The Short, Short Version #6 (Extended Edition)

For Weeks 11/18/13 - 12/14/13

Fear:  I have been having heart palpitations lately.  The other day at work, I was walking past the desk and suddenly felt a heavy thump in my chest, followed by a moment of confusion, nausea, and pain.  Then I had a pressure headache for about an hour, accompanied by the nausea and a little dizziness.  It has happened several times since then, usually when I'm doing nothing more than walking across a room.

My niece had a 3-D ultrasound done.  In it, the baby appears to have a harelip.  My niece's father had a harelip, so it is completely possible.  The doctor told my niece he thought it was just a shadow, as everything else about the baby is developing fine, but it's something we're worried about.

Disgust:  My niece's boyfriend, who was living with my sister and my niece and refused to get a job, decided that, because he didn't want to get said job, he no longer believed he was the father of my niece's baby.  You know what, though?  He is.  He has lived with them since before the baby was conceived.  Man up!  So, long story short, he left.

Customers who tell us their life stories:  how this one plans to have sex and that's why she doesn't need to worry about her bra straps showing; how that one needs red patent pumps and a leopard-print miniskirt because she wants to make her ex-husband jealous at his mother's funeral;  how another one's boyfriend, twenty years her junior, needs therapy and tells us the three-hour story (I'm not kidding) of his life, from how his father treated him to how she met him, to how she got her dog, to how her cousin's brother-in-law's neighbor had a dog just like hers (seriously), to the dog she had when she was five, to what her father told her when she was five, etc.

Sadness:  My body acne is back.  I imagine how disgusted a man would be if he wanted to caress my shoulders and they aren't smooth but instead bumpy, bloody, and scarred.  It is also physically painful, wearing a bra or moving in just the wrong way so something rubs against my skin.  I've tried it all, too, to solve this problem, from antibiotics to antibacterial soap, to medicated lotion, to toothpaste, and beyond.

Watching my father try to open a package of deli-sliced ham.  He just kept turning it round and round because my mother told him one corner was split so it would pull open, but he couldn't see which corner that was.  Eventually my mother just took it and made his sandwiches herself.

Anger:  D-I-V-O-R-C-E.  It is ugly.  UGLY.  Neither my brother nor his wife are willing to compromise. My SIL is declaring she shouldn't be responsible for any of the debts accrued during their marriage, because during a marriage it is the man's place to make enough money to pay the bills, and that a woman shouldn't have to work if she doesn't want to, and that her money should be hers alone.  I'm not even kidding, that's what she said.  My brother is declaring he won't be celebrating Christmas AT ALL because he only gets his daughter from noon on Christmas Eve until 9:00 a.m. on Christmas Day, and that's not fair.  Except, YES IT IS.  We can be Germans for one day.  It's nothing more than a made-up arbitrary day, for Christ's sake!

The Veteran's Association.  A customer at work, who has a slight limp, told us he is getting 100% VA support, even though he has a job and is capable of providing for himself.  My father gets 20%.  Even though he had a stroke, is blind in one eye, has diabetes, and is incapable of getting a job at this time.  The VA has told us they might consider my father for 60%.  Another veteran, who was in the office at the VA clinic when my parents were there, told my mom he was also getting 100%.  My mom asked him what was wrong, and he said, "Nothing."

Happiness:  Surprise!  One day at work, while I was ringing a customer, Dig that Crazy Santa Claus started playing.  Maybe because I call in every year and complain about how depressing the Christmas music is, and how they need more upbeat songs, and how if I hear five versions of Last Christmas this time I might lose my shit.  Or maybe they read this blog.  If so, please fix the other issues I have written about.  Meanwhile, every time the line "all the little hepcats jump for joy" plays I do just that.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto came on the radio the other day, and so I texted my friend just those words.  She texted back with, "mata au hi made."  Because she just knew.

Surprise:  Out of the blue, a professor I had in my very first semester of college friended me on Facebook.  We are going to dinner this weekend as he'll be around this area.  I used to hang around his office and bug the crap out of him.  Seems he didn't mind.

A woman I know has five daughters.  She and her husband tried for a boy for years to no avail (well, to the avail of the three youngest daughters).  Finally, they stopped trying, sold all of their baby stuff, and moved on.  Yep, guess what?  They decided not to find out the sex until the baby was delivered.  It's a boy.  He is about four months old now and I just got to see him for the first time.  He...does not look like either of them.  The daughters each look either exactly like their mother or exactly like their father (to uncanny levels).  This boy...is a little round ball of surprise all around.

Randomness:  On my days off, I have no concept of time.  It can be 9:00 a.m and I will think, "I have the whole day!"  The next minute it is 2:00 p.m.  Several hours of reading blogs/using Pinterest/watching Youtube later I drag myself into the shower.

I am embarrassed for so-called "fangirls" and "fanboys."  When I see the obsession-ridden way they waste hours of their lives debating whether Sephiroth or Ganandorf is the greatest video game villain of all time, or what the exact coordinates of Superman's fortress must be, or how it would be impossible for Star Wars and Star Trek to take place in the same universe because an actor who played an alien in the background of the first movie of the former also played an Admiral in the background of one episode of the TV series of the latter, I cry a little for them but then I shout, "Who cares?"  Then I spend my time productively by reading a 100+ post discussion of the exact height of Tim Gunn.