HordeVsOptimus's Open Salon Blog

Oksanagate

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:07:49 -0400

Mel Gibson is single now. While people are rallying against him, I’m just itching for the day I’ll have a shot.

I figure, in order for that to come about, he’ll have to go Buffalo Bill on his next 14 girlfriends and be videotaped wearing their respective faces sewn into a crotchless unitard while burning the American flag and urinating on a Qur’an wrapped in the Torah.

So really, it’s just a waiting game.

I'm an Atheist, Ask Me How

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:04:51 -0400

I can hardly believe that Christianity is still so prevalent in this, the year of our Lord, 2010. It’s fucking bizarre that an organization advocating homophobia and misogyny is so globally cherished.

I read about pope cover-up scandals and I wonder why there is even still a pope, with his ridiculous, grandiose Chinese take-out box hat. And why are there pedophiles in white plastic collars getting away with diddling children like it was jaywalking?

I suppose I could just type out the lyrics to Imagine, except I’m all for separate countries. Just not divisions based on outdated, preposterous dogma.

God has a plan.

No. He doesn’t. God doesn’t exist. If Jesus existed, he was just another guy slapped up on a cross. Nothing I’m saying is revolutionary, and I know this. It’s all been said, and more eloquently than I myself am capable, but the more it's said, the more it will be heard. I mean, how often do you hear Jesus was the son of God or God is just and loving? These are not original sentiments to be sure. So I say,

There is no God, Heaven, or Hell, all religion is man-made, and you are not morally superior because of your faith.

I don’t do math equations on an abacus and I have certainly moved on from the Sega Genesis, and that Genesis only dates back to 1991. Eventually, mankind will look upon present-day organized religion the way we ourselves look back on the witch trials, with incredulous contempt.

We’ve accepted that the Earth is not flat. We’ve accepted that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth. Why can’t we now collectively accept that the Bible is a man-written book of conventions with as much application in today’s society as a cruise ship’s directive to not sail off the edge the world?

I don’t require a “good book” to know not to kill, murder, or steal. I’m even nice to my neighbor all by myself. But I do occasionally wish that I'm wrong, if for nothing else, to watch those depraved Catholic priests get fisted like broken vending machines in Hell. Hallelujah.

The Retard Question

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:03:31 -0400

Okay, so how do you know you’re not retarded? Terrible word choice, I know, but since I am retarded it’s okay for ME to use it. Not you, unless you’re also retarded. Or at least half-retarded and willing to identify as such.

With the aid of $40 worth of hallucinogenic mushrooms, I came to the horrifying conclusion that I am in fact QUITE the high functioning retard. And everything in my life is faked and staged to keep this truth from me. My friends and family are just bullshitting me into believing I am “normal”. Well, the jig, as they say, is up.

I own and wear Velcro shoes (they’re Lacoste, so at least they’re designer Velcro) and I quite often have no grasp of social etiquette. I have no rhythm or balance, but there I am on the weekends, trying to bring back the running man in many a crowded bar. It is a painfully obvious conclusion. I tried for an honest second opinion from an equally inebriated roommate and her response: Yeah, sometimes.

Me = Short Bus

I’m not surprised that it took over twenty years for me to come to this realization, I mean, how was I expected to know? I’m retarded. Too stupid to understand how truly stupid I am. And all these people…these patronizing contemporaries of mine (see what I did there, with the big words; non-retarded people don’t think those words are so great, nor are they impressed with my proper use of the semi-colon), they are just jerks keeping me in the dark (like a mushroom, oh the irony).

I’ve initiated counter arguments, grasping at an intellectual defense:

I have a University degree, how could I be retarded?

Well, what looks like a genuine degree to my retarded eyes is crayon and construction paper to everyone else’s. I was never enrolled for real, I just thought I was and everyone played along. It was just an English degree (ooh, I can read books without pictures, give me a career) so what’s the harm in humoring me?

Or worse yet, I do have a legitimate degree, but it means absolutely nothing because these things only matter in my retarded eyes and there’s a whole other world that exists beyond the one I am able to comprehend, like my concept of higher education is equivalent to those plastic phones that “call” Big Bird et al.

I have/had a job.

So do other mentally challenged individuals. That’s what makes me high functioning.

