The collector

So it has been a while since I posted on here. I will not even go into all the details of how hard it was to figure out how log in. It was a lot of fun though. I felt like I was sneaking into a secret club I am still feeling a little bit of an adrenaline rush. The most fun part was realizing that our group has a Gmail account. Ha! I feel powerful...okay not really but it was a a lot of fun.

I really don't have too many stories to tell. I have so many things happen that it all becomes blurred in my memory. Often people have to tell me about stories that I have told them. I think the best is when someone says something really funny, they remind me that they are quoting me, then I am like when exactly did I say that. I really just need to have some follow me around with some type of recording device. I am sure some of my quotes could make someone rich or famous someday (not both).

So today, I was talking to a customer and she preceded to tell me all about her recent medical history. Now in my customers defense whenever I am filling out a deferment form for someone I do have to ask some personal questions but unfortunately for me the customer usually over-shares just like how I am about to now :) She was talking about how all week she thought she had food poisoning and how she refused to go to the hospital but then the pain was getting too unbearable (here comes the "TMI moment") and how she was not having any bowel movements or throwing up. I wish this was something a little bit more rare but unfortunately it is not.

Last week, I had a customer who wanted me to stay on the phone while they were making a web payment . This is not out of the norm so no complaints. I usually zone out but I asked the customer if they would mind if I put them on hold. They stated that would be fine. I wanted to put them on hold because I needed to get some work done and I had another representative asking me a question. When I got back to the customer I apologized for the hold. The customer was not done entering their web payment and in all seriousness asked me if I had to go to the bathroom. I almost burst out laughing. I have never been asked this by a customer and hopefully never will. Now I have had several customers go to the bathroom while I was on the phone with them (gross!) but never have I been asked something so personal nor have I asked a customer if they were indeed relieving themselves.

Well that is my little update. It was fun. A couple of us will be returning in a couple short months I put forward the idea that when everyone returns we should have a party! What do you think?

Until then...do you mind if I put you on hold?

Waiting

Several of us were going to get together with the physical therapist at her apartment for an evening of relaxation and intense movie watching. We had rented "Despicable Me" and I, the Northerner, had headed over at the appointed time for the relaxation to commence. As I pulled into the carpark I had a sneaking feeling that the others weren't on time. Why? Because of my immense powers of observation, that's why. Alright, honest truth? I noticed none of the other members of the relaxation-league were anywhere in sight. I shrugged thinking that they had just run out quickly for something and left someone at the apartment. This assumption left me sitting in my truck for quite some time.

When I got bored of listening to the radio, lying across the seats, and being cold as ice, I decided to wait inside. As I sat in the hallway outside of the therapist's door a tough looking neighbor walked by with his laundry and out to his car and proceeded to pull away without saying a word. I phoned the therapist, but she left her phone right inside the door. I heard it ring and beep as I phoned, texted, and nearly left a message. I phoned the others, numbers had changed since the last time I'd been in town and I ended up getting the voicemail of a "Rob" mis-texting a "Sarah" and leaving a message on what I hoped and prayed was the Unemployed. I was unsuccessful in all my communication attempts and beginning to wonder at how many Oreos I could eat without anyone noticing any significant dent in the supply.

Approximately 20 minutes later the neighbor waltzed back through the door. On his way by he offered a "warm place to wait" in his apartment and smiled a hopeful smile. I politely declined stating that my friend was "on her way". This was an unsubstantiated statement presented with the best of false confidence. 30-40 minutes had passed and I was about to give up and go home.

After much texting, phoning, messaging, and praying my friends finally arrived with fast food and many apologizes. We laughed, reassured, and got down to the business of relaxing. At least the waiting whet my appetite for relaxation and Oreo cookies.

I Wonder If It's Just Me

Well, this wonderful group of friends is now spread out across the globe. We've made new friends, moved to new places, and found new adventures. Some of us have changed jobs, more than once. Some of us have found jobs and then proceeded to give them up a few months later because our lives have taken a "change in direction". We are still friends. We are still a group, just a little further apart.

