Sister Motherf***er

This is exactly the kind of thing I do to pass the time. It's over seven minutes long, but if you're a retard like me it will be worth it.

I don't Awana rock with you

My good pal over at Better Living through Bacon recently wrote about her six-year-old daughter's first (and last) visit to the Awana Clubs, a Kristian organization whose primary purpose seems to be scaring young children into believing in Jesus.

I'm sorry, but frightening six-year-olds into believing what you believe is simply not a legitimate use of religion in my book. Frankly, I think this kind of thing should be illegal.

I was raised as a Lutheran, although because we ended up attending the scarier Missouri Synod part of the church, I got a lot of the fire-and-brimstone education from which my more moderate Lutheran friends were spared.

It wasn't until I was attending a Lutheran college that I discovered mainstream Lutherans, you know, of the Sunday hot-dish church supper variety. We had none of that good stuff when I was a kid; for me, church was all about what would and wouldn't get you sent to Hell.

In my parents' defense, they would have put a stop to it if they'd known exactly what I was being taught in Sunday school and confirmation classes. Unfortunately, they were usually both too drunk to inquire. But that's another story.

One time when I was in 4th grade my school friend John Hagerson asked if I wanted to attend an Awana meeting with him. "Sure," I said, having no idea what "Awana" was. I was just usually game for anything that would get me out of the house.

When I arrived at the designated address I realized it was a church. "Oh," I said to the other kids there, "do you have to belong to a certain religion to go to this?" They all replied, in unison, "IT'S NON-DENOMINATIONAL!"

Well alrighty then!

There were some preliminary niceties, and then about 50 of us kids were seated inside the church and some guy was in front going on and on about how we needed to be "saved." Pretty soon he had all of us bow our heads to pray, and started asking which ones of us wanted to come up to the front to be "saved."

This was confusing to me. For starters, I had been going to Sunday school for several years by that point and had thought I was already "saved." Why was this guy acting like I needed to be saved again?

Furthermore, what exactly was he going to do to "save" me? Wasn't that God's job, not his?

After an uncomfortably long time sitting there with no one opting for eternal salvation, we were dismissed and the meeting was over. John came up to me holding two Snickers bars and handed me one. "This is our prize for me having convinced you to come tonight," he told me.

Oh, for crying out loud, I thought. Is this what this whole song and dance was about? You wanted a free candy bar? I smelled a scam.

I never went back. Those people gave me the creeps.

As if!

I was quite angry earlier today, despite it being Valentine's Day and all. Read my prior post for the context

But right now, all I can say is "thank God for Poor George!"

One homemade lobster dinner, three glasses of merlot, half a bottle of Proseco and one viewing of "Clueless" later I am not mad anymore! Funny how that works!

Some people in life are bitches, but with what I just described should it really matter?


I don't think so.


Happy Valentine's Day to all my Gentle Readers!

Love,
CP

Some days as a Strategic Sales Executive are annoying days

We have a rollout of a major new product coming next week, a product I will be largely responsible for selling.

Not only do I not yet have online access to the product; I just found out that the product manager from our home office has been scheduling customer visits and demos with my sales reps directly, without telling me.

I take this as a sign of disrespect. It's not like she doesn't know this is my product; she knows it very well. Furthermore, it's in her own best interest to include me in these meetings because otherwise all the sales reps in the country will just go to her with all their questions and requests for customer appointments.

I'm having several conversations about this in my head even as I type:

1. My sour grapes are telling me to say "fine, let her do all the selling if that's what she wants."

2. My inner paranoid-schizophrenic is telling me she's not including me because she thinks I'm annoying and a buffoon and would simply rather not deal with me.

3. My inner adult is telling me it was just an oversight and to chalk it up to a big "whatever, Mary."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going with options 1 and 2.

CP

Pig fuckers

In my last post I bragged about how I won the award for Strategic Sales Executive of the Year. #1 in the whole damn country. I get to go with Poor George to Pabooba for an exotic vacation in April.

