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  1. I’ll cut you!

    November 4, 2004 by Collin

    Have you ever been bullied as a child? Did you ever stand up to your bully? Did it work?

    I was 13 at this time. I remember watching “My Bodyguard” and wishing that I had someone who could help me with my problem.

    Me, my mom, the guy she married and my new sister had moved from the area where I was running around letting the air out of tires to a condo in the area of the Junior High that I would have gone to if we hadn’t moved in the first place. Got that?

    This was the second JHS that I was attending and I can’t recall for sure if I started midyear. I’ll bet I did. I had left behind the new friends that I made (and there were simply TONS. TONS I SAY!) and was having…

    Wait… My brain just uncovered some of the dusty memories of my long forgotten past. Holy crap! Hang on just a bit more while I call my mom and try to straighten this out.

    … *ring-ring!*talkietalkietalkie*click!* …

    Oh man. I WAS abducted by aliens! Just kidding. But here we go. This is an accurate timeline of my whereabouts through school, corrected after talking with my mom:

    —

    1st-6th grade: Penrose Elementary School (year round hooptidoop, although for the life of me I don’t remember 1st or 2nd grade being there. She assures me that I was though. I could SWEAR that it was in 1st grade that I was hiding in the culvert rather than going to school like I was supposed to, and that wouldn’t have been Penrose, but I suppose that might have happened in Kindergarten.)

    Part of 7th grade: Sabin Jr. High (where I was supposed to go before divorce and new love and subsequent moving occurred.)

    Other part of 7th grade East Jr. High (flat tires and other mischief ABOUND)

    Part of 8th grade: Sabin again (where this story takes place.)

    Rest of 8th grade: Freed Jr. High in Pueblo.

    9th grade and part of 10th grade: Centennial HS in Pueblo.*

    Rest of 10th grade through 12th grade: Mitchell HS in Colorado Springs.

    —

    Continuing. This time at Sabin I was a moody kid. I didn’t mix well with others. Kept to myself for the most part. And one bully prick who was a grade or two ahead of me took notice of this fact and figured it would be fun to try to make my life an even larger slice of hell than it already was. I think I must have looked at him funny once, or perhaps he had something against my mom who had worked at Sabin in the office at one point. I don’t know for sure. He never really elaborated.

    He traveled at all times with three to five like minded subhumans, of course. That whole “pack (of assholes) instinct.” He was also well known for carrying through on his threats and beating the crap out of kids that he didn’t like, and occasionally his goons would join in on the thrubbing.

    I tried to be reasonable with him once and it got me knocked to the ground, kicked and my glasses tossed into a field. Yeah, he was a prick. No doubt about it.

    I did my best to avoid him from that point on, but one day he informed me that he and his giggle-buddies were going to kick my ass after school. I guess it was my turn or something. I was scared as hell. I didn’t know what to do. This was back in the day before most children and teachers were packing heat. And I know there is no way you could tell it by looking at me now, but I was a skinny little guy. A strong wind could knock the crap out of me. I REALLY didn’t want to get beat up, and was SO tired of being scared at school as well. Telling a teacher just wouldn’t have worked.

    So.

    I did what I figured was my only option.

    I went home at lunch that day on my bike, got a steak knife from the kitchen, hid it in my bike seat and went back to school.

    I spent the rest of the day thinking about how I might have to try to kill this kid. I was also worried about him getting the knife from me and killing me first. Or he could back off and then get me another time. I knew once I pulled out the knife I was committed to see it through regardless.

    The last bell rang and I was out of the building like a shot, figuring that my best bet was to get gone as fast as possible and avoid him for at least another day. Perhaps he would forget about me. I fumbled with my combination bike lock, shakily got on my bike and rode for home.

    Except they knew the path I was taking and were waiting for me with their bikes. I veered off but they were ready and after me like wolves on a bunny. I wound up in a sandy area and had to bail off my bike. I was fumbling under the seat for the knife when they surrounded me. It was stuck in the damned seat covering! One of his goons knocked me aside and looked under the seat to see what I was after. He pulled the serrated steak knife out and showed it to his “boss” saying, “Look at this!”

