(It is Halloween; I am wearing clown makeup, a bright pink wig, and a bright orange shirt with our store’s logo on it in a HUGE font. A woman with a Bible in one hand and a cross in another comes up to me.)
Woman: “Do you work here?”
Me: “…yes.”
Woman: “YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL FOR SELLING THESE ITEMS CELEBRATING SATAN’S HOLIDAY!” turns to customers “…AND YOU WILL BURN FOR SUPPORTING THEM!”
Manager: over loudspeaker “Thank you for shopping at [Store]! All items are now 6.66% off for the next 6 minutes, 66 seconds. Thank you, and have a nice day!”
(It’s 2005, and I’ve gone south to volunteer in a shelter after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. One of the shelter residents is elderly and frail, and we are able to get her temporarily lodged in a local nursing home while we locate her family. She is from way down in the southwest part of the state, almost a hundred miles away. I am on the phone to a nurse at the home, explaining.)
Me: “We’re trying to find a way to get her home; unfortunately, she doesn’t have transport, and her family can’t come and get her. I’m going to be calling some of the churches in [Her Hometown] to see if we can arrange something.”
Nurse: “You’re at [Shelter], aren’t you?”
Me: “Yes, ma’am.”
Nurse: “Is [Deputy] there? Tell him to come talk to me.”
(There are a couple of local law enforcement personnel providing security at the shelter. The deputy in question is, in fact, on duty that day, and I call him to the phone. He is the size of a small truck, has a shaved head and a grim face, and looks like he eats live alligators for breakfast. He puts the phone to his ear and…)
Deputy: in a deep bass rumble “Hello?” suddenly his expression changes, as does his tone of voice “Yes, Mamma.”
(And that is how a little old lady got a ride home courtesy of the local sheriff’s office.)
Sadly, Cosplay Without Bigotry Still Remains The Final Fantasy
One of my friends has the nickname “Tifa” — from “Final Fantasy VII” — for the fact that she owns a bar, works the bar, and knows how to throw one h*** of a punch when the need arises.
One Halloween, she hosts a cosplay night at her bar. Some other friends and I come by, garbed in cosplay for ourselves, and find Tifa dressed up in the leather suit of her namesake.
That is all well and good for decent people. The problem — at least as far as the a**hole in the Goku (“Dragon Ball”) cosplay is concerned — is that Tifa is as Black as Black gets. There’s also my male friend in a Samus (“Metroid”) cosplay — not the androgynous Power Suit, but the skin-tight Zero Suit — and me in a Team Galactic uniform (“Pokémon”) WITHOUT the grunt hairstyle.
Goku: “What the f*** is wrong with this place? I thought it was supposed to be cosplay night.”
Samus: “You’re surrounded by cosplay right now.”
Goku: “The f*** I am, you [transphobic slur]. Why didn’t you pick an actual guy to dress up as instead of pulling this bulls***?”
Tifa: “Okay, I’m refusing you service. Varma!”
At this bar, “Varma” is the staff’s code word for an abusive customer — a signal to the bouncers that someone needs to be thrown out.
Goku: “F*** is your problem, b****? You’re the [racist slur] who thinks you’ve got any business wearing—”
It’s at this point that the bouncer — a giant mountain of dude who’s done up to look like a Goron from “The Legend Of Zelda” — grabs “Goku’s” shoulder and turns him around.
Goron: “You have about one minute to get out of here before I put a boulder up your a** and call the knights. Er, cops.”
Part of me almost wishes “Goku” had chosen to resist, if only because he had the musculature to make the cosplay work. But faced with someone who looked like he could lift something large enough to be called a boulder, “Goku” decided to book it.
An early literary usage of “it” in this sense is found in a 1904 short story by Rudyard Kipling (Traffics and Discoveries (1904) ‘Mrs Bathurst’), which contains the line “’Tisn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walk down a street.”
Yakety Sax about 7 hours ago
Just Another Day At Work
(It is Halloween; I am wearing clown makeup, a bright pink wig, and a bright orange shirt with our store’s logo on it in a HUGE font. A woman with a Bible in one hand and a cross in another comes up to me.)
Woman: “Do you work here?”
Me: “…yes.”
Woman: “YOU WILL ALL BURN IN HELL FOR SELLING THESE ITEMS CELEBRATING SATAN’S HOLIDAY!” turns to customers “…AND YOU WILL BURN FOR SUPPORTING THEM!”
Manager: over loudspeaker “Thank you for shopping at [Store]! All items are now 6.66% off for the next 6 minutes, 66 seconds. Thank you, and have a nice day!”