Except for one small problem. They forgot me at our company's awards banquet on Saturday night. I was supposed to get to walk across a stage in front of 2,000 of my colleagues and be recognized.

But they forgot me. They gave fancy crystal vases to every other winner except me.

Then, during dinner, they flashed large screen images of the names and photos of all the winners throughout the evening - except for me.

Needless to say, I was puzzled and slightly upset. I asked my boss what was up, so he went to talk to the woman who coordinated the awards.

When he returned to my table he said "Tom, I spoke with Martha and she was really, really apologetic. But there's nothing we can do. You still won though, and you still get to go on the trip."



Bullshit. He could have gone to our president at the front table and explained that they accidentally left out the Strategic Sales Exec category and failed to announce the winner. He could have gone back on stage and corrected it. But I guess they didn't care enough.

I don't care about fucking Pabooba, and in fact we're no longer going. I'm going to stay home and eat my sour grapes instead, or maybe go somewhere else with Poor George on my own dime. I'd be too angry to be able to enjoy myself if I went after this slap in the face.


I kind of feel like a dick for even caring about this, but I do. I worked my ass off last year, and through a combination of hard work, teamwork and good luck I won. I deserved to walk across that stage.

Now, only the people in my immediate vicinity know I won. People in other parts of the company whom I've known for 18 years have no idea now that I have made good. People who might later be able to help me, knowing I have the cache of a national award behind my name, will not know anything about my achievement - unless of course I tell them. Which I don't want to have to do.


It may have something to do with having to get up at 4:00 am to catch my plane this morning, but in the cab ride home from the airport I actually shed tears over this. Maybe I need to get a life.


Fuckers.

Some days as a Strategic Sales Executive are good days

Hi all,

Greetings from a warm southern city - I can't get too specific because I don't want to be Googled by my colleagues. I am currently attending our annual sales conference. Me and 2,000 sales reps. It's just this sort of thing that normally puts me over the edge.

But this year is slightly different. You see, Gentle Readers, last night I learned that I am the #1 Strategic Sales Executive for 2007! I guess my Amanda Woodward-like attitude has finally gotten me somewhere.

Poor George and I will be joining my company's senior executives for a fancy award vacation on a tropical island. Again, I don't want to say where for fear of being Googled, but it rhymes with Pabooba and it's near the coast of Venezuela.

Finally, the recognition Poor George deserves for putting up with my non-stop bitching!

Love,
CP

Vote for the cutest picture Vol 1

Which is your favorite? You can vote more than once.

One nation under insanity

I don't blame people for being up in arms about Fred Phelps and his crazy family deciding to picket Heath Ledger's funeral because of his portrayal of a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. But for me it becomes increasingly difficult to remain incensed about something that no longer surprises me.

The world has always been chock full of all sorts of crazy. I should know, I grew up surrounded by about ten different varieties of it in my own house as a kid. At some point I started to draw a distinction between arguing with someone who might actually be convinced by what you say versus attempting to reason with a crazy person.

But at what point will my lack of surprise at craziness cross over into complacency and resignation? I've already been suspecting for the last few years that we are becoming more and more like the German citizens who lived in the 1930s and 1940s. People who grew resigned to the crazy around them to the point that sixty years later they are still eating the world's shit because they didn't take extreme enough measures to put a stop to it.

I'm not sure I know what to do anymore.

3jesus97, or socio-political leanings of a Strategic Sales Executive

I have a new Strategic Sales Executive on my team, and few weeks ago she hosted a Webex for us. (For you non "Office Space" types, a Webex would be an audio/video conference call where the host can share his or her computer desktop with the call participants.)

When you set up a Webex you have to supply the participants a password. I usually choose a relatively neutral, innocuous sort of word like lawyer or chlamydia. Always does the trick.

