rightas[rayne]

I get off my plane.  I’ve just landed in Indianapolis after flying in a plan only slightly smaller than the last one Buddy Holly flew in.  Without hesitation, I walk immediately to where the baggage claim carousels are.  I check the screens and stand in front of the carousel my bag is to come out on.  Then, I wait.

And wait.  And wait.

Considering the fact that I rode in on a cropduster, I recognized the other ten-ish people that were on my flight.  They all got their bags and left, leaving me standing at this carousel.  Standing there watching the same “FRAGILE” sticker-laden suitcase (Inner monologue: Why in fuck’s name would you even check this bag if it’s fragile enough to put twelvity-five fucking FRAGILE stickers on it?!) circle around ten times.

At this point, it’s been close to 45 minutes.  So, I trudged over to the airline’s baggage office with a giant sneer on my face.  Directly inside the door, sitting by itself to the left was a bag.

My bag.

Somehow, between my brain and my mouth, my thought of What. The. Fuck. turned into: “Excuse me, I think that’s my bag.”

A woman who, by the tone of her voice, hated her life much more than you or I ever could responded, “Yeah, we’ve been paging you for awhile.”  At this point, I was angry enough that my thoughts did not filter before they reached my mouth: “You realize how your paging system works, right? I heard nothing about my name the entire time I walked through the airport, nor was my name, which admittedly has 4 whole syllables in the entire thing, posted on the Visual Paging boards.  How long has my bag been here?”

“Almost a couple hours.”

“…I landed 45 minutes ago.”

“Look, sir, it was out there, the caroseul stopped, we took it.  We don’t take it if there’s anyone standing out there.”

“I was standing out there.”

“Not two hours ago, you obviously weren’t.”

“That would be because I was slightly on an airplane at the time.”

“Well, then, obviously, sir, your bag arrived before you did.”

That’s right, you read correctly: My bag got a direct flight to Indianapolis; I on the other hand, had a layover in Chicago.

When you’re a Personal Hero, there are all sorts of classes, seminars, keynote lectures, and other such gatherings to attend - which would have a very negative profit margin when you think about it, considering I’m the only Personal Hero in existence.  Anyways, naturally, these events are for the bettering of my heroism.

Of course, when you’re a Personal Hero, which is in itself a career - you don’t exactly have….another job.  At all.  That pays anything.

So, in lieu of the latest seminar - A Very Important and Not Boring Seminar Over Heroes, Heroism, and the Many Ways of Conjugating the Word Hero - I went to what is obviously the second best avenue of furthering one’s self through the purchase of useless shit - THE DOLLAR TREE!(tm)

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Everybody, at one point, feels proverbially “pulled in two directions at once”.

Right now, it seems, every aspect of my life is as such.

I can’t think of one significant part of my life that is without conflict right now.  It feels as if I’ll be making the wrong choices, regardless of the ones I make.  I remember when life’s decisions were as difficult as what I’d have for lunch at school that day.  Everyone takes those days completely for granted.

Then, you graduate.

You graduate to the real world.  With a real job.  With real rewards and real repercussions.  With real problems.

Now, it becomes not a matter of the mashed potatoes pulling me in one direction and the delicious fish sticks pulling me in the other - but a matter of who’ll be around to share them with me.

Don’t take your relationships - with anyone - for granted.  Don’t take your family for granted, certainly never take your friends for granted, and never (ever) take your mashed potatoes for granted.

I’ve decided to live-blog my experience with trying to download Windows XP Service Pack 3 on a clean install of Service Pack 2. I figured I’d have time, since I’ll probably be at the computer here for another 3 days or so. Updates at the top!

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It seems I’m only obligated to update this when something headache-inducing gets said around here:

Customer: So how’s your day going?

Manager: Well I tell ya what, I feel just like I’ve got 17 cans of tuna that I’ve opened all at once.  I haven’t closed any of them so I come back the next day and I’ve got all these cans of tuna open and haven’t closed any of ‘em.

Customer: Uh…oh yeah?

Manager: Mhm.  Then my wife’s like, “Well why are you opening so many cans of tuna?” and I have to go, “I’m not really opening cans of tuna.”  She thinks I’m being lit-rel.

Yes, lit-rel.  That was phonetic based on what I heard.  I wouldn’t have the time or patience to make shit like this up.

So, I’ve been debating for a long time what to post about on here.  I’ve had the domain, WordPress, and the layout just sitting here - waiting for the perfect first post.  Thankfully, I work in an environment where people feel then need to sound important.  Here’s an equation that shows how attempting to sound important here relates to what you say:

If X = Point to Prove
And Y = What You Actually Say

Then the Theorem of Managerial Speaking is:
X + Unitelligable Metaphors + 7 Tangents + 10 Minutes of My LIfe I Won’t Get Back = y.

As you can see, it’s an intricate equation that even Will Hunting would scratch his head at.  “But Rayne,” you say.  “Math is too math-y.  Give me a real world example.”

I thought you’d never ask.

“Well you know, when she’s not scheduled, you know that’s like a knife stabbing us.  And we’re already bleeding okay?  So when she doesn’t show it’s like one more knife making us bleed.  But then [My Boss]  has got these knives sticking out of him and his heart’s bleeding everywhere, so what’s one more knife?  He’s just walking around with all these knives sticking out of him.”

Yeah.  What do you even say to that?

Seriously.