The Pooping Bluebird of Happiness (and other epic quotes)

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As a Customer Service Representative for a crooked home security company, my job is usually to make people feel better about problems I cannot actually solve. We have company-sponsored lessons on how to keep the phone calls from affecting our emotions.

(In other words, we're a team of unsympathetic robots. Hope your problems fix themselves, sucker, 'cause we sure won't help you. By the way, thank you for sending in your $2,000 cancellation fee because you can't afford our monthly service anymore because your wife just died...  Not that the emotional steeling attempts actually work. I always go home shredded.)

The only way to survive is to focus on the rare customer who appears (in the objectifying movie-character sense) to deserve a slap in the face.

Guy from the Bronx: I'm gonna get all my $*%^ing guns and come down there and shoot @?#(ing everybody!
Me: Sir, I know what the problem is with your account. It's simple to fix, but I need to call our partner company in order to fix it. Do you mind if I put you on hold for two minutes so I can call them?
Guy from the Bronx: NO!!! Why can't you just fix it?
Me: I don't have the necessary access to make those changes. I'd be happy to conference you into the call. Can you wait 15 seconds so I can dial?
Guy from the Bronx: NOOOO!!!! Don't put me on hold! Your #&*#ing company has been bouncing me around all #$*&ing day!
Me: I apologize for that. I'm not going to drop your call. I just need your permission before I can place you on hold. It'll only take a minute, but I can't fix your problem until you let me make another call.
Guy from the Bronx: #@$( you, !(@$ your momma, *%# everybody at the )#$%ing place, I'm NOT waiting on hold.

(yes, this is actual dialogue from an actual conversation. Took me an hour to convince him to let me fix the problem, which only took 5 minutes to resolve.)

I hate this job, but I need it. At the end of the day, if I can laugh sadistically about that jerk who got what was coming instead of remembering the sweet lady who started crying, then maybe I'll be able to drag myself out of bed again tomorrow at 6am so more people can swear at me so I can pay my bills next month. 

When the customers fail to provide sufficient amusement, the scripted monotony starts to eat at our souls, so we resort to intentional insanity to evade institutionalization. And sometimes we try too hard. ^_^

Thus the endless supply of your-mom jokes…
Me: Hey Dan, your lead is 956334.
Dan: YOUR lead is 956334. 

Customer fury + average people coping through life together results in a long string of quotables (as well as some very funny less-quotables punctuated by $#*!  )  These are some of my favorites:

♥

A guy called in to cancel his contract. I explained the fine print in his contract. (Sure, you can cancel if you pay 80% of the remaining balance of the contract. Sure, you can just stop paying but we'll send Collections after you. Sure, you can submit a report with the Better Business Bureau, but we don't actually care because they have no legal power over us. No, there is nothing I can do. If I could, believe me I would.) The situation itself wasn't funny, but the way he communicated left me in stitches.

He started out all reasonable, but as I laid out the dismal picture he got more and more and MORE and MORE panicked until he swore. Then he got instantly contrite and apologized. And we'd tackle the problem again. Problem restated (yes, I really do understand), contract clarified, case for exception pled (wow, that stinks that your Sales Rep lied to you. I'm really sorry), customer starts feeling trapped, emotions rise and he swears again. This cycle repeated for 45 minutes. 

Finally, with a big sigh, he says: 
"I'm really sorry. I hope you realize I'm not swearing at you. I'm just really frustrated. I'm sure you guys are a great company. It's just... you know... the bluebird of happiness flies around spreading joy, but every once in a while, it poops on someone, and today it happened to be me."

ô_o Yeah, I couldn't answer the next two calls. I was laughing too hard.

This is for you, random dude of awesomeness. I'm genuinely sorry I couldn't fix your problem. I hope you never, ever, ever sign another contract, ever again.





















More quotes: 

Tech: Sorry… When I do things out of order, it totally throws off my groove. This is an argument against having a groove in the first place. 
Me: That, and it tends to cause problems like getting turned into a llama. 
Tech: Oh my gosh, YES!


Me: Has your Sales Representative made any promises or commitments to you that are not printed or written down on your agreement?
Customer: No, we couldn’t talk him out of his firstborn.


One lady got super mad and claimed we were being racist and not letting her out of her contract because she was black. It was a pretty loud phone call… Everyone in the department was laughing. The company policies don’t budge, and we don’t have the power to change them. Has nothing to do with your race ma’am.


