Let’s just acknowledge all the elephants in the room...

(Chris: Now let’s put a picture of an elephant and a picture of a room. Ooo! And can it have a speech bubble that says, “Hi, my name is Chad. I’m in sales.”??

Meg, eager to be agreeable in light of recent events: …Sssssure.)

- Meg hasn’t been posting because she fucked up her hand. Well guess what, butter? It’s feeling better and I’m back. I can grip things again, which is genuinely exciting. And kind of sounds like I’m referring to hand jobs, but I just mean I can blow dry my hair again. And drive stick. If I ever could. Either way, thank you for your patience while my little talon healed.

- Meg and Chris got into a TIG ‘OLE FIGHT. Which didn’t “enhance” productivity, per se. That being said, we’re friends again. The doors of communication were flung open so wide the doorknob made a dent in the side of the wall when I called Chris hysterically crying the night I broke my hand. It was that kind of hysterical crying where you can’t catch your breath and have to repeat everything twenty times because everything just comes out as “ghhhheh, ghhhheh, ghhhheh, GAAAAH!” It was embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as the admission that I don’t remember the twenty minutes of the phone call when he pitched book ideas to me because I took four Tylenol PMs, passed out, and went on “Auto Agree”. But they’re good ideas sober, so we’re back in business!

- Chris hasn’t been posting because he went on an extended “Visiting Loved Ones Who Might Die” tour. It was, to put it mildly, extremely depressing. Silver lining: he found out he’s descended from Pocahontas! Since then, he’s been spending most of his time wearing a denim vest and a shit-load of turquoise jewelry, painting with all the colors of the wind.

- Meg’s dad emailed her last week to reprimand her and Chris for not posting regularly. And SHIT. GOT. REAL. Because you know you’ve fucked up when the official Non-Nagging Parent nags you.

SORR ABOUT THE NAG!!!1!

- The job search has been humiliating for both of us, but probably more so Chris because he's gotten further. He actually got a call from a real live human woman who found his resume on Career Builder and wanted him to come in for an interview. He got a haircut, clipped his moustache, and squeezed into his cotton Dockers and went down for the interview, only to find that the woman who had contacted him had been fired in the interim. He was allowed to interview with someone else who told him not to get his hopes up and assured him that a 27-year-old with a master's degree and three published books is still entry-level. There might be something in King of Prussia in a few months. He will let Chris know. South of the Mason-Dixon, Meg was denied a job at a bakery.

- Chris bought Meg an “apology candle”, but Meg did not return the favor. This will be remedied in 3-5 days. In lavender.

- There’s a porno spoof of Pocahontas called Poke-a-Hot-Ass. This isn’t an elephant in the room as much as a play on words that seriously got Meg through some hard times in 2007.

- Also the guitarist from GWAR died. This has fucked everything up.

- We’re out of elephants (for the moment. The night is young and we have a brand new bottle of generic Adderall), but we recognize that as it stands, this is a short blog post and probably will not suffice. That being said, we also recognize that the entire reason we’re together right now is to do a nauseating amount of editing on book #3 before Thanksgiving and we haven’t started yet. Therefore, I will now show you pictures of things in Chris’ apartment that fascinate me and allow Chris to explain them, if he can.

This ceramic piggyback from Tampa, Florida:

“Oh, I bought that for you during a layover in June. Happy Hanukkah.” [Ed. Note: BOO YEAH!!!!!!!!1!!] [Ed. Note: Full disclosure, I actually said “BOOYAKASHA!!!!!!!!1!!”, which has somehow worked its way into my vocabulary seven years after the fact and taken my self-loathing to a level I never dreamed possible.]

This Gone with the Wind musicbox:

Primarily because this Scarlett O’Hara looks disturbingly like Ex Co-Blogger Eddie.

“A few months ago a friend sent me a package and I undid the paper and the box was for a musical Gone with the Wind musical statuette. I thought, ‘Oh, how funny. She bought me a present and went to the trouble of finding a Gone with the Wind musical statuette box to wrap it in.' Then I opened the box and it was actually a Gone with the Wind musical statuette. It plays 'Tara’s Theme' very, very slowly.”