    Bully boss looked at me and said, “What? Were you planning on stabbing me?”

    I was visibly shaking and I looked him in the eye and shouted, “YES!”

    That seemed to catch him off guard a bit and he told his goon with my knife to give it to him. He looked at it, looked at me then told his goons, “Let’s go.” and they all rode off. He kept the knife, but I never had any trouble with him again. For a long time I was worried that he was going to commit a crime and leave the knife there with my prints on it. I think things like that.

    A couple months later I had moved to Pueblo to live with my dad and start my third Junior High (fourth if you count the two times at Sabin separately). There was a bully there as well, but that one went VERY differently.

    So, how about you? Any stories of childhood terror you would like to share?

    —

    *In my day, in Pueblo, High School started in 9th grade (Freshmen) and ran through 12th grade. In Colorado Springs, High School started in 10th grade (Sophomore) and ran to 12th grade.

    So I went through one year of High School in Pueblo as the lowest class rank, got hazed, picked on, etc. THEN moved BACK to Colorado Springs in the middle of THEIR lowest class and had to start it all over.

    They tried to haze me, but I was tired of the shit and let them know it wouldn’t work. It didn’t hurt that I was the only Sophomore in Junior level English, and had made some friends in the upper classmen. Well, maybe not “friends”, but they did know me, and I was holding my own there.

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  2. Well.

    November 3, 2004 by Collin

    There we go then.

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  3. The humanity!

    November 2, 2004 by Collin

    Skip this post if you don’t want to read a work related rant. Seriously. No funny in this one (or very little).
    —

    Oh man did I mess up. I took on another all-new CS ad yesterday. It was more of a garbled mess than the last one was, since it was a full page ad instead of a half. Twice the room to be stupid.

    I took it at 2:30, she needed a proof to show the client by 4:00 and she wasn’t there to ask questions. She had to leave because her child’s school let out early due to the weather or something. I did what I could with what I had and when she showed back up at 3:30 I cleared up what I could with her about her layout and had a proof ready by 4:15.

    Today, as I was working on two noon deadline ads, she brought it back with changes. Hah. Changes. THE WHOLE THING WAS CHANGED! And what’s more, rather than marking the changes on the proof I gave her (SINCE THE WHOLE THING WAS CHANGED) she had an ALL NEW messed up layout for it PLUS she was still pushing for an idea she had about tilting the dealer’s logo at a 45˚ angle on the bottom half of the ad (“I just can’t see why it won’t work.”), which in the space available was JUST INSANE!

    She also pointed out that the ad wasn’t due to the paper until Friday so I had lots of time to work with it. Like I don’t have ANYTHING else to do but work on her ONE ad. I had visions of rebuilding this ad ALL WEEK, because I was certain her new layout didn’t capture what the client was looking for any more than her last layout did: NOTHING WAS KEPT FROM THE LAST LAYOUT EXCEPT THE DEALER TAG AND FOOTER!

    I felt the familiar snap inside that told me I can’t take a certain person ANY MORE. BAD THINGS™ were going to happen. I looked at her and I calmly said, “S’s back. Why don’t you show this to her and she can explain to you why it won’t work, since I can’t seem to. Also she can help you with the layout,” I added because HER NEW LAYOUT WAS UNREADABLE! Also I wanted S, my art director, to get an idea of what we were dealing with from this woman.

    She said okay, and went away until S was available.

    About 15 minutes later, as I was wrapping up my noon ads, she went into S’s office. Since the door wasn’t closed, when my ads had printed, I joined them to find out what was being said.

    S was displaying the same reaction to CS’s idea that I had, and was showing her alternative ideas to make that half of the ad look better. Something I couldn’t do because CS wouldn’t listen to me. She has no choice but to listen to a VP.

    Also I could tell that CS wasn’t going to say anything about the top half that was having to be rebuilt from scratch. So I asked S if she could look over CS’s new layout and perhaps redraw it.

    S gave the layout a bewildered look and told CS that with this account the dealer needed to be given a good rough and then be held to it or we’ll be changing the ad all the time, to which CS said, “And we’ll lose all that time. I didn’t think of that.”