“That’s an M, as in Massive heart attack”


Sales Rep: Hey, are you of Asian descent?
Me:  ….No. I’m definitely as white as can be.
Sales Rep: Oh. We were just wondering. Well have a good day.
*hangs up*
My Supervisor’s Supervisor *appalled* : Laura! What did you just say?
Me: They asked me if I was Asian. Maybe my Chinese is screwing with my English.
Him: Oh… Maybe you’re rolling your Ls or something. ‘Herro, my name is Roar-ra.’


A beautiful tribute to how everyone just goes on automatic:
Me: Anything else I can do for you?
Tech: Nope, that’s it.
Me: Alright. I love you, have a good day.
Tech: I love you too. Bye bye.
*click*
*blink*
Me: Wait a second…


It’s worse when you go to say your prayers at the end of the day… Fold your arms, close your eyes, and, “Welcome to Crooked Security Company. My name is Laura. May I have your phone number pleeeeeee…” *feels stupid* “Um, I mean, Dear Heavenly Father…”


And my personal favorite... First 30 minutes of the day, I do a post-installation survey with a 60-year old man.
He says: “How many times do you do this each day?”
“Oh, so many… I try to make it fun though.”
“Business is booming, eh? You need to rest your voice more.”
“You can tell that my voice is starting to go?”
“Yeah. I think they need to give you a 30 minute break and a soda.”
*grin* “Something like that.”
“Well thanks for your help, love. Have a good day.”
“Aw, you too.”  
He passes the phone back to the Technician.
“I think she’s hot on me.”

♥

The Alien Abduction

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My Nathan brother always wanted to be abducted by aliens.

He is also infamous for saying, "I believe in love the way most people believe in aliens. It's possible, but it won't happen to me."

His girlfriend called me.















Girlfriend: "Laura! I want to abduct Nate dressed like aliens, but I don't know what to do after that. I appeal to the unspoken girl code to demand your assistance!"

Laura: (smirk, wheels turning) "Well, what kinds of activities do aliens do?"

On that fateful night, we invaded Nate's apartment (yes, dressed like aliens), blind-folded him, and carted him away. Somehow he managed to grab a video camera on the way out. He turned it on and started documenting his abduction. (sadly the videos were lost, but if you know Nate, you can imagine.)

"It's so dark..." (his voice wavering) "I'm gonna die."

Our first stop: To pick up a lawnmower. We locked Nate in the car while we loaded it up. Still blindfolded, he enjoyed himself making panicked commentary about whatever we were loading and his inevitable demise.




On the way to our next stop, we paused at a stop sign and Nate suddenly bolted from the car. STILL BLINDFOLDED, he ran headlong down the street, screaming exultations of freedom. Somehow miraculously avoiding running into a telephone pole or passing car, he totally left us in his dust. It took us half an hour to track him down.

"I have been recaptured. My captors are merciless, slimy cretins, but they have chosen to keep me alive... for now. Fiends!!! Take me to your leader."

We chose the largest park in our city---a HUGE grassy basin bigger than a football stadium. You should have seen the look on Nate's face when we pulled the lawnmower out and told him we were going to make a crop circle. His mouth dropped open.

"Wait... Are you serious?"

Laughing so hard he could barely walk, he pushed the mower to the center of the field and revved her up. It only took 10 minutes, which was a good thing, because the police showed up right as we were driving out, lawnmower hanging out of the trunk. They didn't notice us, but we definitely took the back way home.

(Even if we'd been caught, technically Nathan was forced to make the crop circle under duress. ^_^)

Came back the next morning to take pictures. The pattern was too big to get full picture from the ground, but you can kinda see two of the circles here... Next time imma set the grass cutter to the lowest possible setting.

















Thank you for letting us borrow your lawnmower, Me-shell! =D We noticed aliens visited your yard too. I'm so glad your efforts to reach our extraterrestrial friends have been rewarded!

Notes to self:
Next time I abduct someone, add an interrogation section. Also feed them brains, poke them with cold fingers, spray them with glow-in-the-dark bubble residue and drop them off in the middle of a large field wearing this:



That would be an awesome hitch hiking story. 

Arranged Marriage

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I previously introduced you to my coworker friend Mannu! Well, she's turned out to be a total sweetheart. She indulges my endless curiosity about her culture, answering long strings of questions like a saint. She even lets me taste her authentic homemade Indian lunch and makes treats for me... ^_^

This morning I found this AWESOME carrot dessert stuff waiting for me in the fridge. It's an Indian dish made from carrots, almonds, and milk. Despite having no sugar in it, it was incredibly sweet and had this spicy zing... 