This group of friends has shifted and changed directions. Two of us have moved to Asia, one of us has moved to Canada, and two of us have stayed put (although, we've still managed to move around quite a bit). We still keep in contact. We still have crazy stories. Hopefully, we'll still find some time to record a few of those funny things here.

Things Canadians hate:

Well, just one thing, actually. And we've heard about it before, but it's never happened to us. Now we know it to be fact. See, we were celebrating our Ginger friend's last day with us by going to a really rad restaurant (hooray, alliteration!) in Canada. It was a very nice place. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Aside from the water being a bit salty (well...maybe that was just one of us), the food was amazing, the service was great, and the atmosphere was very homey, and when we feel at home, we naturally act like ourselves. Which, apparently, is not a very proper thing in some places. We were laughing very loudly, and we were actually (apparently) so loud, that we annoyed a couple near us enough to make them pick up their junk and leave. All they'd gotten was water.
Now, comparatively to how we normally are, we were actually being very quiet. We were rather shocked and even embarrassed, and we did our best to keep our laughter to a lower level. It was quite difficult.

So...Canadians hate loud people.

The more you know...

FUMBLE!!!

So the collections officer and a friend went to a wonderful little restaurant to pick up a pizza on Sunday, february 7th. When they got there, they both noticed the place was packed, as many other people wanted pizzas on Sunday, february 7th. The collections officer said, in front of the other people in the restaurant, "Hey, maybe there's a sports game on tonight!" His friend thought he was joking at first, but the serious look on his face forced his friend to whisper to him frantically, "(Name omitted for his protection), the superbowl!" To which he exclaimed, "Oooohhhh." A man watching them who probably works with the local news agency stared at our collections officer. I'm sure you can imagine THAT facial expression!

Colour and Casm

Well, we had a dyeing party. Sales operator and unemployed student did most of the dyeing. 4 heads in 6 hours. What? We had to take a 2 hour break in between! Anyways, we came out with 4 different hair colours.

The physical therapist got a red chunk in the front. The unemployed student got magenta streaks. Our friend the realtor got 1 shade past his normal colour, to even things up a bit. Last, but certainly not least, the nurse went blonde. Hopefully it doesn't affect her work! Theatre worker and sales operator already had it done so they stayed with their current dos.

In other news, to the shock of the group, we found out that collections agent doesn't get sarcasm as much as we thought. The sensitive material was divulged to a car of sarcastic blogmates, which thence forth started to hold up invisible "sarcasm" signs whenever it was used. We quickly ditched those for crazy straws; because they're a little more durable and portable than carrying around 9x5 poster board signs. Also, because they make about 100 different awesome sounds.

Niagara's Fury!!!

So the nurse, the collections agent and the almost-student were at the Festival of Lights tonight in Canada. We walked along the falls, a picturesque scene of light, water and snow crystals. We laughed and chatted, our words echoing in the cold night. The nurse and the collections agent joked about how the nurse would feel if the collections agent hit her in the face. Understandably, not good. Then the 3 stopped for a look at the falls. Jokingly, the nurse turned around to sudo-punch the collections agent and, alas, her fist came into contact with his nose! After a few seconds of embarrassment, she inquired as to his condition. Luckily his nose was too cold to feel any pain, and there was no blood. As the next sign they walked past was 'Niagara's Fury,' that is what they christened the nurse's fist. :)

Pump Pots and Sink Stoppers

So the nurse and the physical therapist are now living together. A couple nights ago the physical therapist was explaining to the nurse how a pump pot works. Sounds pretty simple, ladies and gentlemen, am I right? Well, the nurse thought so too. "So you just put hot chocolate in there...and then pump it to keep it warm?" ... So the physical therapist kindly explained that, no, it's already warm because it's in the pot, pumping it actually expels some of the liquid into your cup. :) Later on that evening, the physical therapist was painting. Cool. She then rinsed off her palette in the kitchen sink and realized it wasn't draining. We had already had a talk about the very slow garbage disposal and knew soon we would have to call maintenance. So the physical therapist got the plunger and the nurse ambled in, to see for herself. She took one glance at the situation and said, "Oh xxx," (name blocked out for security purposes). The nurse then reached into the sink and pulled out...the stopper. Amidst some laughter, she kindly offered to take the plunger back to the other room. :)

Boredom at its best

I guess that nothing of note has happened in our lives lately. These days, with winter coming and all, we haven't had any fun adventures to speak of. We'll most likely get a blizzard and then, THEN we'll have something to blog about. We've all been busy with our respective jobs and lives and the like with not much time for anything else. But when something does happen we'll be sure to blog about it.

