A Muffin Type Post

Don't take this as a sign this blog will stop being neglected anytime soon (at least for another week), it's more of a sign that I'm working one more 13-hour holiday shift before I head back to school either tonight or tomorrow. No single unifying theme either, just bullets.

• I'm sick. Not any kind of grand, exotic illness- just the sick you get after flying 1,400 miles from sunny, warm Florida to fricking cold, butt fuck Northern Michigan and consuming more alcohol in a week than I had the previous eight months. My vacation was basically Rocky IV, with Drago played by my immune system and Rocky represented by a collection of draft beers ranging from Labatt Blue to Miller Lite to this weird, dark Guinness imitation. I mean, you know Drago is going to lose, but the amount of damage they both dish out is staggering. Between Christmas money and the bar I think I broke even. I have this weird head congestion/headache/fatigue/Dengue fever and everything seems kind of surreal to me, like my senses are only turned on halfway. I feel like the guy in Blow after a line of cocaine. "I can't feel my face... I mean, I can touch it... but I can't feel it." I could barely sleep last night as I was fluctuating between being way too hot and shivering cold. Either I had a fever or I'm menopausal, and I'm hoping it's the first so I can still experience the joy of childbirth. Hey-o! I even hit a portal on the way to work, I remember walking out of my house and starting my truck and then- *poof* -I found myself unlocking the shop amidst thin trails of blue smoke. Just kidding, there was no smoke, but I seriously can't remember driving here.
• I flew back into Orlando on Thursday so I could make it to the company Christmas party to collect my bonus (which, as expected, didn't warrant the trip). The party was decidedly awkward as corporate Christmas parties tend to be, as half the field waited impatiently for the awards ceremony to conclude to make a run on the free booze, and the other half waited impatiently for the first person to leave after the awards finished to make a run for the door. To make matters worse, golf courses tend to feature an incredibly eclectic group of employees. On one hand you've got your chocolately protein powder (quasi-professional golf shop staff, golf pro staff/management) to go with your melty ice cream (southern redneck restaurant and kitchen staff) and cayenne pepper (Latin American outside laborers). It doesn't matter how hard you stir, you'll still get three distinct clumps that resist assimilation even under the influence of cheap alcohol, plus you're like "Why the hell did I put cayenne pepper in my protein shake? It doesn't even speak English!". However, I had a great time quoting both "The Dundees" episode of The Office (You know what they say about a car-wreck where it'’s so awful you can'’t look away? Th[is party is] like a car wreck that you have to stare at because your boss is making you.) and the Christmas party episode (Happy Birthday Jesus, Sorry your party is so lame). Apparently I'm the only person who watches the show which made the whole thing even funnier to me. The unintentional comedy scale stayed fairly high all night, but probably peaked either when our owner forgot my name while handing out bonuses before scrambling to get the sheet and butchering my last name within three minutes of me telling at least ten people that I didn't think she knew who I was, or when our owner's twelve year old daughter attempted to sing karaoke (she was excruciatingly horrible) and everyone put on their "please shoot me now" smile and clapped, or when a certain Puerto Rican waitress and I attempted to slip off back to the secluded pro-shop office only to walk in and find my boss and another employee were about five minutes ahead of us (if you know what I'm saying)- wine was spilled, computers were damaged, and eye contact was avoided by all of the involved parties. To top it all off, one of our older outside cart guys decided to go trolling for hookers in the bad part of town immediately after the party and ended up getting a DUI, luckily today is my last day so I don't have to worry about giving him rides to work. By the way, since the office was busy we ended up using the elevator, so I can go ahead and scratch that off my "Things to do before I die" list.