Dear customers, if the lights aren't on yet, and it's before the open time stated on the door, it means I'm not yet ready to take care of customers. If you DO happen to come in, please don't stand at the counter and sigh and then give me dirty looks when I come back from taking care of whatever tasks the previous shift didn't finish. We aren't open yet, you aren't yet my priority.

If you put your money into our change machine, and it spits the bill back out, please don't yell at me, simply try it again, the machine is tricky sometimes. Please don't grumble at me if you're trying to put your money in the wrong part of the machine either. On that note, the ATM will not give you quarters no matter how hard you hit it, or how much you curse at it. The reason the card slot isn't taking your money is because you're doing it wrong, and you shouldn't be allowed in public alone. If you've managed to use the ATM properly and get a $20 bill and don't want that many quarters you don't need to bother walking over to the change machine just to stand and stare. We both know that you're going to come ask me for smaller bills, it's alright to do that immediately while I'm still paying attention.

If you happen to get your quarters stuck in a washing machine, is it too hard to try pressing the "coin return" button? I promise it'll be faster than walking all the way over to me, and back over to your machine just to have me follow and press the button for you and walk back to the heaps of laundry I was busy folding. If you try that and it doesn't work, then I'll be more than happy to follow you back with a paper clip to un-jam the quarters.

You don't need that much detergent. I promise. If a washing machine overflows with soap bubbles, please don't lie to me and say you didn't put that much soap in. If all of the machines you were using suddenly bubble over and turn into a giant sudsy mess, it's your fault. If you've ran a wash cycle and your clothes have more dry spots than wet spots that also is not my fault. There's only so much room inside a washer. Yes, you can stuff a lot of clothes in there, but they need room to move around if you want them to actually get clean.

If you have children, I understand your desire to spend time with them and save money on sitters or give dad a day off, but kids hate it here, and the employees hate them here. There is nothing exciting for kids to do, they will get bored. So unless you can plop them down in front of a TV and get them to sit still regularly, please find somewhere else for them to be while you're here.

Tanners, oh dear sorority girls and leathery old ladies. If all of our tanning beds are full why do you sit and wait 20 minutes? And while you're waiting why must you constantly check to see that I'm still here? Yes, I'm here, and yes, there is still someone laying naked in that bed. I have to wait for them to come out before I can clean it up for you, so maybe instead of staring me down you should just pick the lock and stare at the person tanning, that might hurry them up.

Yes, the doors lock when you close them. This means that if you set your purse in there and close the door to run to the bathroom I'm going to have to unlock the door for you to get back in. This mistake is acceptable the first time, but when it happens every time you're here for a month it's about time to learn from it. Also, please don't close the door behind you once you've finished. I don't like having to unlock the door just so I can wipe your sweat out of a bed. The keys are big and clunky and the doors don't unlock as smoothly as they once did. It's a pain in the ass.

I would like you to take a look around the room next time you're in there. When you first walk in you'll notice that the radio isn't on yet. Please return it to that setting once you've finished, I don't like having to stop in the middle of folding someone's underwear just to turn off that horrible music that you left on. And if you closed the door behind you and left your music on deafen mode, I might just go home that day and voodoo you.

You'll also notice that there is, clearly labeled, a waste basket and a dirty towel basket. Your garbage doesn't need to be tossed on the floor, and neither does that towel that you used to wipe sweat from your butt crack, thanks for leaving the puddle of sweat on the bed for me though, I understand it's a lot of work to wipe that up. Please don't confuse the two baskets, it's a pain to scrape gum out of the towel basket, and out of the towels for that matter. Lastly, for the grossest of people, neither of these baskets are meant to double as a toilet. Why would you even think that that could be acceptable? I should not have to dump your pee out while I'm getting the bed ready for your sorority sister that's been impatiently waiting to use that bed.

Dear Laundromat customers, please respect me and the things here, and I shall respect you in return. Otherwise I'll go home and share your stupidity with everyone I know, and point you out if we ever see you in public.

This is my second letter to Howard. read.


Dear Howard, you know that you were destined for far greater things than to write yourself a letter. I realized in my last letter how it pained you, spending so much time writing of yourself, forced by my hand to tell yourself the feelings that I had about you, how I thought you were selfish. Dear Howard, I have nothing but the most respect for you. My last letter was an attempt to please the crowd that raved over our story about you. You have every right to claim the pride. You were the main topic of the best story ever to have escaped onto paper from my own hand. I was selfish, wanted the fame, but I realized that it made my words fail. Oh Howard, how I envy you. You always knew it doesn't matter who the pencil is. the pencil is merely a vessle, a tool used in passing to tell of far greater things. Things better than the penci. Poor pencils, always being forgotten.

