I was at my desk working checking my emails when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped 3 feet up in the air.

“Ooo, I’m sorry Linkie!”  It was Karen, looking very pretty, and very married as usual.

“Oh hey, what’s up?”

“I was wondering if you could run these names for me?”

“Sure!” I sprang up and took her list, then sat down to use our state of the art 30 year old terminal.  I felt her hand on my shoulder again as I started running through the names.

Ah man… 

I tried to concentrate but kept getting the names jumbled up.  Was that Billy or Willy?  Ah who cares, I’ll just make some names up to keep the searches going longer. 

We chatted up a little about life, news and politics until I was finished, then gave her the printouts.

“Thanks sweetie!”  She smiled, then turned and left.

I glanced over at one of my coworkers.  “I hate her.”

“Huh?”

“Why she gotta be like that man?”

“Like what?”

“You know, all nice and everything.”

Another coworker of mine is getting married, this time it’s a woman with cerebral palsy.  Very nice person too, and when she talked about her fiance, she indicated that he had a similar disability as well.   She showed us all her lovely new ring.

“Wow, that’s probably about as close as I’ll ever get to an actual real diamond,” I said.

“See Linc?  You never know.”

“Unfortunately, I have found that I am the exception to every rule, no matter what that rule is.”

Indeed, it seems lately that every time I look around, I’m always seeing somebody being paired up with their own.  If I see a Chinese girl, she’s holding hands with a Chinese guy.  If I see a black guy, he’s holding hands with a black girl.  Now here’s someone with a disability who is getting hitched to someone else with a disability.  How in a horse’s wide load are these people finding each other?

For my part, all I can seem to attract are women who, oddly enough, look like men.   Does that mean I’m really gay and this is God’s way of trying to tell me to own up to it?

Really quite sure that’s not the case here, but frankly, I’m running out of plausible reasons to explain away this anomaly.

Lately though, I’ve been settling on what I call the “My Man Genes Were Pounded to Fossilized Dino Droppings” theory.  This theory extrapolates that I was somehow born with a genetic defect that precludes a particular demographic of women from being able to see me.  Like, at all.  In other words, if I’m at the supermarket, they will run right through my righteous ass with their carts not because they’re being rude, but because they just couldn’t see me.

The more I think about it the more things start to make sense.  If I hold a door for a girl and she walks right on through without acknowledging me or saying thank you, it wasn’t because she was being rude.  Again, she just couldn’t SEE me.  It also explains why when I’m talking to a girl, she’s always looking past me, like I’m not actually there.  Really, is it conceivable that every woman in creation would be that rude?  Doesn’t it make more sense that they were simply unable to physically see me at all?

I think I need to head down to Harvard with this.  This definitely merits a closer look and possibly conducting controlled studies so this phenomenon can be observed in action.  I’m talking fully funded with grants and the whole works, and lots of hot girls to use as test subjects too.

Seriously, it’s for science. 

Today a coworker of mine took me to the firing range so I could learn how to shoot me a few guns.  Yep, as violent as I make myself out to be on this blog sometimes, the truth is, I’ve never actually used a firearm before.

Until today. 

The guy brought along a hefty arsenal too:  a 30 odd 6 rifle, a 357 Police Special, a Sig Sauer, a Beretta, and finally a weenie 22 Browning Buckmark.

Before I could get started he decided to have a little fun with the rifle.  He gears up and fires the first shot, and for a second I thought somebody had bombed the place.

“HOLY #%&^!!!”

“Yes, it does get that loud, Linc.  Calm down already.”

After he fired a few shots, he took out his firearms and began teaching me the basics.  I finally settled on trying out the Beretta, a 9mm I’ve always loved the shape of ever since I was a wee little one.  All the water pistols I used to play with had been shaped like the Beretta too.  I’m not sure why though, something about how it looked and felt just appealed to me. 

It was finally time for me to lock and load.  I put in a clip and pulled back on the slide, looking away and closing my eyes while I did it because I was afraid the thing might somehow accidentally explode on me.

“You’re embarrassing me, Linc.”

“Don’t annoy me when I’m holding a gun here.  Especially when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

The Beretta was finally cocked and ready.  “Ok, so I just shoot now?”

“Yep, just go ahead and shoot.”

The target was only 10 yards out.  “Hmmmm, seems a little close, how about I move it back another ten yards?”

