfeet and liver spots. His generic darkish hair is white at the temples and pulled back in a tiny wispy ponytail.  He must be one of those Freedom 55-type retired baby hippie boomer dudes with nothing to do but hobbies and Home Depot. (ed note: if that’s a type then sign me up) His shoulders are sloped, and some giant ass white hairs are sneaking out like tentacles out over the top of his collared polo shirt, but he has muscly forearms, and this does not go unnoticed. Beverly smiles. Probably for the first time since her husband left her last month for his mistress of 11 years. Who says it doesn’t happen? It happens! They leave and you are left alone!

“Can I help you find something, Miss?” He asks. MISS! Not Ma’am! Like the young hipster clerk at the liquor store who barely even looks at her, calls her Ma’am when she buys her bottle Belvedere and has the audacity to ask her if she’d like a bag. Yes, of course a bag! Jesus Christ, I want a bag! What am I, a hobo? I don’t deserve a bag? Is that what you think of me? Oh, wait, never mind, I can fit it in my Kate Spade tote. Okay.

 Al smiles at her again. A warmth rushes goes through her core and her blowfish blows a sweet, tiny bubble of hope.

“Yes, please, where would your furnace filters be?” She asks, flushing blood all throughout her veins, she feels alive.

“Oh, they’re over in Aisle 8. let me walk with you,” he points in the direction and they move forward. His hand grazes her left arm, the one with the metal moose knuckle on it, and even through the layers of fabric and goose down, she feels an electric charge. Her legs feel light suddenly, although her Uggs are covered in slush and weigh as much as a bag of hammers. And look like two bags of gross medical waste.

Suddenly she has a hot flash. It’s not because it’s hot in the Home Depot in the deep freeze of February. It is precisely two fold, the vodka hangover and hormones. This is the basic schedule of what happens to old bitches all the live long day: Hangover, hot flash, drink, lather, rinse, repeat. She unzips her parka, but of course that ridiculous decorative ball of fox fur gets caught in the spokes and she lets it go halfway. She forgot that she was wearing only her pyjamas bottoms as most of the time she sleeps naked because of the motherfucking hot flashes so there’s actually nothing else on underneath. Hungover, menopausal bitches are that absent minded. So her zipper is stuck and her boobs are basically flying out of her parka in the middle of the Home Depot on a Tuesday morning. She holds her coat shut but in doing so, her Kate Spade tote swings and hits Al, or A-1, upside the head, and he turns around. Like a magpie, older men have the sharp shooting instincts down pat, his eyes go straight to her tittage before she has a chance to cover them up.

There are two of them, one slightly bigger than the other and therefore droopier, the vein configuration resembles a muddled map toward two erect cherry cola coloured nipples, approximately 2.75 centimetres in diameter…holy shit, one of them has a piercing, so he thinks, but it’s not actually, it’s part of the inside zipper tab grazing the nipple as she clutches her coat shut. Wow, he thinks, and that’s basically all he thinks for a moment that seems to stretch out longer than the beginning of time. Al, and that is his name, short for Alonso, hasn’t seen real life flesh boobs since Christ was a cowboy. His wife has long since abandoned him, not physically, but spiritually and sexually, and yes, they still share a bungalow where they raised their two children, who are now grown. but he sleeps in his man cave, in the basement. The humming of the furnace soothes him to sleep after his nightly fap, to reruns of “Hot in Cleveland.” Valerie Bertinelli. Nothing wrong with that.

When he finally finds his words, he says, “I know all about furnaces, can I help you?”

“Yes, I have a mid-efficency furnace and it’s so cold in my house these days, ” she bites her lower lip coquettishly, “I was googling on the internet and maybe I need to change my furnace filter? The pilot light is still on, so I know the furnace is okay…” Her voice trails off, a look of barely anything goes over her face, or at least that is his perception, he’s still staring at her tits with that part of his eyes that aren’t his actual pupils which are still looking at her in the eyes, but is the tip of his dick, it’s one of the mysteries of science, yo. Dicks have eyes. I.t says so in a Chaucer poem, trust.

“Oh, well if you have a mid-efficency furnace, you should actually be using the cheaper furnace filters, let’s the air go through easier,’ he pulls out a pack of filters, 3 for $5.99, seemingly made of popsicle stick wood and blue plastic silly string.