I don’t look like I’m retarded.

Not to my retarded eyes…

And it goes on. And on. And on. Because it’s pointless repetition that is the true sign of the imbecile. And I, for one, am wake-up-after-sleeping-in-my-contacts-and-think-I’m-miraculously-cured imbecilic.

The ONLY experience that gives me pause, which makes me realize this whole thing may be what’s retarded and I’m merely tactless and dim, is an abhorrent venture I avoid like Black Death:

Wal-Mart on a Saturday.

It’s the golden snitch argument against my retardation. I mean, Wal-Mart customers aren’t exactly congesting the Mensa registration list. But then, faster than you can say rollback savings, my cart’s half full of 80% discounted pool noodles and I don’t have a pool…but my cart’s half full, so at least I’m an optimistic retard.

6 Pieces of Advice for Hotel Guests from an Ex Housekeeper

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:03:21 -0400

Everyone has seen the black light specials they roll out on the nightly news programs.

Oh god, the filth! The horror!

It’s come to be expected, really. Hotel blankets are teeming with bodily fluids. So are the floors and walls. We’ve seen the less than shocking exposes. At this point, the reporters should turn the black lights on each other. Anything shows up, well that would be news worth watching.

“That’s funny Martha, your dress was clean before lunch and say, isn’t your husband out of town on a business trip?”

But it’s always just the same neon splotches of blood, urine, etcetera on the bedspread.

So if you removed the culprit comforter, you’d be all set? Sadly, no (still remove the comforter though, that thing is the blanket equivalent of leprosy).

I’ve worked at a downtown Quality Suites (believe me, Quality was a misnomer) and another unnamed hotel, even more popular than the QS, but one that wisely had me sign a confidentiality agreement.

And the Quality Suites? No confidentiality there. Not so much as a background check. Both things I’m sure they meant to get around to, but couldn’t find the time. Not that I have a criminal past to hide, just a rather big mouth when given any type of forum.

1. Always check the room for bed bugs.

They sound cuter than they are, and if you bring them home with you, it will be an exterminating nightmare. Housekeepers have entire staff meetings dedicated to the silent discovery and treatment of the bed bug; it’s a huge liability for hotels, as we’ve become quite the litigious society.

Six figure settlements were making the news, so we Housekeepers were ~~threatened~~ advised to keep these situations QUIET. Find a bug, put it in a bag, and give it to maintenance; cloak and dagger entomology.

Lift the sheet and examine the mattress and box spring, particularly the seams and corners where they like to hide. Check the headboard as well, especially if it is attached to the wall. If you see what could be a smattering of spilled pepper, get your money back and check into a different hotel. The problem may not be confined to a single room. Or deal with the hassle and sue for all you can.

2. Never, under any circumstances, use the coffee maker provided in the room.

I had a special pen I kept on my cart. I never touched it past the cap. See, this was my condom pen. I would use this pen to peel condoms from the fronts of television sets, the walls, tubs, and yes, from inside the coffee pots. I lifted so many used condoms from those pots, I couldn’t brew coffee at home without suffering flashbacks. My routine was: peel off condom, spritz with yellow cleaner, rinse with hot water, repeat if sticky.

And to the guy who eventually stole that pen off my cart, I honestly hope you don’t have an oral fixation.

3. Examine the sheets/towels before use.

The thirty-minutes-per-suite quota is occasionally unrealistic. But it’s finish on time or risk being let go. So if the housekeepers were running behind, they would just pray there weren’t any dirty briefs down by the foot of the bed, and pull the old sheets taut, dusting off the visible hairs, some of which were short and curly. The sad fact is, if you’ve spent a lot of time in hotels, you’ve probably slept in the equivalent of a stranger’s boxer shorts.

As for the towels, chances are good they’d been in the room for a while. Hotels are constantly running low on supplies, especially towels. I’ve witnessed cleaning rags get “promoted” to face cloths.

4. Don’t use the glasses and mugs. At the very least, rinse them in scalding water.

At both the hotels I’ve worked at, the dishwasher was always broken. And I mean always. In fact, at the unnamed hotel, I’d never even been privy to seeing the damn thing. So the rushed housekeepers simply rinse the glassware in the bathroom sink and use a toxic, pink porcelain cleaner for those stubborn juice/coffee/lipstick stains.

