A Cinderella Story
So the other night I was in Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies. I’m not bragging, just setting the scene.
While heading towards the back of the store I find myself getting close to the women’s shoe department and what appeared to be an epic argument between a customer and an employee.
You know how sometimes you can tell a lot about a conversation from just the visual cues, without ever hearing a word that’s being spoken?
The customer was an enormous angry sweaty woman, wearing a tank top and the worlds most ironic pair of biker shorts ever. She was shaking a shoebox, and pointing furiously. With every gesture she set of waves of secondary tectonic shifting. It was like watching angry jello.
The employee was this tiny little woman, whose expression and body language just read defeat. She would periodically offer up a short phrase, which would only inspire the customer to greater peaks of wobbly rage.
I could tell that the problem was probably beyond the employee’s ability to fix and was probably not her fault in the first place. Anyone who has any sort of customer service job has seen this fight dozens of times.
As I got closer I was able to hear the details. The angry lady evidently wears a size 8 shoe. And the shoes she was holding were apparently labeled size 8. But they hadn’t fit. Clearly Wal-Mart had labeled the shoes wrong in a deliberate attempt to humiliate her and now everything was ruined forever. And naturally this was the employee’s fault.
Just as I started to pass them the poor employee suggested, “Maybe if you tried an eight wide it would fit better?”
“And eight wide? Do I look like I wear an eight wide?!”
You know how sometimes you have those moments where your mouth just turns itself on with no input from your brain? Well I had one of those moments.
“Lady, everything everything you wear looks wide!”
Every person for about three aisles stopped talking. The cranky one dropped her shoebox, and everybody looked at me.
“I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”
The employee slowly nodded.
And with that I left, before I could be knocked down, trampled, and ultimately devoured,
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October 28th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Skippy, you’re my hero. Customer service employees everywhere salute you. Will you please come to my job and say things like that to the customers?
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October 28th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
When I was working at Darien Lake Six Flags back in 2003(It’s not a six flags any more) I worked in food services. Now there were two sections to the park the main area where everybody can ride the rides and buy the food and most people pay for their admittance and food. And the Catering section where companies paid to rent a large pavilion to hold a picnic for their employees. The companies paid for everything admission to the park food in the picnic area and coupons for the food and stores in the main park. When I started I thought the people who had to pay to get in would be the worst but I was wrong sure some of them would pretty rude but most were very reasonable and friendly but the people who were there on their companies tab were complete assholes. They would get in my face over nothing(keep in mind that I was 15 at the time). If the burger was too greasy they would complain to me even though I didn’t cook it and the people who did were in plain sight at the grills, If it was a kind of hot dog they didn’t like (we had sahlen’s and they’re damn good), if they thought we didn’t have vegetarian meals (which we did you just had to ask), and many other stupid complaints. Now the worst days would be the days I had to work the ice cream cart, now what we had were mainly popsicles but we also had orange buddies. When people would come up to me and ask what I had they would get all pissy about “me” only having popsicles and no ice cream. Now people just loved the Orange buddies and they went fast and once they were gone the people who were supposed to be bringing more to me rarely would so all day I would have people coming up to me bitching that they had seen other people with them and not understanding why they could get them If I didn’t have any (since there were places for several separate companies there was more than one ice cream stand giving out ice cream).
Now you would think that after all I have said that I would have hated working in that area and you would be right. It all sucked except for one thing, when we would cook chicken over an open pit grill every now and then a sea gull would try to dive bomb to get at the food, miss, and land it the hot coals and die.
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Stickfodder reply on October 28th, 2008 11:08 pm:
Wow… um… I didn’t realize that would be longer than Skippy’s story sorry about that.
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Billy reply on October 29th, 2008 6:43 am:
I have to say, I wish I could have seen that happen with the seagull. Me and seagulls don’t like eachother, when in a car I often say “seagulls are 100 points to hit!”
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Tony reply on October 29th, 2008 5:23 pm:
i think they have the same rule because i used to have a car with t-tops and a seagull took a giant dump on my head one day. at first i was really pissed but by the time i got home i was laughing so hard i almost drove off the road.
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Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 5:27 pm:
I’m kind of surprised that nobody has asked If we served the seagulls as chicken.
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Richard reply on October 29th, 2008 7:04 pm:
Did you serve the seagulls as chicken? If so, did the people who ate it know the difference?
Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 8:14 pm:
Well I never actually saw them cook the seagulls but we would occasionally get a complaint that the chicken tasted funny.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Yay, Skippy!
I do try my best to not hassle the employees of the stores I’m patronizing. Even when I’m in a bad mood.