“What?” She is incredulous, “I have been buying the $35 furnace filters for over twenty years! Are you sure? Also I have a pet dog. With fur, not hypo-allegenic breeds with “poo” at the end of it name. Do those filters work for my dander situation?”

“Yes,” he says with manly manliness and actual real-life know-how, not the fake kind that you can spot a mile away from someone who is full of fucking shit that he mis-read in a manual,”The looseness in the cheap shitty plastic not only lets the air go through, the dander and fur that you speak of will get caught in the nettle, the only caveat is that you have to change the filters every 3 months instead of once a year. Still cheaper and your heating bills will go down expediently.”

“Oh!I wish I had known this sooner!” She exclaims. Her breath hitches. Her parka swings open, her tits fall out, one by one. Kind of, one gets caught in the zipper again, the floppier one, but that’s okay. He leans over and hands her the filters, 3 for $5.99.

“Is there anything else, I can help you with?” He asks, his apron is now a tent, kind of pointed south, but still.

Her blowfish explodes.

Fin.

Okay, Happy Valentine’s Day all, spread the love cuz that’s all we have! ❤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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11

Oct. ’13

The Sun is Bullshit

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The low winter sun is fucking with my circadian rhythm. It makes its way up over the roof of that newly constructed house across the street that chopped down the shade tree because it was “diseased” and then it streams through my stupid straw window coverings imported from Bali (but they go so amazingly well with my Japanese-inspired wallpaper from the U.K. that I spent an arm and a leg on, so I’m not replacing them, no way, no how, because hello boys, my bedroom looks like a hot jungle fuckpad where you want to want “Seinfeld” and I don’t have that no tv in the bedroom rule)  it would be okay if it just streamed through in a 45 degree north-west fashion and settles on a spot where wall meets ceiling but no, it hits the mirror on the west wall and then burns its fiery shaft of light into my face:2 “Wake up Sleeping Fugly, you have two hours of nonsensical ruminating about your To Do List before you go about your day slinging paint and tubes of caulking.”

1. Update Passport. Soooo, I googled like you should and I need to print out application and get photo. My hair is out of control. Get haircut, too? No, that’s too much. I just need to get one of those “wands” that make those loose curls that Carolina and Jessica have. I am so jelly of their lids. Bitches with their shiny hair and nimble fingers and it’s not like they have time on their hands, they work at the Depot, too. They get up extra early to do this. I am telling you, this new generation are the worker bees and they will save the world with their practical know-how.

Waking up early would be good and natural if I had a regular schedule but some days I am slinging said cans of paint until 11 p.m. and when I get home at 11:30, I am wired for cocktails and monkey business, ie trolling through Facebook and gossip sites whilst the infomercials are on. On those days I’m lucky if I get to sleep by 2 and this is not natural for me. They also started to give me random morning shifts that begin at 6 a.m. which means waking up at a shocking 5 a.m., Lord Jesus, there’s a fire, but I complained so hard that I have noticed they are no longer on my schedule. I CAN’T POOP SO EARLY IN THE MORNING AND I DEFINITELY CANNOT POSSIBLY EVER IN A MILLION YEARS LAY SOME PIPE AT THE HOME DEPOT PUBLIC WASHROOM SO UNLESS YOU GET A PRIVATE ONE LIKE AT STARBUCKS, I WILL HOLD IT IN ALL DAY AND BE CRANKY TO THE CUSTOMERS! Sometimes when you tell people something straight up, they hear you and so the good peeps at the HD seem to be respecting my shitting regime according to the schedule, knock wood.