Attack of the World's Most Giant Insect

So we went for a walk with the physical therapist. We decided to go to Buckhorn, and had a series of adventures. When we went to park, we saw an animal running along the side of the road. At first we thought it was a fox, but then decided it was too big. Then we thought...dog? But it really looked too strange to be a dog. The physical therapist suggested it may be a coyote, but we thought it was the wrong color to be that. So we parked, and were a bit nervous about getting out of the car because we were unsure of the animal's temperament, but then we saw another car whose owners got out and tried to call the animal. It began to come to him, and then ran away. The owner of the car gestured towards us and pointed to the departing animal and we shook our heads no. We got out of the car and began our walk, assuming we would never know what the animal was. We had been walking about seven minutes when we suddenly heard a sound that was frighteningly reminiscent of point-blank gunshots. As we were paused and perplexed, a woman came running down the path. She frantically asked us, "Did you see a dog that looks like a fox come this way?" More stunned by the sound than her answering our previous question as to the animal's identity, we asked her, "What was that noise?" She hurriedly said, "Gunshots. Have you seen her?" Uneased, we directed her to where we had seen the "dog," and she ran off, calling after the "dog." We hesitantly walked on, and Mel urged me to take off my brown sweater lest I be mistaken for something that looked good to shoot.
We walked up to a small bridge and then walked back, as we had to get to "choir practice." We got back to the car and got in, when the physical therapist shrieked, "WHAT IS THAT??" while gesticulating toward the window behind me. I turned and saw the world's most giant insect, casually perched on the window. Not quite fazed yet, I reached back and unlocked the door so that the phsyical therapist could get to it and shoo it out. When we withdrew our hand, however, the bug lept from it's perch and disappeared, I assumed, up my sleeve. While screaming and feeling insects crawling all over my body, I tore out of the car and shook myself off. After realizing that I was still alive and unharmed and that there were no insects on me attempting to alter that status, we began to search for where the giant insect had gone. We realized with great horror that it had gone in the direction of our purses and what not, where there were many open nooks and crannies for carnivorous bugs to lie in wait of a victim. We drew back from the car and began to discuss all the worst case scenarios and outcomes of this situation. Perhaps it had gotten into one of our purses. Perhaps it had somehow slithered into the violinist's violin case. Perhaps it was, at that very moment, laying and hatching eggs that were to produce millions of the World's Most Giant Insects that would spring us while we were driving and leave nothing behind but tooth fillings. We were discussing these possibilities when we saw the WMGI crawling slowly up the back of my seat. The violinist cried to the physical therapist, "GET ME A TISSUE!!!!!" The physical therapist ran to the other side of the car and grabbed a box of tissues while we urged her to hurry. She bolted back and threw about six tissues onto the seat. We grabbed them in a haphazard ball, attempted to grab the World's Most Giant Insect, realized there were too many tissues to be able to properly grasp it with, and reduced our ammo to two. We scooped it up, tried to shake it out onto the ground while every moment feeling it crawl up our arm, and finally dumped the entire package into a nearby garbage can. Running into the car, we rolled up the windows and drove away as fast as we could, with our lives and our tooth fillings in hand.

Shh...it's busy...

So it's been pretty quiet around these parts lately. All of us got busy with life I guess. We still have loads of funny stories and experiences that happen, but most of us forget to write them down or "blog them out", so to speak. We are all alive and well. No one is missing, though 1 of us unemployed got a job answering phones at a nationwide retail store. Things are still looked at on the bright side. Hopefully we'll have some good experiences to share again. We'll have to get the ball rolling again.