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October 29th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Having worked at Target for 4 years in the past (started at sixteen right up till I went active duty from the Guard) I understand how much retail sucks.
AAFES still pisses me off with their attitude towards their customers though.
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Jayson reply on October 29th, 2008 1:11 pm:
I agree AAFES is the worst. The service at Ft Polk electronics area is terrible. Is it really too much to ask for a electronics employee to be able to do more then play solitaire?
Skippy, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were visiting the Walmart here in Leesville!
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October 29th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I try not to blame the people who are standing at the front of the stores when something goes wrong, but when it is their fault then I get a little pissy.
Take for instance: Fast Food
I was at a local fast food establishment, we’ll call it the Pevley McDonalds, right next to Interstate 55 in Pevley, MO. Now mind you, I don’t personally eat a lot of McDonalds food, but as it was on my way I ate theere a couple times. I say a couple because EVERY time I ate there they would mangle my order to the point where I gave up. I’ll always remember the first time I stopped at the drive through there.
“Welcome to McDonalds! How may I help you today?”
“I’d like two breakfast burritos, a Large coffee and a cinnamon roll please.”
“Okay, that’ll be $4.23 at the first window. Please pull foward.”
I pulled foward and at the first window: “Egg McMuffin, Sausage Buscuit, small orange juice and a hashbrown. $5.92 please.”
Afterwards followed an arguement that actually attracted the attention of a police officer. It culminated with me calling the McDonalds headquarters and screaming my head off at then for about and hour.
The reason? The cashier insisted that I had ordered that, I was to only customer AT THAT STORE, and I was just trying to filtch a free meal from them. I’m allergic to the acid in orange juice, potatoes irritated the ulcer I had at the time, and I hate Egg McMuffins.
I apologized to the receptionist I screamed at for an hour after saying my piece though. It wasn’t her fault that that McDonalds was stupid.
I stopped there twice more after that, only when I wasn’t in an extreme hurry. I would write my order down and not say a word to anyone. And they still managed to get it wrong. EVERY TIME. So if you like McDonalds, don’t eat there. Drive the extra 15 miles to the next one in Festus. It’ll be on the left.
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Andrew reply on October 29th, 2008 4:52 am:
No worries stick. I did it too. Sorry all.
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Speed reply on October 29th, 2008 6:17 am:
I’ve had a few experiences like that at McDonalds. The best one was when my son, he was about 6 at the time, said, “That’s why I need to study hard and do my home work, right Dad?” Of course this was in his usual “outside voice.” They still screwed up the order, but all of the customers had a good laugh.
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Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 8:11 am:
Yeah stuff like that’s the reason that I hate using McDonald’s drive through’s. The worst I’ve had was I think last year, I pulled up to the drive through and there were 2 cars ahead of me and 3 quickly showed up behind me so I expected them to be rushing and probably screw something up. I order my food and it shows up on the screen properly so I know they got it right. I pull up and pay and the person in front of me has to pull up and wait a minute maybe less and they get what they had to wait for. And when I pay they ask me to pull forward and someone will be out shortly with all my food. Now this is where I get worried because I have never had to wait for my entire meal before. I wait a minute and another and in the end I wait 10 minutes and nothing comes for me and the 3 people behind me have gotten their food without a problem and driven away. So now I’m pissed sure I had nowhere to go but home but It was my time they were wasting and my gas. I pull around into the normal parking lot (because if I had left my car where it was the ticket happy cops in the area would pounce on it as soon as I was gone) I go in and ask where my food was and the girl at the counter (who is the only one in the place with a head set on so is the only person working the drive through) just looks me dead in the face and says what food?…
Now because of the experience I had in food services stated above I do my best to be understanding and patient with people who serve food for a living, but when you make me wait for my food for 10 minutes and forget I even ordered something after I’ve paid, I tend to get a bit upset. I went off on her I don’t rely remember what I said but I got my meal for free and I never saw her working there again.
Oh and when I say upset keep in mind I’m bipolar so when I go off I occasionally black out(I’m not kidding I attacked people bullying me in high school and have no memory between the last mean thing they did to me and when anywhere between 3 to 5 people were holding me back from a very surprised looking bully sitting on the floor typically clutching their throat) :)
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Chris reply on March 20th, 2009 10:20 pm:
As a former fast food worker, I can tell you that it’s not the fault of the person working drive through. One of the big things that management insists on is that order times are kept down no matter what – ditto on drive through window time. A lot of managers take this to mean that if your order isn’t ready immediately, you go and pull forward; and they’ll also mark incompleted orders as complete in order to make the time run faster. You try to print out an extra receipt and stick it somewhere so you can double check on the order and they’ll be idiots about it and remove the damn thing. So no, don’t go yelling at the person who was supposed to make your food. They probably did everything they could to make sure the food got to you, but three orders later if management has removed all mention of your order then gotten on to them about something else (say, cleaning the food prep area or helping with an order on front) most people are going to forget, considering the fact that the work does wear you down mentally after a few hours with all the things you have to remember/do.
