I work at the mall. That means I deal with a multitude of people on an average day. Frustrated mothers in a rush, women gushing to me about their fabulous new beau, old people who haven't been to the mall since 1942 and are shocked at our prices, loud teenagers who move everything around in the store, small children, and lots, and lots of window shoppers with no money. Last Thursday a group of kids ages 5ish-10ish walked in. I said hi, offered them some candy corn scented hand sanitizer, and she immediately stuck her finger in her mouth, thinking it was candy. The look on her face was hilarious. It was something along the lines of this:


Without the tears. That would have just been sad. But, not sad. Hilarious, yes. Another thing that happens a lot is people coming in to ask for directions. Now. The only time I am ever, ever outside of my store and out in the mall is when I'm searching for a drink. Or a snack. I don't go shopping. I walk past all of the stores, and go down to the overly priced pretzel place for a cup of $8.42 lemonade. It's fantastic lemonade. Not worth the $8.42 though. It might actually only be $2.48. Which is still too much money for lemonade. But really people. Do I look like a mall directory? No. I don't. This is what a mall directory looks like:

Look. That's a HUGE picture hahah. There's even smiley men standing next to it. Maybe they'll give you a tour of the mall. Because I sure will not. Unless you're going to pay me over minimum wage. Because that's what I'm getting to stand here and smile. And I'm pretty sure I'm getting wrinkles from all of the pretend smiling. So pay up.

I'm going to be skinnyfat.

The other day I decided I was in a rut. Buying new clothes wasn't helping. Cutting off ties with the technological world(ie. being dramatic and deleting my facebook account) didn't quite hit the spot. Being philosophical and artsy got old. So I joined a gym. A fancy one. One that has really clean locker rooms, and televisions. And yoga classes. And hot men. I'm actually really excited about that part. The yoga, too. I figure I need to be more healthy, and work on being more active. It's not about losing a certain number of pounds, or looking a certain way for me. I just want to feel better. I decide to start my first work out session this morning.

Cut to this morning.
9:01 am - Alarm goes off. I hit snooze.
9:11 am - Repeat.
9:21 am - See above.
9:35 am - I realize I need to get up if I want any chance of being on time to that free session with the overly zealous trainer.
9:42 am - I can't find my shoes.
10:02 am - I walk in the gym, apologize for being an entire 2 minutes late, and end up filling out more paperwork.

I'm told not to lie on the form I'm filling out. Oh. Shucks. Because I was fully planning on doing so. I was going to tell you that I'm 120 lbs, and 5'2" and hope you'd just send me home instead of torturing me for the next 45 minutes.

I finished the form, followed one of the the trainers into the cardio theater (yeah. told you. fan-cy.), and the kid jumps around without any warning. He's inches from my face, and says, "ARE YOU READY?!" and waits for me to high five him. I'm convinced he's on speed at this point. I do some cardio, then go to do some other exercises, almost die, and finish up with a strong urge to puke in this guy's hand once he holds it up for the 27th high five in 15 minutes.

But. I don't. Success, right? My heart feels like it's giving up its last beating moments, but I'm alive. I survived the first day. Go me.

Cut to the trainers' office.
-"You NEEEED a personal trainer."
-"Being overweight leads to diabetes. And high cholesterol. And high blood pressure."
-"People just get fustrated with workouts, because they don't know what they're doing. That's what we're here for."
-"If you work out the wrong way, you'll just be a skinnier version of yourself. And you'll be skinnyfat."
-"These are the prices... Which one do you want to sign up for today? Oh. Nothing? But. But you NEED this. I don't... What? What's it going to take for you to sign up today?"


Dear Personal Trainer Justin...
Wanna know what being a douchebag leads to? It leads to having my foot lodged in your ass. And I'm frustrated with the face that you say "fustrated", fathead. And if people lose weight, then yes. They will be a skinnier version of themselves. That's what happens. In life. When things get smaller. They're a smaller version of the previous form. And no. I don't want another high five...

Instead of informing him of my thoughts, I politely nodded and said I'd have to think about it. I got another call from High Five Happy Boy. Ignored. Got a voicemail from High Five Happy Boy telling me to make sure I took in enough potassium for the day, so my lactic acid would move around in my body. Aka. "Go eat a banana so you'll stop being fat and move away from that ice cream I know you're about to eat." Yeah. Too late. I already had ice cream. And taquitos. And cherry coke. Calories don't count when you're PMSing, ok? You're a man, and you don't understand.

I'm allergic to bananas anyways.

Things That Run Through My Head While Working At A Popular Smoothie Shop.