Anyway, last week to get around the early shifts, I worked 9 straight days, splitting my shifts up. It was a lot of math (can’t go over your allotted hours!) and dick-wrangling with some furious text messaging and now as a reward for a job well done, I have two days off in a row, which feels like an eternity. I have nothing pressing to do EXCEPT for the fact the yesterday before my afternoon shift, I washed my sheets and my sneaky cellphone hitched a ride in one of the pillowcases. I have to contend with its drowned corpse but I don’t even hardly care, fuck it, I’m going phoneless. Normally such a boneheaded careless move would have sent me off the edge, spiralling into such a panic that I would be high-tailing off to an Apple store in my pyjamas and #nomakeup, sweating and standing in line for a hundred and one years for an appointment at the genius bar. While waiting, I would concoct a twisted pack of lies about how my phone just up and died! but! maybe possibly it got splashed with water that somebody else sprayed on it when I wasn’t looking. I am such an asshole sometimes, and as a retail slave, I hate customers who make shit up like that. The other day a lady came into the paint department and stated: “I just washed my windowpane with water and all the colour off. Blue. All the blue came off.” (and yes, she was Polish)

And I: “Really? Was the paint dry?”

And she: “Yes the paint was dry. All the blue came off.”

Then me: “You painted your windowpane blue?”

She: “Yes. All the blue came off. With just water”

Me: “Water? Really, just water?”

She: “Yes, just water. The blue came right off. On the rag.”

Me: “Okay so you painted your windowpane blue and you let it dry and then the paint came off when you washed it with water?”

She: “Not the paint, the paint stayed on but the blue came off!”

Me: “But the colour is infused into the paint, so if the blue came off then the paint went with it. Maybe you didn’t prep  the surface properly before you painted?” (P.S. when I paint, I do not prep shit except wipe off dirt with my elbow, I slap paint on anything and it stays there for years. What exactly is your problem, asshole on the phone calling the Depot when you should be 1-800ing the HELP 24-hour Hotline number clearly written on the paint can? Maybe you people need to stop neurotically picking at your walls and then complaining about the product when your own surreptitious subterfuge is at play. It’s not the paint, it’s you and your busy fingernails, OCD, do a solid and go volunteer nit-picking some lice out of the kids’ heads at your local rec center.)

And then she exploded: “MY HUSBAND PAINTED AND I CLEANED! AND THE BLUE CAME OFF”

Obviously there was some other issue going on in her household. The rest of the conversation went on for so long that I actually became bored. I hardly ever get bored. Frustrated and Lonely are simmering on the back burners of my emotional stove and Crazed Out of My MInd and Horny As A Teenage Boy in a Campground are boiling away in the front, pretty much on any given day. Boredom is not allowed on my menu. If you constantly bored, you should probably let yourself fall from the tree and go walk into traffic.

So I had to shuffle her along because she was clearly more insane than any Home Depot associate should ever have to deal with BUT! this is why I love the Deep, the crazies make everything seem like you are in a distorted reality. Every day is like an acid flashback, such wow, it’s probably all the dust and chemicals in the air. And wait, she really did say WINDOWPANE, remember that, hippie hookers? Whoa, maybe I am hallucinating everything, including this blog.

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I need a battery recharge and hang out at home in the dark for the day. BUT there’s more to do:

2. Make appointment for “annual” physical…has it really been 3 years? I probably have dust-induced cancer, scared. But I have no phone yet so I can’t possibly call, cancer will have to wait.

3. Get Car Wash. I wash my car like you bitches go to the nail salon, I take pride in my box. But not today. Just rain already. I hate you, Sun. Go hide behind a fluffy cloud. But not Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White OC-130 because I don’t want to see that on my Day Off either.

My whole whacked out schedule is messing with my mind, making me forgetful and my inner clock is out of sync, and it used to be so precise. Every day is one big lump of day and the nights are spent dreaming of dispensing paint and giant Game of Throne-style orgies where the dudes have penises shaped like donuts and churros and nothing quite fits inside…help me.

So today on my first day off after 9-day acid trip, after being woken up by the Sun’s mighty laser boner at 6 a.m, I set out to do some chores like figure what to do about out my phone, buy Kleenex which is so pressing that it by-passes the To Do List. I have a motherfucking cold that I have been ignoring and has turned into an actual illness, possibly lung cancer. Okay,I have been watching too much Breaking Bad in one sitting. Also, it turns out during my Home Depot 9-day dust acid trip I have forgotten to eat for at least a week and as I walk to the car, my pants are literally falling down with each step.