“20 yards??  For your first time?  I would start out close, but hey, if you wanna do that knock yourself out,” he chuckled.

I whistled as I cranked the handle to move the target back another 10 yards (a la Riggs from Lethal Weapon), then carefully took aim.  I squeezed the trigger all the way and the Beretta exploded.  I never saw the shell eject either, it all happened so fast.

Whoa…

I carefully took aim again and got more comfortable as I kept firing.  The Beretta was powerful, but it wasn’t overwhelming me like I thought it would.  In fact the gun felt pretty comfortable in my hand.  In a way it was love at first shot. 

I finished going through all 15 rounds, and my coworker immediately starts cranking the handle to bring back the target sheet.

“Are you #$%^ing kidding me?” he said in disbelief.

I looked at it.  It was a tight grouping that had mostly hit the upper torso, including one bullet that had hit the target’s eye.

“You sure you’ve never fired a gun before?”  He gave me a suspicious look.

“Never fired a gun in my entire life.”

“Well $%*& man, you’re a natural.”

Hee. 

I tried out the other firearms as well, though I quickly realized the Beretta was “my” gun.  I couldn’t even shoot as accurately with the pea shooter Buckmark as I did with the Beretta.  And the 357 Police Special?  Mother.  I shot it once and that was more than enough for me.  I don’t think even the Space Shuttle had that much kick, and yeah I understand it has great stopping power, but I think that only applies if you can actually manage to hit the target first, doncha think?  I don’t even know how off I had been with that shot because it never hit the practice sheet.

But the Beretta… ahhh the Beretta, the true love that I’ve been waiting for all my life.  At long last I think I’ve finally found something to keep me warm during those dark, cold, lonely nights. 

One of the reasons it’s been so difficult for me to find dates is because I don’t have a very active social life (which is to say, I have no social life whatsoever to speak of.) I used to have a close knit group of friends that carried me through high school and beyond college for a while, but eventually we began to drift apart for various reasons, until one day I found myself living the life of a loner again.

I was never one for attending social gatherings though so I could maybe gain some new friends, mainly because there were, well, people there. And I hated people.

Ok, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hated them, maybe that I just didn’t get along…no I hated them.

Unfortunately, if I was ever gonna meet girls then I was gonna have to go where people were, sooner or later. With a mindset like this, it’s a small wonder why I was always holding out hope that I would meet someone at my job instead. After all, I’m forced to be here, and there were people here too, soooo….

For the longest time I used to entertain fantasies of meeting the girl of my dreams at work, so much that it started taking on a life of its own. I even nailed down what she would look like too: deeply tanned skin, big brown eyes, and luscious brown hair. She would be as sweet as an angel, maybe assigned somewhere close to me so we’d run into each other on a regular basis. Things would be strictly platonic at first, but before I knew it she would eventually warm up to me… and love would blossom out of nothing at all.

Out of nothing at allllll….. Out of nothing at… *ahem* but anyways, that’s how I imagined it. From that we would eventually become engaged, get married, and live happily ever after. Oh how I prayed and begged God that this would all happen for real. My fantasies here were so vivid that I could have weaved a cheap romance novel out of it. Probably could have made some cash from selling it too.

I had been churning over this latest fantasy of mine for a few months, when something weird happened: we got a new coworker assigned near us who had… deeply tanned skin, big brown eyes, and luscious brown hair. I swear you couldn’t make this stuff up. Our department doesn’t attract a lot of young workers to begin with, so just getting another coworker around my age would have been odd unto itself. She was a year older than me, but single and beautiful, and had a mellow, pleasant personality about her. In her previous job she worked with kids who suffered from various disabilities too. It was perfect! My dream was actually coming to life!

Except she hated me.

Well, she didn’t really hate me. She just had no interest in me whatsoever. I tried everything I could think of to woo her too, all in the futile hope that eventually, sooner or later, she would warm up to me in very much the same way her alter ego did in my fantasies. I kept her company when things got quiet during our late shifts. I helped her out whenever she needed to learn something about the job. I helped her find her keys when she had lost them and was freaking out over it, and at her request I burned dozens of her CDs into MP3s so she could use an MP3 player she bought for the gym (even though she didn’t have a computer). I changed my hairstyles, clothing, and yes, I’m ashamed to admit it, during my low points I even tried using TAG body spray (I’m suing those bastards for false advertising by the way.)