This large fleece wolf blanket:

“I have a lot of aunts and I’m kind of hard to shop for. I also, in all seriousness, like this and it’s warm.”

This signed picture of Christine Baranski with Certificate of Authenticity:

“This was a gift from the same friend that got me the Gone with the Wind musical statuette. It's also my favorite object in the world. Cut-up episodes of Cybill on YouTube literally kept me from committing suicide in 2008. I wrote a letter to Christine Baranski thanking her and she never wrote back. I don’t blame her.”

This picture of wee baby Chrislet on the fridge:

“I was going to tell you not to put that on the blog, but I’d feel like a bad sport because there are so many pictures of baby Meglet. Note that I’m already worried.”

This compilation of Jeff Leedy cartoons called “The Check is in the Mail”:

We were in a desperate, desperate time crunch while writing Brainwashing... and my discovery of this on Chris' bookshelf derailed us in a way that's borderline concerning. We spent a solid hour curled up on the floor, flipping through this book, laughing at, not with, the cartoonists. Here are some of our favorites:

This ceramic ornament of Garfield embracing an entire turkey:

“Meg, get out of my hope chest.”

CRACKED OUT GRAB BAG!!!!1

Here's a list of important things I need to discuss with you that have nothing to do with each other and/or aren't really that important:

1.) From a phone conversation I had with Tulane Chris tonight:

Meg: Chris, can I bear my soul to you for a second?

TC: Sure.

Meg: This has been such an incredibly hard summer.

TC: I know, right? But you know you're always welcome to come stay with me and take a break, right? I'm seeing Ex Co-Blogger Eddie tomorrow night, you should come!

Meg: Ugh. I have to work.

TC: So blow 'em off. Tell them you have diarrhea and can't come in.

Meg: I frequently do have diarrhea and come in. I don't think they're going to believe me if it just all of a sudden up and becomes debilitating.

TC: Seriously, don't go.

Meg: OK. I'm going to call my mom and ask.

TC: Meg, we got in trouble with your mom once for looking at vaginal dye on her computer. I don't think she's going to condone skipping work for three days.

Meg: You never know. She gets spicy sometimes.

TC: We got in trouble and we're both 25-years-old.

Meg: ...Point taken.

But, feeling adventurous, I decided to risk it and see what Diane would say if I blew off work for the rest of the week to eat pad thai on Chris' air mattress and talk about my emotions.

Meg: What would you say if I just up and went to Philly to stay with Chris and Eddie for a while?

Mom: When?

Meg: Tomorrow.

Mom: I'd say you have a doctor's appointment on Friday.

Meg: Well, yeah, but I also have work and you don't see that stopping me.

Mom: Then I'd say it's pretty obvious that you can't do that. Sorry.

Meg: ...........WELL NOW YOU'RE GOING TO STAY ON THE PHONE WITH ME AND LISTEN WHILE I YOUTUBE VINTAGE 1970'S CARPENTERS PERFORMANCES AND SING ALONG FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES UNTIL I FEEL SLIGHTLY LESS EMOTIONAL!!!!!!1

And then she did. For an hour. And I gotta say: that was pretty damn therapeutic. Mostly because in that time I discovered Japanese superstar Karen Carpenter voice impersonator, Keiko Togue.

I think I'm so blown away by Keiko because when I saw her video in the suggestion links, in my own latently racist mind, I was like, "PSHHH. Asian women just giggle in high-pitched voices. She'll never be able to match the velvety rich, melodious voice of Karen Carpenter." BUT SHE TOTALLY DOES. And now my world has been rocked to the core and its 1:30 in the morning and I can't stop watching videos of her singing various Carpenters hits at across the Land of the Rising Sun's many mini-malls. It's fascinating.

After listening to Keiko cover "Superstar", all I could say to my mom was: "Keiko man; she's the shit." To which my mom responded, "No, she's a soy sauce."