“Go buy some new pants, Peterson!” Colleen yells out from the porch next door. I have unconscious anorexia! What a trip! The thought of shopping fills me with fear and dread. And true confession: I HATE that when I lose weight it comes off my ass first, then everything literally goes tits up. My boobs and middle pudge need to be tempered, not my butt. I had a trainer who would always say about weight loss and gain: “First one hired, last one fired” when it came to the myth of “spot reduction.” In other words, fat is the boss and in my case my butt is the minion, just an unpaid intern and my tits are that asshole Donald Trump. This makes me unhappy. I will never twerk proper. But today, I have other fish to fry, fuck new pants, body issues and definitely fuck the dead phone, the couch is yelling at me; “MAMA HURRY UP AND BRING DORITOS!”

Also as I am getting into the car, Colleen tells me I need to watch the show “Derek” on Netflix.

4. Watch “Derek” on Netflix. Best day EVAR: I watched the entire Ricky Gervais series in the darkness of my living room whilst the asshole Sun shined its last bit of bullshit rays on the falling leaves of autumn, who cares how nice the day was…bring on the darkness! And if you haven’t seen or heard of this show, GET ON IT NOW, it is so good. It’s funny and it’s sad at the same time. This is the fine balance I am striving for in writing and why I spew this shit out in a public forum. The acting is amazing. If I tell you what it’s about, you might go meh, no want to watch that, but it’s Ricky Gervais! And he’s playing an autistic 50-year-old man who volunteers in a nursing home and it’s shot like “The Office,” how could it not be brilliant?

After I watched the final episode (there are only 7 20-minute episodes so it’s only about 2 and a half hours total, you can do it too in one sitting too, my antsy ADHD friends) It reminds me that Getting Old is scary and is way on the bottom of my To Do list. But first:

5. Visit Parents. Tomorrow on Day Off Part Two, I will contend with getting a new phone. I have made a civilized on-line appointment with the Apple store in the Upper Canada Mall (no wait list!) where I will just say “it stopped working” and nothing else and they will give me a new one for $169 and I will suck it up. There will be no drama or panic attacks. I will also visit my parents who live in this brand spanking new retirement home that has a confusing cruise ship vibe when you walk in, it makes me a tad bit anxious when I go there: Is it the Love Boat or the Titanic? But then Julie bounces into the lobby with her clip board and then phew, it’s “The Love Boat,” exciting and new, come aboard, we’re expecting you. But it’s a tad too serene for my taste if I’m going to park there, it could use a bit of Ricky Gervais and his misfit buddies performing Duran Duran on the Lido Deck. Just saying.

And as I am writing this in the dark I have an epiphany:

5. Get Light Blocking Blinds For the Bedroom Window. I can keep my dumb straw curtains but have shades underneath! But then why would I do that on my day off when I can do that at the Depot on Saturday? And possibly that hot dude from the Flooring can cut them for me and then it wouldn’t seem like a chore and I can maybe practice my flirting techniques before I dry up and turn into drywall dust. Bitches got to multi-task at all times.

Here’s a clip from “Derek:”

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26

Aug. ’13

Morning Wood and Other Small Joys

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“Do you hate it here yet?” I have a fellow in-mate at the Home Depot who keeps asking me this question and I always answer: “NOOOOOOO! I still love it here!” He thinks I am being sarcastic but I’m not. There are free popsicles in the freezer and sucking one back while flopping down on the leather couch in the break room is the highlight of my day. It doesn’t take much to amuse me. Sometimes when I’m feeling subversive, I put my feet up and hog the whole couch. As I lick my popsicle, I check my Facebook and scroll through all the photos you post sitting on docks at “The Cottage” with your “life is good” caption. I never “like” these photos of yours, not because I am jelly stuck in South Etobicoke in my orange apron slinging out cans of paint and stain, I don’t “like” them because I really feel sorry for you. I know what you are really doing up there, chores galore, admit it, and here’s a pro tip from the ho at Home Depot: You need to power wash your deck and remove all the old flaking shit before you apply a new coating of stain, dumbass. And also before you paint your skanky old cabin, you need to get rid of the mould and mildew with Concrobium, bleach might cost less but it doesn’t do the job, you cheap bitch. And patch that roof up so you won’t have mould in the first place. Okay, I am jelly and do hate you a little bit. I would give anything to come up to your happy little shack in Halifuckingburton or even that creepy trailer in Tweed to apply a layer of Thompson Water Seal on your deck and swim in your murky lake for a day off. My summer has been bullshit this year. I have not been swimming once and I have yet to have any sort of cocktail with Pimm’s in it :(.

