Not Penny's Blog

Okay, so here’s the story about the pumpkins:

My friend got married yesterday and we missed the wedding because of work but we made it to the reception. Because its mid-September and the reception was in a nature center (awesome!) there was a little bit of a fall theme. Not overbearingly, but the tables all had these tiny pumpkins. 

So they’re cleaning up at the end of it and we’re still hanging out because we haven’t seen these people in forever and we can talk until three in the morning when we get together. All of a sudden, the Maid of Honor hands us a tiny pumpkin. 

“Take one.”

“Um… okay?”

“Take another.”

“….?”

“It is my duty as Maid of Honor to make sure that the guests leave with an uncomfortable number of tiny pumpkins.”

So it turns out that she’d gotten a bunch of them for a Halloween party last year and after the party was over her mom threw them into the compost heap thinking that would be the end of it. But what she didn’t seem to realize was that if you put pumpkins in a compost heap- it grows more pumpkins. It grows pumpkins exponentially. Serious mathematical anomaly pumpkins. 

So this year she has even more tiny pumpkins and she figured it would be a good idea to have them as decor for the reception. BUT- she would still have to throw them out at the end of the day and no matter where you throw them you are doomed to have a ridiculous amount of tiny pumpkins growing SOMEWHERE at your fault. 

So everyone left with at least two tiny pumpkins and that’s how we made friends with the Maid of Honor. 

So I forgot about it and then the next morning I woke up and found these two tiny pumpkins in my purse and had a puzzling moment of ‘what?’

We were invited to the Maid of Honor’s house the other day so we could:

And there are just… tiny pumpkins EVERYWHERE.

They were in the bathroom.

At the end of the night, I counted 26 tiny pumpkins, and that was just what I could see. 

It happened again.

Three pumpkins ended up in my purse this time. 

One of them has a face. 

I need to stop drinking with this woman. 

this is getting out of hand.

Okay so I finally had a day off and decided that the best way to handle the pumpkin situation was to eat them and muffins sounded fucking fantastic. But I found out really fast that most recipes call for a ‘can’ of pureed pumpkin and I don’t have a scale to go by. So I figured that I had six pumpkins, it would probably amount to something like one can, right?

Well… no. 

It ended up being something like two and a half cans-ish. And that’s a really rough estimate. Turns out there’s a lot more meat on those things than you think there’d be. So I figured I could do something like double it and then make a half batch. 

But then I ran out of sugar. I mis-measured the baking soda. I only had whole cloves, so I had to grind them down and had to estimate how much I needed. I couldn’t find the liquid measure.

I’m mixing up this giant bowl of pumpkin batter goo thinking shit shit shit this is going to be a mess. There’s no way anyone is going to be able to eat these things. And there’s no muffin cups. But I already made it this far and I’m stubborn as hell so in the oven they go. 

I… kind of… forgot about them? Woops!

Place starts smelling like Yankee Candle and I’m like SHIT. Get over to the oven and… 

they’re… 

….somehow perfect?

Maybe a little dry, but they’re fucking delicious. Fucking magic pumpkins. Truly I am a witch. 

So the moral of the story is that if life gives you tiny pumpkins, make them into muffins and give them right back. 

Also roast the seeds because hell yeah. 

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We’ve found her in real life guys

An actul fictional character in real life

she even baked with them

This is not the only evidence posed to me that I might, in fact, be a fictional character. 

Proper hurricane categories.

TIPS FOR HURRICANE IRMA. STAY SAFE MY FLORIDA FRIENDS! Gas prices are already up to $3 and water is hard to find until new deliveries come in. I have to drive much farther out for supplies.

Roast the fuck out of them. Being family doesn’t mean you ever have to be okay with that shit.

*slow clapping at the dad*

I always reblog this.