And I don't know why, but that joke really hit the spot. It just completely snuck up on me. I laughed for perhaps a questionable amount of time and then finally was like, "Wooooo! OK. We can get off the phone now. I'm good. I'll live to see another day." So that's what's sustaining my life right now: Keiko man/Kikkoman, soy sauce-based wordplay. I am many things, but above all, I am an incredibly easily amused person. It's like the time at book club when someone brought up Jonathan Lethem and Laura offhandedly said, "Lethem? I hardly even knew him," and I laughed for an uncomfortable amount of time. Like, in between gasps for air, muttering about how Comedy Central should give Laura her own one-hour comedy special, long. And not to take away from Laura's comedic stylings, but "____? I hardly even knew him!" jokes aren't exactly on the cutting-edge of comedy. God forbid anyone make a "Who's on first?" joke around me while I'm eating steak. We wouldn't want to have a Story 2.0 on our hands...

2.) Speaking of racism and Asian voice impersonators, Keiko reminds me of that Japanese Louis Armstrong impersonator who went viral a few years ago:

And if you ever want to experience the most majestic thing that this planet, or any other, has to offer, I recommend you somehow get yourself to our Nation's great capital and watch Alex watch that video. Because that experience greatly outweighs the original YouTube clip in question. Because we're talking high-pitched scream/giggles, kicking the air, and a light and joy in his eyes akin only to a child descending the stairs on a snowy Christmas morn.

Not to mention how much I love Alex covering the Japanese impersonator covering Nat King Cole. It's like a photo copy of a photo copy of a photo copy that makes you piss yourself.

3.) And speaking of Alex, from our gchat conversation last night:

Alex: I leave for Tennessee tomorrowme: whatcha doing in TN?

8:59 PM Alex: visiting the fam tomorrow through Sunday

then working Monday- Wednesday

9:00 PM me: i read that "visiting the farm"

and i wasn't mad

Alex: basically the same thing

9:01 PM I just google image searched "dolly parton farm" and this is what came up:

9:02 PM

me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

AOMGFGSWFWEG

9:04 PM Alex: if there is a god

that's what awaits me when I get off the plane tomorrow

In other news, I've decided that when I get my pug, I'm going to name him Kikkoman or Lethem, slap a blonde wig and a pair of cowboy boots on him and just sit around vomiting out of contentness all day. So there's that.

4.) I don't know if its the heat or the humidity or what, but customers at work have been real assholes recently. And it's not just me being hyper-sensitive because I have a fledgling writing career and emotions; everyone else has noticed it too. I'm going to give you a prime example.

One of my biggest pet peeves at work is when a customer comes in with an incredibly abstract question and gets pissed off when we don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

"Do you have that thing that you used to carry three years ago? You know, that guy makes them and they go over there?"

"Uh...paper sashes?"

"OH, GOOD LORD! YOU CREATIVE TYPES DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"

That's my second biggest pet peeve, by the way; being referred to as a "creative type." There's a proper name for a "creative type"; it's called an "artist" or a "graphic designer". Because we went to art schools and colleges. We got degrees in completely useless fields that pay 8 broken dreams an hour, which is why we're here helping you find that thing that that guy makes and goes over there in the first place. So don't call us "creative types" in a tone that suggests we should all have Megan's Law signs in our yards. Christ.

SO! This woman saunters in, stands next to me looking confused for a few seconds, then looks over at me and says, "You can probably help me," while waving her hand in my general direction. Ma'am, I can probably go to the gym tomorrow. I can probably pay my cable bill on time. I can probably stop watching Keiko Touge videos online and go to bed. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to do any of that. So you should probably ask for my help like a normal human being.

The woman then informs me that she's having a party and needs place cards for the table. Fine. I walk her over to the place card section. But she doesn't know what color cards to get. Fine. What color is the room where dinner will be? She doesn't know; it's at a restaurant where she's never been. Fine. Go with a neutral and go with God. Nope. She's got a better idea—she calls the matire'd of the restaurant, hands the phone to me (without asking if that was OK) and makes me have an in-depth conversation about the wall color so I'll know which place cards will look good. Ma'am I don't know how to tell you this in a way that doesn't result in my getting fired, but I don't give a flying fuck about your dinner, nevertheless which shade of spruce the walls are. What I care about is not channeling Saint Andre and back-slapping you from here to Pottery Barn so I can keep this job and keep helping self-entitled assholes like you to support my blog about fart jokes and emotions. That is what I care about.

