I totally forgot to mention yesterday about my creeper encounter from Sunday morning. I was on the train, on my way into the city. At 6:30 in the morning. That early on a Sunday, there’s barely anyone on the train. I was one of two people in this particular train car, with the other person being this creepy-looking dude in his mid- to late-thirties.

In a mostly empty train car, he decided to sit in the set of seats across the aisle from me. Whatever, I thought to myself, just ignore the guy. I was listening to music, browsing Facebook on my phone, and nomming on some Banana Nut Cheerios, so ignoring the guy in my peripheral vision didn’t turn out to be an arduous task.

That is, until he started asking me questions.

I barely heard his voice over my music, so I took my earphones out and gestured for him to repeat himself.

“What are you eating?” He asked. “Are those peanuts?”

“No,” I replied, slightly bewildered, “they’re Cheerios.”

“Oh,” he said. It didn’t seem like he was going to say anything else, so I popped my headphones back in and directed my attention back at my phone. Within moments, I heard his voice again, prompting me to have to pull out my headphones to hear him. This time, though, I could barely understand him, and I must have asked him to repeat the question at least six times.

He’d asked, “Can I sit next to you?”

Um, what??

“Can I sit next to you?”

“Uh, I have a lot of stuff with me…” I awkwardly motioned to the two large bags I had with me, that fully occupied the seat next to me. Why the hell did this guy want to sit next to me, when there were plenty of other seats on the train?!

“Oh…” He trailed off, and I promptly stuck my earbuds back in, vowing NOT to take them out again, regardless of what this guy wanted to ask me next. I slumped down a little in my seat and started writing a text message. Maybe if he saw I was in the middle of something like, oh, say, typing, with body language that screamed “don’t fucking talk to me,” he’d leave me alone. Haha, boy was I wrong.

I heard his voice again, and stubbornly ignored it, continuing with the epic text message I was writing. Unable to figure that I obviously didn’t want to talk to him, he reached over to get my attention by touching my arm. The second he touched me, I snapped at him, asking him with a very strained politeness to NOT touch me. He recoiled, and tried to ask me something else. I told him to leave me alone.

Dude finally got the hint after that, and moved himself to the next train car.

To my horror, the mailbox was not completely empty. Sitting at the bottom in its little webby nest was a particularly large wolf spider. I closed the mailbox, came back inside, and proceeded to flip the fuck out. What if the mailman stuck the mail in there, and crushed the spider? There would be spider guts all over the mail. *yegch* Or if it didn’t get squashed, it might climb onto/into the mail and attack me when I went to bring the mail in. I simply couldn’t let this happen. So I wrote the following note and attached it (quite securely, with lots of tape) to the front of the mailbox:

I just hope he isn’t a dick about it. *keeps fingers crossed!*

I woke up around 11 this morning, to find out that I had four missed calls. All were from “unknown number,” and were roughly every 45 minutes since a little before 7am. Earlier this evening, I received three more “unknown number” calls that I answered, only to be hung up on with no response.

Finally, at 6:05 the phone rang again, and again, it was “unknown number.” I answered it with an exasperated “hello?”

“Hello, who’s dis?” The girl on the other end snapped.

“Um, who’s this?” I asked back insistently. She asked me who I was again, and I responded very firmly with “You called me, you tell me who YOU are.”

Not only did this ghetto bitch not tell me who she was, but started screaming at me to “stop texting [her] man.” When I told her that there are a lot of people I text, and then asked her who her man was, she insisted that I knew and continued to tell me to stop. I informed her that there was no way I could stop texting her man if I didn’t know who he is.

“Tell me where you at so I can fuck you up!” She screamed, while I continued to ask for her man’s name. She ended up hanging up on me, and hasn’t called back since.

So now, I’m on a quest to find out from all my male friends that I text if any of them have a crazy ghetto-ass girlfriend. I almost want her to call back, so I can use 3+ syllable words and mindfuck the shit out of her. Picking on the less intelligent is always fun.