We've been spending time together outside work too. She invited me over to teach me how to make curry from scratch. Her mother-in-law is a salon artist at a women's only salon, where Eastern women can get their hair cut modestly. (Cool, huh?!) She took a liking to me and gave me a bag of henna to play with. Resulting in my innocent white-girl first-attempt:



Anyways, the really beautiful part of this friendship....  Mannu came to America for an arranged marriage, and it's worked out fabulously for her. She and her husband are very much in love. They just celebrated her first anniversary. Dating has been kind of a miserable experience for me (as I think it is for most people), so I've been really curious about alternatives. Thus questions, questions... 

I logged in at my desk today and a chat immediately popped up: 

Mannu: hello my sweet! how r u?
Laura: Super good! How are you beautiful?
Mannu: :) 
Mannu: i am great. i have a question for you!
Laura: shoot
Mannu: would you be interested in an arranged marriage? 
Mannu: i have a cousin in Australia... he's really kind and handsome. and he's really adventurous like you. i've been talking to my parents about it, we really like you. we think it could be a good match

I was shocked. And deeply honored. She had just invited me into her family, to be a part of her loved ones' lives forever. It was the greatest compliment I'd even been given. Caught utterly off guard by the thrilling possibilities, I busted up laughing. Unfortunately Mannu was just a couple cubicles over. 

Mannu: oh no!!!! i knew you would laugh... :(

Embarrassed for her, I quickly calmed down. 

Laura: no no no! I'm deeply honored by the offer
Laura: I'm just REALLY surprised  XD
Laura: I don't know what to say
Laura: ...

Choices determine our fates... We talked for hours about the handsome entrepreneur on the other side of the world. We talked about families and cultural expectations. We talked pros and cons of both arranged marriages and dating. Mannu was very honest with me about everything. Although her marriage was wonderful, she also spoke admiringly of my culture's dating tradition.

I will always be grateful to her for her candidness. =) It takes a true friend to want me to do something very badly and yet encourage any choice I want. 

It was tempting. It was really tempting. 

In the end, there were three big reasons that held me back. 
  1. We had different religious backgrounds. Although I respect and admire Mannu's faith, I also love my own. Marriage within the covenant is a big deal in my church. And my family would never understand.
  2. The Fates that whim my dating life are being tantalizingly kind at the moment. Although nervous, I'm also feeling happy and loved. I want to see current stories through to the conclusion before suddenly giving up on them. 
  3. If arranged marriage worked out well, I'd be thrilled. I'd recommend it to all my friends. But if it didn't---if I wasn't totally in love---I would stay faithfully, but I would hate myself for a long time for making a gamble when I was blessed with a choice. 
So I'm not engaged...

(Weird.)

Choices determine our fates! I wonder how different life will be five, ten, 80 years down the road compared to what it would have been.

When I get to heaven and we get to do replays of our lives, I hope I'm proud of the discrepancy.

For now, I feel grateful. My parents have given me a lot of freedom and trust, letting me choose on my own. And even though dating is still hard, I don't resent it as much as I did.

I'm glad to be where I am. =) Given the choices available to me, it's where I want to be.

And I freaking love you, Mannu. 


Fruit Rollups Part 1: The Kraken Caper

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Despite the dismal ambiance, my job has perks. Either the HR lady is sympathetic to our situational predisposition to apocalypse-initiating levels of depression or they are afraid that we'll take our angst out on every third customer that calls, therefore alienating our very lucrative customers.

Stupid customer of the day, trying to convince me that she shouldn't be held liable for the fine print in her contract: "Besides, who reads the stuff they sign anyway?"


Once a week, the HR lady gives us candy! I don't even like candy, but I get a twisted sense of satisfaction knowing that this very selfish company wasted money. On me. So I always accept.

Today we got fruit rollups!


Unraveling the plunder....


Playing with our food... heehee


Then one of the 'podes had a fabulous idea... The guy in the cubicle next to me is not here today, so we decided to prank him. There has been a previously unscaleable fortress between us, but today we have climbing gear! The sticky path works perfectly with their tiny suckers. Behold! The first truly great adventure for my adventurers!


Barky giving a boost (the roll was just a tad short)


The rest of the octopi are scared of heights, so they cheered green and blue on from the bottom.



Once on the other side, Diddle-doo and Parky uploaded the following picture as his computer's new background. It looks like a 1st grader's work, but frankly Paint was all I had to work with. Besides, I'm technically at work. 

Click to view large and download as your own computer background! =D
Hahaha... you should have seen Jared's face when he found it. "What the....!?!"

