The Retail Workers Handbook

Welcome to the exciting world of retail!  To help better prepare you for the journey ahead, here are some rules and guidelines to make things easier for you and the customer:

1. You are an incompetent moron, as service industry employees are the lowest work group society has to offer.

2. The customer should never be expected to do anything themselves, and it is your job to hold their hand in all aspects of their shopping experience.

3. Elderly customers are godlike, and you should immediately drop everything you are doing to help them, no matter how absurd or remedial the task.  Remember, they fought for your freedom.

4. You are expected to have an intimate knowledge of every single item in your store, and should immediately know where everything is located.  Ignore any discrepancies with guideline 1.

5. It is your fault items cost as much as they do or work as poorly as they do, and you should always apologize profusely and take full responsibility for the matter at hand.  Personally pay for the cost difference or construct a new item if possible. 

6. You are mentally unfit to answer any question regarding policy, and must immediately request a managers assistance should any problem arise.  Ignore any discrepancies with guideline 4.

7. Out of stock items are your fault.   You should have known that particular customer was going to be looking for that item at that time.  Find more immediately.

8. You are responsible for all adverse weather conditions, and will apologize accordingly.  Give the customer your coat, gloves, umbrella, etc. and take responsibility  for their discomfort.

9. Malfunctioning shopping carts are your fault, and you will perform any needed maintenance or spot welding to return it to prime working condition.  Ignore any discrepancies with guideline 1.

10. The AARP is an elite network capable of many great feats.  They will write a letter to the editor and have your job if you run out of their favorite coffee.

11. All children are angels, and you will smile and wave as they destroy the store while their parents browse magazines and wait for prescriptions.  

12. Under no circumstances should it take longer than 15 seconds for any transaction to be completed, regardless of the amount of items in question.  This goes double for coupon hoarders.

13. You are to bow in humility until the customer is finished with their phone conversation.  You should feel privileged and honored that they chose your store.

14. You are responsible for the personal musical tastes of every customer, and must play Hall & Oates simultaneously with Britney Spears.  Research acoustics and wiring if necessary.

15. All ad misprints and customer misinterpretations of ads are your fault.  The customer obviously did not make a mistake reading the fine print.  Offer any valuables you may have to the customer as a humble apology in addition to all of the products being free for your gross incompetence. 

I Hate The Things You Enjoy

Country music - as if America didn't have a hard enough time convincing the rest of the world that we are actually capable if something other than blowing up things we don't understand or cramming enough big macs down our throats to clog up the mega maid form of Spaceball 1, our aural ambassador to everyone else are songs about loving shitty old trucks, fighting in shitty old bars, and getting left by shitty old people.   I say we take metal from the Scandinavians.  At least then, brutal neo- imperialism would have a soundtrack that makes sense.

Cursive - What the fuck is the point?  The letters are about as authentic as those "dragoonball" Z action figures I bought from that Korean kid at the airport who couldn't stop laughing while insisting Vegeema has scorpion pincers and Froku performs the 'mekka-lekka-hai' wave.  Fuck you, you fake pieces of squiggly shit.  I'd rather masturbate with a cobra wrapped in sandpaper than use you.

People that don't believe in aliens - Watch Fire in The Sky.  That's all I'm saying.  Oh, and fuck you.

Dane Cook - If I could manifest my hatred for this fucking cock wrangler, it would be a 30 foot tall tank made of saw blades and barbed wire that shot flaming demon skulls propelled by the tears of starving children that also gave people stone cold stunners. Seeing him slowly drawn and quartered by 10,000 hamsters would not satiate my desire to see him in agony.

Jersey Shore - This swimming pool of concentrated, liquified stupidity  magicked into a television show is what will cause Lord Xyl of the Andromeda Empire to disregard Earth as a valuable asset, turning it into a terrifying space sex colony where we are all violated in strange new holes created via 4th dimensional perv-o-rays.  Scientists of future generations will cite the show as the start of what will be called the "Herpes and bad haircuts" age, and attempt to send a surly young assistant named Jon Bon Jovi back in time to destroy New Jersey.  They miscalculated, sending him instead to 1980 where he was discovered for his stellar singing abilities on the hit track "R2-D2 We Wish You A  Merry Christmas", and the rest is future history.

