A Working Girl on Halloween

So apparently it's Halloween. How do I know this? Well, because in corporate America on this day people bring in candy to share with their fellow cube dwellers and there is always that one person who wears the blinking witch pin. When you work in an office atmosphere you tend to look forward to days like today...well actually you look forward to your days off, but special holidays & casual dress days are a distant second. It almost gives you a feeling that you really don't have to do your work which isn't the case at all.

Let's face it, even if you have a good office job, there is just something about being trapped in a cubicle that makes you want to scream. You may get away with it on Halloween, but any other day "the man" will deam it unprofessional. I think that people who work in offices should just SCREAM when they feel like it. I believe it would relieve a lot of stress and in the end people would get a lot more done. Those little squeezable stress balls just aren't working out for most people. If I could prove that SCREAMING would add money to the "bottom line", I could definately make this an OK thing at my company.

I've eaten about 5 bite size milky way candy bars. After sitting in this chair for so many hours my ass has taken the shape of the chair. If I keep eating candy it will start to grow arm rests and wheels. At least I can go trick or treating tonight as the "scary chair ass girl"!

Happy Halloween!

Video Store Memories #2

I want to start off this entry by saying that people are crazy. Let's face it, most of the general public has MAJOR issues. There was this lady who shall rename nameless not because I want to protect her identity in any way, but because I can't remember her name for the life of me. I wish I did remember her name. Let's just call her PB for "Psycho Bitch".

PB had a long running history of coming into the store and trying to get free rentals and complaining about everything. I don't know why she even came to the store because she blatently hated it. She would come in and act all nice and then the next second...SNAP... she would be as crazy as an unmedicated Anne Heche.

One day, PB comes into the store on a rainy Friday evening. She asks me if she can use the phone. Being the nice person I am...I let her even though I had a bad feeling about it. She dials the number and while it is ringing she says, "I'm calling the police". Now I am thinking to myself, "WHAT the hell is she calling the police for?". Who walks into a video store and calls the police? She didn't seem hurt or upset really. When she walked in, I said in my mind that I wished bodily harm on her. Was she a mind reader?

Finally, she begins talking and is telling the police that Blockbuster (down the street) is completely packed with cars, people are parking on the sides of the street in traffic illegally and that she almost was killed because of this. I understand that Blockbuster ruins peoples lives...but you don't have to come into my store and use the phone to express this point. You can do what I do and chuck them the bird while you drive by. That is a better way to get your point across.

PB hangs up the phone and re-explains the whole situation to me. (Like me and the other 10 or so customers in the store didn't hear her already). She continues to tell me that I should give her a free rental because she just called the cops on our competition. As any NORMAL person would do, I giggled as if she was joking around. PB was not.

She continued to argue that I should give her a free rental coupon because of this incident. I told her that she could not have a free rental and that we have NOTHING to do with the parking arrangements of the Blockbuster down the street. We don't encourage people to call the police on Blockbuster to get a free rental. We do encourage crazy people to play with matches while they are home alone at night!

PB walked away in a hissy and picked out a few really bad movies. She came to the counter to check them out and was still talking about the free rental that we owe her for ratting out our competition to the "po po". I was lucky this time though because more often than not she made whoever was working get in touch with a manager. We didn't have a night manager in usually so we would have to call all our locations until we found a manager that worked at night. She was awful.

It's people like that in the world that give "crazies" a bad name. What about the harmless "crazies" that keep to themselves and walk around mumbling to their invisible pet parrot? They mind their own business, eat leaves and worship the Smurfs and it is people like Psycho Bitch Video Lady that shame their community. It's just not fair if you ask me.

The Passion of the Man Sitting in front of us
at a showing of The Passion of the Christ.

When the movie The Passion of the Christ was in theaters, my sisters, my girlfriend and I went to go see it on the big screen. We were all raised Catholic, but we don't go to church...we don't believe in organized religion and we try to sin on a regular basis.

Anyway, we get into the movies and my sister wants us to sneak in. I don't know much about church or Mel Gibson movies, but in my heart I knew that God & Mel would NOT approve of that. I told her there was a line to get into the movie and there was no way we could do it without getting caught. She is going to hell and not dragging me down with her.

We get into line and we notice that people are in cliques. Mostly church groups, english majors and republicans. Then there is us...the lesbian couple with sisters who want us to sneak in. Of course there is going to be a scene at some point...I could just feel it.

All of a sudden, the woman in front of us waves her arm up and says, "Over Here!". We look up and she is waving to her church group who are trotting towards us like a Catholic heard of sheep to cut her in line.

This peaved my sister Michelle a bit and when the group approached the woman she said, "Ohhh no....you are not cutting us, we have been waiting in line for a long time. Love ya, but you have to go to the end". I don't know if it was because they were church go-ers that she felt compelled to tell them she loves them. I still wonder about that.

