Don't give up your day job

So it has been many moons since my last post, the more traumatic things are around Crap HQ, the less possible it is for me to bitch about how idiotic the inmates here are. And there sure have been incidents aplenty around these parts, let me tell you. The Nazgul continues to both perplex and torture, her current pastimes are limited to a) insisting that she IS rockabilly icon Imelda May which involves studying this YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhogVvwbwkw&ob=av2e  repeatedly to mimic Ms May's mic technique all while insisting, at age 2, that she wear red lipstick. When prevented from using the PC for this purpose, it just insists on the song being played over and over and over until a piece of me dies (given her poor language skills her requests just involve shouting BOOM BOOM into my face...a lot) b) Randomly shouting ME A BOY, it appears she has some KPI to hit 1200 false gender assertions a day; and c) only eating food from the plate pictured below, this may seem comparatively mild but rest assured the horror that goes along with this cannot be underestimated:

Rainman continues his campaign of special idiocy and recent highlights on this trail include*: having to be told to stop repeatedly walking into a locked turn style; having to be reminded to walk through an open door; and subjecting his mother to a 20 min descent into hell, trying to ascertain whether he did indeed produce the painting she purchased from his school in a fundraising capacity (this non-stop joy ride included him initially claiming to have done none of it despite his photo appearing in 3 separate places on the "artwork", then claiming he had done a small portion, then moving on to an intricate conspiracy theory that involved him having done parts of it but it largely being doctored for some reason only known to himself. It eventually degenerated into him sulking and refusing to look at me while I fruitlessly shouted "Did you draw anything on this page?" over and over, as on-lookers stared and tutted...turned out he did it in its entirety and forgot). And My First Husband...well that is another post and many many years of therapy.

I like to think that the reaction people have to witnessing my housekeeping is "don't give up your day job", mainly because it would tie in so nicely with this post and provide a realistic anchor to the title, and don't get me wrong, I do like to think this, but in reality very few venture into my household and those who do are more likely to be scanning for exits rather than concocting pithy internal dialogue centred around me.  And this fact in itself is a blessing, it would be terribly awkward for the pondering guest to discover, that in amid the turmoil, my day job gave me up. Ahh yes, in a surreal twist of fate a project I do not work on lost its funding so I lost my job and may have been involved in one of the most bizarre sacking interviews post-industrialisation.

I had an idea of what was coming for a few days prior, and instead spending the morning before The Meeting either trying to come up with justifications on why I was indispensable, or uncovering budget adjustments that could be made to avoid the need for this sacking, I threw myself wholeheartedly into coming up with disconcerting responses to the news that my employment would cease, front runners were deadpanning "I don't accept" and then just carrying on the conversation,  narrating the whole scene as if in a very poorly written novel ("The Crap Housewife looked out the window, fighting back tears, she choked out "I understand" knowing this would mean going back on the game after battling so hard to get off that corner...actually awesome Blogstress Field of Dreams came up with a hilarious narrative that I must dig out). In the end My First Husband struck on the winner: - Keeping with the general incompetence theme of my life, every time I have chewing gum I bite the inside of my cheek, having done this moments before scheduled meeting with such gusto that there was blood inside my mouth and I mentioned this to My First Husband in a text conversation where he recommended that as soon as I was told letting the blood dribble from my mouth, begin screaming and then run out of the room reminiscent of the legendary sacking scene in Fight Club (I was going to put a link to this scene but then realised if you don't know Fight Club, then you can fuck right off, you ain't no friend of mine and this includes my remaining grandparent). I was worried that walking in giggling, gittering from my anxiety relieving tactic of excessive coffee drinking, with a mouthful of blood might be slightly off-putting for my superiors imagine my relief at the scene that unfolded where I emerged as the most stable person in the room. Yes, they will write songs about that day.

If you, for argument's sake, were awarded the Order of Australia for services to psychiatry would you think the best icebreaker for the firing of a long serving employee would be not only to open with the recent death of their sister but to say (and I swear this is a direct quote, absolutely no embellishment, hyperbole or surgical enhancement) "So are you and your family over...the...ummm....tragedy?". I kind of sat there shaking my head as this response went through my head "Oh you mean watching the person I felt closest to on the planet die in front of me less than 2 months ago, yeah a bit of time's passed so it's fucking hilarious now. Its not like I cry until I vomit, or that the world makes little sense to me because for the first time in my memory I have to live in a reality without her in it, or I try to text her when something funny happens or go to buy her gifts or anything. My parents on the other hand, shit they are milking it, sure they also watched her die and buried their youngest and best child (to my brother: dude we both know even dead she is better than us at most stuff, shit she was even my favourite child) when their friends with children the same age are welcoming new grandchildren...you know its been a couple of weeks so really...". After this silence I said gravely and very slowly, as if I were addressing a special needs child who was holding scissors and a kitten "Do you mean my sister dying, then no, not even close, its very very recent". Now given the response, the tone of delivery and the fact that the messenger was really working at fighting back tears, do you think said psychiatrist might stop this unique and 'gifted' softening up before some bad news...you guessed it folks he thought now he might ask some medical questions, say useful things like "she was sick for a long time wasn't she" (see because that makes it alright, if she was running a triathlon and was hit by a truck, now that would be sad). And so it continued in this vein but by this stage I had retreated to my happy place (where John Farnham's "You're the Voice" is national anthem and I am queen of all I survey) then he claps his hands together in a "enough of this revelry" fashion and says "Well as you know xxxx didn't get funding, so we have to make some budget cuts to carry the research on at 50% capacity for 12 months, well we maybe, might have to let you go". I have to confess I did laugh and had to help him out by saying "There really aren't grey areas here, I am taking this to say that due to budgeting constraints you are not renewing my contract?". After he responded that yes, this is what he had intended the meeting moved on to me providing industrial relations advice on the non-renewal of contracts whilst staff are on maternity leave. At the conclusion I walked out somewhat bewildered and my immediate supervisor burst into tears (I really had misjudged the situation since I thought that was my role in the proceedings).

At least now I am free to pursue my dream of becoming a Henry Winkler impersonator. And from what I can tell that mainly involves sitting around unemployed thinking about the good old days when we all just assumed Ron Howard was your ordinary, run-of-the-mill twat (never knowing that beneath that goofy ginge surface lurked the future maniacal overlord of the film industry)...and hell, I was thinking of doing that anyway, so as the saying goes all's well that ends well (even if there is a body count, unemployment, a socially delayed psychiatrist and 3 foot tall deranged idiots thrown in the mix).


*NB: Please be aware that the events depicted here took place within one afternoon, and resulted in subsequent hair loss, nausea, dizziness and predictions of impending doom.

***Please note, this is not the original version of this post. Courtesy of RainMan sitting behind me chanting "Type, type, type" as I tried to add a comma (don't know what was wrong with me, as anyone who has read this knows, I believe grammar and punctuation are for the weak), I ended up deleting the actual interview description, which was awesome, it would have made you laugh, cry and wank yourself blind. Unfortuantely since I neither plan nor think about what I say/write or do, it is irreplacable. I apologise if the current description feels like wearing 2nd hand undies but well it kinda is. xxxx CH***