Shepherds... Hounds... Terriers... Oh My!

Added some great new designs today! I have this one design on my store I call "Parrots." I know, very unique, right? Well, I took the same concept for dogs! I take a certain type of dogs, we'll say, Shepherds. I put SHEPHERDS on a t-shirt, distress the words a bit. In front of THAT, I put a type of shepherds in a pretty blue font that is NOT distressed. Say, Australian. This is the result: http://www.cafepress.com/menageriemayhem.47402178 . View a larger image to really get an idea of the design. I have them designed right now for all the shepherds, hounds, and terriers available on my site. Quite a few!!

Oh, and a shout out to 4 Crazy Dogs for affiliate linking me, I've been getting some hits off there. She's got some nice stuff, be sure and stop by!

The Dog Collar

Mickey's parents brought over a new large dog shock collar today. That's nice. Mickey doesn't own any large dogs. I own two, but I have a remote shock trainer for Roofus already. And it's under warranty. It's a nice one too, about 7 months old.

Mickey calls to me and informs me that we'll put mine on his dog and Roofus gets the new one. Wait a second, what?? My nice 10 level $100 shock collar is going on HIS dog and I get this bulky ugly one that has just one shock level? I don't THINK so. I told him if he wanted to use my shock collar than he needed to pay me $100 for it. He responded that his dog couldn't wear the new one because it had only one level. WTF? So my dog can just get the hell shocked outta him? I think not! I repeated, if you want your tiny twenty pound dog to wear my large dog shock collar, you owe me $100.

The Fair

I went to the State Fair today. I wish I could say I had fun. I guess in my miserable little way it was. I primarily go to the fair to eat fair food, and that's it. I like looking at the chickens and the horses too, but if I don't see them my day isn't ruined or anything. Mickey's doing this weird thing where he thinks we are boyfriend and girlfriend, despite the fact that I spelled it out for him before we bought this dinky house. There is not, nor will there ever be, anything between us. I guess that wasn't clear enough for him. I was telling him how the women at the dog park were suggesting different places for me to meet men, and he got really upset. Telling me he hoped I brought my own money to pay for stuff because he wasn't going to do it if I was going to look for other men.

Uhhh, "other" men? Maybe a "man" to begin with!

Plus he's getting all stupid about his weight. At the fair he mentioned he wanted to go white water rafting. I said that's not a good idea. He wanted to know why so I told him - when he gets tired we can't just stop. Plus I don't think any rafting place would ALLOW him to go. He's about 300 pounds, and when we did an 8 mile bike ride a few years back he had to stop every fifteen minutes! There were kids on training wheels (who finished before us, btw) that only stopped once the entire time. It was annoying. If he can't do that, how is he going to go rafting?

He also saw some guy dressed up as a dummy sitting in a kayak waving at kids in a water safety exhibit. He said that would be a great job! I said I don't think so, it'd be uncomfortable being all cramped up in a kayak for hours. THAT turned into this huge thing where Mickey wants to remember himself as going kayaking a lot and how it isn't uncomfortable and blah blah. I think Mickey wants to remember himself as this really active person when in reality, he's not.

Case in point, whenever I come home from work I can rely on him being stationed in front of the television, either sleeping on laying like a log. I can spend the rest of my day cleaning the house, cooking meals, washing/walking/playing with the dogs, and ditto for the birds, and he will still be on that sofa doing nothing but growing fatter.

He bought himself a puppy but doesn't want to take him for walks (It's hot, or I'm tired, or that's too far for a little dog), or in general exercise the dog. And of course it's one of those high energy dogs that NEEDS a lot of exercise. Oh well, it'll just grow up to be fat and bad tempered like his other one.

Active? Yea. Active like a sloth.

Near Death Experiences

Ok, in the past week I've nearly died a few times... I think a Higher Power is trying to kill me.

I'm traveling up 315 North on my way to work. I'm in the middle lane, happily cruising along. The exit before mine is just bumper to bumper stopped cars. No biggie. Driving along, kinda happy, which is rare nowadays. About 30' in front of me, this asshole pulls out of the stopped lane. I am going about 65 miles an hour! I slam on the brakes, look in the rear and sideviews, but I can't swerve into another lane because there are cars. So I slam even harder and hope my car can handle the stop!! Stop it did, INCHES from asshole's bumper. Horn was blaring the entire time. The guy did not even ACKNOWLEDGE that he tried to kill me. So I follow him, luckily he's going my way anyway. At the stop light off the exit, I roll my window down and exhaust every single profanity I know (which takes some time considering I've invented a few, like "jerkass" and "fucktard". I know he hears me because his window is rolled down. Feeling slightly vindicated I drive onwards to work.

A few days later I'm taking my dog to an offleash park for him to romp and play. Again, traveling up 315. There is some light construction on the highway, which there usually is anyway. All of the sudden one of the workers darts across the lanes to grab up his precious orange barrels for the night. The obligatory cop that's sitting there eating donuts while they sweat suddenly flips on his lights and jumps onto the freeway blocking the two lanes. Again, I have to slam on my breaks because of the short notice (although this time I was probably 50' away), cursing the cop and civil service jobs in general. I was probably angrier this time because I had my dog with me and should anything happen to HIM I am likely to go on a homicidal spree.

I'm pretty sure I had another near death thing the next day but I just don't recall what it was. I did get a bad haircut, never go to Great Clips. Every time I go there they butcher my hair. This time they made it whopper-jawed. I only needed 2" cut off to even it all up since it's growing out, and my left side is longer than my right. The stylist didn't believe me, it looked even to her. She snipped off the tiniest smidgeon to satisfy me but ya know what? I'm not satisfied. I wear my hair in pigtails until my next haircut.