Story Time: in 2012, when I still lived in Florida, I used to work for a credit union, and I had the absolute worst manager and assistant manager. They were sloppy, lazy, and offloaded their work onto other people. No biggie; I’m grown and I can handle my job and not stress because I’m damned good at it. Problem: the manager and assistant manager, who happened to be best friends in real life, also happen to be very, very conservative older women. I’m talking like, hardcore conservative Christians, the kind who are not very good people and are very unlike Christ. I don’t make it a point to tell people I work with my business because when you work, you’re busy and you don’t want to burden other people, right? At least, I don’t. Subject of my love life comes up after a while of me staying in my lane, and I’m also not a liar, so I casually mention that I happen to be gay and I’m dating someone at the time. The change in my managers was almost immediate. From that point on they tried their utmost to make my life miserable, but I wasn’t going to break. Fast forward about a month after this mess and one of the tellers, Tanika, and I have become really good friends, and she pulls me aside one Monday morning to tell me that she overheard the manager and assistant manager talking about firing me, and she didn’t want to get too involved, but she didn’t think it was fair so she wnated to give me a headsup. Here’s the best part: these asshats are SO lazy that they literally say - or so Tanika tells me- that they’ll wait for the end of the week to do it, because otherwise they would have no one to cover my Wednesday shift, and they’d have to sit on the teller line, and no siree Bob, they’re too good for that! Too important! Too. Fucking. Lazy. Immediately I type up a two week notice at my station, print that shit out, and take it to that sloppy ass manager in her sloppy ass office. They have no receipts on me, but these people will find anything and use it to get rid of you if they can, and I’m not having a forcible termination on my record and dealing with how that will look to future employers. Keep in mind that I’m not supposed to know that they’re planning on firing me, and I’ve done my homework on company policy about two week notices (they had just changed it in January, and it was February). I give her the paper, sit in front of her, tell her some cock and bull story about needing more time for school. She looks upset, tells me to leave the letter, and go back to my station. I pull out a second copy of the letter and say: “Sure! But, first, I need your signature on this one, which is my copy of the two week notice.” Her face was a Goddamned mask at this point, but I could tell she was burning up inside. She’s trapped; she has to either sign it and pretend everything is fine, or she refuses and I go in on her for her “suspicious behavior” and call her higher ups. She signs my copy. I go back and finish my day. Day ends and the assistant manager comes to me and tells me they have spoken to the president of the credit union and they have decided to terminate me anyway. Tells me I need to turn in my drawer and vault keys immediately and leave the premises. I refuse; “I’m not leaving until we count my drawer down together, I have a printed and signed copy of my balance, and you have signed paperwork confirming that I have given you all keys back.” She has no choice. I walk out with all necessary paperwork, get home, and immediately email the credit union president telling him what happened and how I think it’s utterly unprofessional for an employer to behave this way. He calls me the next day to my personal phone, and tells me the manager and assistant manager both told him I had quit on the spot and walked out without so much as a goodbye. I tell him I have a signed two week notice from the manager, because this sloppy ho can’t even keep own story together for five minutes. He tells me to photocopy it and email it to him. I do. Tells me he is going to have a discussion with the manager and call me back ASAP. Calls me back, apologizes profusely, and tells me that I shouldn’t have been treated as such, so he offers to pay me for the two weeks I had give notice for, ON TOP of an extra two weeks of compensation, and I didn’t even have to show up to the branch anymore. He was paying me a full month for no work to make up for the situation. First paycheck comes in, and I put on my best outfit. Pick out the hottest shit in my closet that says: “I look incredible” but also “I have free time and you don’t” and “enjoy working here while I get paid while napping at the beach,” and I walk my happy little ass into that bank to pick up my paycheck like:

Happily greet the manager and assistant manager, who are both there like:

Say hello to my friend Tanika, who is at the teller line like:

Enjoying the fuck out of this show, right? Like, she can’t say it out loud, but she’s fucking living for this goddamned circus and it’s written all over her face! I talk to her and loudly tell her how amazing it feels to have four weeks off with pay, and how polite and nice the bank president is.  Then I walk my happy little ass out of the bank like:

But not before saying bye to the manager and assistant manager and reminding them that I’ll be back in two weeks to pick up my next check, “probably right before I head to Key Largo for the weekend.”  …and that’s the story of how I once absolutely wrecked two people who thought they could use their positions of power to come for me unfairly, and a story I’ll be telling my grandchildren so they know, as grandpa knew on one February morning of 2012, that you take bullshit from absolutely no one.

This is why we read our employee handbooks and never EVER trust anybody in a position of power over us, kids.