Mission accomplished, I pulled my X-acto knife out and found another fabulous use for fruit rollups:




^_^ <3

Just wait till you see what I have planned for tomorrow...


Feets and Needles

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Leo ripped his toe shoes. =(



Hearsay said he was out hiking, and saw a lizard. Suddenly overcome with the boylike whims that compose the majority of his being, he gave mighty chase! Alas, the lizard had booby trapped his territory with growing things like unto bushes and rocks.

I dunno if he ever got the lizard or not, but he was so saddened by the rip in his beloved shoes that he abandoned them in Friend Mandy's apartment for the evening. Where I found them. And stole them. * mischievous face*

The rip was a jagged gash in the delicate mesh fabric. Bless my saintly mother for teaching me to hand sew! ^_^ I took the shoes to work and they were fixed by the end of my shift... (Heehee... I even tried them on... bahaha.... Don't tell Leo! He's been raving about how comfortable they are, so I've been curious.)

Leo rips a lot of his clothes, actually. =D I like fixing things, so sometimes he lets me patch up a jacket or shirt in exchange for one of his fabulous Cambodian stirfries. ^_^ This time I just fixed it for fun. When I gave them back, he was so excited that he squeaked. Squeaky Leo = well worth the time spent.

Extended exposure to Vibram Five Fingers has awakened a covet monster in me. The covet monster is a goopy gooey gooshy drippy creature that lives in my stomach. It starts out as a tiny, cute, black octopus with big eyes.




It gets bigger when I bounce. The little blobs of covet stick to the octopus and he absorbs them. =)

I covet these in particular! They remind me a globe! So colorful and full of joy!



Most compelling reason to buy: Leo said his knee problems went away when he started wearing them! Biggest hesitations: I think I'm 50% afraid that toe shoes would be the death of my fashion awareness forever, and 50% turned off by the cost... 

Meanwhile, I have creative solution to the "No Shoes, No Service" problem. I like being barefoot, and I don't feel like not wearing shoes just because someone tells me so. All the same, I don't feel like getting kicked out of stores or fooding places. Thus is born...


NON-SHOES!!!

They look like shoes... People assume they are shoes... but they leave the bottoms of my feet exposed. It's a fabulous compromise! Society is happy because my feet aren't naked! I'm happy because I can feel the ground! Idea conceived during yet another shockingly boring day in my cubicle. (Took about a week to hand stitch, but SO worth it.) 

All my hippie friends now have covetpuses. ^_^ 






Octopirates!

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Yesterday I purchased arugula lettuce because it was on sale. Today  packed a salad for lunch. Arugula lettuce tastes terrible. (I did not know this). Fortunately, it also looks like seaweed...

Click to view larger 
All the 'podes snuck home! (except Parky, who is still having a ninja adventure on Leo's Kawasaki.) We spent the better part of 5 hours taping limp lettuce to my cubicle's fabric wall and gearing up. ^_^

Their ship-building wanderlust (possibly in conjunction with anime-induced sleep deprivation and a sugar high) has inspired an important decision: My octopodes are going to travel all over the world! 

This is boredom drool on my desk being really excited.
Here's how it will work: 

I have friends on every continent except Antarctica. So I'll mail a 'pode or two at a time to go visit your exotic homes! Random Strangers, you are invited to host my 'podes as well. It'll be the bathtime version of Flat Stanley couchsurfing with garden gnomes. 

The only downside is that of my friends are 10th degree black belt procrastinators, and therefore likely to forget to return my beloved octopuses... We may have to work out a collateral system to guarantee that my babies always come home. 

(Update: Instructions for hosting a 'Pode here:
 http://mytravelingoctopodes.blogspot.com/p/host-pode.html)


Ha! You thought this post was over. But it's not! You are a prisoner here. 

Actually, nevermind. You can go. For now. But you owe me one. >:D







Hide and Seek

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Bahaha! Barky lurketh in dark corners and devious places (startling me this morning. ^_^ )  He came to work with me and was wonderful company.

I think there are more of them playing hide-and-go seek around the apartment. Tonight Diddle Doo was also discovered very cleverly camouflaged in a blue dolphin statue thingy.



You are AWESOME!

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(Click to view larger)

Stowaway

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Parky found Leo's motorcycle parked at a friend's apartment today and snuck out of my bag to hitch a ride. He actually fits pretty snugly  in there... haha... Leo's been driving around and he's still got a little green passenger. I don't think he'll fall off anytime soon. ^_^

Hike Da Mountain

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I hiked a mountain by myself, because I missed nature.

(Is only been one week since heart surgery.)

