I Smell You

We need to talk about this and it needs to be serious.

Who the f*@k came up with the concept for the Hollister stores?

Really- I need to know. And not only that, but who approved it? Are the sales for a store that you are unable to not only see in, hear in, but even smell in, really justifying it?

In a desperate search for khakis last night we decide to walk in and take a quick peak around. Besides the over-powering perfume smell, the music was so loud that when an employee asked us…uh, something, we obviously couldn’t hear fuck-all.

I will concede that I am not necessarily their target shopper. I am not 14, my wardrobe does not consist of 22 pairs of the same but different show-my-cooter-booty shorts and skirts and leave-nothing-to-the-imagination-shirts (OK, I still have a few of those), nor do I feel like dropping my panties at every pre-pubescent surfer boy that works there. That does not mean that they should make it impossible for me and those like me to peruse their wares and perhaps by a gift for somebody other than myself.

But let’s continue to be honest here. I really don’t think they want me there. First, you smell the store 200 meters before you can even see the damn store front, which smells like they have spilled a gallon of what I can only compare to the present teenagers version of our Cool Water Cologne. When you finally do come up to the store the only thing you can focus on is the insanely over-sexual headless mannequins. The pants on the males are so low you are barely spared the sight of his mock junk.

Why yes, my grandma would totally buy things for her grandkids here, thank you for asking.

There is one 15-17 year old girl by the front of the store who is apparently stuck behind a table, and as I walk around the women’s half of the store I realize…I can’t see a damn thing. My eye sight is impeccable, but I’d be damned if I would be able to search for a specific color because there was nothing but low lighting. We quickly leave since The Hubby claims he’s rapidly loosing brain cells and may strangle a small boy.


Our mistake was coming back a short time later since one shirt on the girly mannequin was so cute I decided I had to try it on.

We walked in and the aforementioned girl is complaining to some surfer boy about how cold it was behind her little table (of course it’s cold, we’re in Monterey. Maybe wear something that would indicate that you understand we’re not in San Diego. Like a sweater. Do they sell those here??) I see the shirt I like on another mannequin in front of Girl, and although I am polite and say "excuse me", they fail notice despite being a foot in a half away. The Hubby says it again louder, and when they look up he asks if they work here, and the girl gives him a dirty look since they obviously do. We ask where the shirt in question would be located and they said they were out.
“What about the one on the mannequin?”
“We can’t sell clothes off the mannequins.”
"Excuse me?"
"We can't sell the clothes that are on the mannequins."
“Well that makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Uhh…Sorry.”
As I was dragging him out of the store he began to ask if we could just steal it off of the mannequins since they didn’t care to pay attention to their customers anyways. I’m not sure how much they heard, but when we were completely out he proclaimed that that store is an example as to why some people commit suicide.

I found this on the web, comparing Hollister and Wet Seal:
DIFFERENT WORLDS.
Within the first five feet, Hollister's total experience (left) envelops you with its clean beach smell, faux beach shack facade, and outfitted mannequins all leaving no doubt what's inside for the 'dudes' and 'bettys'.
The Wet Seal experience (right) is the polar opposite of Hollister with its bland gray walls and overwhelming clutter leaving the shopper feeling bewildered and unhinged.
© 2006 Haynes & Company

Um, what Hollister did you go to? I spent part of my time during university living by the beach and I can assure you- THAT is not a clean beach smell, but rather it is an “I’m high and I need to cover the weed smell from my mom” smell. And apparently “outfitted” excludes shirts for male mannequins. Furthermore, this “faux beach shack” is more like a faux private beach house in Laguna Beach.

Love Me Some Vulcan

Is it weird that I want to do naughty things to the new Spock?

Just wondering.

On a related note, Star Trek was amazingly awesome. I was always more of a Next Generation kind of girl who shunned Deep Space Nine and Voyager like the original Star Trek fans must have shunned TNG. Jean-Luc Picard may be categorized as the first older man I had a little thing for (who, for the record, does not compare to the Delicious Silver Fox himself- Anderson Cooper- and now that I think about it, he doesn't have the age difference that Patrick Stewart has).

I wasn't terribly excited to see the new Star Trek movie, besides that the special effects looked like they'd be best on a larger than life screen. Holy crap was I wrong. Without giving too much away about the movie: the special effects were fantastic, the story was wonderful- not only feasibly fitting in with the other movies, but have a little bit of romance, and comedy tossed in perfectly. Casting and even the music was great.

And I want to do naughty things with the new Spock. Did I mention that already? (Sorry hun, but let's keep it real, right?) I have yet to determine if it's how Zachary Quinto plays Spock, or if Zachary Quinto is my new celebrity crush.

Meat for my Baby

When I'm hanging out at a bar/pub tossing back a few Liquid Panty Removers, I will be bold enough to say that meat is not the first thing on my mind. No really- the moo-moo kind, not the every loving tube-steak. OK, OK, maybe the I'm-really-drunk-and-need-to-indulge-in-steak-super-nachos-even-though-I'll-regret-it-later meat, but that's not the meat in question. I'm talking about purchasing dollar raffle tickets so you can win a tray of meat to take home and toss in the freezer for dinner tomorrow. While you're drunk at a bar.

