This might come as a shock to you, but I hate Valentine’s Day.

Ever since Donna Costello kicked me in the shinny after giving her a Valentine card back in the third grade, I knew this holiday was going to bring me nothing but grief.

It got worse during my high school years when some evil bastard of a bastard came up with the brilliant idea to have flowers and Valentines delivered DURING CLASSES. So I’m sitting there at my desk minding my own business, trying to learn the intricacies of the periodic table, when lo and behold there’s a knock on the door and in walks this delivery guy holding a huge bouquet of flowers, meant of course for the ONE girl I happened to have a crush on. And then when class is over I get to watch her throw her arms around her darling love while I grab my chest and try to endure the agony of having my heart get ripped to shreds as I made my way to Spanish class.

Year after year it was like this, even as I continued to hope in vain that maybe, just maybe, next time things would be different. Nope. Unfulfilled love, loneliness, pain and anguish continued to rule my Valentine’s Day.

Then a few years ago, something happened that would forever seal Valentine’s day as a day of infamy for me. I came home one night to find an eviction notice had been posted on my door. An evil relative had stolen the house that my family bought and paid for, and then had the courts rule in his favor to get us thrown out so his granddaughter could move in with her skank boyfriend. My family unfortunately had no money for an attorney, so we were left defenseless against this onslaught of pure hatred. And, (almost like it was his parting gift), our relative poisoned our pet cat, who died shortly before our eviction.

The worst act of hatred that had ever been commited against me (and left me homeless for the first time in my life) happened precisely… on Valentine’s Day. That experience changed my life forever. I no longer had a place to call home, and the ruinous trials that resulted in that destructive aftermath left all of us with no assets except the cars we drove and the clothes on our backs. My parents will never be able to retire, and even with our resources pooled together we had all been effectively priced out of the housing market. Even years later, I can still feel the dull impact of that devastating day.

So yeah, I f*&#ing hate this accursed holiday.

The only way I’ve managed to survive in the years that followed was to basically hide under the bed and pray the demon-spirit of Valentine wouldn’t come get me. Then when the morning of the 15th finally came, I’d come out and breathe a sigh of relief in knowing I would live to see another day.

Of course, last year I made the mistake of thinking it was finally safe to come out again, and met someone online (on Valentine’s Day) who seemed to be the perfect girl for me. Educated, funny, intelligent, had a good career, loved to travel, shared the same political and religious beliefs I did, and most importantly, had blonde hair .

The perfect girl ended up stringing me along for 2 months, and then after sending her flowers for her birthday, I get texted a terse “thank you” and never hear from her again. I mean sheesh, if you’re gonna be like that then at least pay me the difference for the flowers I bought you cheap miserable mother#*&%ing bi___

I hate Valentine’s Day.

But… you know, whether it’s because I’m a glutton for punishment or because I’m just a dumb schmuck (or both), there’s a part of me that’s still holding out hope that this Valentine’s curse will someday be lifted. That maybe, just maybe, there’s a special girl out there who can finally break the hex and make this day a day I no longer have to fear or despise again.

Until then, I will continue to hide under the bed and rage against the pink machine.

Tags: anguish, anti valentine, evicted, evil, hate, homeless, loneliness, pain, pet cat, unrequited love, valentine card, valentines day
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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Here’s my working list of the things I might like to do for Valentine’s Day:

• Toss molotov cocktails into Hallmark stores.
• With a pair of scissors, walk into florist shops and snip off the top of all the flowers.
• Look for starry eyed couples playing suck face in public, approach them and ask the girl, “Thanks for giving me a deal on the trick the other night. Can we do it again on Tuesday, same time, same place?”
• Randomly call husbands at home and ask them if their wives will be free again tonight. Refer to the wife as your “honey bunny pie” to enrage him even more.
• Rent out a copy of every Valentine’s Day related slasher flick ever produced, beginning with My Bloody Valentine.
• Drop kick anyone in the face who mentions how wonderful and dreamy their girlfriends are. Kick them again when they’re moaning on the floor from the pain. Kick them yet again.
• Send emails to everyone on my contact list with the message, “I’m really sorry to tell you this, but I just saw your boyfriend/girlfriend making out with this girl/guy at the mall today.”
• Go to the park to look for couples cuddling after a picnic. Tell the nearest park police officer, “Excuse me officer, but I saw this couple smoking pot and sharing it with some 8 year old kids. Can you go check it out?”
• Find out who’s planning a romantic dinner at home and when. Just as their dinner is about to start, call 911 and in a frantic voice inform them you heard gunshots coming from their house.