Sandra (the new Strategic Sales Executive) however decided that her password for the group would be 3Jesus97. I thought that was odd. Then, when we were trying to log in to the call one of the participants said "what is the password again?" Sandra replied "3Jesus97. I guess that wasn't very politically correct of me! Giggle!"

Let us note that Sandra is based in Oklahoma. Just sayin'.

To get back at Sandra for her inappropriate behavior, the next time I hosted a Webex I made the password 3Buddah97.

No one laughed, which disappointed me a fair amount.

Bastards.

Happy Birthday in the Land-o-Lulu!

Happy Birthday Lulu!

You'll always be older than me!


Love,
CP

My childhood ex-neighbor Jenny is a total bitch

Trevor in his box.

My new friend Chris over at Inane Thoughts and Insane Ramblings recently bought a new dryer and let his little boy Trevor play in the box.



I am nearly green with envy.



Playing in huge boxes was the coolest thing ever - probably even cooler than building a fort out of sofa cushions and assorted furniture. It probably still is that cool or little Trevor wouldn't be sitting all high & mighty in his box right now.



This post of Chris's reminded me of the time my mom had a new refrigerator delivered to our house. It was the summer before I started 7th grade, when I was 12. My next-door-neighbor, Jenny, was 10.



Jenny and I had been best buds in earlier years, but as we both approached adolescence we didn't hang out so much any more. Not that I didn't want to, but she and her other little friends were starting to do that tween all-girl thing where they would hang out in the bathroom for hours washing each others' hair and trying on bras and stuff. I was totally excluded. Probably a good thing too, because I'd make a hideous drag queen.



Anyway, on this particularly beautiful summer day when I was 12, I hadn't spoken with Jenny for months and months. But about 30 minutes after our new refrigerator arrived, she showed up at my door with her new best friend from down the street, Joanne. I was really happy to see her because I missed hanging out with her, and I was becoming too nerdy for anyone else to want to spend time with me.



"Hey Jenny! How are you?" I said as I opened the door. "Hi, Joanne," I added, a bit less enthusiastically.



"Hi."



"What's going on? Do you want to come in?"



"Did you get a new refrigerator?" Jenny asked.



"Yes, it's really nice- want to see it?"



"No. Do you still have the box?"



"The box?"



"Yeah, you know, the box the refrigerator came in."



"Oh, no, the delivery guys took it away with the old refrigerator."



"Oh, ok. We thought maybe we could play in it. See ya later." They turned to leave.



"You guys, wait!" I called out. "We can do something else if you want!"



"That's ok, we just wanted to see if you had the box. Talk to you soon."





I didn't think much of it at the time because I was used to that sort of thing, being the geek that I was. But tonight, after seeing Chris's post about Trevor and the Box, I came to the conclusion that my childhood ex-neighbor Jenny is a total bitch.



I suppose some scars will never heal.



Sigh.

Dream

"Artwork" by CP

Last night I dreamed I was a father. I was telling my kid that he would probably want to follow people around with a red marker so he could correct their mistakes. I told him he shouldn't do that.

I so should have had children.

I still love all my stalkees

This is Grant Miller's cat. Mine are cuter.

Hey everyone,

Just a few quick notes:

1) I have been totally remiss in catching up with all of your blogs and leaving profound comments. Not for lack of love, just for lack of time. I'll make it up to all of joos shortly.

2) As if I don't have enough to catch up on already, I agreed to guest post over at Grant Miller Media while he's out of the office. Maybe I should get someone to guest-comment on all your wonderful blogs so that you don't feel so neglected.

3) It's my birthday today. Please worship me.

Love,

CP

Virtual Round Table, or how CP became overwhelmed

Lulu and Melinda June can attest to the fact that I'm a strange bird and a difficult person to get to know because I feel shy and awkward around people I'm not well acquainted with. When you combine that with the fact that I am both a freak AND borderline retarded, people often walk away from their first few interactions with me thinking "what the hell was THAT all about?"