We get into our seats and while we are waiting a man sits down in front of us with his little boy. The boy was like 7 years old, if that. The movie was rated R and it was one of the most VIOLENT movies I have ever seen. It put all the Freddy Kruger slasher movies to shame. The entire movie is in Aramaic and is subtitled so this little kid is basically seeing someone get the shit kicked out of him and he can't understand what they are saying.

This peaved my sister Carri. She happen to make a comment about it to me and the father overheard her saying, "I cannot believe he brought his little kid here".

The man turns around and says, "Why shouldn't I bring him here! He should see this! I asked my priest if it was ok and he told me that it was!" He was really hard core.

Carri says, "Well it's still just a movie and it's extremely violent."

The man also said he was going to drop his kid off at a boys "sleepover" at the priests place that night and that tomorrow he was going to jump off the Brookline Bridge.

I pretty much stayed out of the conversation for two reasons. One, I didn't want to offend any of the nice cult members...uh...I mean church go-ers that were around me. And two, I knew once the lights went out I could throw popcorn at him without him knowing it was me.

When the movie ended, I should have said to his son, "hey little boy, I'm a lesbian and hissed at him". I wonder what the father would have done. :)~

Don't Touch The Red Button!

A few years back my two sisters and I decided to have a mini sister vacation at The Cape. To give you a little background on my sisters and I, we are really bad at organizing a trip to Dunkin Donuts let alone organizing anything greater than that. Long story short, Robert Downey Jr could've planned a better trip to the Cape from his rehab center. We aren't drunks...we just lack ambition and drive.

We decided that we weren't going to book a hotel and just drive down there one weekend, go to the beach and find somewhere to crash. Sounds like a plan! We all get into the car...Michelle driving....Carri in the passenger seat and me in the back. That is pretty much where the ENTIRE story takes place...is in the car.

After a 2 hour drive we finally arrived at beautiful Cape Cod. Millions of hotels and motels in sight. We were ready to catch some rays and swim in the Atlantic. BUT FIRST, We had to find a hotel. We drove by a few that said No Vacancy. That didn't kill our spirit, we were hunters and it was sort of fun for the first 20 minutes.

After 1 hour without finding a hotel and driving up & down Route 6, my sister Michelle completely stopped talking, listening to us or even looking at my other sister and I. I'm not saying she was moody or anything, but she went completely Hellen Keller on us.

I walked up to about 40 hotels...walking back to the car with my head hung in shame, looking up for a second just to shake my head no. Our stomachs were growling for food. We decided to take a break from hunting and go to a little food stand next to a batting cage. We ate and hit a few balls. All of a sudden Carri runs to the bathroom and she suddenly is sick and something along the way gave her the "trots". We all silently walked back to our car and drove off in hunt for a hotel, comfort and some pride.

We were looking on the outskirts of The Cape at this point and finally we found a hotel in driving distance from the Cape and beaches. We were ecstatic! My sister Michelle at this point started talking again. We walked into the office and saw a man behind the counter that had an uncanny resemblance to Saddam Hussein. If I didn't know better I would say that Saddam has a part time job at the Motel 8 in Wareham or Middleboro, wherever the HELL we were at this point. He handed us a t.v. remote from the back counter and said in a scary Saddam voice "Don't touch the RED BUTTON". (Swear to God - I couldn't make this shit up if you paid me). Was the red button linked to some nuclear device that would blow up an American city or even worse...Greenland! We hurrily left the Middleboro Iraqi headquarters and ran to our rooms.

We entered the room and it looked like Saddam was actually living in this room himself for months. The bathroom had sort of an Iraqi feel to it...dirty, watery and there were some woman slaves living in the bathtub. I don't even think Angelina Jolie would adopt a child from this room. We looked at each other and walked out.

My sisters did not want to confront Saddam and we needed to get our money back. We all agreed to go into the office together and ask. I opened the door and my asshole sisters PUSHED me in and closed the door behind me. I could not believe they did that. So here I am standing face to face with Saddam Hussein asking him for money and handing the remote back assuring him I didn't touch the red button. He didn't say one word. He handed the money back and I ran out. We are homeless once again.

The closest hotel we could find was in Foxboro MA. FOXBORO! Our vacation consisted of staying in a hotel in FOXBORO! It was a huge hotel and it cost a lot especially with the 100 deposit that we had to put down in cash after my credit card was denied at the desk. We almost didn't have enough money to eat dinner.

We woke up the next morning, pissed at the world, trying to laugh about it. When all of a sudden the fire alarm in our room goes off. The phone rings about a second later and my sister Michelle grabs her stuff and says "Screw that...I'm not answering it and takes off with her luggage". My sister Carri answered it and we told them that it just started going off (mind you this is a huge motel with multiple floors and the alarm is ONLY going off in our room). It ended up being a false alarm or whatever.

