For Gluttonous Sloths:

http://taquitos.net/

Stephen Colbert Thinks I’m Hateful.

Oh yea Colbert? Well I think you’re… hot.
Damn it.
In the most recent issue of The Onion Stephen Colbert (or Cuddle Buns as I prefer to call him) asserted that:
Jon [“Love Muffin,” Stewart] couldn't say on camera that he thinks Rosa Parks was overrated, because that's a hateful thing to say. But this character [Stephen Colbert’s character on the Colbert Report] can get away with it, because the audience on some level knows [he doesn't] mean it.
What?! Stop judging me!
Ok, so I may have said that I think that Rosa Parks is over-rated. But I did this huge research project on the Bus Boycott and it was a planned event. Yes, Rosa Parks was a good woman, brave and willing to face up to many dangers. But it wasn’t as though one day she was just not gonna move. She’d previously refused to move and had no negative repercussions. The Civil Rights movement didn’t just fall into place because people decided to randomly make changes. The Movement was carefully orchestrated by very intentional people who needed a figure like Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks should be admired, but not for the reasons you think. Rosa was brave enough to face the potential consequences that went far beyond jail time. There's a difference between a fireman saving a baby from a burning building and a civilian doing the same.
Rosa Parks didn't stumble upon icon status by accident, it wasn't her feet that were tired of sitting in the back of the bus.

Bad Blogger, Bad

Ok see here's the deal. I'm grouchy and I broke my foot. Well, ok it turns out that I didn't break it. I did something crazy to it and my Doctor says there's nothing to be done about it and not to walk for basically a month. So I've been hobbling around and laying about with my foot up. Since I've been at home every day I've been doing the following:
Weeping.
Reading a lot.
Writing angry letters to Albertsons.
Watching embarrassing TV.
Hey food channel.
Obsessing about money.
Obsessing about my telephone.
Obsessing about why people with legitimate exercise induced foot injuries have to park in the back of the parking lots, but people who can't walk because they're fat get to park in the handicapped spots.Looking forward to mobility.
Obsessing about my foot.
Not having anything exciting happen to me to blog about. (I don't even need to bitch about the weather, seeing as I can't go anywhere.)

Wanna hear a funny foot story? Well a funny my grandma tries to murder me regularly story? Sure ya do.

So my grandmother really believes in homeopathic medicine. So she's always giving me horrible remedies for things.
Ex. 1. When I was tiny she made me take these stinky brown liquid vitamins. Picture my mom tearing around the house and pinning cute little Quiana in piggy-tails to the ground and jamming a full dropper in her mouth mostly missing. Even though each bottle was 2 months worth Grandma always sent one a month... just in case. (She continues this tradition to this date, when I last moved I threw out 8 bottles of vitamins.) One day my mom was lecturing me about behaving like a baby when it was vitamin time. I told her “if you like the vitamins so much, why don’t you take them?” She said "fine, I will." She put a drop on her tongue and then hurled everywhere.
Ex. 2. The dust infused with positive energy. So I was having some serious health problems a few years back and (as usual) was hiding them from Grandma. Well, when she got wind of my illness she came bustling over with this little tub. It was filled with dust. This dust was a mix of mud and ground crystals that were "infused with positive energy." Basically she was trying to get me to consume magic dirt. "It's from Wyoming," she assured me. "Oh, I see, Wyoming is healthy and magical, it must be the dirt! Wyoming, the Magic Dirt State.") It had cost her a bundle but I threw it away; wasn't it this very same woman who admonished me for playing in the dirt as a child? Even 4 year old Quiana knew not to eat mud pies. Later I was at the airport watching CNN and they were busting homeopathic frauds. Wait for it… wait… wait… ok. Turns out that eating dirt is not good for you. I know, “jump back, I shouldn’t eat dirt. OOPS!” If I had been dutifully drinking this dirt water it might have killed me. (My liver probably couldn't have handled another strain.)
Given this empirical evidence, I knew that when Grandma pressed the bottle into my hand I should've thrown it away. It was a liniment ("to heal your foot, it worked great on Daisy[her schnauzer].") I don't recall what it was called, but it sounded ominously like "Balrog," which we all know is a fiery demon. Hmmmmmmmm... a fiery demon for my foot... sounds awesome. I didn't want to lie to my Grandmother and I figured a liniment probably couldn't cause liver failure, so I decided try it. And in any event, my foot had been really improving, so what could it hurt? Baby blue and completely opaque, it looked like Smurf Jam and smelled like the bastard child of a tube of mentos and some necco wafers. I put it on my foot. It tingled and made my foot feel cold. I thought "either this is working or my foot is about to fall completely off." As I sat reading Calvin and Hobbes, my foot became quite numb. At some point I got up to brush my teeth. The next day I could barely walk.
That woman is a hazard.