On paper, my job is easy. I’m required to keep all the bathroom(s) on my floor(s) clean and stocked. I’m posted on one floor, which is loaded with tourists. I have one 3-stall bathroom to look after. That in itself, is easy. Add the tourists to the equation, and my job becomes a hellish trial of temper and patience. Also mix in the fact that I have to curb my sarcastic and short-fused New York attitude, and my job becomes damn near impossible. I won’t even talk about what I’ve observed from people-watching at the elevators. What the observatory staff has to deal with from the tourists is a whole post in its own.

I’ve recently found that I can clean my bathroom faster and more efficiently if I close it down. This actually came about from a suggestion from the porter who works on my floor. I take the garbage pail and prop the door open with it, effectively blocking off the doorway. Sadly, dozens of women don’t realize that a garbage pail in the doorway means that hey, don’t go in there. They try to worm their way around the can (or try to push it out of the way) and then act surprised when I point my chemical-filled spray bottle at them and tell them that the bathroom is closed.

Yesterday, I had a woman get snotty with me, and responded with a snippy “no it’s not” when I told her the bathroom was closed. Yes, it is, and you’re not getting in. I win in the massive bitch contest. Today a woman tried to woo me with her “but I really gotta go” whine. Then find another bathroom, because I have no sympathy for you. Besides, as a grown woman, why would you wait until the point of zomg explosion before thinking “hey, I should empty my bladder?”

After I finish cleaning, I mop the whole bathroom, and I build a blockade that consists of the garbage can, the mop bucket, and two large “CAUTION: WET FLOOR” signs. Sometimes I even stand guard for good measure. The amount of self-discipline it takes to respond with a simple “no” when someone comes up, looks at the mini-fortress, and asks if it’s open or if they can use is unreal.

And then there’s the men who completely disregard the two (yes, two) female-indicating signs on and directly next to the bathroom door. Yeah, that doesn’t require too much in-depth explanation.

This is what we saw walking down the street in New York City yesterday. Not only was her outfit ridiculous, but she was roughly 30 years too old to be wearing it.

I don’t normally criticize other people’s fashion choices, because I myself don’t go by what Vogue tells me is fashionable this season (not by a long shot). I actually enjoy eccentric clothing choices and do encourage it. However, ladies: know your place. If you’re pushing over-the-hill, you should NOT be dressing like you’re pushing 20 and ready to hit the club. (Do girls even wear stuff like that to the club?)

While we’re on the topic of fashion mistakes… gladiator sandals! You know, these ugly things? Unless you’re reenacting, you know, the Trojan war, there is absolutely no reason to wear them. Every time I see girls on the subway wearing them, I want to stomp on their perfectly manicured toes with my high-top Chucks. Ugh.

Eric and I had decided to go get some dinner. We’re walking down the street, and as we near the major intersection near where we live (see also: Queens Boulevard), we heard yelling. A skinny white girl with long blonde hair wearing daisy dukes, a tee shirt, and a trucker hat, and a rather plump black girl with a small fro were the ones making the noise. Upon closer inspection, the skinny girl was really a tranny with an obvious wig. Among the gathering onlookers was the tranny’s friend (also a skinny blonde tranny) and the black girl’s boyfriend (a white, preppy-looking guy with dirty blonde hair).

The black girl made her final remark, and turned to walk away. Tranny decided that this wasn’t over yet, and shouted after her, “You’re a NIGGER!”

This sent the black girl flying back, screaming “What did you say? Say that to my face, bitch!”

Tranny got all up in the black girl’s face, and enunciated very clearly, “You’re a nigger, bitch!” And then proceeded to scream the n-word several times in succession.

Tranny’s friend just stood back and watched with a pitiful expression on his face, and asked Eric for a lighter. “This is what happens when children open their mouths,” she remarked with a sigh, as the two started slapping at each other.

The black girl decided she wasn’t going to get dragged down to Tranny’s level, and started to storm off again. Tranny’s shopping bags were by the side of the road, and the black girl kicked one of them furiously and then hurled the other ones into the road. Tranny came charging at her and the fists… no sorry, the open-handed slaps started once again.