By all means though, do yell at management and voice your complaints to the manager’s boss – however, ask WHO owns the restaurant. Many chains do franchising, so just because it’s a certain brand doesn’t mean that that company owns it, and in that case they don’t have the direct say that you expect them to.
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David B reply on February 28th, 2014 9:52 pm:
Hell, a few years ago, my family took a trip to Washington DC. Luckily, my mom has a college friend who lives in DC, so we were able to stay at her place. On the second day there, we had night tickets to go up in the Washington Monument. After that was done, we headed back to the friend’s house. Well, the family hadn’t eaten since noon, and it was rapidly approaching 11:00 PM. So ,we did the natural, all American thing, and went to McDonalds. The only problem was, NO ONE THERE SPOKE ENGLISH WELL!!! We were in the drive through for over 45 minutes while they tried to get the order right! It went something like this: “We would like two kids meals, chocolate milk, and fries. One boy and one girl.” Silence. “You want hambuga?” and so on.
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October 29th, 2008 at 5:54 am
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THAT. was epic.
captcha: Busch Experiment – new brew?
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October 29th, 2008 at 6:23 am
As long as we’re making fat jokes, I gots one to share. Now, this story is probably the reason I’m like how I am today, and we have only my mother to blame. Back when I was younger, underclassman level in high school, my friend and I went to a hockey tournament. I believe I was still too young to drive, so it must have been early sophomore or freshman year, whatever. On the way back from the tournament, we stopped at a fast food place called Culvers, which are common in Wisconsin, don’t know about where you all are. Anyways, we sat down to enjoy ice cream and burgers, we were the only ones in the place at the time. Suddenly there seemed to be a constant supply of gigantic people wandering in and ordering half of what I eat in a year. They all seemed to gravitate towards our end of the area to eat. That’s when I heard a mooing sound. I turn to look, and my mother is glancing around at every one of them and mooing. Like a cow. My friend is dying, and I’m embarassed. Of course, something clicks and that little part of me that tells me to do cruel things awakens for the first time. I leap up, grab a comment card and a pencil, and start talking to myself as I write. I comment that in order to improve this particular store, sturdier seats are in order, as considering the girth of some of the clients, the poor things look like they’re about to collapse, and the booths won’t last much longer. We quickly finished our meals, and headed to the doors, with the mother giving one last long moo. I think we made one of them cry. Long story short, I’m a horrible person.
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David B reply on February 28th, 2014 9:54 pm:
Where in Wisconsin do you live? I think I know of that Culvers. Whenever we need something greasy, we go there. The local McDonalds suck.
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Sicarius reply on March 1st, 2014 7:29 am:
I don’t anymore, moved to Missouri a couple of years ago. I mainly lived in Green Bay and Milwaukee though.
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October 29th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Way to go!
Once I did something like that at Blockbuster once they forgave me every late fee for years!
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October 29th, 2008 at 7:30 am
At that point, I think about all you can do is defiantly own up to it. “That’s right. I said what we were all thinking.”
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October 29th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Way to go Skippy!
I used to work at a video store. After a year I got to work without supervision. Several people never came back after dealing with me. I have a low tolerance for stupidity. For example “Do you have that movie with that guy that came out last year?”. The guy was dead serious and seemed unable to comprehend why I was unable to find the requested movie. I kicked him out. And the late fees! I made a point of explaining the late fee policy to everyone who signed up for an account with me. It was not possible to get an account at the store an not know the policy after I started working there. And this one woman always had a huge fee that was not her fault and why was I trying to rip her off? I never managed to drive her away. Apart from the stupids though, it was a great job for a highschooler. I also try not to be that customer when dealing with clerks. Honest mistakes are ok, but stupidity is not.
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Andrew reply on October 29th, 2008 9:54 am:
Ah, stupidity. That uncurable blight on the people of this planet. And just when you think you’ve ran the last idiot over with your car, another hundered pop up.
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Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 10:29 am:
Yeah it’s like that old saying a sucker is born every minute, except that idiots are born much faster.