But I don't say that, of course. I decide that because the walls are various shades of greens and yellows, she should go with cream or cement place cards. She finally chooses cement after 20 minutes of asking, "You think? You think? You really think?" over and over again. Yes, I really think you should go with cement place cards. I've never felt more confident about anything else in my entire life. I just had an hour long conversation with the maitre'd about everything from table size to the trim of his girlfriend's bikini wax. Just fucking pick up the cards and move on.

"Well do you have that thing I can stick it in?" Ma'am, I have plenty of things you can "stick it in." However, right now, most of the things I'm thinking of are on my physical person, so perhaps you should get more specific or we should just move on. "You know, like the things that hold the cards?" Truthfully, we don't have anything to hold place cards, so I say no. "Well, how will people know which table is which?" she asks. "Well, we have free-standing table tents that you can use to designate table numbers." "Well sweetheart, [scoffs] that's what I just asked."

First of all, don't call me "sweetheart". There is nothing sweet about my heart. My heart is bitter and tired and broken from Michael Showalter's recent engagement. Leave my heart out of this. Secondly, you did not just ask if we have table tents. Because if you had, I would have happily walked you over to the table tents and been psyched to get you the fuck out of my life that much faster. You instead asked if we have "the things that hold the cards," and I don't recall ever learning that "the things that hold the cards" = "table tents" in any of my "creative type" night classes at The Learning Annex, a-thank you very much.

"I'm sorry ma'am, I must have misunderstood you. Table tents are lovely addition to any well-dressed table and will correspond with your place cards perfectly." "Oh." And then she proceeds to grab the tents out of my hand, turn around and walk away without event a hint of a thank you. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! I just had phone sex with a maitre'd for you and took all of your shit when I don't even work on commission and you can't even muster up a simple thank you?!?!?!

All I wanted was to chase after her, grab her by the shoulders, spin her around and say this:

First of all, I realize that I don't work in the fashion industry, but I'm 99.9% sure Christian Dior doesn't actually make sunglasses with rhinestone butterflies affixed to them with hot glue. Secondly, I'm not the one who made a conscious decision to sport see-through footwear today so let's drop the "I'm a rich Georgetown housewife and you're the hired help!" act, shall we? Because I deal with rich Georgetown housewives all day and a.) they don't go out of their way to get dressed up to run errands as you embarrassingly have; they come in in tennis skirts and jaunty golf outfits because why waste energy looking good for the kind of people who are out on M street on a Monday afternoon? b.) The tacky Dooney & Burke keychain dangling from your talons clearly has a Mazda car key on it, and I'm not talking shit about Mazdas—Lord knows one was my first car—I'm just saying Ladies Who Lunch typically don't drive Protegés; c.) Again, I don't know much about fashion, but I do know that your Louis Vuitton handbag is about as real as my sentiments when I tell customers to have a great day; and d.) No real Georgetown Housewife would ever interact with me as long as you have because I have tattoos, a bad attitude and a stud in the same nose that gives me away as a big 'ole Jew. So you had your fun getting dressed up, driving into the big city and hassling the girl who straightens the place cards so you can feel important for a day, but I suggest you do one thing and one thing only: stay in your own fucking lane.

But, you know, fart jokes and emotions. That shit don't pay.

But every now and then, God hands us a little something to temporarily make things seem tolerable. Little Keiko Touges or pugs, if you will. And not 10 minutes after that woman left, I got the nicest phone call ever:

"Thank you for calling Blah Blah Blah, this is Meg speaking, how may I help you?"

"Oh! Hey Meg! My name is Mike Blah Blah Blah. You actually helped out me and my wife with DIY wedding invitations a few weeks ago? I'm sure you don't remember us, you deal with so many people everyday, but we remember you because you were so incredibly helpful and fun. The reason I'm calling today is because we want to come in to make thank you cards and we wanted to see what days you'd be around?"