Yet despite all my efforts, when it came to asking her out to lunch, or even just coffee, she had no interest at all. The more she blew me off, the more I pined for her love. After a couple of months of this I eventually gave up. I decided I would continue being a nice guy as always, but I resigned myself to the fact that she would never be interested in me. I was just a pathetic loser who could never be good enough for her. My fantasy was not to be.

And that might have been the end of it, except that shortly afterwards she fell madly in love with another coworker, and within a few months they were engaged to be married.

My fantasies were coming to life after all… but for somebody else. Honestly, mere words could not convey the state of my emotions as I watched some little bastard boy enjoy what I previously could only experience in my dreams. Every day I had to come in to work and see those two nuzzling noses or holding hands at a picnic table (just as I envisioned it), and it was all I could do to keep myself from screaming at the top of my lungs and stepping on the gas at a nearby red light hoping an 18 wheeler would plow into me.

The best though was when the wedding itself was soon coming up, and she asked me if I had any suggestions for wedding songs she could use. I ended up making a CD of what I considered to be my most favorite love songs, songs I probably would have picked for my own wedding too. From what I heard my CD turned out to be a big hit, though I wouldn’t know, since I wasn’t invited.

I’m not one for bitterness though, so here’s a toast to their new life together. May their imminent divorce be appallingly messy and violently ugly.

No seriously, I do hope they’ll be happy together, I guess. I don’t begrudge anyone getting married, but for the love of kindness, did it really have to F*&%ING play out EXACTLY like I imagined it???

When I saw that, I guess I went through something of a system shock. My feelings went numb and I succumbed to a state of deep depression. In a way, I had given up on life. I no longer took care of myself, no longer went out as much as I used to. My clothes would get worn and start showing holes, but I didn’t care. I started suffering from health problems, but still I didn’t care. It wasn’t uncommon for me to sleep for 12-15 hours a night, and even then I just had no energy to get out of bed at all. I used to be punctual and on time for work, but I became so lethargic that if I ended up being only 10 minutes late, it was a miracle. It was becoming a regular tradition for me to hit the supermarket the night before my days off from work, stock up on groceries and DVDs from Redbox, then head home and hole up in my bedroom with my tub of popcorn, TV and laptop, where I would stay unmoved in my jammies until it was time to go back to work again.

I became utterly convinced that God hated me. After all, He wasn’t going to simply ignore my prayers here. Nope, He was going to twist and twist and twist the knife in so deep that it would all but ensure my psyche would never recover from this. It was almost like He recorded my fantasies and decided to orchestrate it in real life so that someone else would become the beneficiary of it, right before my very eyes. I mean really, what were the odds of something like that happening, down to even using the same collection of songs I dreamed would be used at my own wedding? (Which I say at the risk of sounding like a weenie girlie boy.) About a billion to one??

Why? Why did I have to endure that? Why did God have to hurt me like this? I know I can be a wiseass and all who deserves to get smacked around every now and then, but this was bafflingly cruel. It’s part of why I’m so slow to get out of bed every day, because I absolutely dread what new punishment He might have in store for me. My pathetic life must be a source of constant amusement for Him.

But… and before you Christian dweebs start berating me here, let me be quick to note that I don’t really believe this now. I know there’s a purpose to everything, and I’ve seen enough to know that for whatever reason God is keeping me safe from a lot of the evil that’s in this world. I guess that goes to show what a foregone conclusion I must be, that in spite of the complete embarrassment I experienced, I still believe God cares for me and has only my best interests in mind. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome?

Still, this one really got to me in a bad way, and even now I’m still nursing the wounds. Just when I think I’ve put it behind me, every now and then somebody will stick a finger in the wound, like when I run into her and she talks about her “husband” (just hearing her say that makes me cringe.) Ironically enough, the most recent jab came from my mother, of all places. My Mom never knew I had a thing for this girl, even though she met her a few times at work. One time we had a conversation afterwards and Mom said, “She is SUCH a sweetheart, Linc! How come you can’t meet somebody nice like her? She would have been PERFECT for you!!”

Poor Mom. She had no idea why I ran out after hearing that and started ripping and chewing on the grass on the front lawn.