I think all that should be enough to keep me busy on Valentine’s.

Tags: anti valentine, bloody valentine, evil, list, things to do, valentines day
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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Heath Ledger’s passing was truly tragic, but I have to ask myself, what is it about being rich and famous that induces so many people into thinking, “Hmmm, my life really sucks, let me start throwing down a few and shoot me up some happy juice.”

Naturally, I blame women for this.

No really, think about it. Who else on this planet can take a guy who is:

• Wildly successful, good looking and famous, with his face and name gracing all the major papers on a regular basis…
• Has hundreds of thousands of adoring fans…
• Has enough money to buy his own island and all the toys he could ever want…

…and then effortlessly cause him to wake up in a pool of his own vomit, wishing he had never been born?

It was probably a woman who drove the Joker batsh*% insane.

Whatever caused poor Heath Ledger’s downward spiral, I can guaran-damn-tee you that a woman had something to do with it.

So what lesson can we draw from this? I would suggest this: if you ever become rich and famous and want to truly enjoy your success and live a long, healthy and happy life, then you need only follow one rule: Stay the F*&% away from women.

Tags: death, drugs, evil, heath ledger, joker, junkie, women
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. – Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

There are times when life really gets me down, and during those moments I’m often guilty of having a defeatist attitude about things. When I see a hurdle that seems insurmountable, I figure what’s the point in trying to leap it, I’m never gonna succeed anyway. The odds are always against me, so why bother?

Then I learned a little lesson recently. One of my most favorite Snapple flavors is Diet Iced Tea-Lemonade. I could drink gallons of this stuff in a day and still never get bored. But then suddenly I had a hard time finding it anywhere. The local supermarkets no longer seemed to stock them, so on a friend’s suggestion I decided to email Snapple. I figured it can’t hurt, even though I expected my email would be ignored. Nobody cares what I think anyway.

Well, I actually did get a response, but they said they were no longer distributing that flavor and would be discontinuing it due to low demand.

Figures. Why did I bother to send the email anyway? Really, when is a major corporation gonna care about anything I had to say? I’m just one guy after all. And I’m not even good looking.

Then a few months later, I hit one of the local supermarkets to get some grub and was shocked to find STACKS of Diet Iced Tea-Lemonade Snapples littered all over the place. Now every supermarket had ‘em on the shelves, so I started buying up cases like crazy as soon as there was a sale. You should see my apartment right now, it looks like a Snapple warehouse.

I guess Snapple had a change of heart, but whether I was part of the reason why or not, I got the point.

If you have something to say, then your voice should be heard, regardless of whether anyone is listening or not. If we lay down our arms, accepting defeat, we will never have victory. But if we stand up and fight and let our voice be heard, whether it’s for justice, (or to get back a favorite drink), then we have hope. We may not always have the victory, but we will always have hope of one.

So in all things, let us hope. Hope for a better future. Hope for justice to prevail. Hope for good to triumph over evil. Hope that Jessica Alba will someday give me a call.

Tags: andy dufresne, apartment, change of heart, defeat, defeatism, diet, email, evil, fight, flavor, flavors, good, grub, hard time, hope, hurdle, justice, lemonade, odds, shawshank redemption, shelves, snapple, stacks, supermarket, supermarkets, victory, voice
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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The saga at work continued today as I signed in and was immediately tapped by the boss to go talk to him in his office.

“Linc, you made a lot of mistakes yesterday on the phone.”

No sh–, Sherlock. Maybe it might just have something to do with the fact that I’m HEARING IMPAIRED??

“Well, like I indicated earlier, I have trouble with the phones because of my hearing loss, which is compounded by the fact that during those hours, we usually get calls from clerks who are hard to understand and speak broken English.”

“Ok, but it’s your responsibility to get those calls and accurately take down the information.”

What the hell??

“Dude, my responsibility only goes so far as I am properly accommodated,” I said, barely managing to contain my anger. “We all had an understanding here that there would always be someone with me to handle the phones, so this situation is usually avoided altogether. That’s the way it’s been done for years, and we’ve never had a problem.”