Breaking and entering.

So we stayed at the nurse's house for a couple days. Yesterday morning, we packed up our stuff to go, and went out to the nurse's car to put in the trunk. The nurse said, "The car is open, so just pop the trunk from the inside." We got to her car. It was unlocked. We popped the trunk and opened it. Inside, there was camping equipment, which had not been there the night before. Confused, but not too concerned, we rifled through it, trying to make room for our backpack. After finding no room, we began to think about how the stuff got into the trunk. Curious, we looked at the rearview mirror to make sure the air freshener heart was hanging there. It was not. A slow realization finally came: this was not the nurse's car. We heard her calling from behind us saying, "No! Over here!" Mortified, we closed the trunk door and ran over to the nurse's ACTUAL car...and put our things in the trunk. After overcoming the initial embarressment, a certain "renegade achievement" feeling came over us. We had never broken into anything before...let alone a stranger's car. So we feel as though we have accomplished something in our lifetime, illegal as it may be, so we do not feel as nerd vanilla as we normally do. We are shamefully proud of ourselves.

The collections agent...I am going find you and you are going to pay

So this is my first post. We would have posted sooner but we wer on a vacation from the world wide web for while. We were at our favorite grocery store the other day, as we were leaving the store and reading a text from The Nurse we almost walked into a cement column. As we regained our compsure and trying once again to text and walk we were approched by a very energetic man. The man said " Excuse me sir!" we turned around and found this man was approaching faster than we could run away with our groceries in hand, so we said "yes?" The man said "I have a question for you". We said "okay..." The man said "Can you help me jump my car?" We explained to the man that we did not have a set of jumper cables in our car. the man said "I have some, so can you help me?" innocently we replied "sure where is your vehicle". The man said it was just down the road. While we were walking to my car the man inquired "Do you love Jesus" We said "yes" The man persisted "for real?" We again said yes. The man "than exclaimed "Praise the Lord! I have been praying and asking God for help. I am really in some trouble." We reached our vehicle and we wer trying to keep the man out of our car. We opened our trunk and of coarse it was full. So we went to the rear door and as we tried to start loading our vehicle the man budged his way past us and said here let me help. It was too late there was nothing seperating him and the passenger side seat. So as we walked the empty cart to a safe place the man waited. we returned to the vehicle and said to the man "we want to help you but we would prefer that you not ride in our vehicle with us." The man was upset and persisted that he would not harm me and that it offended him that I would think that he would. we said fine well where is your car. He pointed up the street torwards bailey and said "its right over there". Okay so we stepped into the vehicle and the man starts telling me how a friend swindled him and stole his paycheck and how he is out of gas and that a taxi cab driver stated he will help him get to and from a gas station if he could only find some money to buy the gas. we informed the man that I did not have any cash on us and in fact we didn't even have enough money in the bank to be able to get money out of an atm. By now we were by Toms Restaurant. The man's car was near UB South, not very close at all. So once the man realized we did not have any money for him he became upset and was no longer a nice christian brother. He started to ask us if I could get a cash advance off of one of our credit cards for him. we told him we could not do that. So he asked if I could drop him off at the tops on maple. As we were driving to Tops the man said "will you at least buy me some cigerettes so that we can give them to the taxi cab driver so he can help me" we again said no. The man said I am starving will you at least buy me some food from mcdonalds. we said we can do that. we bought the man a strawberry milkshake, double cheeseburger and some fries. As the man shoveled them into his mouth, we drove back to Tops where the man became aggravated because we weren't getting him there any faster. So we finally arrived at Tops. we prayed for the man and he jumped out of our vehicle and that is hopefully the last we will see of him.

Hmmmm....

So the nurse came home from work one morning and noticed her brown sneakers outside her doorway. Now this is usually a very normal occurrence for her as that is where she keeps them. However, in viewing said sneakers that morning, she casually remembered not seeing them the night before. In fact they had not been there since she had put them out there, after she got back home from vacation a week ago. "Hmmm," she thought as she bent over to investigate. The shoes also had new additions of grass, small amounts of dirt and, yellow hair. "Oh, that is very strange," she thought. And suddenly the thought struck her: "My neighbor...has a golden...retriever." Lol at least there were no chew marks :)

Helloooo Charlotte!!

