(Insert clever title here)

I've got two more days until my sabbatical. I'm a contractor, you see, and I happily permalanced for four years before I had to sign up with an employment agency somewhere in New Jersey. Part of the contract terms is that I have to take 60 days off (with no pay) every two years so I have no rights to demand benefits from the company I work for. I was perfectly happy with my hours and rate. Stupid Microsoft contractors spoiling it for the rest of us who didn't mind mutually exploitative work situations.

So I'm downtiming and counting down the days until my Spring Break, which, after my Kick Me, Inc. day, I'm totally looking forward to. I've been too stressed out to write long-form, but silly things have been happening lately.

* My Tandy 2000-era PC at work was upgraded recently. I lost all my e-mail contacts and was surprised that it saved my Internet Explorer favorites. Except for one, my link to the employment agency in New Jersey that I need to enter my time each week. I had it saved as "Pimpsite." I resaved it as "Evil (company name)." Evil, apparently, confirms to corporate standards and pimp does not.

* I took a stretch limo to Trader Joe's in a Boston suburb in search of water and a toothbrush.

* The chain in our one toilet broke Monday night, so we had to reach in and manually pull up the thingy that releases water. Tuesday morning, I got carded for cigarettes, so that evened things out. I was wearing a hat and big sunglasses, and the clerk was at least 70 and wearing coke-bottle glasses, but still...

* I had my headshot and video shoot for the paper last Thursday. I had an outfit involving a fitted, short-sleeved, black button-up shirt in mind. So on Wednesday night, I went to Old Navy first because I cashed in credit card rewards points for a gift card a while back. Everything was rouched and girlier than what I had in mind. So I went to Express, The Limited, Gap, Banana Republic and Belk with no luck. Went back to Express and settled on a long-sleeve that I could roll up. The helpful associate sent me to the dressing room with a small (she was small and cruel), medium and large. I tried on the medium and the shoulders were way too big and the middle button was straining not to pop off over the girls. I am grossly misshapen.

Woke up Thursday morning and tried on a million outfits before settling on a total slacker outfit of skinny jeans and Converse. Rushed out the door to get my hair and makeup done and broke a fingernail. Had to turn around and chop them all off. Then I forgot to take the Beltine and ended up on the highway and got lost in the suburbs. I don't know most of my friends' phone numbers by heart, but my stylist's number is permanently embedded in my brain. Unfortunately, my cell phone was on its charger at the house.

* I told my rock-star buddy the reason I could never be a lesbian is because women talk incessantly about feelings and it works my nerves. She laughed and affirmed that I am a guy in a straight woman's body.

* I was minding my own business in line at the self-serve Chick-Fil-A across from my office today when I sensed a close-stander behind me. Turned around and saw no one at first, then I glanced down and saw the little person two inches from my leg. Said little person then totally broke in front of me and got a salad from the cooler. As she was struggling to reach the croutons on top of the cooler, I stepped right around her and reclaimed my spot, thinking, "Don't mess with me right now, midget." Yes, I am going to hell.

* Steve and I went to Shallotte for Easter weekend. My mama was talking about a relative who she considered a genius and told us, "You two are intelligent, but you aren't geniuses."

* I saw a ridiculous, yellow, tricked out, lesser American sports car in front of my building. Emblazoned in a tacky script font across the front bumper was "Street Reacing."

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This concludes tonight's rant. I'll be writing a lot during my sabbatical, but if I become mellow and start talking about the moon in June, e-mail me and tell me to snap the hell out of it.

Your pal-
Leigh Ann

Waiting for Mr. Appliance

I was about to step into the shower at 11 after my 17-hour sleep marathon when Steve said, "Honey? I think the refrigerator's broken."

"Hold on," I replied, standing under my "hard, pounding action" setting in the shower (Steve's is "gentle, infant mist"). I let the hot water in our recently jerry-rigged shower in the bathroom that really needs to be remodeled rain down on me as I gathered my wits, reminding myself that this would eventually be funny and make a good story, especially as the dishwasher had broken four days earlier.

Got out of the shower and put on sexy sweatpants and found Steve with the side-by-side doors opened, trying to figure out what was wrong. I grew up at the beach and lived through a lot of hurricanes that knocked out power for days, and I recalled the first rule of saving food: Don't open the refrigerator. But Steve and I are very sweet to each other. So I just walked up and closed it as he stood there.

My refrigerator is only six years old. I remember when the old one that came with the house busted: Rex and Ray drove me to Lowe's at 8 p.m. and we bought the new GE. I am a great believer in Kenmore appliances from Sears, but we had no time that night. I was barely employed and my food was thawing, so we got a GE at the last minutes of store hours.

So when I inspected the damage today, I totally expected to have to call Rex and Ray to come over with the Denali and drive me to Sears, but I tried calling GE services first. I talked to a very nice customer service rep; well, she was very nice until we'd been on the phone for 10 minutes with her taking all my info. When she told me the first available appointment was Wednesday, I had to balk, as my fabulous Trader Joe's food was thawing and I tried to thank her for her time and she pretty much let me have it.

Got off the phone with her as quickly as I could and started calling other appliance repair services in town. Mr. Appliance was the first to call back, so we made an appointment.

In the meantime, I called my parents, as I always do on Sundays. Told them about the past week: The bad batch of paper on the press check, how we hadn't yet found a plumbing contractor, how I put in for my work sabbatical to start in two weeks, that the dishwasher burned itself out on Thursday. Told them that I made an appointment with my stylist to make me purty before I get my headshot and video interview for the paper but I didn't have a thing to wear and was freaked out about it.