Well, it's not raining men... damn it.

Happy 26th day of rain.


I'm seriously going to get trenchfoot soon.

Please inspect the page of galoshes, one pair shall go on me tootsies. Let me know what you think. I'm leaning toward the westies or ooze, although leopard-print is also appealing.

Co-workers know worst.

My CoWorker's (Very Knowledgable in the Arts of Things that Suck) Suggestions for Worst Song Ever:

Lou Bega, Mambo Number Five (Eeep!)
Having My Baby, Paul Anka (Yipes!)
Starland Vocal Band, Afternoon Delight (GROSS!!!)
Cherry Pie, Warrant (I LOVE this song)
Danny’s Song, Loggins and Messina (Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you honey....) ( I also LOVE this song)
She’s Like the Wind, Patrick Swayze (Is this really THAT bad?) (Ok she's like the wind through my trees... that is pretty bad.)
Zager and Evans, In the Year 2525 (This song is BOMB. Screw you guys.)
William Shatner’s rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Maxwell Silver Hammer, The Beattles
Michael Bolton’s rendition of When Man Loves a Woman (Bullet to the brain, shark infested waters, 10 minutes with Michael Bolton? I vote brain, though sharks are quite fascinating.)
Memories from Cats
Every song from Phantom of the Opera

Ground Control to Major Tom, David Bowie (I saw the Labirynth... everything about David Bowie is awesome... in size.)

Worst song ever

I submit for your approval, the worst song ever:
Haddaway, What is Love?

Baby don't hurt me.

Second Runner Up:
Captain and Tenile, Muskrat Love

Nibbling on bacon, one would think I would be all over this.

Followed Closely by:
Aqua, Barbie Girl

Made of plastic, it's fantastic!

And who could possibly forget:
Everything ever recorded by Avril Lavigne.

Why'd ya have ta go and make things so complicated?

And of course my most hated song:
Who Let the Dogs Out

Ruff, rufff, ruff, ruff, ruff.

I would actually rather listen to Celine Dion than ANY of these people.

Incidentally, I read an article in (I think) Blender that stated that Eddie Murphy's My Girl Wants to Party All the Time was the worst song ever recorded. FALSE. That song changed my life.

True story.

Spelunking

I was just cat-sitting for a very nice coworker and friend of my aunt. She has a lovely apartment, sparse, but everything in it is top quality. She even has one of those fancy smart-foam mattresses. This mattress cost thousands of dollars. Now if you see the commercial you see that a blandly attractive woman can jump on one side of the bed and the walk over to pick up a glass of water on the other side of the bed… wait for it… the glass didn’t move the whole time she was jumping. Now what they didn’t show in the commercial is when the girl steps forward to get off the bed and sprains her ankle in the hole left by the glass of water in her hand.
I have a methodology to sleeping. When you are an insomniac you have to take extra care in all the little rituals. First I start out on my back, reading till sleepy, then flipping off the light. Now at a certain point I will want to adjust to sleep on my side like a sensible girl. However, when on a smart foam mattress the mattress forms around the curves of your body. Thus when you try to move the mattress is still in the shape of your curves, as they were positioned 15 seconds ago. 15 seconds doesn’t seem like a long time, but the depression in the mattress caused by my butt disappears at just a slow enough rate that I can’t flip over onto my side. Talk about depression. I turn over, but with nothing to support my hindquarters I just flop ineffectually back into the same position. I am trapped in my own butt divot.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to shell out 2 grand to buy a mattress that traps me in my own asshole.