Yakety Sax about 7 hours ago
Katrina Still Ain’t Got Nothing On Me
(It’s 2005, and I’ve gone south to volunteer in a shelter after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. One of the shelter residents is elderly and frail, and we are able to get her temporarily lodged in a local nursing home while we locate her family. She is from way down in the southwest part of the state, almost a hundred miles away. I am on the phone to a nurse at the home, explaining.)
Me: “We’re trying to find a way to get her home; unfortunately, she doesn’t have transport, and her family can’t come and get her. I’m going to be calling some of the churches in [Her Hometown] to see if we can arrange something.”
Nurse: “You’re at [Shelter], aren’t you?”
Me: “Yes, ma’am.”
Nurse: “Is [Deputy] there? Tell him to come talk to me.”
(There are a couple of local law enforcement personnel providing security at the shelter. The deputy in question is, in fact, on duty that day, and I call him to the phone. He is the size of a small truck, has a shaved head and a grim face, and looks like he eats live alligators for breakfast. He puts the phone to his ear and…)
Deputy: in a deep bass rumble “Hello?” suddenly his expression changes, as does his tone of voice “Yes, Mamma.”
(And that is how a little old lady got a ride home courtesy of the local sheriff’s office.)
Yakety Sax about 7 hours ago
Sadly, Cosplay Without Bigotry Still Remains The Final Fantasy
One of my friends has the nickname “Tifa” — from “Final Fantasy VII” — for the fact that she owns a bar, works the bar, and knows how to throw one h*** of a punch when the need arises.
One Halloween, she hosts a cosplay night at her bar. Some other friends and I come by, garbed in cosplay for ourselves, and find Tifa dressed up in the leather suit of her namesake.
That is all well and good for decent people. The problem — at least as far as the a**hole in the Goku (“Dragon Ball”) cosplay is concerned — is that Tifa is as Black as Black gets. There’s also my male friend in a Samus (“Metroid”) cosplay — not the androgynous Power Suit, but the skin-tight Zero Suit — and me in a Team Galactic uniform (“Pokémon”) WITHOUT the grunt hairstyle.
Goku: “What the f*** is wrong with this place? I thought it was supposed to be cosplay night.”
Samus: “You’re surrounded by cosplay right now.”
Goku: “The f*** I am, you [transphobic slur]. Why didn’t you pick an actual guy to dress up as instead of pulling this bulls***?”
Tifa: “Okay, I’m refusing you service. Varma!”
At this bar, “Varma” is the staff’s code word for an abusive customer — a signal to the bouncers that someone needs to be thrown out.
Goku: “F*** is your problem, b****? You’re the [racist slur] who thinks you’ve got any business wearing—”
It’s at this point that the bouncer — a giant mountain of dude who’s done up to look like a Goron from “The Legend Of Zelda” — grabs “Goku’s” shoulder and turns him around.
Goron: “You have about one minute to get out of here before I put a boulder up your a** and call the knights. Er, cops.”
Part of me almost wishes “Goku” had chosen to resist, if only because he had the musculature to make the cosplay work. But faced with someone who looked like he could lift something large enough to be called a boulder, “Goku” decided to book it.
(contd)
Yakety Sax about 7 hours ago
I Can Be Anything I Want
Customer: “Do you sell stripper costumes?”
Me: “Sorry?”
Customer: “Stripper or hooker, whatever. I need it for a Halloween costume party.”
(I assume she’s dressing up herself for a party for adults.)
Me: “Why don’t you just go to a lingerie store? Or perhaps an adult store?”
Customer: “Well, they won’t be selling sizes that fit my kid. She’s six.”
jmworacle about 6 hours ago
But, what is IT?
sbenton7684 about 4 hours ago
It is all the things you think of but can’t explain that to others because you’ve lost your place in the conversation… what?
PraiseofFolly about 4 hours ago
From the Internet, “ It Girl”:
An early literary usage of “it” in this sense is found in a 1904 short story by Rudyard Kipling (Traffics and Discoveries (1904) ‘Mrs Bathurst’), which contains the line “’Tisn’t beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It’s just It. Some women’ll stay in a man’s memory if they once walk down a street.”
CorkLock about 3 hours ago
S*IT. Full of it. Yep.
Shirl Summ Premium Member about 3 hours ago
That joke is so old my computer just groaned.
The Reader Premium Member about 3 hours ago
Did you check the junk drawer?
FreyjaRN Premium Member about 2 hours ago
I hate when that happens.
dbrucepm about 1 hour ago
whenever there is a computer problem at work we can’t find IT either, they just disappear
walstib Premium Member about 1 hour ago
I preferred “That Girl”.