My employer decided to convert all of a certain class of our records from paper based files to digital. There were three immediate problems. Our company was not going to buy a generic system, but develop our own unique, tailored system. It was to be done on the cheap, with net savings for record keeping from Year 1. The guy in charge (let’s call him Genius) always (and I mean ALWAYS) thought he was the smartest guy in room. Believe me, he wasn’t.
Anyway, one of the girls I worked with took on the project on the condition that she could have the next July off for her wedding and honeymoon. She worked hard, and the project was actually making progress. One of her duties was passwords, none of which could be written anywhere because Genius knew this was ‘bad’. She periodically reminded Genius about the July wedding and he told her it’d be fine, but never signed off the paperwork. Come mid May, the project is WAY behind, mainly because Genius told management it could all be done in house at negligible cost, and Genius kept changing the design every time he read a new magazine article on IT. My friend was then told 6 weeks out from the Wedding that her leave was cancelled. The project took priority and she’d just have to reschedule her wedding, honeymoon, the works. Genius just could not see that this might be a problem. So she did her job, updated the passwords as required, never recording them anywhere, as required,……and resigned without notice the last day of June.
On her honeymoon she gets a frantic call from Genius demanding all the passwords. “Sorry, I don’t work there anymore “ click.
That’s why a decade later our company still has a few hundred electronic case files we can’t access.
so my campus is currently hosting an ENORMOUS conference of scholars who study medieval history. they’ve been completely flooding the tiny cafe where I work and drinking our coffee faster than we can make it, but the good news is that they provide some PRIME people watching, including:
the fact that all of their name tags include pronouns so that I won’t feel bad assuming anyone’s gender in this post
the woman RANTING about one of her colleagues on the following grounds: “he thinks he understands it from some class he took in 1996! FUCK OFF, TOM.”
the man who was loudly and earnestly discussing the “influence of the Harry Potter fandom on our modern political discourse” while he got a soda
before he was out the door he’d switched topics to his preferred methods for teaching students about elves
the two nice extremely polite young British lads who I could not tell apart to save my life. their name tags indicated that they were apparently not twins, but cloning does not seem impossible.
the sheer number of people graciously volunteering to buy lunch for people they’ve just met
an unexpected number of very handsome soft butch women involved in medieval studies. I am bisexual and weak.
the guy in the flannel shirt who had the coldest, softest, most feminine hands I’ve ever encountered. I fell in love with him for a good 60 seconds. I am bisexual and weak.
people who aren’t from America being cheerfully confused by our money, including my favorite, a Canadian woman who told me “I’m slow with American money because it’s all the same color.”
I’ve learned that people who aren’t going to be in the country for more than a few days don’t give a SHIT about their change and will toss all of it in the take a penny/leave a penny jar. I collected so many quarters, y’all.
also a nice British woman called it the penny pot, which is the cutest shit I’ve ever heard and absolutely its new name.
just in general the EXTREMELY good grace and patience with which everyone accepted that we only have 2 cashiers and that it takes about seven minutes to make more coffee.
SEVERAL times after I apologized for the coffee wait (because this is customer service and minor inconveniences mean we have to grovel) the response was ‘lmao no worries this just means I get a fresh pot’
a woman approached me to day with a fucking enamel pin of that old illustration of a nun gathering dicks from a tree (you know the one) and I said immediately “oh my god, is that a pin of the penis tree?” and she looked stoked and said “yes it is the penis tree! you’re only the second person to recognize it!” what kind of boring ass medieval scholars has she been hanging with???? she was probably so fucking excited to finally have company where she could wear that pin and nobody said anything??? rude.
you know, this one
I have more:
every single person who said “cheers” when I gave them their change.
the painfully hip young man who was dressed entirely in standard academic business casual EXCEPT FOR his shiny silver doc martens.
me: “you boots are amazing.”
him: “!!!! thank you!”
the man who walked in, spotted the selection of high octane energy drinks, and nearly cried with relief. when he came to the register to pay for what was probably enough caffeine to kill a horse he looked me dead in the eye and said cheerfully “thanks, I’m jet lagged as shit and I can’t be expected to function right now.”
the dude who overheard my friend Austin listening to Florence and the Machine, started chatting with him about it, and asked him out on a date
I sold a hot dog to An Actual Nun
I have a very important update for everyone who had questions regarding the penis tree pin (and there were many of you):
this post found it’s way to one Dr. Kara Maloney, who is in fact the proud wearer of the penis tree pin
as several people have suggested, it does in fact come from the Marginalia Paraphernalia kickstarter, so we can officially say we solved that mystery.
a friend of mine forgot the word “lamp” once and said “light faucet”
I’m shaking from laughter. Yes, this is the right way to start a Friday morning.
