Pet Rocks and Porta-Potties

After taking a personal day yesterday to basically just sit in an empty bathtub and cry while Nubbins brought me every skanky toy he owned just to stop the wailing noise, I decided the only thing that was going to keep me sane and employed was to become utterly and definitively complacent. All work objectives brought up in my performance review last month are now officially irrelevant. Network more? Not going to happen. Show more initiative? Like fun I'll show more initiative. Seek more professionally enhancing opportunities? What am I, a magician???? Until I begin the marketing management masters certificate program in the fall, I will simply arrive at work, complete mundane tasks while considering my various employment options should they catch onto my game and decide that not only am I not a "valuable" member of the team, I am also a significant drain on resources. Options I've come up with so far: security word generator (you know, that person that has to come up with the words that you have to type replicas of in order to access complete time-wasting bullshit websites that end up spamming your email), porta-potty architect (seriously though, how hard could THAT design be?), or a 911 dispatcher. (I'm pretty useless in life threatening emergencies but I have a lovely speaking voice). I also came up with a brilliant business idea last night that just might be my very own pet rock. (Keith likes to call his good ideas pet rocks because they might one day take off and make us millions and then we'll lose it all to some Madoff-copycat. The latest one was culturally-themed dog crates.) I was thinking about how different people always come up to me on the sidewalk (and this time by "different" I don't actually mean the guy in the cut-off denim shorts riding a unicycle) and ask me where certain department/retail stores are. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if Seattle had "shopping tours" where you would take all these bored rich women around to different stores so they could shop without having to worry about finding it or paying for parking or getting accosted by a man with a Squeegee wearing nothing but an American flag speedo and a cowboy hat offering to wash your window while claiming to be the mayor of Seattle. Pretty good idea, no? And give them champagne and little appetizers while you're tooling around. Thoughts? Ideas? Any input is helpful.
In other news, my dear old dad got a virus on his email and promptly decided to nip the problem in the bud and buy a new computer. I tried to explain to him that he merely needed to generate a new email address, but this is the same man who notifies you VIA EMAIL that he is going out of town so hold off on all electronic messages because HE WON'T GET THEM. It's precious. But then I guess your technological knowledge becomes fairly limited when all you use the internets for is to check football scores and share EVERY SINGLE FORWARD that comes within the vicinity of your inbox. I can honestly say one of the worst things that ever happened to me was when my father gave my Aunt Nancy my work email address. At about 3:18 p.m. every afternoon (I'm assuming she picks this time because it's just before supper and right after nappies), I get a barrage of emails in my inbox with subject lines like "Sad today but in 1955............", "Beautiful, God Bless Our Troops", and "Funny; People at Walmart." I have to admit I am intrigued by the Walmart forwards; I constantly find myself scanning each picture to see if any of the downtrodden customers even slightly resemble a family member. Needless to say, while I am appreciative of my dear aunt's patriotic furvor, I simply do not have the heart to tell her that my workplace is not the appropriate venue to be viewing massive powerpoint slides of mountains and angels inclusive of a signature Randy Travis song. And my Catholic guilt completely rules out blocking her email address.

Back to my groundbreaking decision. Now that I have made the decision to meet and not exceed expectations, I feel an oddly freeing sensation. As though I'm on a fried chicken train riding through a vat of mashed potatos while it rains gravy...which, btw, is my idea of heaven, with Weight Watchers preferrably snicking disapprovingly from a hot barrel of broccoli in hell.

Nubbins and Bella have informed me that they want a pet kitty. I have repeatedly refused on the grounds that they are physically incapable of taking responsibility for another animal, and I'm pretty sure H-Nubs just wants something to carry around in his mouth. This has not deterred them a single bit, and they continue to assure me that they will be "real real good with hugs and kisses please please please" and plead with me to just "believe" in them.

Cute huh? So not going to happen.