Pokemon Mashups

As hilarious as that is…

… we’re out of glue. 

Completely out of glue. The glue slime trend that has swept the middle schools in our area has maxed out all outlets of glue from December 18th to today’s date- February 6th. We keep getting shipments of glue, but they only come in 20-bottle boxes and they are completely gone by the time the weekend is out. Children are buying them by the armful. 

And I would find this cute and honestly amazing that these kiddos are getting their first taste of entrepreneurship (mine was in high school, where I made novelty school ID’s) if it weren’t for the involvement of the parents. 

Because the kids are like ‘aw, you don’t have any? Ok. We’ll try somewhere else- thank you! Where’s your glitter?’

The parents… oh gods the parents. 

Calling us up at 9am- “What do you MEAN you don’t have any glue!? ITS A BASIC CRAFT ITEM! YOU HAVE TO HAVE GLUE!”

“You’re telling me that you DON’T CARRY GLUE?”

“I’m calling your corporate office to tell them just how wholly unprepared you all are because this is the fourth store I’ve called and NONE of you have any glue.”

“Can I pre-order? What do you MEAN I have to order from the website?”

“When will you be getting more? You don’t KNOW! HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW!? Two weeks at the EARLIEST!?”

“Can you call me when you get some? YOU CAN’T EVEN CALL ME WHEN YOU GET IT IN?”

I once caught one of our framers taking a call like these and I saw her re-inact Winona Ryder’s entire range of facial expressions a la SAG awards, eventually ending in her left eye going slightly wall when the angry parent finally hung up. 

And there are some that call every single day, asking the same questions and hoping that they’ll get a different answer. But no. I’m sorry. The Glue Fairy didn’t make a surprise visit last night. We did not plant the glue seeds in time for the harvest and now there is a glue famine. The small child that we sent to fetch more glue has been captured by witches- who are now intent on raising her as their own and we wish them luck. 

One day, my brother will have children and they will ask me about the Glue Famine of 2017 and I will recall a very specific instance wherein I could feel flecks of spittle coming through the end of the phone. 

One day I shall die and a team of necromancers will raise me from my crumbling sarcophagus and the very first words from my revived, husk of a maw will be ‘WE ARE STILL OUT OF GLUE, CRETINOUS FILTH!’

And this is how I knew that 2017 was going to be a bad year. Retail-mancy: I divine the fall of our nation by the fact that we are perpetually out of basic adhesives. And its not the children that buy them that make it a problem, but the parents who imagine that we somehow have control over the entire damn glue industry. 

Here. Buy that shit online and teach your children the benefits of buying bulk, because apparently it’s too late for the fucking adults, if my previous encounters with adult entrepreneurs is any indication. 

Why you want to yell at me for telling you the truth is beyond me when you could be putting all that energy towards not sucking. GIT GUD. 

I just learned today that tomorrow our store will be hopping on the glue slime trend and making an end cap to make easy access to our stock of glues, glitters, and I suppose we might be adding borax to our inventory. 

Need I remind you that this is what our glue stock has looked like for the past two months:

We just got some in two days ago and its already gone. 

So you have to imagine the position we’re in here- where we’re advertising glue that does not exist for more than three days every two to four weeks because of these tots are hell-bent on selling slime to their sandbox buddies.

 We’re not selling glue. We’re selling the concept of glue. We are selling the desire for glue. We are inspiring others to covet the glue we do not have. The glue is unknowable. It is invisible, intangible, ineffable. One day the glue uprising shall be upon us, and none shall speak its name. 

So like just in case you didn’t get the message-

We are out of glue.

Glue we are out of. 

Out of glue we are.

We glue of are out.

Because the dozen or so rows where we used to stock our glue is now a gaping cavity of woe, our heathen customers have decided that this is the perfect space to lazily put things that they just suddenly decide they don’t want anymore. And for some ridiculous reason, the most popular thing to leave where an associate can find it is fake flowers. 

Not even the first time this has happened, people. People are attempting to build a memorial to the glue that was, and will never be again. The time of glue has passed, we shall remember it fondly. Ashes to ashes, goop to goop. 

Rest in Particulate, Glue Aisle. 