On our way home we decided to stop at a movie theater and at LEAST catch a movie before we walked into our homes with our heads hung in shame. We saw The Sixth Sense. That was the highlight of Michelle and I's trip. Carri on the other hand got up and went to the bathroom and missed the entire ending where you find out that Bruce Willis is really dead. She walked back to her seat and saw how AMAZED our faces looked and we had to explain the ending to her.

I think that this goes down as the WORST vacation in the world. It was so bizarre and doesn't even sound true. The moral of the story ALWAYS book a hotel in advance. I still wonder to this day what would have happened if I pushed the red button.

Hoodlums and Me

I went to court Tuesday of this week. It wasn't for jury duty, for fighting a speeding ticket or for driving drunk and blaming the Jews for all the war that goes on in the world. It was for a debt I owed to a credit card company long ago. I owed about 600 dollars to Citibank.

I had never been to small claims court before so I really didn't know how things worked. I was thinking up reasons in my head that I could give on why I wasn't able to pay them. The excuse "I just forgot" came up a lot. Maybe I could tell them they were part of a reality show to see which credit card company would sue a hard working girl who only owed them 600 dollars first and that they won. You are the winners! Your prize is that you can go screw yourselves!

At that point I gave up on trying to come up with something good and maybe if I was funny...then that would work. I would tell them...I meant to pay citibank, but I had an even larger debt owed to some hot prostitutes who didn't charge me interest. Of course I would be winking and hitting his arm with my elbow a few times. What? no good? Or, I would claim to be the father of Britney Spears' baby and tell them all my money was going to child support. Then I realized I probably wasn't trashy enough to pull off looking like someone she'd date or pull off looking like a guy...although some may disagree.

Well anyway, I did not know what to expect so when I got there everyone was waiting in the front hall. As I walked in I looked at them all and thought to myself, "nah...this couldn't be where I have to wait...I must have to wait in a much smaller room with smiling court clerks and a bowl full of peppermints in arms length of my big comfy seat". So I proceeded to find an open window and ask where I was supposed to go. Yup...you guessed it...back out in the front hall with all the other small claims hoodlums.

At this point I got a bit nervous. I thought - I just owe a bit of money...what can they actually do to me anyway. They couldn't SHIP me off to the America's, I already lived here.

It's not like I killed someone. Well...it's not like I killed someone and they found out about it. I'm not a THREAT to society, am I? I started to weaken and question myself and my morals. I thought to myself, What Would Oprah Do? I sat there for about ten minutes until they called us in to "COURTROOM ONE...DUN DUN DUUUUUUN." <--that was supposed to read in an echoed voice with a sound effect.

I proceeded to go into the courtroom and could definately pick out the people who had been there before. Mostly because the clerks and magistrate would call them by their first name with a disappointed sound in their voice. "hello Tito" or "how's it going Bob"..."Back again so soon Chung" (I was trying to be racially fair with the names...don't want to offend anyone)
Actually, I was at the Suburbian District Court so it was basically all white people...basically.

To my surprise, it was really not scary at all. There wasn't even a judge there! I got called up and the man said "so do you want to set up a payment plan". I said "yes". He said "how much do you want to pay". I told him. He said "great, here's the address and you are all set".

That was it! No judge, no security guard guy that stands next to the judge, no jury, no pleading, no excuses, no drama, no lawyers screaming OBJECTION YOUR HONOR, no witness stand, no slap on the wrist! Man...all the things that I fear are actually the really cool things that I wish I could have seen. I pictured myself representing myself and giving my opening statement as follows:

"The prosecution is going to try and prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that I am guilty of not paying them a debt that I owe them. Although this may be true, at the time of the shopping spree that led to the alleged debt, the defendant was an alcoholic and in a black out state for weeks at a time. Alcoholism is a serious disease my friends...it causes liver damage, impaired vision and unwanted pregnancies of gay deaf babies. It also causes one to shop. I will prove to you today that the defendant Sarah "Liqu-whore" Brunelle was under the influence of alcohol & the Nazi Regime at the time of this incident."

I guess if all that drama occurred, the jury would convict me and put me on a payment plan anyway. So I guess the guy sitting in the front of the court room...writing out payment plans was a good, time saving investment. I wonder if Tito and Chung got set up on a similar payment plan...hmmmm.

How Blockbuster Ruined My Life

As all past & present employees of small video stores, I have a deep hatred towards Blockbuster. There are many reasons for this, one of which is the fact that the location near me DOESNT have the movie Radio Flyer, but the reason Blockbuster ruined my life lies within a tragic day in the year 2000. (Note: "the year 2000" is not said in an echo voice so Conan O'Brien cannot sue me. It is said in a "New York Italian guy who spent 4 months in South Jersey accent". Thank you.)

