Oh. My. God.

Okay, who designated July 14 as National Be-An-Asshole Day, and why the hell did no one warn me?

First was the pissy foreign lady siccing the manager-on-duty on me over her chihuahua (No, she cannot have a puppy groom if she's not a puppy, and I don't care if she weighs three pounds or thirty, a year and a half old is not a puppy; yes, nail grinding really does cost that much - don't snark at me, complain to corporate; no, you cannot have special shampoo and conditioner without paying extra, sorry, that's just the way it is; yes, I can get your dog done in an hour and a half instead of three, regardless of the two jack russells and the lab waiting their turns in the back, but I'll have to charge you an express groom...). That was about the point that she snatched up her chihuahua and stalked out and hunted down the manager to throw a tantrum.

Then there was the fact that I still had to do said dog as an express without charging the lady because, hey, gotta make the customer happy, even if they are taking out their hot-flash inspired anger on the poor, unsuspecting bather. (The dog was a sweetheart, bearing out the theory that the bigger a jerk the owner is, the more you wind up loving the dog.)

As if that wasn't enough for one day, then I had another kee-raaaazy guy come in with his pair of - guess what? - chihuahuas. He just wanted nail trims. Okay, I can do that. I still have a lab in the back that's got an inch-deep crust of mud that I need to get off, but a nail trimming won't take long, right?

Urrrgh...

One of the chihuahuas didn't have his rabies vaccinations, so they had to take him to the vet in the store to do his nails. The man left the other dog who did have current rabies with me, warning me that he'd have to hold the dog for me. Okay. Wait for the guy, trim the nails, do the lab... I can do all that in two hours before I leave, right?

Right?

The man was gone for twenty. minutes. I could not put the dog in a kennel. I could not bathe my other dog. I was stuck there. I dared attempt to clip his claws, just in the hopes that I could have him done before the guy ever came back. I got one dewclaw without any fuss. The dog turned around, looked at me, and rather matter-of-factly nipped me. Okay... might need to wait for the guy...

The guy finally moseys in. "So, did you do his nails?" I told him no, I had tried, and I had nearly been bitten for my efforts. "Yeah, I told you you'd have to have me hold him." He scoops the dog up like a plushie and gives me the go ahead.

Item #11 of Things They Don't Tell You in 'Dog Bathing 101': owners in general suck at restraining their dogs.

The little fragger bit me. He actually drew blood. Honestly, that's the first time I've ever had a dog break the skin - mostly they just nip.

It had been a very bad day. First angry chihuahua lady, then this guy, plus the stress of watching the clock tick-tick-ticking away on my time to get that lab done, plus the fifty-seven chigger bites I brought away from my vacation this last weekend, which were itching like a bitch in heat. (And to quote Evelyn, for anyone who may remember, I just happened to be "healthier than I have any right to be. Lucky, lucky me.") Oh, my god.

I wanted to cry, and I think everyone in there knew it.

And as the rotting cherry to top off the day, the guy, standing there cuddling the dog as though I'm traumatizing it somehow, looks at me wiping the blood off on a nearby towel, and he goes, "Is that yours or his?"

"Oh. Mine."

"Ah. That's okay then."

At least all the other girls think he's abso-fragging-lutely out of his mind, too.

I've got to be back at eight tomorrow. Here's to the six-hour workday.

1. Disney lies. Dalmatians are actually some mean sonsabitches.

2. The Rule of Size: the bigger the dog, the smaller the attitude; the smaller the dog, the bigger the attitude. (Seriously, people! Just 'cause it's tiny doesn't mean you don't discipline them like any. other. dog.)*

3. Those little bits of shaved hair floating around? You get splinters from those. Ow.

4. Pet owners are abso-fragging-lutely insane.

5. Many of them are also crappy tippers.

6. ... and they suffer the delusion that dogs are perfectly fine with getting groomed and pawed over even though said owners have never even looked at their dog's feet, much less manhandled them.