Darby O’KILL and the Little People

I’ve had this fear of dwarfs, well little people in general since this one time in a bar. I was living in a tiny town in the big empty side of the state with a friend of mine. I was blissfully slumbering curled up with my roommate’s cat when my door flew open. “Wake up! We’re going out!!!”
“It’s Wednesday, Renee.”
“Don’t ca-are.”
“I was asleep.”
“Don’t ca-are.”
“I hate you.”
“I’ll buy your drinks.”
“Ok.”
We skittered down the street in the chill of nighttime in the desert. The place was pretty empty… not unusual for a summer weeknight in a college town. Renee went to chat with the bartender, a frat brother of one of our closest friends. That day the bar had gotten its first Digital Juke Box- I was mesmerized. It had every song I’d ever heard so naturally I chose Wilson Phillips, “Hold On” as the inaugural song.
People began drifting in and the best seats began to fill up. From our spot at the bar we could peruse the entire room. And that was when I made my error, inadvertent eye contact. With this uhm… dwarf. Now to make this abundantly clear, in spite of the fact that my friend Loren and I watched a three our documentary on little people one Saturday night, I have never had any curiosity about and certainly no fear towards little people of all varieties. In fact growing up one of my mother’s friends and colleagues was a dwarf and I’d always been fond of him as a child. But this guy, he was not freaky because he was tiny, I mean a lot of dwarves are not that much shorter than I am. This guy was freaky because he looked like a dwarf from Deliverance. Actually if you put the Leprechaun from the five Leprechaun movies in a trucker hat, plaid shirt, acid wash jeans and white hightops—that’s the guy.
Renee was chatting up some guys playing pool and I was playing cards with the bartender. The dwarf ambled up and nimbly climbed the bar-stool. He ordered Pabst. Shudder. Then he stared. I hoped he would say something. Really anything, but really I hoped for something awful. Then I could act scandalized and strut off without feeling like a bigot. But he didn’t say a word, he just leaned close and stared. He had the sharpest teeth I have ever seen, they were broken and jagged like Gollum’s.
When the bartender got called away I must have looked panicked, alone at the bar with the silent, staring dwarf. A stranger walked up and said, “Hey there pumpkin, we’re all in the back.” He led me off and quite frankly I couldn’t have picked a more adorable fellow if I’d been trying. But by the time I had joined his little party at the back of the bar I already felt terrible. I was a bigot. I was a homely-phobe and a dwarfo-phobe.
And then I turned back to look for Renee- she wasn’t there, but he was. He had followed me from the bar to the tables and had sat a discreet distance of three feet from me. The fellow, Brian, I think (they are always named Brian, always) seemed perplexed, not wanting to come off as an asshole he just pulled my chair closer and put his arm around my shoulders. Eventually I turned again to find the dwarf had scooched his chair closer to me, I think he was sniffing me. I declared that I needed to go home. Brian offered to walk us home and I agreed. As we left the bar the dwarf exited behind us. We sped up. Brian offered to have us to his house for a night cap to wait out the dwarf. We agreed. He seemed to be nervous, maybe he’d seen The Leprechan too. Later, when Brian was driving us home, he looked in the rearview mirror a lot.
Ever since that night I’ve been kind of freaked out by dwarves. Plus that obsession some folks have with them (think The Man Show or midget porn) definitely doesn’t decrease my worries.

I hate repeats

Well kids, it's been raining for 19 days. NINETEEN! Now let me say that, yes, Seattle is pretty grey a lot of the time, and fairly consistently drizzly throughout the winter. But it has been actually raining, raining like it rains in other places. I have been carrying an umbrella. An UMBRELLA!
I just looked at weather.com.
Ok, are you ready for the 10 day forecast?
1/6 Rain
1/7 Rain
1/8 Showers
1/9 Rain
1/10 Showers
1/11 Showers
1/12 Showers
1/13 Showers
1/14 Showers
1/15 Rain/Snow

I'm going to buy some galoshes.

"If this Christmas doesn't blow, I'll eat my hat."

I'll have that hat cooked medium rare. After all my usual fear and loathing, Christmas this year was "fine." In any other family that would be kind of "meh," but for my family it's a pretty damn good year if nobody gets in fight. People were eerily pleasant. Pod people? Affable zombies? Who cares? Not I; looking a gift horse in the mouth is not my style.