Listen guys, I have a BA in English and an MA in Professional Writing and I have:
Forgotten the word “gums” and called them “teeth cuticles” Forgotten the term “liquor store” and called it a “rum-o-rama” Forgotten the word “mohawk” and called it a “head mustache”
The list goes on and on. Wording is HARD.
You know that putty you put in holes before you paint a wall? I forgot the word “putty,” called it “hole-be-gone” instead, and now my whole family refers to it as hole-be-gone.
it’s hard to make the brain do the english, ok!?
I wish I had this skill. When I lose a word, my brain derails. I use the term ‘derail’ because it is the mental equivalent of a train derailment (just easier to clean up)
At the staff meeting, my boss referred to the clipboard as “that snappy board”
My 4-year-old nephew didn’t know the word “knuckle” so he told us his finger knee hurt.
I forgot the word “speech” once so I said “you wrote me an essay with your mouth”
Dad once temporarily had the term “auto body filler” leave his brain; the Canadian Tire worker had her whole day made when he cheerfully said, “I’m here to procure some…car-spackle!”
I once forgot the work barrel so I described it as a round wooden box and then something “pirates put rum in it” before my mate figured out what I meant.
Oh god. Here we go.
Once upon a time, I had a lot of trouble communicating with friends. It could be argued that I still do.
In my first year of high school, I was talking to this one girl who I’ll call Lullaby. We had literally every class together, so we started hanging out all the time.
During lunch, we had a conversation about our experiences dating girls vs. dating guys in a sexual manner. We get back and we go to the rest of our classes, and she starts out the door.
What I WANT to say is “Come back”
Of course my brain decides that there are synonyms to words that sound like that, since it won’t actually word.
I blurt out, in front of half of my class.
“Ejaculate back!”
I do this a lot.
Here are some good ones:
I stepped on something gross and it got between my toes, and in my distress I referred to my toes as “feet teeth.”
I was very proud to have finished the “plate laundry.”
I told my ex to go look in the garage, only I said “car pantry.”
But my VERY FAVORITE is when I couldn’t remember the word for brown, so I called it “boring purple.”
>
I once forgot the work barrel so I described it as a round wooden box and then something “pirates put rum in it” before my mate figured out what I meant.
“Something pirates put rum in” is usually “pirates” in my experience.
Look, I still maintain “food closet” is a perfectly acceptable term if you can’t remember “pantry”.
Conversely I once forgot the term “linen closet” and told my mum to get a sheet from the Blanket Pantry.
I’m an anglophone living in Europe, and I keep having this problem not because I forget a word, but because I forget which English dialect someone else speaks (or don’t know).
The past week featured ‘hot potato rectangles’ (because i was unsure what ‘chips’ would mean to my friend).
Don’t even get me started on the holes in the wall that make the electrikkity go.
Concept: Some jackass shows Bucky how to make a blog and it becomes really popular. Not because it’s the blog of James Buchanan Barnes, American Legend, War Hero, Infamous Assassin, Alleged Terrorist. Nobody even knows it’s his blog. It gets really popular because people think it’s a really great shitpost generator or something. Because Bucky is just a Weird Fucking Person and everything he posts on his fucking personal blog comes off as somewhere between dril and Jaden Smith and people are like “this is some quality garbage right here” and thus Accidental Memelord Bucky is born.
Bucky posts things like
“What is wrong with bananas. I ate a banana today and it was Wrong. America why”
“Every time I put on my eye makeup it gets bigger. My whole face is eyeliner now.”
“Why does friendship feel so much like punching”
“When I wake up in the middle of the night I am either thinking ‘who am I? does my life have meaning?’ or “did I already eat all of the plums?’”
“Why are you so grumpy” they ask me. they do not realize this is just my Face.”
“I know i said i would give my left arm for a cup of coffee but i am more awake now and i would like my arm back please”
“I guess I must have done something horrible in a past life. I mean. I definitely did something horrible in this life, so. “
OMG I LOVEEEE
YEEESSSSSSS!
“Guy in front of me won’t move his car seat up. I think that might still be upset about all those times I tried to kill him.”
“Got lectured by a guy who had been complaining about how things were Back In The Day. I don’t understand why he got upset. I too lived through the Great Depression and was drafted for the War.”
“The economy in this century sucks. Who exactly though another Stock Market crash was a good idea?”
“Apparently, it was Rude™ of me to pitch in my two cents on a conversation I happened to overhear, despite agreeing with them. On an unrelated note, I am no longer allowed in the ceiling vents.”
“‘If you don’t behave we’ll send (mutual) after you.’ Jokes on them. I’m the one who trained them to be an assassin in the first place.”
“Tried to buy a Chicken Dinner candy bar at the supermarket today. Turns out they were discontinued 54 years ago. Super bummed.”
“Wait. People were on the moon?! We got into space? There is a way off of this rock?! Why am I only just hearing about this?!”
