The BS 3 - "Noor vs. The Washer"

You should know that when it comes to technology, I'm a tad bit inept. When I was a kid, I loved technology, and I was always current on the latest trinkets and gadgets and all that, but when I turned 20 it was like all of the die-hard interest got replaced by a smog of confusion, rendering me helpless (old-man style) in the face of electronic devices. Ever since, I've had many harrowing experiences with all sorts of machines, and my time in Brazil did not get spared these such experiences.

The worst one ever was my ongoing brawl with the washer in my apartment. Commence, as my friend Merry put it, the harrowing tale of Noor versus...

THE WASHER.

The Trollmatic.

Now, being that I'm a lazy boy (if you couldn't guess), laundry is something that I dread so much that it gives me night terrors. HOWEVER when I do laundry, I go all out. I wash everything. That's the Virgo in me, I suppose.

Unfortunately, I wash everything... together. Which I know isn't good for your clothes, but whatever. No one's complained to me yet and I've been washing my clothes that way for years. Sadly, that goddamn washer back in Brazil was not having any of my shit.

So, the first time I did laundry was about... oh... a month and a half after I got there. That was the point at which all my clothes had been worn, most of them multiple times, and I was out of money to buy more clean underwear. At that point I figured, "alright... I'll do my laundry, GOD."

I walked up to that mechanical beast and promptly shoved all of my clothes in there and then proceeded to pour an obscene amount of detergent over them, because that's how it works, right? Anyway, Mr. Washer was doing his thing, and I went about my day.

I like Atlas symbolism.

Let me tell you something about Brazil: There are maybe two clothes dryers in that whole country. It's not that they aren't available, it's just that Brazilians (from what I heard) prefer to hang dry their clothes. Which I'm cool with, I've had to do that before, no big. That's not the problem. The problem is what the washer decided to do. Or rather... not do.

There I am, biding my time, minding my own business when the washer beeped, telling me my clothes were so fresh and so clean, clean. I hopped up, went over to it, peeked inside and saw that it was still full of water. I thought nothing of it, closed the lid and waited for a few minutes. When I opened it up again, it was still full of water.

"No matter", I thought, and turned the knob a little to see if maybe it just forgot to drain.

It did not.

It never drained.

...

... ...

... ... ...

Ever.

Mad doesn't cut it, bro.

 So what did your uncle Noor have to do? Take all of his clothes out of the Trollmatic, one by one, and wring them out. ONE BY ONE.  ALL OF HIS CLOTHES. And that's not all. Obviously the washer was still full of water, and I couldn't just let it sit there, so I had to empty it out... WITH A BUCKET.

Idk, my bff Pail.

 Needless to say, uncle Noor was pisssssssed. 

Pictured: The Sea of Bullshit. Yeah, it's real.

The story ain't over folks. Remember, I was in Brazil for 6 months. Of course, the next day I told my supervisor and boss about the problem, since they're the ones who paid for the apartment's rent and took care of the maintenance problems. You know what my boss told me? "Tell your supervisor." You know what my supervisor told me? "Tell your boss."

You know what else my supervisor told me, when I told her I was afraid my clothes might get all moldy because of how soaking wet they were? "Oh, you should probably hang them up to dry near a window."

...

REALLY BITCH?!

Ahem.

Anyway, even after I reminded my boss and supervisor about this dilemma about, oh, 17,845 times, they never sent anyone to fix it. So every single fucking time I had to laundry, I had to repeat that stupid fucking process of wringing out my clothes individually, then hanging them up to dry for days because they would be so wet still. AND empty the washer with a bucket.

"Well why didn't you just go to a laundromat?" You may ask. Ha. I wish. Those don't exist in Buttfucknowhere, Brazil, sweet cheeks. 

And the best part? Well, I still communicate with these people every once in a while, and recently my former supervisor told me "You were right about the washer! It was totally broken. We just thought you didn't know how to use it. It's fixed now."

My reaction?

No caption needed.

End of story.

The Thing I Said That Got Me Fired That One Time (the Second Time)

I've worked many jobs in my time. Dominant among them was serving. And I didn't serve at just one place, no. I served at like five different restaurants, working at each for no more than 5-6 months. Why? Because serving fucking sucks and no matter how many times you think "Oh this place will be better" it never is. I attribute my (initial) hatred of (most) people to my time(s) as a server. Teaching didn't help that. But I digress.

My first such abomination of a job was at a bakery/cafe/restaurant (a bacarestaurant?). The owner only had one or two of us serving at a time. The thing about this place was that not only were there tables to seat, take orders at, bus, and bring orders to, but also people in and out constantly getting coffee and delicious pastries. And the place was slammed all day because it was in the busiest part of Yuppiesville and also had a live pianist (he was such a cool dude). If you couldn't guess, it was FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE FOR ONE PERSON TO DO ALL THAT SHIT. MAN.