I swear to god, actual tears welled up in my eyes and it took everything in my power not to be like, "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I NEEDED TO HEAR THAT. EVERYTHING IS SO BAD RIGHT NOW, MIKE. IT'S SO BAD! I JUST WANT YOU AND YOUR WIFE TO HOLD ME IN YOUR ARMS AND ROCK ME BACK-AND-FORTH EVER SO GENTLY. EVER SO GENTLY, MIKE. EVER SO."

But, again. Fart jokes and emotions. It works both ways. So instead I told him when I'd be around and he said they'd be in in the next week or so. But before he hung up, feeling the need to somehow convey to him how much his call meant to me, I said, "MIKE...It was really, really good talking to you today." He was like, "...Yyyyyyyyeahhhhh........K. Well. Bye, Meg."

So now in addition to blatantly offering a customer a hand job last week, a certain couple in the greater DC Metropolitan area miiiiight think I want to have a 3-way with them. And truthfully, in times like these, with compliments like those, I wouldn't hate it.

As promised.

Sigh. As I mentioned earlier, something painfully embarrassing happened to me at work the other day. And with all painfully embarrassing things that happen to me, I need to discuss it here on the blog so I get it out of my system and can move on with my life. So more painfully embarrassing things can happen to me.

Back-story: Every single job that I've ever had has been a total...whatever the female version of a "sausage fest" is. (I can't come up with anything that doesn't make me a.) want to vomit or b.) sound extraordinarily gay, i.e. lady fest.) (Update: I just googled "what is the opposite of a sausage fest?" and the consensus seems to be either a "taco fest" or a "fish market". And now I want to slice wrists.) In high school I worked for a small woman-owned book store; my first job out of college was working for Soap Opera Digest (which was 99.9% homely women and .1% token gay guy with his dead dog's name tattooed on his forearm;) and my most recent job was, of course, working for the menopausal Macgyver of tampons that was Boss #1 and Boss #2. Now I'm back working the retail job I had in college, and in turn, I'm experiencing the same problem I had there during my first tenure—it's a total dude-tease.

I feel like there's this myth about working in retail that hot guys are in and out of your store all day and you help them and make them laugh and there's a spark and they ask you when your shift ends and you're like, "um, not soon enough?" and you both giggle and meet up for drinks at Garrett's afterwards and you fall in love and everything is wonderful and you have this adorable story about how you met and when he gives his speech at the rehearsal dinner he's like, "I went into her store that day because I needed envelopes—who knew I'd leave with a wife?" (Not like I've thought about it before...) I probably got this idea because I feel like customers were always asking out Helena when she worked at the Barnes & Noble across the street. Although to be fair, the discrepancy between our Georgetown retail experiences may have something to do with the fact that Helena's a petite blonde with sparkling blue eyes and I look like I should be an ironic cartoon about a girl who hates life that only comes on The Cartoon Network Network after midnight, but still. Despite our store's all-female staff, I was looking forward to hot guys coming in and having lots of flirting opportunities with them.

And to be fair, they do. Hot guys come into the store all the time. Unfortunately, they come in with their equally hot girlfriends to pick out wedding invitations. And it's such a fucking tease, you guys. Such a tease. Last week this hot guy came in looking for stationary and I took like, 20 minutes to explain all of our paper options and helped him put together a nice combination of flat cards and envelopes and at the end he was like, "This is awesome. My wife is really going to like this." Really asshole? You couldn't have mentioned that this was for your wife a little earlier? And wear a ring, hippie. I just wasted my special reserve top-shelf customer service on you. Had I known you were married, I probably would have just pointed to the back of the store and been like, "Meh. It's all on that wall somewhere." Gawd.

My point being, you can imagine my excitement last week when an extremely attractive guy came in all covered in sweat, fresh from a run, asking if we had biodegradable envelopes he could use to pick up his dog's crap. Now I'm going to stop myself there—yes, he was looking for biodegradable envelopes to pick up his dog's crap. Yes, I just found out that my friends refer to not recycling as "Meg McBloggering". But with facial scruff like that and forearms like those, I'd chain myself to a tree and throw used tampons at BP gas pumps any day of the week if he asked.

