Failure

Firstly, my wife asked me to remove the amount that we bid on the house in Takoma Park. Ergo; if you've been reading this blog in hopes of obtaining our exact financial situation and using it to create a fake account on e-bay and buying a house of your own...think again. Then proceed with the house buying scheme because it sounds like a good one.

We did not get the house that we bid on the first time. I for one, am happy. It would have been like marrying the first girl you kissed or something. This house was a flirtation, all the heady feelings of first falling in love that blind you to the cracks in the basement and the fact that it only has one bathroom. (Okay honestly, the house was pretty nice but it probably wouldn't have aged well or something. Insert other negative comment here to make me feel better, like in the end everything works out for the best. Except that that's not actually true, sometimes life just sort of idly kicks you in the teeth for no good reason.)

We're now conducting a more extended search in the Takoma Park area because hippies live in Takoma Park, and hippies are generally regarded as fun loving folks who might offer you some free weed if you stop by for dinner and then tax the hell out of you. Has anyone taken a look at the taxes in Takoma Park? Don't. They're horrifying. It's like seeing a roach on your...wait a minute, I've got to go kill a roach on my sink.

Only kidding. The roach infestation has been completely eradicated just in time for them to needlessly replace our kitchen. I love wasting as much as the next person, but it kind of sucks that we finally solved the problem and now we're replacing it.

Community Manager: The counters will be all black.
M: (In my head) Probably so the roaches will blend in better. We'll just think part of the counter is moving. Also, because we've been looking at so much granite/maple cabinets I'm expecting our new kitchen to be amazing...it won't be, kind of like most of life.

Community Manager: So if you could just move all of your earthly belongings out of yet another room that would be great. Actually we're going to charge you twice the rent and give you half the space. Is that a good deal or what?
M: I'm non-confrontational.

In other news I interviewed for two jobs at the library today making it my fifth and seventeenth interviews at the library respectively. These interviews are becoming like Catholic/Anglican mass where I can actually ask the question the interviewer is supposed to be reading. I think if I don't get either of these I'm going to just interview the next person on questions off the top of my head. How cool would it be to just interview the interviewer? Huh, I guess it wouldn't be that cool. You're right.

Int: Tell me about a time that you went above and beyond to help a customer?
M: Oh man, one time this guy was on fire and not like, oh ouch, I burned my leg slightly, but like a blazing f-ing torch, like the sort that would have lit a middle ages castle hallway to a pretty decent level and I threw myself on him and rolled around on the library floor with him until the flames died down. I then practiced CPR with perfect chest compressions until EMS arrived. But as the ambulance doors closed I kept asking myself if I could have done more. If like what I had done had been enough. Like nothing is ever enough. And then it came to me, I probably shouldn't have set him on fire, but he asked the most stupid question.

Int: Tell me about a time that you solved a complex problems, list the steps and the outcome
M: So I'm sitting in my fourth grade classroom. The sun is scorching, and coming through the window at an forty five degree angle and shining off the back of H's beautiful blond hair, and I'm staring at a times test on the sevens. The sevens aren't that hard, and all the other kids are ticking off fingers, or doing rhymes in their head to try and get it, when all they have to do is just memorize the whole damn thing, which is how I'm doing it back then. And that particular day, I've lost my pencil, and I'm new to school and shy, and then it just comes to me. 7X7=49 and I think of how proud everyone will be of me for figuring it all out so quickly, and how I can't tell my fourth grade self that it will never be better than it was with the times tables, when everyone was praising you so much for the simplest thing you ever did, which was memorize the times tables. You will never be so proud again. So I grab the pencil from H's desk and scribble down the answer and two years later, when I am in sixth grade, and still petrified of girls, we will got to Chuck E. Cheeses together and play games all day. I was so shy around her that I don't think we talked, just moved from game to game. But perhaps now that I think of it, it was probably my first date, pushing the air hockey puck across the blue space between us and letting her win without knowing exactly why.

Int: What the f was that about?
M: Sorry.

Int: Tell me about a time that you worked in a team environment?
M: One time I went shark hunting off the coast at Stinson beach on a large outboard rigger. And me and Capt. Ahab had to work all day to fight off this giant white whale who had swallowed Jonah. I'm sorry. Is it hot in here or is it just you?

Int: That's probably not appropriate.
M: Sorry.

Int: Tell me about a time that you kissed a girl but didn't really enjoy it/don't remember it?
M: What?

Int: Nevermind.
Int: This job requires you to move objects in excess of ten pounds on a regular basis. Can you do this?
M: Probably.

Int: This job requires you to use a computer. Can you spell computer?
M: C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R

Int: This job requires you to wear a shirt to work. Can you do that?
M: Can the top three buttons be unbuttoned?
Int: Negotiable.

Int: Tell me about a time that you dealt with a difficult customer. How did you solve the problem and what was the outcome?
M: Okay, this one time a guy came in, who this guy is clearly the devil, and I'm just sitting behind the desk reading a good book, no pun intended, and the devil tries to check out a book from the library about social justice or something, and I climb up onto the table and start warding him off with a cross and a piece of garlic, which, I'm not even realizing that I'm confusing the devil with a vampire I'm so scared at this point. And then public safety gets involved and this guy, who was so clearly the devil turns out to just be an English professor who was so high that he was actually hallucinating that he was the devil. True story. I guess the outcome was that I was fired.

Int: Do you sleep naked?
M: Not anymore.

Int: Why not?
M: I think this interview is over.