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Minty reply on October 29th, 2008 11:40 am:
Eh, not so much faster but in greater quantities.
Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 1:23 pm:
Well it’s a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B
Stonewolf reply on October 29th, 2008 1:20 pm:
Yes. Ignorance is ok as it can be cured. Stupid is for life. Unfortunatly, stupidity is not always terminal, or it is, but not for the stupid. I think it was Einstein that said “Only two things are infinite, the Univers and Humand Stupidity, and I’m not sure about the Universe.”
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Mike reply on October 30th, 2008 12:55 pm:
Sounds like a good idea for a video game. Call it “Driving over Stupid.” The levels are endless, you never runout of stupid people.
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Stickfodder reply on October 30th, 2008 1:11 pm:
That would make a good flash game
October 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am
One of my favorite quotes:
“Never argue with an idiot. They’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
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October 29th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
From Al Bundy in Married with Children –
A fat woman came into the shoe store today and asked for something to wear for a walk in the woods. Jokingly, I suggested a sandwich sign saying, “Don’t shoot, from the front I look human.”
and
Old Lady: I’m not sure I want these shoes. What would you recommend to go with them?
Al: A bubbling cauldron?
Old Lady: You’ve got a lot of nerve.
Al: To get this close to your feet, yeah.
and for the holidays
Al: A fat woman came into the shoe store today. Wanted a pair of shoes for a Christmas party. I told her to stand on her hands, put a star in her butt and go as the world’s largest, ugliest tree!
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October 29th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I used to know this girl who had a hygene problem. She bathed maybe once a week, slept with her dog, didn’t shower after her horseback riding lessons, etc. Needless to say, she wasn’t very popular when I knew her in middle school.
During my junior year of high school, my mother and I were at a school fundraiser-I went to private Catholic schools from kindergarten to 12th grade and attended a private religious preschool as well. As you can guess, certain topics were considered off limits, but as always, when you put a bunch of women into a room together, there’s going to be gossip. The mother of one of my friends shared a GREAT piece of gossip about the girl with the hygene problem (Jamie) with my mother, and my mother couldn’t wait to pass it on to me.
“Did you hear? Jamie got pregnant!”
And it came out of my mouth without thinking, in a voice loud enough for most of the people in the room to hear- “She got someone to SLEEP with her?”
My mother didn’t talk to me for a week, even though I had insisted that it was what everyone was thinking.
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Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 5:37 pm:
That reminds me of a story I heard from a friend in my vocational class in high school about a girl in their school (minus the pregnancy) lets just say that she never bothered to “clean” herself and she tended to smell really bad. It got so bad that one day she went to her locker to find some douche taped to it and she got really upset because she though that someone was trying to make fun of her. The thing is that whoever it was that bought it bought the expensive stuff.
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October 29th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
I would share my horror stories, but it would be a goddamn book by the time i was done.
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October 29th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Lol. If I had been there, I’d be running right beside you. Simply for the fact that I would have busted out laughing.
Captcha: Insurgents of…of what?
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Stickfodder reply on October 29th, 2008 8:18 pm:
Why would you run? If you throw something at her legs hard enough they would collapse underneath her. Sure she would start to roll but then you would only have to step far enough out of the way as to not be rolled over and she couldn’t grab you as she rolls by.
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October 30th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Way back in the dark ages, my first job was in retail. To this day, I’m convinced there are a lot of people who purposely stop in stores when they’ve had a crappy day, and purposely take that crappy day out on some poor salesclerk, rather than go home and scream at thier families: “the customer is always right,” after all, no matter HOW big of a jerk they’re being!
Ever since, I try to be a ‘good’ customer, and not give the clerk grief for things that aren’t thier fault. On the OTHER hand, when it IS thier fault — like one I came across in a Wendy’s: literally sitting on the front counter yakking on his cellphone, and HE got mad at ME for interrupting his conversation! — yeah, then I will go off on ’em.
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October 30th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Good Lordy I get those moments at SCHOOL!!! Once my teacher, a nice lady, was having a bad day. Now, I pretty much get my mood off of others, so I was so sarcastic you could taste it. It smelled good. Like Oranges. Anyways, my teacher said “Class. I have some bad news,” and before she could continue, the first words out of my mouth was “That you shouldn’t have sex with people you don’t know?” I got the boot from the class. Literally.
-SpaZzy-
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October 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am
I got a story (the only reason I post so much is because there’s nothing better to do in this class o’ mine. Go high school!) about “Customer Service.” One individual thought it would be great fun to try to tell me how to do my job.