By now, the preppy boyfriend had stepped in. He had a water bottle that he kept squirting at Tranny to fend her off.

The whole ordeal lasted maybe 10 minutes. The insults were lame, the fighting was even more pathetic (I could have kicked all their asses in my sleep), and it was so awesome that Eric and I couldn’t stop talking about it during dinner.

I fucking love New York City.

(Edit: Please vote for me at the Savvy-mate.org site of the month contest. Thanks!)

The men at my job are ridiculously immature. They’re all courteous and respectful towards the ladies, but other than that it’s hi, welcome to third grade. The men’s locker room is always loud with swearing, raunchy jokes, and raucous laughter. Yesterday one of the janitors went around proudly displaying his new belt buckle, which featured the three “no evil” monkeys (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil), plus a fourth “kiss my ass” monkey.

Today, I was crammed in the elevator along with a number of the custodial staff all on our way to lunch. Amidst the talking, monkey guy said “Yeah, like the four monkeys! Hehehe” and winked at me. I let out a half-hearted chuckle, and exited the elevator as soon as I could.

Coming back from lunch, we all crammed in the elevator again (a slightly different group of people though, along with some students). There was a news bulletin on the tv in the elevator stating that Kylie Minogue has been diagnosed with breast cancer. One of the men gasped, “Kylie Minogue has cancer?” A female student in the elevator asked, “Who’s Kylie Minogue?” I replied, “She’s a singer.”  Someone asked what she sang, and I said, “You know, that song I just can’t get you out of my head?” and proceeded to sing part of the chorus to that song. We all got off the elevator, and the guy who’d so tragically mourned the news told me I had a great singing voice. “That’s because I’ve sung professionally,” I gloated, and went on to explain how I was in high school choir and took voice lessons in previous years. He then asked me to marry him, to which I replied, “Sorry, already taken,” and pointed to the wedding ring.

On my way to the train, some random guy asked me out. Imagine, if you will, a less dopey-looking Napoleon Dynamite with more meat on his bones. Same hair, same glasses, and a more nasal voice. As I walked by, he said “Will you go out with me? I’ll buy you dinner…” I didn’t reply, didn’t flinch, didn’t even stop. After all, he was standing in front of Peep World. If you don’t know what kind of store Peep World is, here’s a hint: they don’t sell marshmallow chicks.

I started taking cranberry supplements. And just to ease the pain until the cranberry does its magic, I took some Uristat.

I thought something was seriously wrong when I peed a few minutes ago… because it was bright orange. Like, gatorade orange. No, it was a little more intense than Gatorade. I called the local pharmacy expressing my concern, and the pharmacist says that Uristat normally causes those kinds of discolorations — anywhere from orange to brown. Could you image if my pee had come out brown? I’d probably be admitting myself to the hospital right now.

I don’t remember much, except that at this one part, I was standing across the street watching the following happen:

There was a man, probably in his late 40′s, kneeling on his front lawn next to his running lawnmower. He was wearing a dirty white t-shirt and grass-stained jeans. He stuck his hand under the lawnmower, screaming as the blades cut away at his flesh. But he didn’t pull his hand out, instead he stuck his arm further in, and you could hear as his bones and flesh were ripped through and chopped up. He continued to feed his arm to the lawnmower until it was a bloody stump somewhere above the elbow. He pulled it out for moments, and then continued to have the lawnmower blades sear his bones and flesh off.

Pretty, huh?

I bought this hand & body lotion from the dollar store, ’cause it was cheap, and it smells good (tangerine spice!). it doesn’t really do a great job of moisturizing, but it does work.

So, I’m randomly looking at the list of ingredients.

One of them, I kid you fucking not, nonoxonyl 9.

The popular spermicide, used to increase the effectiveness of condoms, is in my hand & body lotion, and I have just been smearing it all over my body.

what. the. fuck.