So I got canned.

I was fired, dismissed, sacked, chucked, possibly also laid off. My record store is on the verge of closing down, another casualty of this ridiculous war and the recession in which it has left us. The price of gas is rising so the price of homes are rising and the price of food is rising and, here in Hawaii, everyone is struggling so hard just to make ends meet, most of them can't even think of going to buy music or books. The things that make us a culture and not just a bunch of people surviving, the music and the films and the books and the comics, the things my store provides to the island, are now being put aside and considered unnecessary in the face of more practical things.

They are keeping a skeleton crew until they figure out if they have to close. I did not make the cut.

My boss was on the verge of tears when he took me back in his grubby little office to talk to me about it, to assure me I hadn't done anything wrong, and that he was sorry. He had only just become aware that I'm losing my home at the end of this month and have not, as yet, found a new one. I let him vent about business while I squeezed back tears of shock and sadness, trying to adjust to the fact that the people who had been my surrogate family for a year and a half voted me off the island.

Being the only full-time employee that was being let go (a slew of others were laid off as well, but they all had other jobs to fall back on), I succumbed to a brief moment of panic, thinking that if there was a worse time for this to come, I can't quite picture it. Everyone knew, and they all looked at me when I came out to my register. So I grinned and said, "Ah, I hated all you bitches anyway."

Everyone suddenly wanted to give me stuff. My boss told me I could go home if I wanted to, it being my last day, and I'd get paid for the full day. One coworker tried to give me her overtime pay, which amounted to a hundred and twenty-five coconuts. To my shock, I discovered principles that did not allow me to take it. Seeing this, another coworker took out his wallet and started trying to give me the four bucks that was in it. My other boss saw the movies and records I'd had on hold to buy later and told me to just take them, no charge, which amounted to about seventy, eighty bucks. I should get fired every week.

And to my shock, I feel fine. Dad said I could mope for twenty-four hours. That was my time to be pissed and sad and to lay around like a lump. After that, it was time to pick up and move on.


So what comes next? I am completely open right now. Depending on my mediocre cartoon for support will do me no good at all, as it's only really brought me enough money to afford to keep the CafePress store open. My first inclinations are to chase brand new opportunities like lion trainer, ninja, or pole dancer.

I've been a barista, a day care teacher, a floral designer and a record store bitch. Maybe this time I want something entirely different. Dolphin tank cleaner at Sea Life Park. Lazy security guard. Surfboard pinup artist. Fisherman. Apprentice pirate. Nude model. Tiki architect. Blues singer with a minor in vintage jazz vocal.

To be honest, I could get back into day care and like it. I realized that working at the store had me in exile, crouched under those buzzing florescent lights and providing nothing useful for mankind. I hid away and bagged on mean or dumb customers and drew cartoons at the register and grew impatient and petty and bitter for no reason. I saw it happening a few months ago, and realized I was becoming a person I didn't like, but I couldn't seem to make the change. Attitude change is a challenge without some atmosphere change to back it up.

In the past two days, since being laid off and thereby freed from the store, I've been feeling pretty great. I don't feel resentful or bitter, I feel like I've just shaken that off like I ought to, I feel happy, optimistic, creative, calm. I'm friggin' Snow White. The evil stepmother of my career had tried to have me killed and run out of the castle, and I'm just chillin', knowing that I'll run into seven little men, and seven is a lucky number.

Maybe things won't work out. They have every opportunity not to -- practically speaking, my circumstances are pretty cruddy right now. I may not find a place to live, I may take too long to find a job and wind up completely broke, but even if I do, I get the impression I'll wind up being okay. How can I not? That's my only option.


Yikes. This wound up positively heartwarming. Let's close here and I'll just make another post for your toon so you can all skip this part. ;)

W. Pitts just game into the store. Mr. Pitts is a middle-aged man with curly puffs of nearly orange hair growing out from the sides of his head. He was, like many of our customers, only concerned with how cheap something was, no matter if he particularly wanted it, and spent over two hundred eggs on discounted DVDs he had never heard of, and rolled his eyes at not getting a discount on a three dollar VHS tape.