I even received a spectacular gift: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
I was soooo excited, especially to read the 20 page introduction by Bill Watterson. Watterson basically never grants interviews and I am eager to read what he has to say about Calvin and Hobbes. The set weighs roughly a billion (22.5) pounds though. Interestingly, today's Foxtrot was about just that:

Happy Birthday!!!

Merry stupid Christmas.

Ok, National Department Store of Doom and Misery, I surrender.

In a particularly underhanded act Nationwide Mega-Store Hell has yet again shown me that they are too large and too evil to fight.
The preternaturally evil and devious weasels who run this shadowy company pushed back my schedule from 3-11 to 3:30-11:30 at the very last minute giving me an additional hour of nothing to do before work. A mere day after unilaterally declaring to my co-workers that Ever After was the worst non-ironically intended movie ever made, as a “treat” to the workers, Our National Department Store of Ever-Lasting Torture rented a movie to show in the break room. Being the kind souls they are, they looped the film to increase the likelihood that one could view it in its entirety. The sound of Barrymore’s abysmal accent distracted me so badly that I incorrectly filled in 4 sudoku puzzles before giving up and playing Tetris on my phone.
Ever After, showing ALL DAY at your local Vile Department Store of Eternal Damnation, is set in France, where the people all have English accents (the exception being Barrymore). Barrymore, who apparently was rendered so broke from her failed marriage to Tom Green (thanks Canada), that she could not afford the elocution lessons which could have provided her with a moderately non-retched English or even, dare I suggest it, French accent. Although since she lacked the follow-through to hold her own indeterminable accent through an entire sentence, much less an entire scene, I don’t suppose it matters anyway. Beyond the general outlandishness and predictability of the film, Barrymore’s revoltingly horrible accent manages to cause Ever After to out-suck even Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In the movie’s favor, the writing is not obviously awful, the acting was actually quite good (if one can overlook Barrymore’s acting), and really it’s a quite visually pleasing film. Having Barrymore in it undoubtedly increased the throngs of America’s Top Model Viewing Morons, but killed any possibility of it being a kind of cutsie but overall satisfactory film. Worse yet is the fact that Barrymore’s accent and lack of theatrical uhm… talent manages to render one of the most beloved fairy-tails in the lexicon of frightening children’s stories completely toothless. Gregory Maguire’s Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister managed to rejuvenate Cinderella, so we can’t really blame the story.
While I believe the worst aspect of the movie was Barrymore’s distracting accent, most people at Nationwide Department Store of Unceasing Sorrow found the presence of Leonardo da Vinci in France the most irritating. In a fine twist, the most seemingly outlandish part of the movie is the only realistic part. In 1515 da Vinci was in France under the auspices of King Francis.

Darwin Award Winner Unjustly Denied Prize

I am addicted to yet another show on the Discover Channel. It is called "I Shouldn’t Be Alive." It shows dramatizations and interviews with people who have faced deadly circumstances and have used cunning to overcome them. The first one I saw was the story of Chris Moon (Kidnap in the Killing Fields). Moon was a retired British military man volunteering in Cambodia as a de-miner. He and his colleagues were kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge, but Moon used his courage and wit to rescue his group. The next one (Jaws of Death) was the story of Greg Rasmussen, an Australian working to preserve African wildlife. Rasmussen displayed amazing strength and wisdom in his efforts to survive a plane crash in the middle of an African game preserve. In fact Rasmussen survived with no food, water, or radio in spite of his shattered legs and broken hips.

However, the next episode was about Saul and Larry (Swept Away). Saul and Larry decided to go on a kayaking trip through the San Juan Islands, in dangerous waters, in November. (Is this a good juncture to mention that the water in the Puget Sound is approximately 52 degrees in November… or that the waterway they picked to cross is famous for its forceful tides?) In a cascading series of awe-inspiringly stupid acts the kayaker who had NEVER been in a kayak before, Saul, ended up being swept out to sea (surprise). This forced Larry to abandon him in order to paddle to shore to mount a full scale rescue attempt. Eventually Larry’s only good decision resulted in Saul being rescued despite his best attempts to get himself killed.