However, I may have been breathing in dust for two months but! I have lost weight without trying and I no longer have insomnia! I have been saving money because I am always at work and can’t spend money! It turns out it’s not what you make, it’s what you don’t spend that counts. Who knew?

I have made peace with my lot in life and have even learned a thing or two at the Depot:

1. I have developed a Poker Face. When I first started, I was afraid that people would think I was a fraud because I knew nothing and would run to Paint Jesus for every question a customer had. Seriously what is up with all your convoluted quagmires like: “How do I glue a piece of velvet on porcelain?” “How do I build a cat tree but I don’t want to use nails or staples?” “When I open the can of paint, there are bubbles…is there something wrong with it?” Just when I think there are no more crazy-assed questions, someone comes up with something more insane than the last one so guess what I do now? I MAKE UP AN ANSWER USING LOGIC…who knew I even had any? Don’t want to use staples or nails because your cat’s paws are so delicate, use a tube of No More Nails. It’s glue so the cat will probably be mid-scratch and fall on it’s ass when the carpet rips off the wood but whatevs. Do people even google anything anymore? The bubbles in your paint could be the farts from a drowning rat that got caught in the can at the factory, here’s a complimentary stir stick so you can twirl around and see if there is a rodent corpse in there. And if the porcelain you are going to glue velvet onto is a toilet seat, then better use something waterproof like marine glue. And then tear it off using Goo Gone because that was a really disgusting idea in the first place.

2. I have developed thick skin. Every so often, there is a certain type of man who thinks he is Mr. Handy Plus but is about to embark on a project that is so majorly wrong that when you advise him that it won’t work, he yells and calls you a stupid idiot and could he possibly talk to someone who knows, like Paint Jesus, who for some reason gets twenty dollar bills slipped into the pocket of his apron on a regular basis. Yes, Paint Jesus is hot and knows everything but even I know you can’t put wood stain on pre-primed pressure board trim because it doesn’t even have a grain, for fuck sake, but try telling that to the crazy old Chinese man who screamed at me, insisting a can of Minwax “Mission Oak” was just what he wanted to finish his home improvement project. Go right ahead, sir, Paint Jesus gives you his blessing. “Who gives a fuck?” is actually what he said. You maketh your mess and buy more paint to fix it up. No problem.

3. I have developed a crush. This happens to me in any given situation where I am confined to a place for a lengthy period of time. Even back in the day, when I was in real estate school and stuck going to classes for what seemed like an eternity (but was really only 3 weeks) at that 80s relic hotel “Inn on the Park,” I took a shine to this weirdly elfish looking dude in my quadrant of seating. I liked him because he used to dig in his ears with his pen when he thought people weren’t looking. But I was and I could relate because I have the same ear fetish or affliction depending on how you look at ti. Other than that, he was really kind of revolting in every other way which makes me wonder about myself a little bit. If I was in solitary, I would probably start lusting after a wall spider or the hand that pushes my lunch in my cell. I think I think I develop these crushes as a survival mechanism, it gets me excited to go to work in the morning and slightly more motivated to beautify, especially making sure those eyebrows don’t get too long and curly because that is what happens when I’m not paying attention. Here is how I developed the crush in case you want one too: He said ‘hi” to me while I was squatting in the caulking aisle, fishing for rogue silicone filler. I said “hi’ back. Then I saw him again the next week in the break room, and he walked by me on his way to his locker and said “hi’ and I said “hi’ back. Even though I remember what he was wearing each time and that he had shaving cut on the right side of his neck, I thought nothing of these causal exchanges until I saw him in the men’s washroom, that door is always wide open for some reason, and HE WAS ZIPPING UP HIS FLY and we locked eyes for maybe a half a second longer than appropriate for someone who has just freshly packed away his man meat… aaaaand I was smitten. But! He is a rare sighting and I AM NOT STALKING HIM even though I can’t help but check his schedule because sometimes the binder just flies open to his page and it is hardly ever the same as mine….sigh…..sooooo:

4. I have developed another crush. What can I say, it’s a big place and why confine oneself to one person? When the representative for Behr paints walks into the Depot, it’s like a sex bomb explodes. Some people just have it and it can’t be helped. It’s the power of the Mojo at Home Depot. *SIGH* So what if he’s married? It’s harmless flirtation, so…..

