Late night. Come home. Work sucks. I know.

"Sometimes you just have to suck it up."

^ The sentiment I often have to remind myself of, though I'm growing exceedingly bad at disguising my disdain for my current job.

"JUST THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS."

^ The idea I usually end up meditating on. I'd love to say I don't need to do this until a few hours in, or even near the end of my shift. But, unfortunately, this struggle begins almost immediately upon walking through the door.

All that aside, I recently had a fond memory of someone who inspired me to make the best of things at a job you don't enjoy.

SURFER'S PARADISE, QUEENSLAND

INT. HOTEL ELEVATOR- DAY

CARSTY enters the ELEVATOR to find MAINTENANCE MAN with a large cart filled with tools and supplies. At the next floor, a group consisting of several quite intoxicated couples joins them. They ride down in silence for a few floors. Upon noticing a tennis ball included on MAINTENANCE MAN'S cart of tools, CARSTY decides to break the awkward barrier and try to get a laugh out of the DRUNKIES.

CARSTY

(with extreme enthusiasm, animatedly gesturing towards cart)

One of these things doesn't belong!

Drunkies stare blankly. Crickets can be heard from off screen.

MAINTENANCE MAN

(melancholy)

Yeah, sometimes this job can get really boring...

(beat)

And I also have these!

He pulls several bouncy balls out of his pocket.

CARSTY and DRUNKIES laugh.

  

And that's how the game is played, my friends. Even middle aged hotel maintenance men don't take life too seriously. Blogging at work has become my bouncy ball. And you may have noticed that I've been bouncing that ball a lot lately...


Six. More. Weeks.

Axl Rose. A True Story.

It's that time again. Time for yet another installment of the chronicles of the exceedingly irrelevant and absolutely insignificant coincidences of my life.


A few years ago, I was over at a friend's house. He, being a classic rock lover, and I, being a classic fool, had a conversation that went something like this:




Friend: Blah, blah, blah, blah, guitars, blah blah blahhhhh, music, blah blah BLhaaHAhaHAHa, Axl Rose, blah blah bliggity blah blah blah.


Carsten: Who's Axl Rose, again?


Friend: WHAT? You don't know who AXL ROSE is? GUNS N' ROSES?.... I DATED YOU??? [Slew of expletives.]


Carsten: I'm... Sorry?



The next day, I was hangin' out with my Pops, watchin' TV and eatin' food and what not. OUR conversation went something like this:




Pops: Carst, I had the strangest dream last night!


Carsten: Oh  yeah, Pops? What about?


Pops: I dreamt that you didn't know who Axl Rose was.... weird!


Carsten: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......






My friend and my father do not communicate and I had not told anyone about the conversation from the previous night. To my knowledge, nobody had seen any documentaries on Guns N' Roses in the recent past, and my friend lives far enough away from my parents' house as to render eavesdropping from across the expanse physically impossible.


So.... basically, my dad can read minds. Just like my sister. It's the only feasible explanation.


All that to say, I now know exactly this many more things about Axl Rose than I did before: One. (He is from Guns N' Roses).

Verdict: Leprechauns are not real.

I know St. Patrick's Day was a minute ago, but I watched the Boondock Saints last week so, that got me thinking about all things Irish. One of those things being my elementary school art teacher, Ms. Morgan. Something especially Irishy about her remains burned in my brain. I was five, a wee kindergartner, with a malleable mind, waiting to be lied to. That year, Ms. Morgan, decided it would be an excellent idea to tell all us kiddos that leprechauns were real. Now, mind you, at that time in my life, my only references to leprechauns were

THIS:

and

THIS:

So when she told us that leprechauns were alive and among us, I pictured them as some combination of these two creatures. To help you get a taste, I helped makemebabies.com be the most useful it's ever been. 

BAM. 

Now that that's settled, I urge you to mentally insert that petrifying image into my retelling of a gross lie. LIES, rather. I shall now list the LIES that were told to SMALL CHILDREN about MYTHICAL CREATURES. (One of my biggest pet peeves.... Don't even get me started on Santa. I've blogged about him already.)

We were informed that:

1. Ms. Morgan was half leprechaun and possessed magical leprechaun powers.

2. Her brother was FULL leprechaun, and thus, miniature, and was running around the school, in need of being TRAPPED.

3. Leprechauns COULD be trapped by a device consisting ONLY of a toilet paper roll, some pipe cleaners, and a string! She had each of us make a trap and take it home to try it out on our own pesky leprechaun populations. (I can't, for the life of me, remember how this trap functioned, but I do remember that we used chocolate gold coins as bait.) You can be certain I set up my trap on the daily and did not once catch a single thing.

4. Anybody who had gold rings around their pupils had leprechaun blood. I, having such eyes, felt far superior to those of my classmates who lacked gold rings.

5. The "FOOTPRINTS" cut out of CONSTRUCTION PAPER that were found all over the school were from REAL LEPRECHAUNS.

Whatever. I'm bitter. I should get over it. I'm trying! This always helps:

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day.

What lies were YOU told as a kid?

Acting as a Human

One dreary Sunday morning, I woke up to a text from a number with my same area code. I continued the conversation for much longer than I would have in normal circumstances once I got to work and was bored brainless. Enjoy.

----------

Mystery Texter: I realized I am a robot acting as a human but i keep on singing as a VOCALOID

Me: I'm sorry. Who are you?

Mystery Texter: Maria silly xD

Me: And who do you think I am?

"Maria": O isn't this skylar....?

Me: I wish.

"Maria": You wish...? So wait... who are you...? O.o

Me: I know nobody by the name skylar nor maria. I live in california and am not a robot.

"Maria": Ohh sorry... i texted the wrong number this is embarresing... eh....

Me: Its ok. Even robots make mistakes.

"Maria": Haha Im not a robot lets just clear that up now lol. I dont know why im still txtng u sheer bordem i suppose.

Me: What is a vocaloid?

"Maria": Its a robot. Its invented by the japanese they are robots that sing songs. There actually pretty popular. You can look them up on like youtube or whatever.

Me: Cool

"Maria": Ya i suppose so xD

Me: I hope you find skylar

"Maria": Lol thanksss.... Its just ur numbers only have 1 diff numb in it so ehh... ya sorry lol

Me: At least youre from chicago so that's cool

"Maria": Yepp. Its so cold here tho i really want to move after college lol. So cali? Thats nice.

Me: It is indeed. I moved here for college and am never moving back.

"Maria": Oh nice. What part do u live in? I have lots of fam in san diego.

Me: I live in a suburb of LA but go to san diego all the time. Lovely place.

"Maria": Oh thats cool.

[DAYS LATER]

"Maria": Ummm this is sebastian right?

Me: No, skylar

"Maria": Skylar? Thank god i been forgetting ur # and txting random creeps all week lolzz x.x. wassup love? XD


-------------


And here I was, thinking Maria and I had become best of friends. All the while there she was, thinking I was a creep. Despite the fact that the conversation began with her thinking she is not human. Hmmmmmmmm.

Anyways. I did search "vocaloid" on YouTube. I still don't get it.