After W. Pitts bought his DVDs (giving me a look as I announced the price as if I was the one who made him put them in his cart) he bought a mango juice in a little can.

"Open it for me," he said, putting it in front of me.

"Uhm, no," I said, putting up my hands to keep them from even accidentally touching the can. "I don't touch other people's food or drinks."

"Well I need you to open it or I can't drink it," he said, looking at me like this was totally obvious.

"Look, all you gotta do is pull the tab thing."

"Well I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"Because I never have."

"You can pull on a tab."

"No, I'll tell you why," he said. "When these first came out, people used to pull the tabs off and throw them out their car windows, and I lived in Vermont and everywhere they glittered like a sea of silver. So I said I'd never open one and I never will."

"While I respect your principles, I'm not touching your drink," I said.

"Well then I want my dollar back."

"What?"

"If you won't open it for me, give me back my dollar."

I contemplated going Coffy on him, chucking it in his bag and yelling, "No REFUND, muthafucka!" But I didn't. I just opened it.

Then W. Pitts happily took a drink, told me how refreshing it was, and went on his way.

This is what happens where I work.

I am so excited that my darling delicious friend Whitney will be arriving (gasp!) on Thursday! One day and fifteen minutes! This is going to be one extra fun time. I need a break, too. I need to sort out my head and gain some enlightenment.

Lately I've been saying things, kindly or innocently meant, and they've been taken the wrong way and blown entirely out of proportion, causing some argument or awkwardness or anger. Something I hardly notice saying will get someone riled, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I think I need to read some Buddhist literature, take a few days off, and learn the value of silence. A more humorous example of this thing that's been happening to mee is this, which happened today. I was calling a man named Ken about a DVD he ordered from the store, and when I called the number he gave us, a voice answered, "King Neptune."

I was a bit ruffled. I mean, usually people say "hello" or "this is Ken", et cetera. I've never heard someone say "King Neptune" as a greeting, and it threw me for a Froot Loop.

"Pardon?" I said, because I didn't think to say, "Greetings, your Majesty."

"King Neptune Carpet Cleaning," the guy said, and it was immediately clear. "This is Ken."

"Ken!" I said. "Okay, hi. See, I thought you were introducing yourself as King Neptune, which would have been a little weird." I giggled.

"Uh, I do introduce myself that way," he said angrily. "I'm a carpet cleaner."

Oh of course. Makes perfect sense that all carpet cleaners should call themselves King Neptune. Why didn't I see it before? Naturally you would get salty with me and treat me like a dunce for not realizing that you are both Ken and King Neptune. A thousand pardons.



Anyway, I'm off to paint henna on my hands for the first time. Wish me luck, sweehearts.

Happy Wednesday! Do please enjoy your cartoon.

Do You Have An ATM?


"Hi, is there an ATM in here?"

"Right behind you," I say for the hundredth time.

"Oh, hello," the customer says as they turn to see the big, tall, glowing ATM machine right in front of their face.

This happens five more times that day. Because people are completely insane. Is it ignorance? Laziness? The inability to find something that's right in front of them? Every single day, some schmoe -- maybe a schmoe who just walked in, maybe a schmoe who has been in the store for hours -- will ask, "Where's your ATM?"

I don't even waste my breath anymore. I just point. Right there. Right where you were just standing, staring at this mysterious shiny thing with buttons and big block letters spelling out "ATM" while you scratched yourself thinking, Gee, I wonder what that stands for. Oh well, I need to ask this girl to find me a money box.

I mean it. All day, every day.

"Do you have an ATM?"

"Hi, where is your ATM?"

"I was told you have an ATM but I can't find it."

"Howzit, I lookin for da kine."

It's right there, RIGHT THERE, you just looked at it two seconds ago! There is a sign, a big glowing sign that says ATM. The sign glows, IT GLOWS! You have to be completely vacant to simply not see such a thing.

But in ten minutes -- just watch -- someone will ask me again.