I work in the tech department of Target (a great place), and this lady was looking for a specific game. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have that game yet.”
“Well why the {expletive baleted} not?”
“Because it hasn’t come out yet.”
She decides to go off on me, telling me that not only am I incompetent, but I’ve ruined her son’s christmas. So she leaves. Comes back with her son, who looks nonchalant about the whole deal, and had me explain to her son why I didn’t have his little game.
She was NOT satisfied.
So I had the joy of dealing with her myself as my co-workers watched, with a great deal of happiness. There’s a do-it-best center nearby. They had popcorn.
Then my manager walks up, asks the now-hated question, “Is everything okay?” That wasn’t directed at me. “Oh yes, everything is fine.” As soon as my manager is out of earshot, I get an ear full. She soon ran out of breath.
Lesson learned: Little women have big lungs.
-SpaZzy-
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paula reply on October 31st, 2008 5:29 am:
And the flip side of that: in a bookstore, I asked if a particular book was in yet. I had the full title, the full author’s name, the release date (two weeks earlier) and even the publisher. The clerk’s reaction? “This isn’t a library!” at the top of his lungs.
Yeah, I spoke to the manager. Never saw that clerk there again — apparently I was FAR from the first person to encounter the guy’s charning personality.
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SpaZzy reply on October 31st, 2008 3:18 pm:
Yeah, people like that make me chuckle. Not because they might have possible mental retardations or anything like that, just the situation. “I’d like a cheesebu–” “WOULD YOU LIKE CHEESE ON THAT?!” “I’m standing right next to you.”
-SpaZzy-
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Inara reply on November 3rd, 2008 6:49 pm:
We went to a bookstore recently, looking for some D&D supplies. Let me point out that this was in a college town, where gaming was pretty popular. When a clerk asked what we wanted, we said we were looking for the games.
“What kind of games?” he asked.
“D&D.”
“Oh. I thought you meant a real game.” And he took us to the section containing D&D novels. Not the gaming books. Then, he wandered off, muttering, “Stupid people don’t know the difference between books and games . . . ”
My husband got a bit upset, but I just laughed at the boy’s stupidity.
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October 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
That story should be on http://www.notalwaysright.com real soon now.
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October 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Not always right is the best website EVER.
Other than Skippy’s, of course :P
Captcha-
Widener Kiten
Say what now?
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October 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
In my younger married days, I sometimes could not get my brain engaged faster than my mouth. I worked in a bar at the time, so a smart mouth became a survival skill.
About 6 months after the birth of out last child I introduced my wife to a couple new co-workers. They happened to be twins who were blond and very well muscled body builders. Most women considered them almost beautiful.
Somehow the wife and I got talking about the “dream list” of who we could have sex with and not get in trouble. She named a few well known singers and such. I said “The way you were staring at the twins, I would think they would be on list”. She looked at me and said ” I am sure they would not want a fat, ugly bitch like me.” Before the brain could interfere I blurted ” You know you are not ugly.”
I am still paying for that one.
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Angelus reply on December 17th, 2008 9:10 pm:
So how far did your testicles go before they landed?
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November 1st, 2008 at 7:28 am
I work in an ER, admitting. Which means that I have NO defense, I’m not a doctor and I’m not a nurse, I’m just a poor secretary. I was checking this lady in one day. She had to weigh 300 pounds… maybe more. Guess what was wrong…
Wait for it…
Yea, her legs hurt, and her diabetes was acting up (genius right?) So she requests a wheelchair. Me, being the nice little peon I am got her the largest wheelchair we have. She didn’t fit in it, “I need a large wheelchair! A LARGE wheelchair!” I said, “Ma’am this is the largest wheelchair we have.” So of course she starts yelling at me, while trying to squeeze her considerable girth into a chair that was easily 6 inches narrower that she was. So I sat there and took it, then “Push me over there, my wrists hurt!” I looked at her, looked down at myself (at the time I was about six months pregnant and weight maybe 120) and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t” Cue five more minutes of screaming before I finally gave in and tried, she didn’t move. When she finally got back to be seen it took a very large male nurse to push her. I don’t even want to know what how they took her to radiology.
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December 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
damn.. i have tears streaming down my face on that one!! classic! you said what i have died to say way too many times.
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December 9th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
i used to work at an amusement park ride with lap bars and fat women would tell me i was picking on them when i had to ask them to stand back up and sit down with the bar inserted in a roll.. then push the bar down farther manually so it would trip the sensor.
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January 18th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Skippy, If I had overheard you in that Wal-mart, I would have been the first person to start a slow-clap.
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