7. When you paint a dog's nails, the dog's first action will then be to walk through a pile of discarded fur, creating a lovely 'fuzzy house slipper' effect.

8. You will sneeze fur.

9. You will dream about fur.

10. Two words: anal glands.

* except chihuahua puppies, 'cause they're damn cute, and they're too young to have picked up one of those pesky Napoleon complexes... but when they start acting up, it's time to ship them off to training classes with everyone else!

=====

No, I'm not bitter. XD And yes, they don't even mention the words 'anal glands' until nearly a week into your training. Don't want to scare off the newbies.

Still an interesting job. As with retail, it would be a perfect job... without the customers. Seriously, I had a lady bless me out because her baby wasn't ready to go at 12:40 even though it hadn't been promised until 1:00. She called my manager on me! D: All because she was going to miss the beginning of her soaps! (I kid you not! She told me so herself.)

The manager took my side, thank god. >.> And the lady apologized... by giving me a $1 tip. Woo, I can buy a Sprite!

Don't you love Walmart's new policy of stocking utterly random DVDs/DVD collections from the days of childhood past? I'm such a packrat, it makes it a battle for me every time I happen to walk through electronics. I've seen Thumbelina, the old Ninja Turtles live actions films, the original Ninja Turtles cartoon (TEMPTATION), and such classics as Flight of the Navigator, Willow, Labyrinth, and so on, so forth.

Well, a couple months back, one of the lovely denizens of the Metellus Cursor group posted a link to pre-order Transformers G1 on DVD from Amazon. I spent several days drooling over the pretty pretty pictures, then had to sadly let go of the idea as I was flat broke as only a part-time antique-store-clerk-slash-aspiring-author can be. The G1 release slipped my mind.

But Primus, I do love Wally World. Because I am now the happy owner of Transformers Season One for the lovely price of a mere $20 bucks.

Sucks that I'm working for the next three days straight, but come Sunday, I am having a giant-alien-robot marathon. Score!

Okaaay. For those interested, or those not-so-interested but possibly just very bored, I'd figured a heads-up was due to explain my recent absence online.

Well, first, there was the Strattera. Discussions with my half-sister led my family to think that my abysmal performance in college might have been due to ADD. Go figure. So, since our family doctor is the extremely pill-happy sort, he slapped me on some Strattera (the only non-cocaine-ish med for Attention Deficits out there, and inhumanely expensive to boot). This was... eight months ago? Maybe ten.

On the bright side, it did work... in a sense. Focus was no longer a problem. I didn't get sidetracked as easily. Good times! Sort of. The side-effects were killer, though they had some bright sides, too. Loss of appetite for one, and insomnia - I could lose some weight, and I'm notorious for sleeping in. And the vivid dreaming was, I must admit, extremely cool. Of course, I could ree-hee-heally have done without the nausea, the hot-flashes, the random bouts of sweating, and suddenly flushing redder than a Christmas bulb, not to mention some other unmentionables - you can look them up on your own, if you feel like it.

On the downside, though, I really lacked any comprehension of just what it was that ADD meds actually did. The best description I've found is that it gives people a better 'mental breaking mechanism,' stopping thought processes before they wander off down paths they shouldn't be heading down.

Well, care to guess just what my mind does when I'm brainstorming for a story?

Yah.

I didn't think about any of this until several months had passed without my being able to squeeze out any cohesive fiction. I could world-build like a fiend, but actual plots? No luck. I had given my muse the Kiss of Death. And not only that! I had no desire to watch any of my favorite vids on YouTube. I hadn't read any of my manga. My doodling was down to nadda. It was just really fraggin' weird.

I debated. I dithered. I had minor freak-outs on a bi-weekly basis. (Ask Cafei. >.>; ) Finally, I dropped the pills. I'd rather be crazy with my muse than boring without, thankiesverymuchly.