    … ??!!?!!

    WHAT?! YOU BITCH! HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE? Luckily S is far better at handling people than I am. She just took it in stride and said from now on CS would have to do it that way.

    I had to get my newest ads dropped off for proofing, so on my way out I said to S, “If you can rework that into something I can use, that would be great,” or something similar. Yeah. I had lost any kind of tact I might have possessed by that point.

    CS jokingly popped up with, “What’s the matter Collin? You can’t make sense of my chicken scratchings?” (her words, so there you go Monkey. They aren’t monkey scribblings. They are, in fact, chicken scratchings.)

    I *think* I just looked over my shoulder on the way through the doorway and said, “No.” But I was thinking SO many more things that I can’t be sure. I’m not fired yet though, and nobody is dead so whatever it was it couldn’t have been too bad.

    But I’m pretty sure that CS is now aware that I’m not too keen on working with her.

    I’m so stressed right now. Ugh.
    —
    On a brighter note, I finished reading “Going Postal” last night. It was a very good book overall, but I wasn’t quite fond of the ending.

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  4. But…

    November 1, 2004 by Collin

    … I’m not a CitiBank customer, you thieving, parasitical, scumbag fucks.

    UPDATE: I realized a bit after posting this that it might look like I am calling the people of CitiBank a bunch of thieving, parasitical, scumbag fucks. That’s not what I meant. I meant the crooks that are trying to sucker the less savvy customers into giving out their banking information are the fucks. Sorry for any confusion. I’m sure the employees of CitiBank are as honest as any other banking employees. Please don’t sue me.

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  5. Gimme that Olde Tyme Religion!

    November 1, 2004 by Collin

    So I sacrificed my kids last night to the Elder Gods.

    Nah, just kidding. But I did take them Trick-or-Treating which I’m sure has imperiled their souls in someone’s eyes. For the first time since my son’s been alive (as far as I can remember. I’m old and foggy.) we actually had nice munchie mooching weather. There was no wind and it was moderately warm. I took along their coats just in case, but we didn’t need them. And I got a sweaty arm for the effort.

    We only had an hour to beg so we stuck to participating apartments in the complex. Halfway around the main road their buckets were nearly full and we decided to stick to the bottom floor apartments from that point on. The overall consensus was that baby girl was cuuuute and the boy was creepy looking. Mission accomplished; everyone happy.

    Then we returned to our apartment to kill the remaining 20 minutes before we headed off to bear witness to the clash of the hockey titans. By that I mean the conflict between my brother Trevor’s hockey team and my coworker Derek’s hockey team. Derek, as I’m sure you know, also happens to be my girlfriend’s brother. To say that interests were conflicted would be an understatement.

    Derek’s team was still winless going into that night, and Trevor’s team had won their first game the previous weekend. Trevor had done a fair amount of trash talking before the game. Also Derek’s wife and father were there to cheer him on (my Heather and their mom were still on their way back from the Bronco game), and our mom and step-dad were there to cheer Trevor on. And there I sat, in the middle. It was like that scene in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ where their families played hockey.

    Personally, I was hoping for a good, close, well played game. I didn’t have a predetermined desire for a winner because I didn’t really want either team to lose. I just wanted us to all get along. And THAT was a stupid attitude. That was the most uncomfortable I’ve been in a long time, and MAINLY because Derek’s team whooped up on Trevor’s. The whooping didn’t really take off until the second period, but then WHAP! Ass kick city.

    I felt bad for Trevor, in spite of all of his pre-game trash talk. His team might as well have not been there. He faced 54 shots, and had some really great saves, but his defense… I have NO IDEA what they were doing. Falling down a lot it seemed. Even our mom agreed that Trevor’s team was there in body alone.

    I’m quite sure that he was disappointed and annoyed, but I couldn’t stick around to offer my condolences since the weather had finally started to behave normally for the last day of October and it was snowing and blowing and I wanted to get the kids home. I just hope he knows that I felt he played great considering how many shots he faced and not having a defense to speak of.