While Moon and Rasmussen were thrown into life and death situations by volunteering to do remarkably selfless things in only moderately safe environments, Larry and Saul were thrown into their life or death situation by their overriding need to go to a nude hot-spring. They nearly died to ogle boobies. And they admitted so on national television. Furthermore, while Moon and Rasmussen used their smarts to get out of their situation, Saul (at least) made every wrong decision possible. He even admitted that he knew what the right decisions were but decided to gamble. Now if I acted like a complete bone-head and nearly got myself killed so that I could go to a nudie hot-spring, the last thing that I would want to do is have it dramatized on the Discovery Channel.

Which leads me to my point, which is that the Discovery Channel needs to have two survival TV shows. One should be called "I Shouldn’t Be Alive": the true stories of people who used wisdom and courage to survive life and death situations. The other should be called "I Don’t Deserve to Be Alive": the true stories of people who survive life and death situations in spite of themselves.

The Penis Mightier

Recently I was on a date with a nice fellow. He was hands down the most interesting person I have been on a date with in ages, except… he happened to mention that he was at the WTO protests that turned into a riot in Seattle a few years back. He was going on about this amazing use of his right to protest and all I could think was “Golly, it’s a good thing that you were around to march in the streets, otherwise that WTO would still be out there.”

As I’m sure you are aware, I am all about the use of our civil rights, but let’s pause for a moment and think about this. What is more effective 2,000 people screwing up traffic and breaking the windows of Starbucks OR 2,000 well-written letters arriving at the office of their Senator? Something tells me that the pen is mightier than the idiots dressed as turtles.

I think you do, Trebek!

Divine Intervention

God does not want me to work.

The signs are clear.

Sign1:
I have been sick for like a month. The Black Death? Typhoid Fever? Bird Flu? I'm not quite sure with what, but I've woken up every morning feeling like something that cat dragged in. Every day I wake up (face encrusted with drool) with my nose completely stuffed. Perhaps a pair of Nasal Hamsters has decided to nest in my sinuses. Respiratory rodents?! Thanks Jesus, that's just what I wanted!

Sign 2:
God trapped me in my apartment. Last Thursday I awoke from bed still sick, but determined to make it into work. Finally, armed with laundry and lunch I turned my deadbolt. Kachunk! I thought, "Hmmmm 'kachunk' is not the expected noise." I turned the handle and lo, my door was still dead-bolted. I tried turning the deadbolt back to locked but it would not move. I was trapped. I went to my window and opened it, pushing the screen gently. Nothing. Rather than break my screen I decided to call my manager. Not home. Called the emergency line, they said they would call back. They didn't, I called again, they asked if it could wait till 9. "Nein."
Chuck Norris style I kicked out my screen and clamored out onto the sidewalk in my skirt, running my stockings. Thank God nobody called the police over a disheveled thief (pink underwear displayed) escaping from a first floor apartment, arms full of loot. I was over an hour late to work that day. In the car I left a somewhat snarky message for my manager demanding a new lock by that day as I had a house guest flying in from Wisconsin that day and I really could not expect her to clamor in and out of my window with her luggage. It turns out that Thursday morning is when he has his Vietnam Vet Support Group Meeting and that's why he wasn't there. Thanks for making me feel like an asshole, God!

Sign 3:
This morning I arrived at my car to find it completely frozen shut. What the hell? I finally got the trunk open. First I pulled out the stuff for charities that had been accumulating in my trunk. Then I crawled in and after pushing my way into the cab managed to use my legs to get the passenger door open. I then threw my laundry (didn't get finished last week) onto the driver seat, crawled into the passenger seat and maneuvered my laundry into the back. Then I scraped the windows and crawled back in through the passenger door. By the time I got into work the driver side door was defrosted. Yay! Unfortunately in my excitement in exiting my car through the customary door I was not cautious about the icy sidewalk and promptly fell on my ass. It was awesome.

A New Hope

Stick with me as this entry is more convoluted than a Lucasfilm production.

In addition to John Edwards, Colin Powell, and John Sydney McCain III, I have a new political crush. On a lady this time (hey, I went to Bryn Mawr, don't judge me). The lady, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is known as the Iron Lady. No, she is not the newest member Steve Harris' metal band. She is the new President of Liberia. She seems like such an excellent choice: Harvard educated, a believer in the UN, former employee of the World Bank, someone who has bravely faced a corrupt government in order to attain great things for her nation. SO exciting.