Six weeks later, and my geekiness began to return! I even got my Inner Narrator back. :3 (Those who have one will know exactly what I mean.) My muse has even started feeding my plotbunnies again - I'm not sure whether to thank her or hit her with a shovel, but there you go.

Also, on the theme of 'What's Up With Me,' I've quit my job at the antique mall and have gotten a position in a grooming salon at a certain international pet supply store as a bather. This means it's my job to wrestle with peoples' smelly, spoilt little rat-dogs to soak them, soap them, dry them, clean their ears, shave their butts (literally), brush their teeth, and clip their nails - and occasionally paint their nails, because people are just really weird like that. o.O

In three months or so, I'll (hopefully) have the option of going through the training to become an actual groomer, which means much more money. Fingers crossed.

On the bright side, a lot of the dogs are really sweet, and it's not a bad job if you like dogs. (I'm actually a cat person, but don't tell my manager.) On the downside, you are guaranteed to get bitten, scratched, pooped on, and peed on, not necessarily in that order. Also, you come home soaked and smelling of wet dog. And you meet some really psycho dogs! D:

(Note to a certain wirehaired terrier who shall not be named: IF I NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN, IT WILL BE TOO SOON. And the next time you decide to make a nose-dive out of a kennel for my face, God help me, I am not catching you!)

... Ahem.

So, yeah. There's the past year in a nutshell. ^^ I am back to toying with Jux, but at this point, it's mostly about shuffling bits around and deciding what would go best where, but hopefully there shall be an update in the near future.

'Til my next rant, this is Vaeru, signing off.

tagged me for this about... oh, three weeks ago? And I'm finally getting around to it. Better late than never, yes?

1. Post these rules.
2. Each tagged person must post 8 things about them self in their journal.
3. At the end, you have to choose and tag 4 people and post their icons on the same journal.
4. Go to their pages and send a message saying you tagged them.
5. No tag-backs.

1) I have worked in an antique mall for the past four years (going on five this May). I have therefore become something of a jewelry snob. XDD If it's not sterling or gold, it had better be pretty fraggin' spectacular for me to like it.
2) I collect black cats. Not live ones (beyond the four I've already got), but pure-black figurines/plushies/pics/etc. that remind me of my babe Vel. I.e. slim, svelte, and not unlike classic Bastet figurines from Egyptian culture.
3) I am a Transformers geek. Many of you know this. What you don't know is that I've named my new dog (black and white) 'Jazz'. My family are not Transformers geeks. They think this an extremely wimpy name for a Labrador. Hah.
4) Re: Answer 3. My dog has a stomach of steel. To date, he has eaten: an industrial grade extension cord, a wooden chair, plastic flower pots, a ceramic flower pot, Christmas lights, welcome mats, XXXL men's briefs (We don't know where he gets them, and we're afraid to find out.), towels, plastic flowers, and our doorbell. On reflection, I should have named him Wreckgar.
5) While I do enjoy TF: Animated (It tends to startle laughs out of me at unexpected moments; this wins it many points.), I have banned myself from watching it. It is extremely hard to write G1 fanfiction when Prowl insists that he's a ninja-bot with a not-quite-British drawl, Optimus' voice has yet to break, and Ratchet sounds like a veteran smoker of 50. Just... no.
6) I have taken courses on Latin and Japanese. This Thursday, I start in on Spanish. Why Spanish? Why not? I've always been a language geek. Maybe next I'll try for French.
7) I have been trying to write a fantasy novel for years, ever since I was eight years old. I now have two-dozen or more characters and/or storylines, nearly five separate worlds complete with cultures, geography, and history, god-only-knows-how-many unfiled snippets and chapters... but no complete story. Man, I need to get organized.
8) I can touch my ring and middle fingers to the insides of my wrists without any outside pressure. Just to assuage my curiosity, can anyone else do that? X3

Okay, now to tag people. Let's do:
and