Got off the phone with them when Mr. Appliance arrived. As he was working on our fridge, Steve and I sat whispering in our office. I told him I was freaking out about what to wear to the photoshoot. Steve and I make fun of each other constantly and I impersonate him as an English Deputy Dog. According to his impersonation of me, I sound just like Eric Cartman.

So Steve, impersonating me as Cartman, said, "My lifelong dream to be a published author has come true, but I can't do it because I have nothing to wear!"

Mr. Appliance finished up with the fridge and we paid him. Mr. Appliance was a 50-ish Indian man who did a great job and left us his card.

I looked at it and said to Steve: "Mr. Appliance was probably Dr. Patel in his native country, wasn't he?"

"Probably," Steve replied.

Here is where I realize that life's been good to me so far.

Kick Me, Inc.

Oh this week. Yesterday I told my design partner, "I swear we are Charlie Brown with the rain cloud over him this week." "We are sooo Charlie Brown," he replied, his eyes lighting up for the first time in days.

I learned years ago to never ask, "What else can go wrong?" Because something inevitably will.

Long story for me. This week, Steve was out of town, the only bathroom in our house exploded, I had to miss a day during report season and my workload is ridiculous. I've dealt with plumbers, contractors, mad clients, family crap from someone I'd totally break up with if we weren't related, covering proofreading of financial and corporate reports because the proofreader is out, green co-workers overstepping or understepping their roles, experienced co-workers pushed to their limits, a nesting robin who's been attacking my sideview window and me when I try to get in my dirty car I can't wash because of the drought, and generally trying to do too many things.

Today, for the first time in almost six years at my day job, I totally lost it and had a breakdown. One interaction just pushed me over the edge. So I retreated to my cube in the back corner of a former conference room and gushed tears of anger and frustration. I couldn't stop, but I am not a cryer and tried to keep the sniffling and nose blowing down so my friend in the next cube wouldn't hear me.

Right about then, an admin came around to introduce a new employee...

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I came home soon after that. I knew I'd have to work over the weekend to catch up before the printing trip in the Northeast next week anyway.

I told Steve about my day, and when I got to the part about the new employee, I laughed for the first time all day. And I couldn't stop laughing. We started imagining it as a comedy skit. He said SNL, but I think it'd be way better as Monty Python.

The following is a work of pure fiction and folly. Any comparisons to actual workplace scenarios only prove that those scenarios suck and are unfit for human inhabitants.
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(Scene: A ubiquitous office with an early 90s color scheme. Two office workers are sitting in a cube over a pile of paperwork, but only one does the talking.)

Worker: Welcome to Damien Thorn Industries, Miss Sunshine. May I call you Suzy? Since you have half an hour before HR needs your pound of flesh, I thought I'd give you a quick tour.

(Two workers proceed down a poorly lit hallway dotted with cubicles. Open on a sinewy middle-aged man with Bryl-Creemed hair, wearing acid-washed jeans and a wife beater that exposes his amateur tattoos. His cowboy-booted feet are propped on his desk and he is picking dirt from his fingernails with a Bowie knife.)

Worker: This is Wendell. He's our director of pedantics, TPS cover sheets and time reporting.

(Wendell looks up, sneers, and removes a chunk of meat from the gap in his front teeth with the knife. Workers continue to the next cube. Open on a middle-aged woman sobbing into her hands in front of her desk, which is lined with prescription anti-anxiety medication bottles. A pile of books with titles including, "Stockholm Syndrome: How I Learned to Let Go and Enjoy the Ride," and "Groupthink: Goodthink!" sit beside her PC.)

Worker: I'd like you to meet Brenda. She's in charge of client relations.

(Brenda looks startled and slightly panicked. Her phone rings before she can speak.)

Worker: Moving right along, I'd like you to meet our project manager, Roy. Roy? Oh, he's up there.

(Reveal the bottom of a pair of shoes, shifting in the breeze. Pan up to mummified corpse, dangling by the neck from the ceiling.)

Worker: Let me show you our creative studio. Everybody gets a kick out of these guys.

(Reveal a group of people wearing identical black sweatsuits and Nikes, ladeling liquid from a punchbowl into Dixie cups.)

Worker: It must be someone's birthday, because they're drinking Kool-Aid. I won't interrupt them. So let's head back.

(Reveal an open space, covered with soft, protective foam. A group of middle-aged people wearing life preservers and helmets frolic around a conference table, displaying varying degrees of impairment. Some drool, some babble incoherently about "procedures" and "budget buckets," but they mostly seem harmlessly oblivious.)

Worker: Shhh. That's middle management. Just let them be. Asking them work-related questions sends them into hysterical, illogical rants.

Worker: Well that's pretty much our tour.

Suzy Sunshine: I'm sorry, but what was that fortified door with all the locks on it we just rushed by?

(Worker flushes, lowers voice)

Worker: Never, ever ask questions about that door, and never, ever approach it. Beyond it lie The All-Powerful Ones. They call themselves Ex-Hecutives. They practice the ancient, mystical art of Bottom Line and pray to the holy Cher Houlders. When they are disturbed or made aware of the workers, blood fills the halls. But you didn't hear that from me, and you must never mention it again.

(Workers arrive back at original cube.)

Worker: So there you have it! Welcome again. I know you'll be in mandatory diversity deprogramming for the next three weeks, but when you get back, we'll go over the bend-over-and-take-it manual and get you started! So just sign this form relinquishing your dignity and I'll direct you to the elevator.

(End scene)

See also: This video by my favorite band.

Copyright 2008 Leigh Ann Frink