And the manager would just sit there and critique you with his small beady little eyes, arms crossed. His name was Mr. Boss Man *****. Everything had to be done exactly to his stupid beady little expectations. Wait... can expectations be beady? Whatever.

Anyway, my biggest problems there were a) I was late, like, everyday, which is sad because I lived across the street (see "The Checklist of Time Wasting"), and b) I could not stop eating those stupid fucking delicious pastries for the life of me. Shit like eclairs, cookies, macaroons, croissants, you name it, it was there. How could one resist? So my cheeks were always puffed out chipmunk style, crumbs all over, and my boss did not like that.

They were too delicious.

After about three weeks I got fired. The first time. Yup, that's right. I got fired twice at that job. But, the day after Mr. Boss Man ***** fired me, he called me back and was like "You need to come back to work" for whatever reason. And I was like, "OKAY! :D" for whatever other reason. Mistake.

Sooo there I was back at work, being generally awful at serving and getting a healthy mix of complaints and horrible tips left and right. I dropped so many trays and plates (in my defense, it was my first time serving) that Mr. Boss Man ***** had to have a talk with me. He called me down to his basement office, which was creepy (duh), and told me that if I dropped another anything, I'd be fired again. So most of the time, my days went by with me struggling to keep shit off the floor and out of my mouth. Which was really really really hard.

Pictured: Trying to give a shit, but failing.

But one can only eat so many delicious pastries and get so many bad tips before one decides that enough is enough. Eventually, I stopped giving a shit, thinking to myself, "He wouldn't fire me again. He hired me back!" Ha. Mistake.

I started getting quite the 'tude. I talked shit about Mr. Boss Man ***** all the time and was super lazy about waiting my tables and was an all around bad employee. But what do you expect from a 19 year old college student who had way better things to do with his time and hated his job, delicious pastries or no?

Then... Then one day I was very late. An hour and thirty-seven minutes very late. On purpose. That was how little of a shit I gave.

Of course, Mr. Boss Man ***** was livid. Because, duh, I was the only one scheduled that day. Mistake (on his part).

He confronted me and was all like "NOOR Y U NO BE ON TIME". I stared at him straight in the face, and with all seriousness said "Well Mr. Boss Man *****, as much as I would like to turn back time and not be late, I can't because my time machine is broken. Deal with it." Mis. Take.

"I think it's the flux capacitor."

Mr. Boss Man ***** was not pleased, nor did he find my joke funny. I certainly did, and was lolling to myself, doing my worst to hide it. And then I got fired. Again. I walked out of that place, kicked my heels together, and never looked back.

But goddamn do I miss those delicious pastries.

Yo...

I know I haven't updated in a while. I will, I swear. I actually have all the lame drawings done for my next post. I'll try to put it up later today.

Here's a preview:

I hope that doesn't give anything away. It doesn't, actually.

Okay. So. Come back later today for the new post. It's not a BS post. It's different.

Bye.

The BS 2 - "Americans Break Doors"

-A little background: I'm very awkward when I know I've done something bad/wrong/extremely stupid and I confront a person that will be really pissed when they find out I was the one who did the bad/wrong/extremely stupid thing. This is one of those situations.
-A little more background: In the town I was in, I taught English. Other Americans had been there before me to do the same thing. The last guy who was there was a"real American" blond, blue-eyed, and 6'4" and ate a lot of cheeseburgers. (according to the Brazilians, but I doubt this). 
-A final bit of background: I lived in an apartment building that had an entrance door you needed a key to open. Everyone who lived in the building used that door to get in. All of the previous Americans lived in the same apartment that I did.

I just so happened to be in Brazil on September 7th - its independence day. Just like us, they get wasted and cook out, and one of the teachers I worked with had invited me to a party to do just that. And I was like "hell yeah!".

The party mainly consisted of drinking, eating, drinking, and eating. Also lots of drunken discussions of politics and the turning point in my ability to speak Portuguese. (I'm really really good at Portuguese when I'm drunk.) And people trying to set me up with their daughters. But the party isn't the story. Being drunk, now that's the story. Well, the beginning of it.

After I got dropped off at my apartment building, I stumbled up to the door and shoved my key into it. Literally, into it. And I was like, "Oh, oops, I should probably put this in the keyhole." Only I was drunk, so my inner monologue went more like "KEY IN HOLE NOT IN DOOR DUH LOL." And so in went the key into the hole, way more forcefully than needed. Now, the thing about this door was that it was the kind of door where turning the key opens the door. And then... well, then this happened:

I'm trying to ween myself off notebook paper.

The good news was, the door opened. The bad news was, my key broke in the keyhole. And then the door closed. I was inside the building though, and my belligerent self could not have given two shits about the calamitous seed I had just planted. I waddled up to my apartment and collected my laptop so I could go use the internet for free somewhere. (There was no internet in the apartment.) And then I waddled right back down to the door I had recently defiled, pushed it open, and was about to step out when I realized "Ohhhhh... wait. I broke the key IN the keyhole, so if the door closes... it won't open. For anyone." Again, though, I was still drunk so my inner monologue went more like "LOL I BROKE THAT. I SHOULD PROB HIDE IN MY APT SO NO INTERNETS TONIGHT LOLOLOLOLOL."