Asshole customers

Firstly, the customer is not always right. We simply allow him to believe he is always right, so he'll keep coming back and spending money in our store. Right after he leaves he is the topic of discussion for at least an hour, and we make fun of everything about him from his lousy hair-do to how he probably does in bed. Yep. We do. We have lousy jobs, it makes us happy. Throw us a bone.

So, this guy comes in. He was an asshole anyway the day he originally came in - the hoyty toyty type, where they assume I'm a moron, I know nothing about animals... when in reality I'm thinking the same thing about them, because 99.9% of the time, it's true. It was true this time too, but that's another story.

Our credit cards, were, of course, not working. The stupid assistant manager of the store left me hanging about what to do about customers, and made me run Asshole's card through about six times. It didn't work, duh, because our credit cards were down. Decline, decline, decline. I ask what to do, ass manager disappears (later he tells me to tell people we're not taking credit cards - a retard if ever i heard one (I ignored him)). So I get out the handy dandy piece of paper, write down the credit card number and expiration, total, have him sign it, write out a receipt, send him on his merry way.

A few days later, ass manager gets a call from the guy saying he was charged five times. Interesting, huh? I still don't see how that happens, when it gets declined six times. When I ran it through the next day, I did it once, and it went through. See, in the wonderful world of credit cards, when you get charged like that but have no authorization, it's called a ghost charge. It normally drops off in a few days. Like when you go to the gas station - they authorize your card for $50 regardless of whether you spend that much or not. And it drops off.

So ass man answers the phone, and I guess Asshole was pretty angry, as it was his debit card and all. Asshole wants his money back TODAY, he doesn't want to wait seven days or however long it is to reverse a charge. Ass man, being a dumbass, agrees. Hangs up. I give him the look. He doesn't understand why I give him the look. There is NO PLACE anywhere that will give you cash back if you've been overcharged. Especially when your $20 purchase was rung up apparently six times. Whatever. I force ass man to call someone important that knows something, because he is obviously a dumbass. Important Ass tells him they will personally call the bank and have it sorted out. After all, we don't know if he's being 100% truthful and they could be ghost charges blah blah blah. Ass man thinks the company is "mean" and it's "not right." I tell ass man to go suck a lemon.

The next day, guess who appears? Asshole, who was so eager for his money, waddled in a day after he reamed ass man. Began being extremely rude to the manager. Now, pardon me, but if someone comes in and starts being rude to me when I've done nothing to them (yet), well, that makes me become very much LESS helpful. There is a line in this world about how you can treat people that supposedly wronged you, and he definitely crossed it. He started accosting employees and asking them if they rang his credit card through repeatedly. He told the manager that this was credit card fraud and he was going to call the police in and have them arrest everyone (yeah right, the cops would smack him upside the head and go back to important crimincals). Manager was nervous and gave him a cash refund - which I think is a huge mistake. I hope he never comes in again though. I might have to run his card through five times again.

Boy, people are nasty. I hope if any of you go into a store you don't behave in a way that makes me want to bitchslap you. You're supposed to be adults. Of COURSE mistakes are made at retail stores in this day and age - we have people making $6 an hour, trying to raise a family on it, because we keep electing dumbasses and their children to the presidency, and they are DEPRESSED and feeling like SHIT because of their LOW POSITION in life, so OF COURSE they aren't going to pay 100% attention and mistakes will be made. Not that *we* made a mistake, I just was ranting. By the way, my employment doesn't even offer health insurance to full time employees! And I make as much as people that just started a few months ago. Isn't that nice? I love my job.

Yay baby birds!

I think the rest of my birds will hatch... egg #5 hatched yesterday, so that's three so far. #2, #4, and #5. Hopefully the rest do hatch, I could sure use the money.

Agh where does the money go?

I need a money spenders anonymous support group!! I just saw my credit card statement, and not only do they keep raising my limit, but I keep reaching it!! So far, I owe $7k on one visa, $2500 on another (which to my credit I only pay on it, never use it), then my dirtbike I owe like $3k more on, my car about $8k.... sheesh, I only make $7.50 an hour! Kids, this is why you should ignore your parents!! Don't go to college, waste your time getting a degree while everybody else is out getting job experience. GET A JOB RIGHT AWAY! Unless you're going to be a doctor, lawyer (good luck getting a job there, btw), or a chemical engineer, welcome to the wonderful world of working retail!
You got it! I've got a degree, and there isn't shit to be found in my field. So I look out of my field - most places won't hire me because i'm overqualified, and the rest just don't respond. You get 3,000 people applying for a single job opening, do you find it likely you are going to be the one hired? Your degree means jack unless you have real world experience doing precisely what the job is hiring you for. So I hope you like flipping burgers, because that's likely what you'll end up doing.

Babies, babies, where are they??

Well, Darwin and Etcetera are a pair of my cockatiels, they've had babies before, and they're having them now. They laid seven eggs, and I knew all seven wouldn't hatch, but the first one didn't hatch! I would think that if ANY of them were to hatch, it would at least be number one. The second one hatched Tuesday, and now it's Thursday, and I should have another baby, and I don't. It would really, really suck if I only get one baby out of seven eggs. I knew I should have tossed egg #7. I've got the heat going in the bird room constantly which is probably going to up my electricity bill by $50, all to get one lousy baby? I think if they only hatch out one I'll just not handfeed it, it can be parent raised. It's just not worth the effort.