ANNOUNCING AN EXPERIMENT

This will either become a thing or quietly disappear never to be mentioned again.

I wanna start an advice column.

Have a problem?  One that doesn’t need resolution anytime soon, because I don’t have a timeline for launching this yet?

Email me at luther@prostetnic.com and tell me about it.

Feel free to make something up if you think it’s more interesting than your actual life.  🙂

In which that wasn’t a joke

AngerIn the long run of things, this probably isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s still on my mind, so fuck it, I’m talking about it.  I work high-end retail, right?  We all know this.  So I’m working on the Fourth of July, just like a whole lot of other people.  I actually get it pretty well; normally big national holidays mean everybody has to work all day (and Wednesday is usually my half day) but we’re closing at six, so my Big Holiday Work Schedule is having to work a fairly inconsequential three and a half extra hours for the week.  I’m gonna survive.  Frankly, my birthday is the 5th and that’s always overshadowed the Fourth for me.  Call me unpatriotic if you like.

So dude calls on Wednesday to find out if whateverthefuck he ordered is in.  He’s not one of my guests– and, incidentally, my tolerance for putting up with even an iota of crap from people I’m not personally making money from has been declining precipitously lately– and I look his stuff up and find out that it’s in the store.  We had received a delivery that day; chances are it had just come in a few hours prior to the phone call.  I offer to set up his delivery.  As it turns out, the rest of this current week is full but all of next week (ie, the first week of July) is pretty much entirely open.  I tell him that and point out that we do deliver on the 4th (if we’re open, we’re open) if Wednesday works for him.

There’s a pause.

“You’re delivering on the Fourth?”

Another pause.

“You should be shot.”

Now, there’s really not much left to this story.  I told him everybody in the store was working that day but that I appreciated the murder threat.  He acted like he didn’t hear me.  I didn’t hang up on him or cancel his shit (although if I remembered his name, I might seriously jump in and reschedule him for, like, 2028 without telling anyone) and I sure as shit didn’t tell his entitled white Republican ass (argue with me, I dare you) to shut the fuck up and die alone and in pain like I probably ought to have.  He snarled at me that he wanted the 3rd, I scheduled it, got off the phone, and then sent this email to my regional manager:

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(I had, as you probably gleaned from context, just sent my RSM an email prior to getting that phone call.)

He wrote me back and told me he appreciated the laugh, apparently misreading the tone of my email, which was meant to be “this is fucked up, this guy is fucked up, I’m tired as hell of fucked up, and next time this won’t go as well,” not “here’s a funny anecdote about a routine thing that just happened to me.”

But yeah.  Maybe I’m taking shit too serious.  But these fuckers are getting more and more emboldened on a damn near minute-to-minute basis, and it’s just like a fucking Republican to get mad at the motherfucker who has to be at work rather than the motherfuckers who are making them come to work, and I don’t want anything to do with these entitled, violent, stupid assholes any longer.

Everything sucks and I’m trying to ignore it

DumpsterFire2I spent most of the day today in the car, driving from here to Fort Wayne and back (two hours each way) to get something done for work that I wouldn’t have had to do were I possessed of even a minor understanding of how geography works and the difference between west and east.  I spent yesterday mostly being exhausted into incomprehension and yet somehow still didn’t manage to get into bed until after midnight.

I have these crazy ideas that tomorrow I’ll get something useful done around the house, but I don’t think anyone nearby should hold their breath about it.  It’s supposed to be about a hundred and thirty degrees outside for the next couple of days so one thing I do know is that the lawn’s not getting mowed anytime soon.  The neighbors are just gonna have to look upon our jungle and despair; I’m not worrying about it.

One definite advantage about spending four hours in the car, he thought to himself before leaving on his road trip, is that it keeps me off Twitter and thus away from the news.  I can’t handle how fucked the world is right now and I’m trying to take a couple of days’ sabbatical from horror until I get my head back on straight.  So naturally all I did was listen to politics podcasts in the car.

I am not very good at news sabbaticals, apparently.  But I’m gonna keep trying.  If I can go three weeks without ingesting any carbs I ought to be able to ignore current events for just a few days, right?  You’d think.

Back to Dark Souls.  Anything I should be downloading or binge-watching that I don’t know about?  Tell me in comments.

Tales by the Blue Light

My friend James Wylder and some of his people have started a podcast, so I’m handing the front page over to him for a minute.  Check it out!  

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Do you like stories? Miss having them read to you? I might be able to help.

Tales by the Blue Light is my new Podcast, a mix between “the Twilight Zone” and an old fasioned variety show, every episode brings you a brand new Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy short story, as well as skits, and some other fun stuff.

We’ve been performing and recording the show live for a year and a half at the Blue Box Cafe in Elgin Illinois (and at a special performance at Indy Pop Con) but we haven’t put the show out as a podcast yet…till now! Our first episode is up to listen to everywhere, with fresh ones coming out every Tuesday till we catch up to the live performances.

I can’t wait for you guys to hear some of the great stories we’ve featured. “McMansion Hell”, “The Legend of Miz”, and “Prescription” for instance were all audience hits I can’t wait to bring to even more people. Plus, you’ll get to see our other featured segments, like our Radio Play, Interview, and everyone’s favorite sketch: “Monster Hunter Monthly” where Magpie Jones gives advice on surviving encounters with things that go bump in the night.

And it’s all free (though we do have a Patreon at http://www.patreon.com/jameswylder if you feel like supporting us) so go take a listen! These episodes are only going to get better as you go through our year and a half of learning how to make this show, so hop on now, and tell your pals!

-James Wylder

iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tales-by-the-blue-light/id1403816049?mt=2

Stitcher:
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/robert-southgate/tales-by-the-blue-light

Too tired to live

see you tomorrow sleep now