My muscles got tired before my heart did... First time ever. THAT was a beautiful moment. Recovery has been a breeze.



 Nathan brother is mad at me. He called me an idiot because he loves me.


In other news, I found this rock! It looked nommy. I tried to make the face a little more obvious for you. =)


Zombie Bananas

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I like being an adult, because I can play with my food and nobody tells me not to. 



In case you ever wondered, there IS such a thing as a sweet and sour sandwich. 



When you cook for one, no hungry people are hovering over your shoulders like hyperventilating hyenas, wondering how soon dinner will be ready... So I can take as long as I want to prepare it.



When I go grocery shopping, I can buy whatever I want. Mom isn't around to tell me the monkey brains are just overpriced oatmeal. Or that the man who invented graham crackers died of malnutrition. 'Cause every kids deserves a chance to try monkey brains.



Living in an apartment is fun too! I have to mark my food so my roommates don't eat it on accident. I try to make ownership painfully obvious.

These are my salmon. They are all named Ella.



And of course, like a good mommy, I teach my 'podes how to play with their food too. ^_^


<3



Cherry Heist

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Walmart does this awesome thing called price matching. It works like this: 

  1. Crappy produce store gets in a shipment of half-rotten fruit that they know they are going to have a hard time selling. 
  2. Crappy produce store marks down said fruit and advertises it in the paper, to con people into coming into their story and buying the produce that will mold in their fridge in two days. 
  3. Best friend Melanie watches local newspaper ads for good prices.
  4. Instead of shopping at each individual store to take advantage of all the sales which are actually trying to take advantage of us, Melanie and I go shopping at Walmart. We bring in the ads and Walmart will give us an identical item for the same price, no matter how good their produce is. Even if they are selling it to us as a loss. 
Today a back-alley Mexican store was advertising cherries for 99 cents a pound.

Walmart just got in a shipment of fresh, juicy cherries. Shelf price? $4 per pound.

Melanie and I made out like bandits. 

Four bags for Melanie, two bags for me, two bags for my
Nathan brother, two bags for Leo...

Melanie was very excited.
$50 worth of cherries = $12

I dropped off Leo's cherries and we chatted for a bit. When I got home I discovered a stowaway. Somehow Leo managed to sneak Parky into one of my bags. ^_^


Rats in the Attic

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It's my first day back at work! It's been 3 days since my heart surgery and I feel like I've been transported into someone else's body.

You know what's really weird? I can feel my body metabolizing food differently. I have more energy. Even though I'm obligated to avoid anything strenuous for a month, I feel like I could run a marathon. I want to lift weights and climb trees and do Jujitsu... but I'm not allowed to yet. I feel like an ADHD 5-year old on pixie sticks who just got belted into a wheelchair.

So anyways, first day back at work! I hid Barky in Leo's man bag last night, so I have no octopodes to keep me company. =(

Fortunately, the office was quite entertaining today.

Our lobby makes you feel fancy. Ceiling to floor glass, and tile and shiny steel. What the average guest doesn't know, and what I didn't know until today, is that inside those fancy walls, we have rats. Today they decided to romp around and celebrate their existence. It caused a few of the call center girls great distress. One of the mans balanced on the cubicles and poked his head through the drop-tile ceiling in an attempt to find them.


What he intended to do with the rat, had he found one, I have no idea. I'm 99% sure he hadn't thought that far ahead.

I Feel Hearted

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I walked out of the hospital at noon today. Heart surgery was yesterday at 9am. Friend Danielle spent the night with me at the hospital and was kind enough to bring me home. Less lucid today, but I feel INCREDIBLE. There is a core strength in my body that I've never felt before. It's like someone gave me rockstar abs and a spine. I didn't realize I'd feel a difference this soon.

The incisions are small, but because they cut into the major leg vein, it is a little more tender than I expected. I can't really bend my leg right now. I'm hobbling around like Captain Barbarossa. 

My doting roommate Jill ordered this adorable stuffed anim-um... organ for me. Totally made my day. Isn't it amazing? I love her guts. 


I feel extremely loved... People I barely even know have appeared out of nowhere to support me in my "recovery". (Oh, I have been terribly wounded, yes. Feed me your fresh delicacies and rub my feet. Love me, and let me have work off so I can take long naps.) One friend brought me homemade carrot juice (yummy!). Someone else brought me strawberries. Mandy gave me pink flying squirrel plush with a super creepy laugh. Mannu gave me a snowglobe. ^_^

And now I'm going to snuggle up and take a long nap in the ginormous fuzzy pink blanket with hearts sewn on that a group of my favorite friends made for me.