The cardboard “caps” on those mugs and glasses mean nothing as far as cleanliness is concerned. I watched a housekeeper use her breath to fog up a glass and then wipe it clean on her shirt. She slapped a cap on it and moved on to the next room.

5. Don’t knock on your friend’s door and say, “Housekeeping,” in that shrill, phony Spanish accent.

This happens more often than you’d think. I’d guess as often as people told bank tellers to, “Show me the money!” the year Jerry Maguire came out, and it’s as equally funny. I’m strongly tempted to rush you with my cart as if I were an Olympic bobsledder and your legs were the finish line. It’s only a matter of time before an overworked housekeeper snaps, and it could very well be your kneecaps.

6. Camp instead.

Roasted marshmallows taste just as delicious on a bustling city corner as they do in the woods and you’ll save a ton of money on your trip.

* Stephen Colbert has referred to my city as “the worst place on Earth,” so maybe the hotels here are just uniquely bad. But probably not.

Ew, I Got an English Degree…Anyone Wanna Trade?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:03:06 -0400

The job pool right now is a Dixie cup and the college graduates are a big, fat guy doing a cannonball off the high board. A good number of the overeducated and underemployed chose to be Liberal Arts majors. I suppose that was just an error in judgment. I’m sure there are some who don’t regret this choice, but I’m not one of them. I’d sell that stupid piece of paper back to the university at half-price, if I could.

I have an Honours degree in English Lit & Creative Writing and I’ve just been fired from a housekeeping position at a major hotel chain. I don’t have any animosity; I really wasn’t cut out to be a housekeeper. It’d be like getting angry if the circus fired me for being a sub par lion tamer. Or fired what was left of me. Out of a cannon.

Housekeeping in any hotel is a thoroughly underappreciated vocation. Watch a music video that has any hotel footage and imagine having thirty minutes to make that room rentable again.

I wonder about the old lady in laundry sometimes. She’d worked in the same laundry room for twenty-six years. If it was a prison laundry room and she was a convicted murderer, she’d be free to go. I wonder if she ever regards her laundry job as an extended life sentence.

I know I could never put in that kind of time. My thoughts while cleaning often drifted to suicide if I was above the fifteenth floor. I’d stare out the huge picture window at the ground below and come up with hilarious ways to die.

A recurring fantasy involved me cleaning a guest’s room while he was still in there. I’d act all happy-go-lucky until I hit the bathroom. I’d come out with tears streaming down my face and point at him, mouth agape like an extra from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and scream, “You monster, you peed on the seat?!” During his momentary stunned silence I would swan dive out the window.

I’m telling you, that guy never misses the water again. If he’s an emotional guy, he might pee sitting down. And if he’s a really emotional guy, I see a future of bladder infections and possible kidney rupture from holding it in too long.

MAID PLUMMETS TO HER DEATH, WIFE OF ROOM 1708 HAS NO IDEA WHOM TO THANK FOR HER ALWAYS PRISTINE TOILET BOWL.

I’ve forever had a problem turning off my brain and focusing on mundane tasks-at-hand. It’s not ADD, I’ve never had a problem following goings on. But I didn’t exactly win the genetic lottery being the eldest child of not one, but two English majors. I certainly didn’t fall far from the tree. Come to think of it, I didn’t fall so much as scrape up my apple cheeks rolling down the trunk.

I think they should start teaching our youth to just say no to poetic discourse, like with drugs and the D.A.R.E. program. Eventually the kids would realize that some form of experimentation is okay, and maybe even necessary, but they should never overindulge and offer it carte blanche control of their professional lives.

I often wonder if I’ve cursed myself to a lifetime of job dissatisfaction or if I’m just the egocentric personification of FAIL, as I still don’t really know what I want to be when I grow up. In a way, my future is like an elaborate dinner party that I invited everyone I know to attend, only I’m shocked when they arrive since I hadn’t actually prepared anything to serve.

In hindsight, I should have gone for a Biochem major. Or at the very least taken a couple elective physics courses, so that future me could theoretically time travel to past me and kindly explain that English is for retards and Science is balls.