I rented a movie at the "Big Bad Corporate Chain Store" that I swore to my Clark University friends that I would NEVER rent from. I also promised them I would never shave my legs again because it was society saying we HAD to shave our legs and it wasn't natural. I failed to listen to the new age hippies as many of us do.

I can't remember the name of the movie, but we'll just refer to it as "Bob". I rented Bob from one Blockbuster location and returned it to another Blockbuster location. I believed that since Blockbuster is such a big corporation that they were probably set up with some type of courier service or at least had some homeless guy running movies back and forth from store to store. I guess I was wrong.

A few weeks went by and I got something in the mail saying I had a late charge and it was adding up each day because I never returned Bob. I get a lot of things in the mail saying I have late charges mostly from the electric company, phone company and Dick Cheney, but this one stood out because I knew that Bob was safely returned to his home.

I called Blockbuster and spoke with some pimple faced assistant manager. How do I know his face was full of zits if I was on the phone with him you ask? Believe me...I just knew.

He said that they never received it. I explained to him where I had returned it and how it wasn't the store I originally rented it from...maybe that's why it's missing. He said that I can't return movies to different blockbuster locations and it's probably sitting on their shelf. He called them on the other line and THAT Blockbuster found it and everything was all set. He sighed with frustration and said that he PERSONALLY had to drive over and get it. I apologized and went back to drinking my bottle of scotch. Zit boy went back to yelling at old ladies for putting movies back in the wrong places. Life was back to normal...or so I thought.

A month or so later, I received a notice saying that I never payed Bob's late charges and they were threatening to send my name to a credit collection agency. A Credit Collection Company for a MOVIE LATE FEE!!! Are you frigging kidding me!??

I called Blockbuster and explained what happened and they still counted Bob as being late and told me I had to pay the late fee. I refused, said a few swear words and went back to drinking my bottle of scotch.

They sent my name to a collection agency finally. I could not believe it. Were they for real???? I ended up paying it. Those bastards. They killed my spirit. I never saw Bob again. I became bitter and would stand outside Blockbuster looking in on all the happy people with NO late charges. They were hugging and high fiving zit boy as I stood outside in the freezing cold snow with barely any designer clothes on.

Zit boy got promoted to Manager. Small video stores were going out of business left and right. I lost my job, my wife and my bottle of scotch. I went over that tragic day where I dropped Bob through the slot of the wrong store in my head.

I would have nightmares of Zit boys zits chasing me with a hammer. I had nightmares of MC Hammer chasing Zit boys zits. I had to seek professional help. I had to become a professional call girl. I was forever changed.

All I know is from that point on...I stopped shaving my legs and drank a lot more Scotch.

Video Store Memories #1 - The Black Mini

I don't know if many of you know this, but I used to work in a video store. It was probably one of the best jobs ever because all you were responsible for was to sign movies in & out, watch movies and make sure it was neat in the store. Surprisingly, we would all constantly get in trouble for not doing our jobs well enough.

We were a family video store so we didn't have the cool porn section that was behind a curtain or in a seperate room. Although we did have movies starring the actress who played Jesse Spano on Saved By The Bell, but we didn't have a curtain or a room for her movies. We did ask management if we could keep all the Ben Affleck movies in a seperate room which us staff called "the dumpster out back". They didn't agree with our proposal.

Anyway, from time to time we would get people coming in and asking for the "adult section" or if we rented "adult movies". We were encouraged to say "no, sorry this is a family store".

It was a lot more fun if you said, "Eww you're a pervert. We don't sell those sin movies here." OR if you said "You're gay aren't you! The GAY PORN is sold up the street". OR my favorite response to the question is to just point at his penis and laugh, ignoring his question completely.(and yes it was always men who asked). This behavior was frowned upon by management though.

Well one day a guy came up to the counter during the day. He was a middle aged, white guy with a polo golf shirt on. He looked like he could have been my dad except for the fact he was much shorter, balding a little bit and looked nothing like my dad really.

He asked, "Is there an adult section in this store". I replied, "No, but there is a Gallo Video up the street if you take a left out of our parking lot." He said thanks and walked away. As he was walking away, I noticed he had on a BLACK MINI SKIRT. I am not even kidding. A polo golf shirt, black mini skirt and "dad-like" sneakers. (you know the mostly white sneakers with a little bit of blue on them. You can mostly find them at Walmart or Target). In my mind, I'm thinking...he has a dad head, a dad torso, definately dad legs, dad feet and then randomly a "mom" mini skirt!

I mean, I am an open minded person. If you are gay you sort of HAVE to be open minded, it is a prerequisite to join the "club". That and you have to learn the secret gay handshake. It only disturbed me b/c only 1/4th of his person was in lady clothes. Still to this day, one thought haunts me. Was he wearing girly underwear?