    This morning the roads were icy, the wind was freaking cold and blowing hard, and the other drivers were annoying. Also, school got canceled. The first time it snowed. That doesn’t bode well for this Winter.

    —

    I wonder if Jehovah’s Witnesses give out copies of ‘The Watchtower’ on Halloween. And are they annoyed by all the people coming to their doors for a change, or do they figure that fair is fair?

    —

    Oh yeahhhhh. I hope you aren’t waiting on the photos of the French Toast sticks because I threw them away. They had begun to curl in on themselves so I figured it was a lost cause. Heather saw them before they went though, so she can back up what I said about them. Just nasty.

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  6. Got my vote on.

    October 29, 2004 by Collin

    I actually forced myself to wake up early this morning so that I could run off and cast my vote here in wonderful Colorado, where there has been early voting for the last couple weeks or so. If you can’t vote early in your state, don’t look at it as the government doesn’t love you as much as they love us. I mean, of COURSE they don’t. But don’t look at it that way. It might depress you.

    It was special. The line was long, but there was a general air of happiness and glee. I wanted none of that, so it was a good thing I brought a book. The 45 minutes I stood in line FLEW by as I read “Going Postal”, the fantastic book that I may have mentioned before. Yes, I’m still not done. But I did get a good amount read in line. And no cops approached me so I guess people just don’t notice the title of the thing. Go figure.

    When I got out of the basement, where the line had stretched to, I saw there was an in-line demonstration of the new voting machines. The instructions fell from the woman’s lips like the giggles of God as she went through the magical motions that would teach us all the new way in which our voices shall be heard this election year! Or possibly not, if the machines cock up. We’ll have to wait and see.

    One witty fellow a few spots ahead of me asked her where on the electronic ignition card we were supposed to punch out our votes and you could see the gears behind the woman’s eyes seize up as she stuttered, “You don’t punch anything. You enter your votes on the screen. Like I just showed you.” And I could tell that right then SHE wanted to punch something. Then the line moved on a bit and she began her demonstration all over again for the people behind us. I could feel satisfaction and love radiate from her. It was soothing and vaguely pink.

    The witty fellow looked back at me and since I hadn’t yet returned to my book he engaged me in a conversation about the woman’s apparent lack of a sense of humor. I agreed, “Yes. She does seem to not get the funny,” and then he handled the rest of the conversation from there with the occasional noise of support from me. When he paused for a breath I returned to my reading in a way that I hope conveyed the feeling of, “Just because I’m being all democratic this morning doesn’t mean I actually like any of you people.” And the line moved on.

    When it came time to present my picture ID to prove that I was who I said I was, I tried to give the woman my voter registration card as well, thinking that’s what it was for. “I only need your ID sweetie,” she said because I AM so sweet. So I took back the card and sat down, which really was a mistake. My lower back decided to let me know just how pissed it was about standing in line all that time by attempting to kill me on the spot. I hurt. I hurt bad.

    She then handed me a paper to look over and sign if it was correct. I tried to focus on it, but I was still battling my back. I was pretty sure it was right though, so I signed it. I really hope I didn’t sign a “Live Organ Donor” card or something. Then I went to a different seat to await my chance at the new voting machine. My back was hurting so much that I couldn’t remember if she gave me my ID back. God knows how I voted.

    About the new machines: they are so friendly the one I was using tried to give me money. But I said, “No, no little machine! I don’t need money! I’m here to cast my wishes upon the sea of indifference once again, much like the lemming tosses itself from a cliff or a cat eats its young.” and it was as though it understood me. It promptly gave me a lemming. Such a special machine. So I tossed that sucker, thankful that it hadn’t given me a kitten as I wasn’t very hungry just then.

    I left the magnificent showcase of democracy in action with a spring in my step, hope in my heart and a lingering pain in my back. I was also going to need some bandages for the lemming bites and scratches, but it was worth it. MY VOICE WAS GOING TO BE HEARD! Or, again, not. You know. If the machines crap out.

    Whatever. I was late for work.

    In the spirit of bringing this country together I offer you this song by Herve Villechez. He has a magnificent voice and huge dreams for a small dead guy. If this doesn’t bring us together in our time of togetherness, then what can? Huh? What?