It is only due to some sort of miracle that I manage to earn a living in sales. I suppose 42 years of life experience and some decent legal training have taught me a thing or two about sucking it up and just talking to people, but none of it comes naturally. I'm much more comfortable sitting at a keyboard with unfettered access to my "backspace" and "delete" keys. If only I could carry those with me everywhere I go.

All of the foregoing are reasons why, when Lulu first got together with a large group of bloggers about a year ago, I told her I wouldn't want to do that. One or two at a time maybe, but not a whole room. I'd probably freeze or start babbling like a retard when faced with having to talk to that many people.

"No you wouldn't, you'd be fine," she replied.

"Well of course I'd be fine. I'm only slightly retarded, not a complete moron."

"Yes, and your point is. . . ?"

"It's just that I would find it overwhelming to have all these people come to life right in front of me. We know each other on paper and everything seems to work well that way. Why would I want to screw it up by making them deal with me in person?"

"No one is looking to get married here, CP - they just want to talk to us. You're so uptight. Why does everything have to be some sort of religious experience with you?"

Of course, she was right. Which is why this year, when Lu and I were both planning to be in Chicago for the holidays, I agreed to accompany her to a large gathering of bloggers we've gotten to know over the past few years.

It's not that I have anything against meeting bloggers or pen-pals. Dale, Chelene, Beckeye and I have all become semi-regular real life friends and I haven't managed to alienate any of them yet though I am still working on it. And I've had great single face-to-face interactions with Wonderturtle, Hapabukbuk, Write Procrastinator and Deadspot. I just wasn't sure how I'd react to a whole room of them at once.

I was able to lay a few of these concerns to rest after last night's blogger party in Chicago. The experience was definitely overwhelming, but mostly in a good way.

This is going to sound weird, but it was kind of like how I've always imagined it would be to die, go to an afterlife and then meet your cat from childhood in person form. "Hi Tom, I think you remember me - I'm Betty."

I'd say "Betty, is that really you? Wow, it's so great to meet you in person!" And then I'd stand there and feel overwhelmed.

That is how I felt when Lu, Poor George and I walked into a crowded room last night at the Hala Kahiki Lounge in River Grove, Illinois. Within the space of five minutes I shook hands with and looked all of the following writers straight in the eye:

Grant Miller from Grant Miller Media
Chris from Some Guy's Blog
Megan from By and By
Bubs and MizBubs from Sprawling Ramshackle Compound
Splotchy from I, Splotchy
Johnny Yen from Here Comes Johnny Yen Again
Chaylene from Better Living through Bacon
Vikkitikkitavi from Bells On
Bubbles from Anonymous Blogger
Sharon from Tenacious S (though I've known her for 20 years so that meeting wasn't quite as intimidating)

Vikki's sister from Two Minutes in the Box was also there but sadly I did not get a chance to speak with her - either that or she heeded someone's sage advice and avoided me.

I don't have time to say a whole lot more about it right now except that it felt natural and easy for me to talk to all these people, which only enhances my astonishment that we have all been able to come together because of our writing. It's like a virtual Round Table, only maybe even slightly more bitchy.

Which is always a good thing.

Except who gets to be Dorothy Parker here?

Isn't that 30 years in straight time?

Happy 10 year anniversary to CP + PG.

Although this picture was not taken at our celebratory dinner last night, it sums up how the two of us feel about each other: happy, full of love and always ready for another meal.

We celebrated here last night. Food was good, but the service was a bit lacking considering the exorbitant prices we were paying for the whole experience.

This place is about the same price as where we went last night, but ever so extra special, and worth every penny. We celebrated PG's birthday at Chanterelle a number of years ago. It's one of those places where the waiters don't hover over you but you know they must be spying because the second you act like you need something they are there faster than a whore changes bedsheets.

Anyway, I'm very proud that my Poor George has stuck by me all these years - and hope he'll have the stomach for ten more before he finally shoots me.

CP

Happy Newhanakwanzmas!