Its about to get…

…significantly worse. 

I’ve had several people contact me about an email that went out from our company, advertising Glue Slime and giving out a recipe (instead of borax, using baking soda and contact lens solution… I weep for our local optometrists). Luckily, we were sent a large ration of glue on Thursday in preparation for the endcap that we just put up.

And for a moment, the balance was restored. We could rebuild! There was enough glue to fill the dozen or so places in its home and have a good amount for the display. Sadly, we were only given a few bottles of clear glue- which is the one that people really want because…. clear slime. But things were looking better!

But little did we know… 

… President’s Day was coming. 

And the children… needed something to do… 

Here is a photo of the display on Saturday morning. 

And here it is on Monday morning:

They have ravaged our glue surplus to 1/10th. The glue that filled its home space is completely gone. I am honestly surprised that the meager 40 bottles we have left are still there, and by the time I finish writing this- they may not be. 

Why would you do this to us, Mr President?

So while we have those 40 bottles, we can at least fend off the screaming parents, but I anticipate that a considerable amount of screaming will have already started by the time I start my shift this afternoon. 

I shall scream as well. 

I scream, they scream- we all scream into the yawning void of the glue section in hopes that the Elmer, God of Cheap Adhesives, will hear our cries and grant us the glue we so desperately yearn for. We shall be united in our despair. 

We have reached a place in our glue stock where we are consistently keeping up with demand, more or less. We get it in on Wednesday, they all come in on the weekend and we’re out by Monday- giving people one day to bitch and moan because what would these people do if they weren’t allowed to scream at us for a whole thirty seconds?

Well, I came in to work on Wednesday and I found this at our customer service desk:

Look out world- we have the gallons!

People asked for the gallons of glue, they got the gallons of glue. 

There were 20 of them on that endcap. I saw a woman buy three of them at once (and of course she wanted to use a coupon on each and every one of them because ‘gosh- who knew that glue would be so expensive!’ Like… lady- you’re getting this at 20 cents an ounce if you get it without a coupon. It’s not expensive, you’re just a cheapskate.)

By the end of Wednesday, they were all gone. We sold 20 gallons of glue in four hours. People were laying down $60 for glue. I could feel my Great Depression-raised grandpa shaking his head from…. I dunno, probably Purgatory.

Now the entire area knows that we have the glue gallons- the word has spread. But we don’t have them in stock and guess what emotions they have over it! If you guessed ‘anger’ then you’re right! So they do what they’ve always done when they need a literal gallon of glue and there are no gallons of glue to be had: they buy a ton of individual bottles. 

But now knowing that there is an easier way to do this that is yet inaccessible to them fills them with ennui, and as they walk through the store their excitement over their hoard wanes and they put some of it back. 

Now, any person of the retail-worker persuasion will tell you that a customer never puts an item back where they’re supposed to. That would be, frankly, preposterous. So instead, as they lose their grip on their desire for glue, they leave a single bottle where it is most convenient to them- a symbol of their defeat. 

This is a fancy way of saying that I found a bottle of glue in every aisle one night because someone got pissy about not being able to buy it by the gallon and forgot to get a basket. 

THE EPIC SAGA CONTINUES

how the fuck did we get from 12x12 squares of paper the the glue famine

Embrace the absurdity or be doomed by it. 

How does she do it

They don’t give up so easily nowadays

WE DO NOT DESERVE DOGS

This was so much better than I expected

One of the most beautiful commercials I have ever seen. Good on you, Amazon Prime. 

Also just saying the music in the background is the piece “i giorni” by Ludovico Einaudi and it’s the most perfectly beautiful piece for this advertisement.

I still cry and I think I’ve watched it 200times now. I can’t

Everytime i watch it i start to love it even more

this legitimately gave me chills 

This is so cute

This commercial gives a strong message! 😊

hope your pets stay healthy in 2017

I almost didn’t blog this and felt guilty

Please spread the word for anyone potentially affected by the ban !!!

If that doesn’t say ‘suck my dick, Nazis’. I don’t know what does

Over 113, now! He missed celebrating his Bar Mitzvah because of the first World War, so he finally observed it September 2016, a hundred years later.