“Well I’m no longer authorizing overtime, so there won’t be people available to stay at those hours.”

“If Mickey or Prue agree to come in at 9 instead of 6:30AM, that should help cover the hours, and there won’t be any need for overtime, right?”

“……………………………”

“Right??”

“It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

Then he gave me this song and dance about how I would have to draw up a proposal, that the union would need to get involved, and he would have to present it to his boss, who would then have to sign off on it, blah blah blah…. I looked at him like he had lost his mind. The workers in my division have had to change working hours continuously over the past few years, but whenever a change needed to be made, it never needed anything more than a simple verbal agreement from our former bosses. So it was understandable that I was left to wonder what in the blue frick this guy was talking about. I realized though that I was getting fed the same bull as before when I made the scheduling request to have my hours changed so I could attend law school. I knew now that he had been jerking me around since the beginning.

And then he said something I’ll never forget.

“Look, if you’re not willing to take on the responsibility of answering the phones, we may be forced to dock your pay.”

“So because I have a hearing disability, I should be punished because you refuse to accommodate me?”

I think he realized his slip, because he started to backpedal. But the cat had already been out of the bag. He had just broken federal law with his threat, crossing a line that kindled something fierce inside me. I had been wronged. My coworkers had been wronged. He was a bully, a liar, and a horrible supervisor. And now I was going to make him pay. I was out for blood. I felt a charge in my veins, and a light somewhere inside my head went on. I knew what it was too: the unmistakable and unquenchable thirst for JUSTICE. It fed my desire to get into law enforcement. It was what fueled my efforts to pursue law school.

And now it had been kicked into overdrive.

I drew up a letter that detailed every grievance I had with him, along with the grievances my coworkers also had. I also got out my camera and took pictures of the mouse droppings that have been on the desks. Armed with all this, I went to see my union rep, a spunky lady who had successfully gone to bat for us in the past, and laid it all out for her. People high up the chain of command were notified, a buzz of activity had taken place behind the scenes, and I now find myself gearing up for what is sure to be an interesting (and perhaps volatile) confrontation tomorrow with my good boss when he realizes what I’ve done.

War has been declared.

Tags: anger, boss, bully, bullying, clerks, coworkers, disability, evil, frick, hear, hearing loss, hell, impaired, job, justice, liar, loss, mickey, phones, proposal, prue, rep, rights, saga, schedule, sherlock, song and dance, union, verbal agreement
Categories: In The Coal Mine
 
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The REAL storm wasn’t the Nor’easter that recently hit us, it was the one that followed me to work today (and beyond).

When I came in I proceeded to get absolutely pummeled by a mountain of work, completely catching me off guard because stupid me, I actually thought the Nor’easter would create a slow work day for us. Yeah right. Evidently our esteemed court system thought otherwise, and happily dished out more restraining orders than I’ve ever seen in 3 lifetimes. Good grief.

Then I got into it with my boss as I kept grilling him for why he was refusing to help me in putting a schedule together that would allow me to go to law school. His ultimatum was that if I didn’t like it I could always transfer out, and with a shrug he washed his hands of the whole matter.

But it didn’t stop there. I complained to him about the mouse droppings that were on my desk, and he asked me why I didn’t clean it up myself. Was this guy purposely being dense here, or was he just born an assface? You don’t just clean mouse droppings with a simple wipe and expect it to be clean. The area needed to be sterilized before it can be used again. But this seems to matter to my boss, not at all.

Then I found out he was no longer authorizing overtime for my coworkers, which meant I’d be by myself at the busiest time of day to man the phones, an absolute no-no for me since I was hearing impaired. I did the best I could under the circumstances, but after dealing with clerks who spoke secondhand English with a thick accent for the better part of an hour, I knew it was not going to be a good day.

The day would mercifully come to an end, but not before I find out that Uptown Girl had in fact been stringing me along this whole time, and never did have any serious interest in me, except possibly as distant friends. Gee I wish I would have known that before I sent her the damned flowers for her birthday. I want my 30 bucks back.

What a day.

Tags: assface, bad day, boss, circumstances, clerks, coworkers, desk, evil, flowers, good grief, hearing, impaired, infamy, jerk, job, law school, loss, noreaster, schedule, shrug, storm, time of day, ultimatum, uptown girl
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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