I know what you're thinking (unless you're from Minnesota or the UK). Does this shit happen? Why yes, yes it does. It's a mother-fuckin' meat raffle, bitches.

Isn't Food Network educational? If I was in Minnesota tonight I could justify going out to get shit housed under the guise of trying to get some meat for mother's day tomorrow. I bet you I could get some extra dollar bills from The Hubby for it too. The extra great part about it is that if I come back with nothing but a buzz and some glitter on me all I have to say is that I spent all my money on raffle tickets but stupid Maud down the street landed the rack of lamb. I could be hung over for mother's day but it would be acceptable because I was trying to put food on the table for our celebration.



I can just see The Hubby stumbling in late from a night at the bar, "but honey, I got you some ribeye!" in all slurs.


But let's get serious. The fact of the matter is that I'm in the Bay Area, not Minnesota, and if I went somewhere that advertised a Meat Raffle I don't think I'd necessarily get something saran-wrapped to a tray.

Then again, maybe it just wouldn't be on a tray.

I feel like I've been blogging about a lot of things that bother me lately, so on the way to work this morning I decided to write about something that makes me happy.


Old School Hip Hop. I love me the hippity-hoppity. I was lucky enough growing up that my mom would not only let me listen to it, but she'd sing along with me- even if it was Eminem. (There is nothing like a middle aged woman singing about Eminem throwing his baby's mama in a lake. My mom rocks.)

One time when I was young I was listening to a mixed tape of songs I had recorded of the radio on my Walkman. The song was Salt-n-Peppa's Push It, and when my neighbor grabbed my headphones to find out what I was listening to I thought I was going to get in trouble for listening to a nasty song. She just sang along.

I didn't really know what Cake Boy was about either, but Innocent M and I sure did get down to that Sir Mix-A-Lot jam. (If you're not sure what a Cake Boy is, check it HERE. )

And what about Tigra and Bunny? They liked the Cars That Go Boom. I didn't even know what the name of their "group" was until I looked it up just now. Innocent M and I only knew the one little part of the song, but I'm sure we thought we were bad ass (BAMF if you will) singing that with our florescent clothes and pegged pants.

Oh, and I Like Big Butts and I cannot lie. Why want to?

Only 5% smarter than what you work with, that's all.

I’d love to help you fix your broken phone. Except not only is it not broken, but it’s all in Spanish. I can still figure it out- because it’s not a smart phone, and I did graduate college. I can call in. I can call out. Problem? Nope. I’m thinking it’s user error.

Oh- the next day you still can’t operate it? Um…The thing about a keypad lock- besides it being functional- is that since it’s not a smart phone it gives you instructions on how to unlock the keypad. (Menu-*). Sure, the instructions are in Spanish- you know, the language you put it on and natively speak, but even with my crappy Spanish I figured out the little abbreviated foreign words.

If you put the phone back in English I’m sure I can quickly take your keypad lock off for you so you don’t keep bringing it in to me saying it’s broken. Or you can go in and take the keypad lock off yourself. Or- I know! - push "menu" then "*" before you try and use it next time. I am a problem solver.

And this is me, putting that degree to good use.

I'm not sure why this is one of the things on my short list of those that set me off.

Email forwards.

And I’m not talking “It’s National Girlfriend Day” where I’m declared so-and-so’s top girlfriends and send it back to the sender too so we can all feel validated and have a lot of friends-who-forward-us-shit, or the “I’m packing my bags and moving to Utah (or wherever)” which includes a calendar of scantily clad hotties sprawled across the Utah landscape.

No, I’m talking about the ignorant hate-spewing emails about politics and family values that are full of “facts” that hold up like water in a sieve. Emails that are prejudice and ethnocentric that the sender thinks are moral and religiously righteous. My political party is better than your political party because of “this”. Your President/Senator/ whomever is a douche because “this” happened 15 years ago. Hatemongering lightly veiled by “patriotism”. Even the stupid ones that may seem like no big deal, but are so incorrect that I can’t believe somebody would not pay attention to what they are forwarding on to their WHOLE FUCKING ADDRESS BOOK.

The latest one I received asked “Do you remember 1987…Thought you might be interested in this forgotten bit of information…” Since I did not know about the subject is went on about about, I looked it up. Yeah, that’s right- *research*, bitches. With the Internet it literally takes about 5 seconds. Could it be that this “information” may have been forgotten because IT’S NOT FUCKING TRUE?? Yeah, possibly.

So what did I do? I replied “all” and supplied my link to prove the whole thing was misconstrued BS. I was kind in my few words and simply stated “”Forgotten-no, inaccurate-yes.”

I’m a little bit of a bitch. I am aware of this though, and know I should be more tolerant of people I find ignorant. It's not necessarily the ignorance, it's the people who are perpetuating ignorance. Ugh....yeah, yeah, working on it...

You can find a link to the forwarded email in question HERE.