“’Have you been living under a rock the past 50 years?’ No I was cryogenically frozen for 70. I don’t appreciate your tone young man.”
“My friend likes convincing people that I’m the Reckless one in our friendship. As if he won’t find an alley behind a bar to pick a fight in if I take my eyes off him for two seconds.”
“Why would i want to get a haircut when instead I can look like i just returned from a 12 year jaunt in the wilderness every time i grow a beard”
“was having a hard time finding noodles in the grocery store & asked a clerk for help. she looked at me like a crazy person. lady, it’s not my fault you don’t speak russian”
“what kind of idiot thinks dancers are sissies? literally every ballerina i have ever met could kill an adult man with just her legs”
“today i discovered Conditioner. the future is a miracle and my hair like a cloud now”
“apparently just jumping on to a moving bus when you are running late is not a thing people do anymore. please stop yelling at me.”
“went to a club last night to see what the hip kids were into. apparently the latest thing is just having sex standing up with your clothes on in a room full of people.”
“on the one hand, people dressed much nicer in the 40s. on the other hand, yoga pants.”
“rode in a car with heated seats today. it is my house now. i live here.”
“i have acquired a small bear. i am putting a collar and leash on him. he is my dog. no one tell animal control”
“i am working on this whole Good Guy thing but anyone who cuts me in line at starbucks deserves to have their kneecaps shot out okay”
“why did they have to make escalators so terrifying to get on and off of? from now on I’m just jumping off the mall balconies. none of this awful moving teeth staircase”
“i don’t care if it’s a ‘priceless historical artifact,’ punk, i didn’t wanna do the dishes and it makes a pretty good spaghetti bowl”
“hoodie pockets are so great. i can fit like three sandwiches and a grenade in there and my hands are still warm”
“i really though we would have flying cars by now. the future is such a letdown.”
“changed sam’s ringtone to jesus take the wheel.”
“do you know that feeling when you go to lean on your short friend’s conveniently arm-rest-height shoulder but you forget they had a huge growth spurt and you just awkwardly lean your elbow into the middle of their bicep”
“i swear i didn’t know your girlfriend was coming over. i always ominously clean my assault weapons on the coffee table like that. it had nothing to do with you.”
“On the other hand, yoga pants” I hear that, buddy.
“tv dinners are amazing, like ‘here’s this fucking tray with a shitty-ass meal of army-grade beef and potatoes that we froze into an ice cube. go stick it in your magic radiation box and eat it in front of the other magic radiation box that shows you cartoons whenever you want.’“
“the only reason why tv and radio weren’t used for porn from the start was because everyone would have been embarrassed to have their kids in the same room.”
“this jonny depp motherfucker’s on thin ice with me, disrespecting the legacy of tonto like that. come here and catch my titanium fist in your face, you birdhat wearing sonovabitch.”
“heard that bruce lee used to wire up his abs to electrodes to work them out for six hours a day, and i’m like, just six? just your abs? get on my level.”
“it used to be that making your handwriting look nice was just a thing people did, and knowing how to type was a specialized skill how things change.”
“did you know that a screaming orgasm is another word for a type of alcoholic beverage? i didn’t. i think my reaction to overhearing someone order twelve last night at the bar was reasonable, but the bouncer disagreed. sorry, steve.”
80 of the tags that some of AO3′s tag wranglers have encountered between March-April, in a mega-sized post, separated in groupings of 5 for easy reading. Most of these are freeforms (also known as the ‘additional tags’ field), but some are character or relationship tags.
Due to the sheer number of tags I haven’t bothered to add fandoms. Sorry!
You can find the list in text format below the cut/read-more.
Me quietly to myself: I wonder what Jewish ethics surround stuff like…… unicorns or fairies or some shit…….
Rabbi #1 *popping out of the cupboard*: Well according to the great Rabbi Akiva!
Rabbi #2 *enters from the next room*: Actually if you look at 14th century Talmudic interpretation
Rabbi #3 *descends the stairs*: but if you want the real answer you must look at the work of Rabbi Joshua
Me: how did you get into my house
Welcome to … edition #10 of Adventures in Wrangling! We’ve hit the double digits now, isn’t it exciting? This edition has a bunch of draft tags and tags that were deleted, but I liked all of them too much not to include them.
As always, many thanks to the brave wranglers and browsers who shared tags they’d found on the archive.
i was talking to my sister on the phone the other day and she has a tendency to talk for several hundred years so eventually i got hungry and grabbed a rice cake and started to Munch and she goes “what’s that” and i said “i’m eating a rice cake” and she’s like “oh gross you like those?”
and without thinking i said, “they satisfy my urge to eat packing peanuts” and what followed was seven full seconds of silence
like oh okay go ahead and pretend you’ve never wanted to eat a packing peanut you pretentious fool
Steel Phoenix Studios 