Ah well. I guess the only thing that will make the pain go away for good is when I finally do meet someone for real. It’s hard to imagine even after all that how I could still retain hope that somehow, somewhere, she’s out there waiting for me, but I do. I guess I’ll always be a romantic at heart, no matter how loopy I get.

I still fantasize about meeting her though. But trust me, I have learned my lesson. Now I imagine meeting her in scenarios that are so outlandish that they cannot POSSIBLY happen to me in real life, much less to anyone else. Currently I fantasize about meeting her as part of an undercover operation I’m doing for the CIA. Oh, and I have superpowers. And the girl of my dreams is an alien from another planet who gets captured by the U.S. government. We fall in love and I spring her loose, then steal the USS Enterprise starship and together we make our way to the Alpha Centauri system, where we spend many steamy, romantic evenings on the paradise planet of Gimmegoomajamjam.

Let’s see y’all weenie tots try to turn THAT one into reality. 

Ever gone to work without your pants?

When I first started my job we were all supposed to get new uniforms, but unfortunately there was a severe pants shortage at the time, so some of us had to place them on backorder. My pants finally did arrive though… 9 months later. And they were ladies’ pants too, though the tailor assured me there was no notable difference between the two. Sure. I still had to wait to get them hemmed, which inexplicably took over a month to do, but once they were done I was FINALLY donned in proper uniform, this after already being a year on the job.

There were a few problems though: one, the pants were light threaded and were designed for spring/summer wear. Try wearing this baby in say, February, during a full-on blizzard. There was more than one occasion where I would be screaming at the top of my lungs cursing the tailors and my department while I was hauling my frostbitten legs indoors.

Then one day I happened to be standing next to a cute coworker, who was shuffling a few things in her hands when she dropped a few papers.

“Oh don’t worry I got it,” I said, as I quickly bent over to grab the papers.

*RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP*

Oh no. No, no, no….

“Umm, I have to take some lost time,” I announced, then promptly ran the @#$% out of there, the shredded remains of my pants flapping in the wind.

You know, I understand now why people who wear uniforms order from an outside commercial vendor, especially military uniforms, instead of getting it all in-house. When your righteous buttinski is getting shot at, you really don’t need to be worrying about the kind of nonsense I went through once I got my own “regulation” pants.

I oughta sue too. I might have had a legitimate shot at asking cute coworker out before the pants ripping thingie ruined my chances forever.

I have a coworker named Prue. I hate Prue. Prue takes to my desk like it’s her personal kitchen, leaving me a mess of Hurricane Katrina-like proportions that I have to clean up every time her shift finally and mercifully ends. Since I’m forced to share my desk with her due to the cramped conditions of our section, I have to endure a daily ritual of fumigating the thing so I can use it again after she leaves.

Today was no different, so I started checking the drawers for something I could use to clean up the coffee stains, grease spots, and other strange substances I’d prefer would remain unidentified. I found some nice pads in my right drawer and started scrubbing away. They seemed to do the job pretty well, and I thought maybe, for once, Prue had actually been considerate enough to leave some cleaning supplies behind, a humble admission to what a raging slob she was.

“Linc, what are you doing?” It was Leeza, a motormouth but a friendly coworker of mine.

“Just cleaning this crap up as usual.”

“But why are you using that??”

“Hey, it works good, and it was in the drawer, so why not?”

“Linc… that’s a tampon.”

I stopped scrubbing.

“What now?” I said weakly.

“It’s a tampon,” she repeated, then broke out in uncontrollable laughter.

My face darkened several shades of red as I quickly threw the “cleaning pad” away in disgust.

I hate Prue.

Came into work today:

“Hey Linc, Happy Valentine’s!”

“Bite me.”

“Yo, Linc, got any special plans for valentine?”

“Sit on it, assface.”

I sit down at my desk, and Mick my coworker approaches me. “Say, Linc….”

“Look, snothead, I swear to God if you so much as even hint at mentioning Valentine’s I will vomit the contents of my last meal all over your nice shiny uniform. I do not care about Valentine’s, understand? As far as I’m concerned, Valentine is a pissant piece of garbage gay ass, crap ass, dog ass, everything ass, commercialized demonic STD infested rat piss of a holiday.”

Mick looked at me for a few seconds.

“I just wanted to know if you finished going through the court papers we got yesterday.”

“……………………………………………oh. Yeah, it’s all finished.”