5. I have developed a way to hone my own fading mojo. On any given day, at 7 in the morning, there is a line up of contractors. These men are hung-ray and it is the crack of dawn and they are holding hard hammers, if you know what I mean. This area is located right at the entrance where you have to pass by to go to your department no matter where it is, although if you were a shrinking violet, you could take an annoying detour around building supplies and ignore what is known as the “Morning Wood Runway” altogether. But this is what makes the early shifts worthwhile in my world. You know that Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines”  video that everyone was all freaked out over and you had no idea why until you realized there was an unrated vevo.com version and then you watched it 700 times so you could learn a thing or two because you wondered: Why is it there are 3 perfect naked women and only one of them stands out? It’s what I will call the Emily factor, that is the brunette one as if you didn’t already google that. Well I have watched it 700 times and analyzed it so you don’t have to: It is all about eyes and body language. The girl can’t dance worth shit but she has the Power of the Mojo, the other two I couldn’t pick out in a line up 10 seconds after watching the video for the 701st time. What does she do? She struts while she twirls her hair. Try doing that as an old bitch in an orange apron and safety boots but guess what? The impact of a steel toe boot on a concrete floor makes everything shake even without hardly trying.And I already have that OCD hair twirling thing down pat. Work that runway, sister, a lumber yard of morning wood, what more could a ho ask for? Life is good, bitches.

 

 

 

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09

Aug. ’13

Habanero Hottie is the New Ebony Mistress

oitnb

There’s something about working at the Home Depot that reminds me of prison. I’ve been watching that Netflix show “Orange is the New Black” which I love, love, love and if you don’t know what it’s about yet, get on it now. Women in prison, what could possibly go right? It is so good, I’m on the second round of viewing. I don’t get it when people say they “don’t have time to watch tv” and you know who you are. I have a 40ish hour work week where I can’t even cheat on that because I have to punch a timeclock (this goes against my nature) and I have managed effortlessly to watch 13 real hour-long (no commercials on Netflix, yo, this is the new world and me likey) episodes in 3 days, settle down and keep up and stop picking weeds from your garden. Jesus, it’s not that hard to sloth.

Anyway, the Home Depot. like my new favourite show, is also a community of orange-clad motley weirdos who only have each other to bond and form cliques with. Who works at the Home Depot? Everybody and anybody from every walk of life and in spite of the rigorous screening process they take to hire you, there is no typical Home Depot inmate employee. The one thing they have in common is they all shuffle around in their steel toe boots with a kind of quiet disgruntled resignation, and some less quiet than others. Those are the “rude ones” you guys complain about on internet forums. It turns out they are not rude per se, they have just done hard time, probably a half a shift of pack down right before a power hour and a quick Harveys lunch. You try doing that grunt work, bitch, and see if you can smile and gives two shits about some kind of crack you need to seal to keep the ants out of your filthy kitchen. I’m not like that yet, by the way, I am all sunshine and helpfulness even though I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about because I have never even used a caulking gun. Why don’t you hire people to do things anyway? Honestly, I can’t imagine what makes a person wake up on a Saturday morning and say to themselves: “I am going to the Home Depot and pick up a kit of 2-part epoxy acrylic floor covering and paint my garage.YOLO!” Do you even understand how to do this? This is something you need to google, you don’t just ask some Home Depot ho with a training badge on their apron if you need to prime first. It is hard! It is science and artistry combined! Hire someone and go watch Netflix. That is my one piece of advice as a Home Depot associate to you dumbass DIY-ers with too much time your hands.