This is one of two follow ups on the story of my pencil. I was upset at my dear Howard, I couldn't stop writing about him, this is what follows:


Howard, oh Dear Howard. Since last I wrote of you I have felt nothing but your self centered desire to write of yourself. Selfish Howard! Oh how your jelousy has kept me from writing of other topics. This is NOT the Howard that earned my praises, no. Howard was a pencil who sacrificed part of his being to sing the praises of our lost forever, but never (no, never) forgotten, dear Mr. Pickles. For Howard, you knew that some day you would be put in a drawer, set aside, maybe even pushed to the back of our minds, but the part of you left behind, traces from your brief affairs on the paper, those will live forever. For the Howard I loved cared not for himself, but for the love that could be shared and spread through the art of the words that he helped create.

So...if you haven't ready my post on my Arby's experience, you should do that too...this happened the same day, last saturday. Pretty much the worst day ever.

I was sitting around with some friends at their house discussing how we should be going to John's play since we had told him we would be there. Weird thing is that I didn't have any reason at all not to go, it just didn't feel like the right time for me to go. Weird. We all decided that we could go on Sunday so we popped in a movie, cracked some beers, grabbed some cards and settled in for a night of circle of death. Halfway through the first game with a lampshade on my head (it was a rule, i wasn't drunk to the point where i felt the need to wear it) Liberty's phone rang and it was Elle.

Elle had called Liberty because she thought that I was at the play, but I got handed the phone to hear Elle say "um...the house is on fire...". Seriously? I replied by telling her to stomp it out, i wasn't convinced that she was serious, and she said "Well, Greg called 911, the basement is really on fire. Yup, I hear the sirens coming."

Great. I gathered my belongings thankful that I had only consumed half of a beer and Liberty came with me. Right when we left that house I could hear sirens because the fire house wasn't too far away. Again, great. When I turned onto my street about 5 blocks away from my house I was nearly blinded by all of the red and blue flashing lights parked around my house. If you've never seen your house surrounded by emergency vehicles, let me tell you, it's not very cool. There were 3 or 4 fire trucks, a few ambulances, and a couple of handfuls of cop cars. I had to park about a block away because all of those vehicles were parked diagonally across the street, taking up as much space as possible, kinda like when Max sleeps on the bed.

Walking up to my house I saw all the neighbors with their heads hanging out doors and windows to see why there was so much excitement outside. I walked around the corner to see 3 firefighters stabbing at the side of my house, ripping off siding. What the hell happened?!

I was informed that the fire alarm went off (phew, i was pretty sure none of those worked in that house anymore) and thankfully the people that were home around it took immediate action, grabbing the fire extinguisher and once that ran out they had a line between the kitchen sink and the burning hole in the basement, but it wasn't quite going out, so Greg dialed up 911.

Meanwhile Elle was sitting upstairs. She heard the first alarm go off and rolled her eyes figuring Dugan had burned some hot wings again, but when she heard the second one go off she opened her door to a face full of smoke, grabbed her phone and computer, and raced out of the house. They got the dogs out of the house and Greg managed to catch Mew running past and they took her out and put her in a car. Good, pets are safe. Dammit. Gadget and Gizmo are inside. The fire was probably 6 or 7 feet away from being directly under my bedroom where the chinchillas were. I started to freak out a bit more then. Gizmo has lived with me for about 6 years now, I'm pretty attatched to that little guy.

About the time that thought was running through my head I heard a horrible loud grinding noise. The firefighters were chainsawing a hole in the side of my house. Why? Because the fire had started from the outside which is why the attempts to put it out from the inside were unsuccessful, and the insulation inside the walls was burning. Wonderful. There was a big hole in the side of the house already, and they were still sawing away. I started to freak out even more, everything just looked so bad. I was convinced that the house was going to be damaged to the point where we would need to find new places to live, either that or the landlord would be mad because we set his house on fire. Either way I was convinced that I was never going to sleep in that house ever again. I wanted my mommy, but she wasn't home when I called so i had to just leave her a message telling her that my house was on fire. Then there was some more standing around shivering, trembling, trying to calm the dogs down.

And then it was about that time that I had to call the landlord and explain that the house was on fire, they were sawing it open, and that I really had no idea what all was going on other than that. Great. I was not looking foreward to that. Thankfully nobody was mad, he just got over to the house as soon as he could (he lives a little ways away). Not too long after that the sawing stopped and the fire dudes went inside to inspect things, air out the rooms (except for mine, they thought it was a porch, but thankfully there wasn't much smoke in there, poor chinchillas).

We talked to the inspector and he told us that the fire had most likely started from a cigarette that had ended up in the window well and it could very well have been sitting there smouldering for a day or two before it actually burst into flames. He told us that unless it was too smokey for our personal taste we could stay in the house. That was such a relief. Then we got to go look at the damage. Giant hole in the side of the house, and it had been right under the stairs to the upstairs so the bottoms of them were all charred and we realized that if the people downstairs hadn't acted as quickly as they had Elle probably would have had to climb out an upstairs window to get out of the house because the stairs were dangerously close to having burned up. Thankfully that wasn't the case.

The fire fried the air conditioner wires, so we'll need to get another one of those before it get's hot out. It also got some other wires close to the circut box (which could very well have cought fire along with the main power line that was right there) so we didn't have power in the living room for a day or two, and it burned through important devices that made our cable and internet work, so that's still out.