    If that link doesn’t work go here: Incorrect Music Siftings and scroll down to the entry on 10-9-01. It’s the third song. Listen, love and learn. I know I did.

    —

    As an afterthought, so many people seem to be voting early that it looks like the people who wait for November 2nd to vote may not have any lines at all. Wouldn’t that be FUNNY?! Grr.

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  7. Won’t go around there no more.

    October 28, 2004 by Collin

    Ugh. A quick post to let anyone interested know about my breakfast experience this morning.

    I had to get gas (for my car) and the gas station I prefer to use is at the bottom of the hill from my work. Right next to it is a SONIC (America’s Drive-In.). I had a few dollars cash so I bought some French Toast sticks and went up to work to eat them.

    There’s five in a box and the box is like a french fry container. I ate three then I pulled out the fourth one and saw that the end had been bitten off of it. No joke. Remember when I said I have a problem with drinking from a stranger’s glass? It’s the same with finding something fucked up with my food. And that was fucked up. I’m queasy now.

    —

    In looking it over again as I write this I suppose there’s a chance that it had been clipped off by the tongs they use since the fifth one has a quarter moon indent in it, but it doesn’t have a matching indent on the back. If they scooped up more than one with the tongs that could explain that. And when I put the bits over each other the arcs match.

    But either way that’s seriously shitty service. You don’t clip off a quarter of a french toast stick and then go ahead and put it in the box. And you don’t bite the end off and then put it in the box.

    —

    The AE handling the ad I have going out suggested that I write the company and get “something like a lifetime supply of –”

    “More shitty food like this that I don’t want to eat? No thanks,” I said. My opinion on the matter is this: I can’t prove anything and couldn’t possibly gain anything that I would want from making a bigger deal of it than this post. I hate people who sue for stupid reasons and am not about to become one. I’m just never eating there again. Ever. Fuck SONIC and the yo-yos they hire to work there.

    I’ll try to post some photos at some point, time allowing.

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  8. Okay, one more political style post/link thingie.

    October 27, 2004 by Collin

    Please, if you haven’t already voted (there’s early voting in Colorado) check out what this person has to say:

    Trout Fishing in South-Central Wisconsin

    I feel that it’s very well written and brings up several valid and interesting points. Points that I can’t even begin to express because, let’s face it, I’m not a writer.

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  9. Back from the dead in time for Halloween.

    October 27, 2004 by Collin

    I guess Adverbloggin wasn’t as dead as I originally thought. That or, in the words of Mr. Burns of the Simpsons, he “pulled a Jesus!’ It seems that he changed his address from this to this without telling anyone and also prettied up his template, much like Jesus would have in his place, I’m sure. Then he kept on writing in the face of much doubt as to the point of it all.

    You see, Jesus had an audience for his resurrection. Andy seems to be wrapped in a shroud of obscurity far thicker than even mine. His other two readers didn’t even know he changed the site address, that’s how sneaky he was.

    So would those of you who visit my site mind popping by and checking his stuff out? I can’t promise you that you will like it. All I can say is that I find it interesting, and now that he knows he has a potential audience beyond his closest relations I’m curious to see where he will take it.

    The pressure’s on Andy. Time to walk on water or cure some lepers.

    (Also, this isn’t the same Andy that comments on Derek’s, Heather’s and my blog. He still doesn’t want to start one.)

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  10. This is horrible!

    October 26, 2004 by Collin

    States Failing to Fight Rising Obesity Rates – Trustworthy, Physician-Reviewed Information from WebMD

    Colorado is in last place! We’re behind Hawaii for God’s sake! If you live in Colorado and aren’t eating a meal of Twinkies™ and cheese while you read this, you just aren’t doing your part! This is YOUR fault, you selfish, exercising, low carb eating, Atkins™®© friendly bastards! We’re last because of YOUUUUU!

    I know I’m doing MY part, but we can all do better! Quick! Go out and stuff a skinny person! For the sake of Coloradans everywhere!

    !!! (for good measure and added emphasis)

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