Plugged Off

There have been fourteen murders in Washington, D.C. over the last twelve days. It's an outstanding number, a frightening number, but have no fear, as I was not one of them. Go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief because it's rather unlikely that I will be number fifteen, either. And do you know why...?
BECAUSE I WAS NOT IN D.C. TODAY NOR WILL I BE IN D.C. TOMORROW!

That's right! A mere 26 hours after submitting my resignation, I was told that there was "nothing left for you to do here" and was both immediately and unceremoniously escorted out of the building. Never to return.

While I have long since given up on attempting to read the mind of The Dragon, I believe the intent of this action was to be some kind of punitive retaliation for the audacity I demonstrated the other day, but really what it's done is given me three weeks off.


THREE WEEKS OFF!!
*dance dance dance*



I took a lovely picture of the building which I intended to post here but it's trapped on my waterlogged cellphone so the diagrams are just going to have to speak for themselves. As difficult as it may be to live without the light, lofty, flower-sniffing, loveliness of my now-former manager, I will somehow have to find a way to find a way.

I'm glad you can all be here for me during this difficult, difficult time.


My intent was, of course, to sleep through the morning, but I was awoken by a to-do list that had been forming in my brain while I slept. Some rarely seen and completely unauthorized part of me forced me to jump out of bed at the crack of 9 and proceeded to drag the rest of me along to three doctor's appointments, the grocery store, the post office, the pharmacy to collect five different prescriptions that I don't need, and finally to call and deal with Brother customer service about our 5-in-1 printer which does none of the above. I had already Googled "error 41" before I called so I knew it meant that I was going to have to schlepp our gigantic malfunctioning printer to a repair shop, but I went through the motions with the customer service "person" on the phone anyway.

She seemed annoyed that I called her as she asked me for my contact info, my blood type, my father's major in college, and finally the model and serial number of my malfunctioning Brother printer. She then asked me whether the printer was "plugged on or plugged off". I said, "excuse me?", thinking I must have misheard her, in my sleepy haze and all. She replied, in a huff, "right now, is the printer plugged on, or plugged off". I paused and looked at the printer. It was still on and still blinking "Error 41! Error 41!". I calmly told Shanisha "okay, the printer is plugged in, and the power is on". She took a deep and exaggerated breath before she replied as if I had just asked her where the "any" key was:

"Okay, pay attention. Is the printer plugged on, or plugged off ?".

It is at this point in the conversation, probably somewhere between "pay" and "attention" to be exact, where I usually just hand the phone over to B and let him deal with the retardation. He's good at that. He's trained in dealing with the motivations of children or those with the minds thereof. But if there's anything I've learned over the last year or so, it's that I am no longer willing to be intimidated by the crazy, illiterate, and/or the unreasonable.

I have an appointment to bring the printer in for repair tomorrow.

And probably a whoooooole lot of junk mail already on it's way.

Later, at midnight, I ran out to get a lightbulb for B so he could continue his schoolwork (all we had on hand in the house were "little shits that don't illuminate anything"). I was so impressed by his use of "illuminate" that I just quietly slipped on my sandals, nodded to him, grabbed my keys, and left.