1. Go to Starbucks.
   
2. Your child is hyper. They need a horse tranquilizer. Not more sugar, which you're in the middle of ordering.
   
3. I just lost my band-aid.
   
4. Compliment how nice I am a little louder. One of the managers hates me.
   
5. I have no idea how many grams of protein are in a certain drink. Eat a spoonful of peanut butter if you're considered about your low amounts of protein intake. Or just eat a full meal. Because you're clearly the same weight as my left thigh.
6. Oh, what's that? You want FOURTEEN drinks? No. Have some water. It's healthier.
   
7. Thanks for the tip. I might get 0.002% of it if I'm lucky.
   
8. My apologies for standing here and making ridiculous faces at you, but my nose itches. So badly. But if I scratch it, everyone will stare at me. And they'll never come back here ever, and they'll tell everyone that all of the employees pick their nose.

People are strange. That's why we're strangers.

Words go in, and they don't come out.
They mainly stay in for me. Until they slip out. Which happens often, which therefore causes me to be overly cautious at what slips out.

And then I forgot what I was saying because of this dress. It's adorable. Love it.
I have things to do tomorrow. Which is technically today, as it's 2 in the morning. I shouldn't have slept all day.

It's that moment when you start closing in.

Sometimes I wish I had a magical who lived in my closet. Turban, shiny getup, crystal ball and all. Sometimes I just don't know what to do, y'know? I also sometimes wish there were a tall, dark and handsome man living in my closet. He'd stay there and read books, and I'd pull him out when I couldn't find a date Saturday nights. But then he'd be in the closet. And he'd be a man. In the closet. Nothing good would come from this.

Decisions are funny things. A lot of them seem so important, and so potentially life changing. And how are you even supposed to handle something like that? It's rough. Other times they're so minute and trivial, but maybe they end up changing major aspects of your life in the long run. Go watch Sliding Doors. It makes you wonder.

I think I'm allergic to almonds. Or, at least, I think that I think I'm allergic to almonds. I'm also into weird shoes, I've never lost a game of air hockey and I can't swim. Fascinating. I know.

For more information, press 7.

Guess whose hot ass was awake at approximately 6:41 this morning. Right. That would be my hot ass. That doesn't give you an excuse to stare at my ass in an attempt to gauge how hot it is. Just know it's hot, and that's that. I'm currently on the phone with the court system, trying to obtain various amounts of information. Guess whose phone isn't cooperating with her. JUST GUESS. YOU'RE SO GOOD AT THIS. Right. That would be mine. I took my dad to the veteran's affair place this morning so he could catch a bus. To go to another veteran's hospital for a fly fishing class. My dad is old. I'm so confused. The highway patrol is trying to text me? I don't know. I don't get this. I'm never getting a ticket ever again..

Things have been weird lately, and I'm so incredibly reluctant to talk about it, and I don't know that typing things out on a public blog is any better. My house is making me feel strange and something in my chest started fighting its way out around 5:08 Saturday evening.

Free breakfast today!

I like it when my parents e-mail me from the next room and when my best friend calls me and wakes me up. Especially when it's for free breakfast. It turned into such a good day. Free breakfast is really the way to start things out. Breakfast and general restaurant corporations, feel free to give me free breakfast more often. I will gladly endorse you on my blog, which has hundreds of readers. Thousands, even. I think it might actually be approaching the millions. Look into it. Talk things over. Have your people get back to my people. Which, at this point, my cat, mother, and mailman are my current people.

I keep noticing really small things in my life. Mainly that people will stare if you're dancing in public, the more of a rush I am to get out of the store the longer the line takes, and that I'm really great at cutting my own bangs. I'm also noticing that I'm getting older, which should mean that I'm growing up. It's more that I'm watching other people around me get older, and do the whole growing up thing. It's fascinating, to watch people fall in love and get married. I don't know how that's going to work out for me. I think I have a lot of interesting reservations about the idea of marriage.

I'm also noticing the way rocks look. I know. Rocks. What. Even. Uhm. Who does that? Who looks at rocks? Boring people, that's who. Some of them are so strange, and eerie, and fantastic. Who other than God could have made those? Or what about the way the sky looks after a storm? It's been raining a lot here, so I've come rather familiar with that sky. I saw snow earlier, and the way the snowy cloud fog things was draped over the trees made me so excited. First, I thought we were in a horrific land where zombies were going to start crawling out of the dark woods. I was really looking forward to watching other people getting eaten, while I would escape. Second, my testimony grew. A little. Which is still something. Enough to mention, anyways. Which I'm pretty sure anything is worth mentioning, really.