Besides being painfully handsome, this gentleman had a few other things going for him: he was sans significant other, he wasn't wearing a wedding ring, he was in our store for a reason other than celebrating the love he'd found, and he was only a tiny blip on my gaydar. And in a city like Washington, D.C., I will take those odds and I will run with them.

Truthfully we had nothing that could really work for what he needed, but I wanted a chance to lay on the old Meg McBlogger charm, so I showed him our glassine and eco-white envelopes to buy myself some facetime. Unfortunately what I didn't factor into this situation was that "Meg McBlogger charm" is an oxy-moron and I was so excited that a hot, potentially single guy had wandered my way, I lost any social skills that I at any point ever had. (And mind you, I wasn't starting with much.)

But how could you blame me?! I've been waiting four months for this mythical creature to wander into the store and there he was! AND HE HAD A DOG! AND EMOTIONS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT! Slightly obnoxious emotions, yes, but EMOTIONS nonetheless! If Nessie wandered over to a group of Loch Ness Monster Hunters and was like, "Hi! Here I am! Want some pictures, because I came with headshots!", you wouldn't expect them to be like, "Oh. Sure. Yeah. Good to see you. Leave them on the top of that pile over there, will you? Kay, take it easy." and go on with their day like nothing happened, would you? WOULD YOU?! No. So I'm sure you can understand what happened next.

As we discussed his dog, what we sell and what exactly it was that he was looking for, I don't want to say that I was shaking, but let's just say that I had been more still before. That and when I get nervous, I tend to talk a lot and really fast. So basically what I'm trying to say is he probably thought I had just made love to a giant vile of crack cocaine. We decided that the closest thing we had to what he was looking for was our glassine envelopes, but they didn't fit the bill perfectly. I then suggested that if he were in the mood for a lovely drive, he should check out "Bark", an eco-friendly pet store in Olney, Maryland, which I only know about because that's where I'm from. (And by the way, I'm still 100% shocked that I didn't suggest we swing by on our way to have brunch with my parents because I think it's high time they finally met. Shocked and a little proud.)

He was really fixated on our glassine envelopes, however, and kept stressing that they'd be perfect if they were a little wider so he could stick his hand in to pick up his dog's crap. We actually do have wider glassine envelopes, but unfortunately the flap on those are on the long side and not on top, so it wouldn't really be that conducive to shoving your hand in.

Now, what I meant to say to him at this point was, "Yeah. These [meaning the wider envelopes with the opening along the long side] won't work because you need the hand jab thingy at the top. [Makes jabbing motion in the air like you're sliding your hand into a bag that eggrolls come in when you get chinese]"

However, what I actually said was: "Yeah. These won't work. You need a hand job. [Repetitively jabs hand in the air, back and forth.]

YOU NEED. A. HAND. JOB.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?!?!!?!?! It's like I could see the words that I was trying to say on a chalkboard, and then I could see the key words falling off and what's left moving together to suddenly make the most molestery sentence on the face of the planet.

I was looking down at the stack of envelopes when I said this, and when I realized what had just happened, I swear to god, my head shot up and I just stared ahead for a few seconds like a deer caught in headlights. Then, my eyes darted over and met his and we had the following conversation without ever having to say a word:

Him: Did...you just say—

Me: YES. YES I DID. I'M SO SORRY.

Him: Like a hand jo—

Me: PLEASE STOP. DON'T SAY IT OUT LOUD. PLEASE JUST DON'T SAY IT.

Him: Do you really think I need a—

Me: NO. I THINK YOU'RE PROBABLY DOING JUST FINE. I'M SO SORRY.

Him: So you have thought about me getting a—

Me: I WILL PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO PLEASE JUST MOVE ON AND GO BACK TO TALKING ABOUT YOUR ECO DOG.

"Yeah...I think I'm going to try a Chinese restaurant. Thanks for your help though."

And just like that, he walked out of my life and I spent the remaining two hours of my shift having random outbursts of, "HAND JOB. I said he needed a HAND JOB," while my co-workers shamelessly laughed at me.

And to think, I gave someone advice this week on how to not be socially awkward. Sigh...I clearly owe that person one helluva hand job.