And my favorite part is that I can put a notice up on my bulletin board, using a Friendster template, requesting a date for my Friendster friends and that message will go to all my Friendster friends and then they will look at what I write and then look at their friends and try to find a date for my friend, but it isn't like pimping your friends out or anything! NO! It's not pimping! It's nicer than that. It's friendly Friendster! Ahahaa-haa!
Thank God someone thought up a way for us to be friends, you know! Because I have noticed that most of you have stopped returning the forwarded email I send you with poems about willows and birds nests, even though the emails specifically say if you are a friend of the person who sent this to you, then you must send it to twenty of your friends AND return it to the person who sent it to you so that person will know you are his/her friend. The emails specifically say you must respond to me or I'll never know if you are my friend. But now, I have another way and it's with the Friendster!
And no matter what you say, I will never ever ever never start believing that the whole thing is asinine. I won't! It isn't asinine, Friendster is about friends, ok? And that makes it beautiful. Not asinine.
So, apply to be my friend today! Yay Friendster, which isn't asinine!
~~~~~~
This weekend I went to Target with my ex-roommate in search of a Michael Graves Monopoly board. Also in attendance was the lovely and gracious Tommy. She took us each by the hand and dragged us into the Michael Graves section of her neighborhood Target store. We were horrified to learn they had sold out just before Father's day. So we had them call around to other area stores and finally found one a few miles out. They told us they would hold it for us at the customer relations desk.
So we drove out to pick it up and when we arrived and finally located the customer relations alcove, which was inaccessible from the main store for some inexplicable reason, we took our place in line to wait our turn. In front of us was a portly woman in a pale blue sweater set and flip flops. I'd guess her age to be late forties, and her lavish jewelry to be costume. She fidgeted angrily and brandished her key chain like a weapon.
Behind the counter a 16 year old with an acne problem and droopy eyes scratched his belly absently. Sweater Set stepped up to the counter and addressed him. "Tell me," she paused briefly to read his name off his name tag, "tell me, Juan, when I call your store and dial 0 for the operator who is it that picks up the phone? Is it you? Is that you, Juan, who picks up the phone? When I dial in? Juan? Is that you?"
Juan's eyelids never brightened any, nor did his comprehension sharpen. He didn't quite grasp what Sweater Set was saying, so he just nodded his head and agreed to whatever she was insisting.
"Well," she began. "In that case, I want to know, Juan, why you are a liar, ok? Why are you a liar, Juan? Why do you lie, you lie-guy? Why, Juan? Why? Just tell me, why you're a liar because that's all I want to know! Why Juan is a liar. That's my question for you this morning, you son of a bitch, why do you lie like that?"
Sweater Set was turning red and little bits of foamy spittle were collecting at the corners of her mouth. I couldn't take my eyes off of her, she was so very vitriolic. Tommy reminded me to close my mouth which had fallen agape, and my former roommate suggested it might be impolite to stare.
Juan rolled his eyes. "What?" he asked.
Sweater Set took a deep breath and then started in on him again. "I was in this store about 4 hours ago. I dropped off some film for 1 hour processing, you liar. They told me at the film counter that they were very busy and they may not be able to finish my film today, which I understand because I could see the lines at the film counter earlier. So about 45 minutes ago I called this store and hit 0 to speak to an operator and a liar on the other end of the line, which was you, said that they were closed. The liar named Juan lied to me, a loyal customer of Target, and said that the photo processing counter was closed, which was a lie."
Juan wiped his nose absently with the back of his hand. "Ok," he said with a noncommital air.
"Ooh!" said Sweater Set. "Ooh! Ooh! I'm so annoyed, I want to speak to your manager, ok? I want to know exactly who it is that manages a group of liars, a group of Target liars."
"Uh, sure," said Juan before shuffling off to find the manager. I was impressed that despite his seeming inability to pick up his feet, he did not trip over his untied shoelaces.
Sweater Set stewed visibly while she waited at the counter. The line behind us had grown substantially and she was psyching up to create quite the scene when the manager arrived. I was so excited about the upcoming fireworks I couldn't keep from dancing a little. I leaned over to Tommy and whispered, "That woman in the sweater set is a miracle! She's the best thing to happen all day!"
Tommy poked me in the side, a non-verbal warning not to get carried away. I was determined to get involved anyway.
So the manager, a great big guy with a scraggly goatee, came around the corner and presented himself for a berating. Sweater Set wasted no time. "Are you the manager?"
"Yes," he said.
"Good, because I want a manager to know that I am very annoyed. I'm so very annoyed. Oooh! I'm annoyed!"
"What's the problem, ma'am?"
"I called your store to check on my photographs. And I was told by a liar that the photo center had already closed. But when I got here, there were people working in the photo center and I cannot believe that a loyal Target customer like me would be treated so shamefully! I have never been lied to so blatantly in my whole life! And when my children were young and they lied I smacked them right across the mouth and now they do not lie! They do not lie to me! Lying to me annoys me, ok?"
The manager cleared his throat. "Did you get your photos, ma'am?"
"No. They aren't ready. They won't be ready until tomorrow. But that's not the point. When I called I was told the photo counter was closed, but that was a lie as is obvious because the photo counter is not closed! It's open and will be for another ten minutes! I can't believe you would lie to me like this."
And that's when I just couldn't take it any more. So I said, "you know, Sweater Set, you're wasting all of our time. See this line you're holding up?"
Tommy put his hand over his face because he gets embarrassed when I do this kind of thing. Sweater Set turned and looked at me with her hand on her chest as if to say, "well, I never!"
"Yes, you. You with the dumb ass flip flops. I'm calling you a waste of time. Apparently you rang Target, they told you not to come, you came anyway, and now you don't have your pictures. So despite the fact that they told you your pictures couldn't be procured today, you're irritated. And now you're complaining and you're not even asking for anything. You're complaining to complain. It's a waste of everyone's time. They told you not to come here until tomorrow. They told you that. Whose fault is it, really, that you're angry?"
"You're a very rude young man," she said.
"Perhaps," I said, "but at least I'm not lying to you when I tell you that you're ridiculous."
"This is between me and the manager," she countered. "I wasn't talking to you."
"Great. Put it in a letter, 'cause your inappropriate hissy fit is holding up the line."
Sweater Set gathered her belongings and shuffled out in that pigeon-toed way flip flops make you do. Tommy went to stand across the room as if to distance himself from the scene. I received a polite round of applause.
I just cannot stand it when people complain for the sake of complaining. A complaint is really only effective when followed up by a demand, and even then only when it's actually justified by complaint worthy circumstances.
I was the first to go bankrupt in Monopoly later that evening.
Posted at 1:10 p.m.
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