We got ourselves calmed down a bit (though every few minutes Elle and I mentioned something about "that time our house was on fire" and "like really? who does that? who's house catches on fire? really?") The guys continued with the party that they'd been planning on before the fire, with even more excuse to party harder because we survived what could have been a catastrophic event without any trace of harm. Elle and I and a couple of our friends had decided that the party mood had escaped us entirely so we gathered in my room and just watched some Scrubs and relaxed.

After a little bit Ray came in and informed me that my mom was there. HOORAY! I got to relay the story to her, and she got to go home and make her bedroom smell like a camp fire from standing in my house for 15 minutes. I got to brag for the rest of the night that i'd gotten mommy hugs, which as everyone knows, are really the only thing that can make a person calm down in a lot of situations.

And there it is! I may have missed a detail or two, it was a hectic, crazy night, and if you have any more questions about it I'll be glad to answer to the best of my ability!

I woke up this morning with a bit of a hangover, but mostly I was just really REALLY hungry from having eaten a single slice of bread for dinner last night before drinking all that beer. After searching the house and remembering that I'd eaten only that slice of bread for dinner because that's pretty much the only food in my house (I'm lazy, I've been sick, and work too much, I haven't gotten to the store in a while), I decided I was going to need to grab some fast food or I would certainly perish from hunger. I went through the list of places: jimmy johns, nah, not greasey enough, kfc? no, that wouldn't quite do it....ARBY'S MELT!

I hopped into my car and was pleased to find a nice short line in the arby's drive thru. I placed my order: Arby's melt meal, pepsi with no ice, and potato bites instead of fries. my mouth was watering by the time I got to the window. I forked over my $6.20 and got handed a diet pepsi full of ice. whatever, i've had diet pop with ice in it before no biggie. She handed me my bag of food and I gleefully drove away salivating in anticipation.

On the way home I decided that I couldn't wait any longer so I grabbed a potato bite....it was hot and gooey and melted all over me with wonderful deliciousness. That got me all amped up for my arby's melt. I got home tore the bag open, unwrapped my sandwich and.....

To my horror it was HAM! I'm not a big fan of ham. Then I looked at it a little more. I think it had cheese on it. I'm actually not sure if it was cheese or rubber. The edges of the ham that weren't preserved between the buns were all dry and cracked and the cheese was all solidified and crusty and the whole thing just looked like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for 5 days.

Keep in mind, when I'm truely, horribly hungry like I was, my emotions go into over drive. It's one of the very few times that I'm actually capable of being truely angry, and when I opened the sandwich, I actually yelled out loud "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" and after I inspected it further I actually started to cry. Big tears poured out of my eyes, down my cheeks, and dampened my shirt, I actually sobbed a few times uncontrollably. That was the first time I had really truely cried since a week or two after I broke up with John. And all over a freaking sandwich.

I didn't think i had the capacity to care for anything enough to cry over any more, but apparently I'm totally in love with arby's and I was horribly crushed when I discovered that they obviously don't care about me the same way I care about them. All I wanted to do was cure my hangover with a delicious, juicy, melty cheesey roast beef sammich.

I ate half of the dried up ham and rubber concoction, dispite my extreme dislike for ham sandwiches, but I just couldn't finish it. I tossed it in the garbage, and even max the half beagle has left it alone. I've thrown empty wrappers from arby's melts into the garbage only to find them ripped up all over the floor 3 minutes later. I actually ate something that a dog refuses to touch...gross.

Oh well, at least they got the potato bites right...if it hadn't been for those I would probably be curled up in the fetal position sobbing my ass off because I would still be hungry past the point of reason.

one night i had my mind expanded, this is the result. sorry you can't read the original copy in the marvelous pencil.






This is the story of my pencil, or maybe Mr. Pickles, the best little bug ever to cross my life. But no. this story is about the pencil and how it came into my hand as it is now. It began with a strong desire to write of my dear Mr. Pickles, for he was the cutest little buggie perched upon my lunchbox. Oh dear Mr. Pickles. I just had to pick him up. But I stray from my point; this pencil. I needed to write about Mr. Pickles but the only thing around was a sharpie. As you can see, a sharpie would make the words so big that it would take up hundreds of pages describing the wonders of Mr. Pickles. NO! Nobody would read hundreds of pages of purple sharpie. I needed a pen. "PEN!" I exclaimed. No pens. GOOD. I didn't want a pen. I wanted to feel the lead falling off of a pencil, sacrificing its life to imortalize our dear Mr. Pickles on paper forever. I sought out a pencil, but not just any pencil would do, oh no. This is Mr. Pickles! Oh cute little buggie, he needed the best of pencils. Alas, I found only this one pencil, the one that's in my hand, telling you this story. This pencil, deserving of his own name now, HOWARD! Howard has proven through his devotion that he is that perfect sacrificing pencil that I sought after. alas, i have forgotten my point, but Howard, thank you. Mr. Pickles, you will be remembered forever. But Howard, no matter how cool Mr. Pickles is, I always liked you better.