And yet I feel nervous. Nervous that all this is too good to be true. I feel like Africa is cursed. That no matter how good the situation seems, it will all end with underfunded UN troops discovering mass-graves on CNN.

But Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf gives me just a glimmer of hope for Africa, for women, I guess even for human kind.

I know that this will sound revoltingly geektastic, but there is this part of Terminator 2 where Eddie Furlong and the Governor of California are watching two little boys pretending to shoot each other and Eddie says "We're not going to make it are we? People I mean." And the Governor responds "It is in your nature to destroy yourselves."

Which brings me right around to Charles Taylor, remember that one time when George W. Bush forced his resignation? Yea, well he is still out there. He is in hiding in Nigeria, and they won't turn him over. Charles Taylor is on Interpol's Most Wanted list, noted as possibly being dangerous, and is wanted for "crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the 1949 [4th] Geneva Convention." (And now you know what happened to Charles Taylor.)

Which brings me right around to the pot and kettle. You remember that whole Bush thinks that torture is super ok, well this is a bit of a problem with that crazy [3rd] Geneva Convention.

Choice bits of the 3rd Geneva Convention:
(Art 13): "Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated."
(Art 13): "...Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."
(Art 17): "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

To answer your unasked question, there are a total of four Geneva Conventions: The first regarding treatment of casualties of war, the second regarding war at sea, the third about the treatment of POWs, and the fourth about the treatment of civilians.

Apparently all Geneva Conventions are not equal. Or perhaps all Geneva Conventions are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Porn Title or Torture Location, YOU be the judge!

Jason Jones, "Daily Show" Senior Human Rights Correspondent, on anti-torture legislation negotiations: "It works like any negotiation.... Both sides go in overreaching with their best-case scenario going forward, knowing they're probably not going to get exactly what they want. McCain has opened with no torture, any time, any place. The administration has countered with, we want to do whatever we want,whenever we want, to whomever we want, and we don't want anybody knowing about it. So they're not really that far apart. There's some wiggle room there. And if you know anything about torture, you do not want to spend any time in the wiggle room" ("Daily Show," ComedyCentral, 12/8).

What a Feeling!

Last weekend at nation-wide department store I was placed in my new home department, department 0305, the department known as Mecca to some and as the Coach Counter to others. As I walked teary eyed with wonder into the back room to hunt down the morning’s first sale (a large black signature soho hobo bag, style 8635) I rounded the corner to find shelves up to 12 feet high and as many as 20 feet long completely stuffed with Coach handbags. There were so many handbags, in fact, that there was a pile 2-3 feet deep on the floor at the foot of the shelves. And I thought to myself “Dare I?” I did dare. I shuffled delicately into the wading pool of soft-tanned leather, their protective garments tickling my ankles and ruffling my skirt. I climbed onto the step ladder and reached up reading each style number “8601, 8609, 8620, 8625, 8634, 8635.” I gently pulled the corner of a bag to free it from its niche. All around me, onto my head, my shoulders, my toes, handbags tumbled down from their lofty perch. I briefly imagined my self as the scantily clad vixen from Flashdance, dancing my iron-welding heart out and in the grand finale of my exotic dance routine heavily throwing myself into a chair and pulling a cord, releasing not water, but hundreds of Coach bags.







My pilgrimage to Mecca will be short, I am only at nation-wide department store hell for a month more, but now I know that like Jennifer Beals, even if it is for just a brief moment, I can really have it all.

I guess you can have an opinion too...

Seattle Umbrella Conspiracy will now allow comments, but try not to suck, Ok?

… signifying nothing.

So, some of you are upset by my lack of updates recently. The reason for this sudden fall in bloggish amusement is that I HAVE NO LIFE. I have picked up a second job to pay off my car. Shockingly, when you work between 60 and 70 hours a week nothing interesting happens. Starting at the first of the year I swear I will have plenty of grousing but unless you want to hear about my trials and tribulations at un-named major department store-- and trust me, you don’t—relax, sit back and read Goats instead.