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2006-09-29 @ 2:00 p.m.
elvis had dirty fingernails

To: Karma
From: awittykitty
Re: The sad condition of my life

So karma. How�ve you been? The kids? How are the renovations on the house in the Hamptons been going? Good? Well, my life, not so good. I have this thing where I keep making decisions and they keep turning into royal fuck-ups. I swear I�m a smart person. I was an honor roll student throughout most of school. I�m like way smarter than most homeless people and checkout clerks at Walmart. I�d like to think I have a natural ability to subconsciously weigh out decisions and somehow get them right by sheer natural ability, but my god, the last five years, I have made some truly butt-ugly mistakes.

For instance, my decision to write a poison pen letter to my Dad�s lying, cheatin, money stealing mail order whore. Wrong! I was so secure in the fact that she WOULDN�T show the letter to my Dad, you know, since it was pointing out the fucking truth about her stealing his money even while he was still alive. The result? I lost my Dad. I lost a large inheritance. And it left a huge hole in my heart from thinking my Dad hated me when he died.

Next, the series of apartments I lived in. WTF? They could have made a reality television show from them. Snow floating in through holes in the ceiling. My neighbor using my electricity for 8 months without me knowing it and then throwing a hissy fit when the electric company put the charges BACK on his bills. Penicillin growing under my couch at another place. The police siren thing. Mice. And this apartment....this place could have its own freakin� mini-series fercrissakes!

And we won�t even talk about my love life. A series of gay men, punctuated with married men. And then the people who actually liked me, and pursued me were either crazy or crazy, part II. Pscyho lesbians. Crazy boys at day centers who asked me if I thought men in diapers who sucked their thumbs was okay. Mama�s boys who gift me with rape whistles and an avalanche of notes of exact time and date stamps on them.

I do like different. I truly do. I was, after all, raised in the 60�s and 70�s in California. I believe every one has to right to march to the beat of a different drummer. Just don�t do it near me....okay? Why? Because I�ve decided I want a more normal life. Not polyester normal. Just less chaotic. Less David Lynchian. Less like yesterday...

�Your shirt is unbuttoned too low. Didn�t you read the official dress code by the time machine?�

Huh? What dress code sheet? I�ve never seen anything like that nor was was it shone to me or anything. I looked down at my huge, oversized white stiff dress shirt, which incidently is covered by an apron, as in you can�t see anything below my neck. So I button up my shirt for the department manager, who I have seen a total of about 1.5 minutes in the last 20 hours I�ve worked my new job. I have no idea where she works or sits or anything. She just breezes through. Never says my name. Just always tells me what I�ve done wrong (last time I had a bracelet on. Woo! Evil incarnate! All jewelry must be evacuated). She then starts chatting with the other girl. She has her purse in her hand (is that legal I wonder? Lets refer to the Official Departmental Rules Sheet). She pulls out pictures to show her. I tried to take your advice Halo Askew. Act friendly and shit. So I peeked over to look at the pictures. She seemed pleased that I was interested in her fabulous life outside the bakery. And there it was....a picture of her and her 14 year old chihuahua in matching brown felt cowboy hats. I didn�t have my glasses on, but I do believe the dog had chaps on too. And I was all like,what a freak awww, how cute!!!

See, how I�m trying to play along?

Well, that was about the high point of my shift. Being told that my breasts weren�t allowed to be untethered, since they might divert attention from the pastries. And also seeing a woman holding a dog dressed like a cowboy. A cowdog? HissandTell, help me here. What a dog dressed like cowboys called? I figured you�d know, since you have two smart sassy dogs and live out amongst cowboys.

After that training commenced. Training. Wait. A moment of laughter. It was more like, a woman grabbing a frosting bag from me going....zipzipzipzipzipzipzip. THAT�S how its done, now you do it! I couldn�t even follow it because she did it so damn fast. And then I did it and she�d say, �You did it wrong� and scraped everything off. And this went on for an hour. She finally just grabbed the cake I was trying to frost and did it herself very roughly, and then shoved it towards me and said, �Just put them in their containers you fucking imbecile. Okay, so I haven�t done it for sixteen years like you. Why don�t you come over to my house and paint this, bitch.



And rather ironically, a customer complained about her later in the day saying she was indifferent and sarcastic (but not in a fun wittykitty way) and she was all huffed out. �Me? Indifferent? I didn�t do anything wrong. I was nice to her.� She acts like she has a huge chip on her shoulder and yay, she�s the person who is training me...a person who is extremely sensitive to criticism and needs to be told I�m doing okay. I know the world is a big mean place and that isn�t always possible, but a single, �that one turned out okay� would have super powered me into Julia Childs stratosphere. Instead I felt like a failure and kept getting worse and worse. It was like having the worst performance anxiety ever.

Plus the job is too strenuous for me physically. Lifting 25 pound things over my head is not doable. I have fibromylagia. I�m in constant physical pain...before I do anything. After? I feel like I just ran the Boston Marathon.

After work, at 9:10 (mega-witch had me cleaning everything and I was 10 minutes late getting off and then she gave me a look like I was abandoning her. Hey, I had a commitment!), I walked out to my car in the pouring rain and just sobbed. I cried for about 10-15 minutes. I am so miserable. I feel like I�ve made a huge mistake. Something that I thought was going to be fun and delightful for a company with a great reputation, has been a huge downer. And I�ll totally fess up, I�m not made for physical labor. Never have been. I�ve never had a job where physical labor has been involved. Always been an office geek, except for a brief stint in retail. Sitting on my ass is a good thing. Booya!

So I finally gathered myself. And cursed at myself. Why did I promise I�d stop at my brother�s karaoke show in The Village.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The show was in The Village and my mom was driving down and since our relations with him are very raw and unhappy, we were doing this to try and be nice. He had bought some new equipment from Timbuktu or someplace and this was its debut. Plus....BONUS!!!!!....he had booked an Elvis Impersonator!!!! YAY!

Why, oh, why are there so many Elvis impersonators in my freakin� life?

So I get to the restaurant and nobody was there yet. I hugged Guido, perhaps cringingly and told him I had just gotten off work and was really tired and would only stay until mom got there. Naturally he didn�t acknowledge anything I said. It was pretty much just, �Me-me-me-the-me-me.MEEEE!!!� like it always is. My hair could be on fire and Guido would be talking about how he invented electric kleenex boxes.

My mom finally arrived about 9:45 and for the next hour and a half there were some of the most bodaciously awful karaoke singers known to mankind including the retarded guy who my brother referred to as �Bobby the Chick Magnet�. His singing was so horrific, that I almost thought I was getting an aneurysm and had to run into the bathroom only to discover that I had eye makeup smeared all over my eyes and globs of frosting in my hair. I�m hot, I tell you. Hot!!

And then it was time for Elvis. I know this was a direct slam to my mom�s Gay Elvis friend who my brother is jealous of. Why else would you hire an Elvis Impersonator at a karaoke event to sing 3 songs? The guy was super greasy looking too. Older. Black greasy hair. And when he came and took my mom�s hand to sing her a song (per direction from my brother), his fingernails were filthy. Ewww!!!!! Also between songs he kept mentioning all the Elvis competitions he�s been in. He sang well....better than Gay Elvis, although my mom furtively whispered, �Oh, he�s nowhere�s as good as Gay Elvis�.

By then I was just looking for ways to cut my wrist with a butter knife.



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Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty

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