I like Christmas as much as the next guy. I also appreciate the fact that the vast majority of the traditions and symbols we use during our end of year celebration have their roots in various forms of paganism, and have very little to do with the birth of Jesus.


What we now call the "Christmas Tree" was originally used by Germanic pagan tribes during their winter solstice celebrations, which occurred during the darkest time of year, now know as the end of December. Other traditional "Christmas" symbols such as the yule log, Christmas ham and others derive from similar origins.


As Christianity spread northward and started to engulf the pagan tribes, one of the bargaining chips in the whole conversion process was that these winter solstice symbols and celebrations would remain, just with a new "Christian" angle.


So, on a personal level, I have no beef with us wishing each other a "Merry Christmas" since in my mind all this stuff is just American tradition that really has very little to do with Christianity. On the other hand, can I just say that I am SICK of all these jackasses who talk non-stop with their verbal diarrhea about "the death of Christmas?"


These are those poor souls, those poor Kristians who feel oppressed when people have the audacity to wish them "Seasons' Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" instead of a hearty old "Merry Christmas."


Poor, poor Kristians. It must be just terrible for you that large segments of our society still view your sacred holiday as a symbol of oppression, not to mention outright genocide. Those damn Holocaust survivors and their families should just get over it and suck it up when Christmas is constantly thrust in their faces, using their tax dollars to finance manger scenes on public property.


Or those silly Indians (or "Native Americans" as they like to be called) who STILL complain that they were being massacred by the thousands while the Europeans simultaneously shoved Christianity down their throats. (Just doing them a favor in attempting to save their souls, I know, but still.) And I won't even talk about those damn African slaves and their descendants. Christ was the best thing ever to happen to them, chains and all!


I have a message for you Kristians who are so fed up with having your holiday diluted by all these "politically correct" kinds of people who are trying to be sensitive to groups who have suffered great injustices at the hands of Kristians throughout the ages. Go and have yourselves a merry little Christmas. I certainly will.


As far as I'm concerned, you can wish the entire world a "Merry Christmas" if you really want to. If someone acts offended at these seemingly innocuous words, you are free to apologize and/or walk away. But PLEASE, whatever else happens, just do us all a huge favor and shut the fuck up about your so-called "oppression."


As you are crying real tears over your lonely, neglected manger scenes, may I remind you of the wise words once shared with us on this very blog by the immortal Vikkitikkitavi?


To take the attitude that you are beleaguered members of a disenfranchised sect is neither attractive nor accurate.


Ho! Ho! Ho! and Merry Christmas!

Amen.

Here's an idea

Let's continue to make the recent shopping mall shooting incident front-page news for the next several months. Let's spend a bunch of time leading every TV newscast and talk show with more and more eyewitness accounts of the tragedy. Let's also get a bunch of experts from various fields to sit on discussion panels to hash out all the problems in American society that would cause a troubled young person to act out in this way.

After all, it's way more interesting and compelling than, say, the fact that we're on the brink of bombing the nads right off of Iran. Or that our economy is in the shithouse. Teenage shooting sprees are way more fun.

Maybe if we talk a whole lot about this shooting, we'll encourage other troubled teens to act out in similar ways! Wouldn't that be great? A lot of troubled people have a morbid fascination with macabre forms of celebrity, like this mall killer and the Columbine kids. If we play our cards right and continue to obsess over this in the media, we might get lucky and enjoy a few more sensational stories of this ilk before the '00s are up!

And as a bonus, maybe we'll even get to have metal detectors installed in every shopping mall across the country to protect ourselves from this ever increasing phenomenon. That would be awesome!

Right?

Hypothetical question

Is it wrong to eat an entire Entenmann's Raspberry Danish Twist over the course of 17 hours? Just wondering.

R.I.P. Bjørn Vågland

A fine man and a loving father. He will be missed.

Gratuitous cat shots

Grover Derwood

Ava Wilhemina

I'm working on a post but I need to scan a few photos before I can publish it. Enjoy these gratuitious cat shots while you wait.