And then I threw up and passed out until work the next morning.

Then...

I woke up with a start. Whereas the previous night my opinion of what I had done was "fuck the door", that morning my first thought was "FUCK, THE DOOR." I got ready for work, face aflush* already, thinking only "shit fuck shit balls dammit fuck shit damn" and scrambled downstairs. Here's how that went:

I was so shocked my nose disappeared.

The door was GONE. Someone had taken the door. It was no longer there. Poof. Magic. Abracadabra nomodoorzam. And it was all my fault. Fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

"Okay, be cool" I thought. "No one needs to know it was you." I saw a neighbor person and they were like "Yeah, some asshole broke his key in the door last night" and I was like "Aw man! What a dick" knowing full well that I was that asshole.

"Alright" I thought, "ask someone at work if they know about a spare key... Tell them you lost it."

No one did. They were like "Oh, you could go to the locksmith but you need a copy of the key." Well no shit. Finally my supervisor got there, and I told her my situation. Except I lied and I said that I lost my key. She told me to find the landlord who was probably working at the grocery store attached to the apartment building and to ask her if I could take her key to go copy it. And I was like "Heh... oookay. Yeah. I'll do that."

But the problem was, the landlord knew that some asshole broke their key in the keyhole. If I went and asked her, she'd know that I was that asshole. Which wouldn't be a problem if her face didn't look like this all the time:

Her name is Patricia.

So you can see where my trepidation stemmed from. But I had no other choice. As soon as they put the fixed door back, I had no way of getting in the building. "Maybe I can just go hide in my apartment for the rest of forever." But I couldn't. By the time I got off work, the new door had already been put in place. Out of desperation, I tried using the little stub of the key I had left to open it and obviously that didn't work.

So it was either talk to Patricia or live on the street with the stray dogs and this one drunk guy. And although that sounded more appealing to me, I had to go talk to her. All my shit was in that apartment. Stupidly, I thought "I'll just lie to her. I'll say I lost my key. That'll work. Worked on everyone else today." Except for my aforementioned awkwardness.

I went to the grocery store and found her, and she looked really pissed. She saw me and glared, like always, and glared even harder when she saw that I was walking up to her, very timidly. I swore I heard her think "If this mofo talks to me, I'mma gonna roast his bones and EAT HIM." So it was time for the confrontation:

I had to roll a will save.

Me: "Uhhhh h-hi P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-patricia... H-how are----"
Patricia: "WHAT DO YOU WANT."
Me: "Well, you see, I, uh, I lost my... I, umm... Well, I..."
Patricia: "YOU'RE THE ASSHOLE WHO BROKE HIS KEY IN THE KEYHOLE AREN'T YOU."
Me: "M-me? Umm... No? Yes. I would be that asshole, yup. I'm... I'm really s-s-sorry. I, uhh... Oh God please don't eat me."
Patricia: "HERE. TAKE THIS KEY. I DON'T EVEN CARE ANYMORE. YOU AMERICANS EAT TOO MANY CHEESEBURGERS AND YOU ALWAYS BREAK YOUR KEYS IN THE KEYHOLE. THE LAST STUPID AMERICAN DID THE SAME THING. DON'T DO IT AGAIN."
Me: "Wait he did?"
Patricia: "YOU COME HERE TO BRAZIL AND YOU THINK THAT THINGS ARE MADE TO WORK LIKE THEY DO IN THE U.S. BUT THEY DON'T. BE MORE GENTLE WITH THE KEY FROM NOW ON. OR ELSE."
Me: "Oh... okay. Yes sir MA'AM YES MA'AM BYE."

And I ran. I ran so far away. And from that point on, I was oh so gentle with the key. And I stopped eating cheeseburgers. And I learned that things in Brazil don't have the durability that I was used to them having in the U.S. Especially the washers. But the story of the washer is for another day.

The end.

--- --- ---

*I want to point out that spellcheck doesn't think that aflush is a word, but it totally is.

Some cool things...

... to occupy your time.

First of all, tonight is the Supermoon, which is awesome. Please go stare at the Moon. And let me know if you also think his face looks like this:

Thank you alltheragefaces.com. You make my life complete.

Alright, so cool shit:

New York Times Visual DNA Quiz - Usually I hate those personality quizzes, but the format of this one is really interesting. I think it's worth checking out.

The Anime Network - I don't know how many of you are anime fans, but this site is one of the web's greatest gems.

QueenLeen StylePhile - I'll admit it; this is a shameless plug for my sister's blog, but damn does that girl know how to dress.

This gallery of long-exposure firefly photos. I just wish I would've thought of this first, haha.

And...

Prohibition of Death - Yeah. It's a thing.

Also, this, from my beautiful little corner of the world to yours:

Credit: Yours truly.