The nurse decided to go to Texas and so flew out of Buffalo to Charlotte at 730. However, as Buffalo's flight out was delayed by an hour, she wasn't sure she'd make it to her connecting flight. 'Please God, let us land near gate E25,' she prayed silently as the plane descended. Well, she did not receive the answer she was hoping for. Landing was at 905am at gate C4. So, the nurse booked it to gate E25 at the other end of the terminal. She got there 5 minutes after her plane had taken off. 'Oh well,' she thought, I'll just get the next flight out.' She asked the nice lady at the gate for the next flight out to Austin. 'Oh, I'm sorry ma'm, the next flight out to Austin is at 430 pm,' she replied in her lovely Indian accent. So the nurse despairingly obliged, and took the boarding pass for the next flight to austin, flying out of that God-blessed gate E25. Did the nurse get anything out of this? Well, if you mean a lesson to be learned, no. But she did get a food voucher :) With which she enjoyed a tasty cinnabon, from an authentic Charlottian...Cinnabon.

Oh, P.S., as the nurse is still there, she is sure to enjoy a nice shopping excursion before returning to the lovely gate E25. ;)

Tired and drunk.

So we were on our way back from Kansas City Saturday night/Sunday morning, and we had finally gotten onto the Island. We were going through the light just before Tim Horton's when we saw a car speeding down the road. It swerved into the wrong lane, and headed straight for us. We screamed inside our heads and watched the car race toward us, then quickly swerve to the left, missing us by the skin of their teeth. After calming down, the nurse asked, "What do you think guys...tired, or drunk?" to which the restaurant worker irritably replied, "Both!" It would have been sadly ironic had they hit us after we safely drove eighteen hours without a hitch. Sadly ironic indeed...but they didn't. So now it's just a funny story.

Blisters and Bunions

Our feet hurt. Why? Because we wore the ridiculous nylons with the annoyingly slidy heels to look "official". We then marched our way from the car, across the slidy mezzanine floors, that are buffed and polished to high heaven, onto the sticky carpet, and then back again. Altogether not a terribly long walk without the ridiculous nylons, but with them OWW! It was like crossing the Mohave desert barefoot. So, lesson number 1, relearned. We will NOT wear those ridiculous nylons with the annoyingly slidy heels to look "official" again. Will NOT!

Duh...

So we went to the store to buy a gps. We couldn't find them.

Asian.

We woke up this morning and couldn't see very well, so we looked in the mirror. We noticed something different about ourselves. We looked very Asian. A lot more Asian than usual. We leaned in to take a closer look and saw that our eyelids were swollen, making our eyes narrower and appear slightly more tilted. We are very happy that this is not permanent, as the world seemed as narrow as our eyes. Our eyes are almost back to normal now, and we feel sorrow and joy. Joy that we can see clearly now, the rain is gone, and sorrow that we are back to looking as white as we normally do.

Late! Late! For a very important date!

So I went to go pick up my friend the unemployed. And on the way I got stuck in a traffic jam, as there was an accident on the bridge. After it cleared I continued on my merry way, until I got slowed in another jam down by the river! This one didn't last long though and so I continued, once again, on my merry way. After I picked up Unemployed, we drove back in the direction I had came, and in so doing got stopped by a train! We would have got stopped again by the train, however some quick maneuvering allowed us to slip through 'un-noticed.' I think. So anyway, we hit one last jam right before the bridge, and then, when we had almost made it safely back, all of a sudden, a gigantic T-rex hopped out of nowhere and took a nice sized chunk out of my trunk!!!!!!!!!! And you know what he said? (Insert voice from 'The Robinsons' here). "I'm sorry, I was trying to cross the road and you were in my way! I have a big head and little arms, which did you think I was going to use??"

Yeah. Thats why we were late. :)