Back to my analogy, just like in prison at the Home Depot, the weak ones will be exploited. I’m sure every department has a scapegoat, the one where teamwork just doesn’t apply. It’s the one fellow employee you do not help because he/she has been a douche/douchette and you overlook the greater good, like stellar customer service and product waste so you can gleefully watch them make a mistake and then have reason throw them into the fire and toast marshmallows over their corpse like a primal savage. It’s the social behaviour you learn in kindergarten that applies in every group scenarios I am sure. Our misfit is a middle aged Indian man named Anil whose name has become synonymous with blundering asshole. I hated him at first because he 1) laughed his microcephalic head off when I made minor rookie mistakes in training and 2) he once douchefully pushed me aside when I was in the middle of filling an order on the computer. Also I enamoured by Indian people and I especially think their accents are the most charming of all but his voice has a grating quality that needs to be silenced with duck tape.

Last week, now known as Blue Monday, he took an order for two gallons of “Laguna Beach” that contains 3 ounces of cobalt pigment which is a shitton of deep blue FYI..,It could go along way filling up pails of Boothbay Harbour, Alaskan Wildflower, Cerulean Blue, et cetera. As an aside, I really want to be the one who names the colours, I would be much more creative. Blue Balls, I would call a colour just to see if anyone would notice. Well wouldn’t you know it, he forgot to put the second can under the dispenser so we were all covered in blue days because he failed to clean it up and oh, how he laughed that high pitched crazy-assed cackle when the puddle started dripping off the counter onto the floor. This is a typical Anil day.

Behind his back, this how we talk:

“He doesn’t listen to women.”

“He doesn’t listen to men either, don’t kid yourself.”

“He doesn’t listen to customers which is why he makes so many Oopsies.”

“Apparently his family died in the tsumani but when he told me the story, he was laughing though, so he might have been lying.”

“He always laughs, that’s his M.O. and that’s an awful story, now I feel bad for him.”

“Don’t feel bad for him. He keeps throwing my water bottles away.”

“No, I definitely feel bad for him, why would lie about his family?”

“Because he lies about everything, he doesn’t even punch out at lunch.”

“That’s just fucking horrific, I am enraged now.”

“I can’t believe he forgot to put the lid on the can before he put it in the shaker.”

“What a feckless maroon.”

“I still can’t believe he forgot to put the can under the dispenser.”

“Everything is still blue.”

“When I went to the bathroom this morning, there was blue in my poop.”

“Oh my god, TMI!”

I don’t care what the other inmates say, I still feel sorry for him. What if he really did lose his family and he smiles the way primates do to diffuse a threatening situation? That is why I smile at work, I am actually deathly afraid of you customer-types. What if you are like that old lady who seemed so cute and harmless in her motor scooter wearing a fright wig that looked like Golde’s from a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof? How comically sweet was she motoring down the aisle until she started spraying black lacquer Rustoleum all over the place and screaming: ‘I DO NOT HAVE RUST! YOU WHORE! YOU SOLD ME THE WRONG CAN OF PAINT!” Oh, and how I grinned from ear-to-ear my primate smile as I darted down the hall to hide in hardware only to curl up in fetal position behind the WD-40 display. Please shoot me if I become one of those self-entitled old ladies with a temper that could out-do a toddler on a sugar high. What if all of Anil’s weird and socially inept behaviour is because he is lonely and hurt inside? What if he lives alone in a one room basement apartment all the way in Scarborough? It makes me sad to think about him beyond the orange curtain. I mostly took this job as a stress-free distraction that I wouldn’t bring home with me at the end of the day with me and bonus: lifting up all those paint cans is like hours spent at the gym that I don’t have to bother with because all the men at the gym are married and what a waste of time that is. All the men who shop at the Home Depot are married too, by the way, so much for any collateral benefits. As my daughter astutely pointed out: “Single men are too lazy to paint.”

But I am really obsessed with Anil, I try to imagine his life and why he is the way he is. Yesterday, he was setting up a can of paint under the dispenser and it was obviously askew and ready for disaster. One of my fellow in-mates nudged me and pointed it out before yet another accident was about to happen and he whispered “Shhh, don’t tell him.”

The colour was “Raven Feather.”

“ANIIIIIIIIL!” I screamed, “The can isn’t under the dispenser!” And the disaster was diverted. I’m not a hero, I just didn’t want to be pooping out black for the next week. And oh how he laughed at what could been known Black Tuesday. I hope he doesn’t think I like him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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