Those giant bug eye sunglasses girls wear - If you want to look incognito, just cut out the middle man and stay the fuck home.   It'll save my ears at the bar when you and your friends over-react with foghorn level shrieks about which whore friend aborted which jock douche's baby.

Meth heads - They are dirtier than a turn of the century miner that just stepped out of a mud shower, their hands look like 5 year old asphalt, and their skin tone can only be described as "post-mortem leprosy".  The sudafed isn't for your sick grandma, the cold pack isn't for your bum knee, and the lithium batteries aren't for your daughters camera that we both know got pawned months ago.

100% Accurate Movie Reviews: Sucker Punch

This installment will cover Sucker Punch, and I have no fucking clue what is going on.   There's girls in an asylum and shit's all shady, then they all use their lantern corps rings and warp reality to suit their stripper desires.  At least that's what I'm going to say, because it's more plausible than whatever the fuck is actually happening, which is some bullshit about women trying to get out of doing the dishes.   David Carradine shows up and...wait, David Carradine is dead.  David Carradine's clone shows up and tells the girls that in order to stop stripping, they have to go on a scavenger hunt to find a spoon, the m'kraan crystal, a furbee that hasn't been tortured into catatonic  silence, a ham sandwich, and William Shatner's dignity.  The clone reveals that the spoon has been cleverly hidden inside a Chinese buffet, and is being guarded by a group of 15 foot tall mechanical  samurai.  Finally, some historical accuracy.  Only one of the girls fights the samurai, because strippers prefer being down on their luck.  Through a combination of glitterbombs and hip gyration, she defeats the samurai and, after the most intense game of "this isn't my utensil" since goldilocks and the three bears went to Old Country Buffet,  returns the spoon to the clone, who can finally enjoy his hemoglobin stew.  What, do YOU know what the fuck a clone eats?
    The girls then use their magic powers of disbelief rape and travel to WWI Germany for some good old fashioned trench warfare and watersports, but sadly discover the water has been replaced by mustard gas and the sticky residue leftover from Zack Snyder blowing himself.  They fight some steampunk zombies with the help of the protagonist from Jumping Flash (look it up), toss their hair in slow motion, and generally make a strong argument for allowing  skank uniforms in combat.
    This formula of "oh sweet, they're fighting giant monster somethingruthers - wait, they're burlesque dancers now I guess, so let's just - what the fuck, they're insane?  This is bullshit" cycles through a few more times in various fantasy realms including, but not limited to: a spooky abandoned mansion filled with "meddling kids", a bah-mitzvah where nothing is kosher, the Futurama episode "Roswell That Ends Well", and John Malkovich.
    Eventually, uh, something happens, one of them is lobotomized, one or more is dead, and one escapes on the magic school bus.  I hope she challenges the teacher for leadership, because a teacher who just cruises around the multiverse with a bus full of 10 year olds clearly isn't qualified.  I may have missed one or two things here or there due to dndjdjdxbxvvxb being more coherent, but I think this movie has something to say.   Under enough layers of CGI to make Attack of the Clones look like A River Runs Through it,  under more slow motion than a bedridden sloth in the event horizon of a black hole listening to an audio book of Ben Stein reading the novelization of glacial movement,  under more whorish outfits than the AVN Awards/Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball cosplay mixer, lies the true heart and soul of this film:  Vanity.  Oh yes, make no mistake.  This film exists because Zack Snyder dared you, FUCKING DARED YOU to watch it.  You saw the commercials, and you all thought the same thing: "Christ, I hope that girl is 18.  Also, what the fuck is this about?"  You saw the action, the fighting, the skirts, you saw it all.  All except what the fuck the point of it was, but you didn't care.  "Watchmen!  Dawn of the Dead!   300!  Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (yep, he sure did)!  I don't care if his next movie is a meandering exercise in confused pro-woman messages that clash with overt female objectification so viciously that it actually becomes a cause for bi-polar disorder clumsily wrapped in anime references and bullet time masturbation,  I'm seeing that goddamn movie!"  Well guess what...