On the plus side, turns out I have some money

Where's Higgins? Where's Higgins? Where's Higgins?

This is why you must never do what your sister wants you to; you just get nagged. For the record, Higgins has dial up at home, is off on Sunday and Monday, and occaisionally is called upon to do some work at work. Higgins stays busy.

Also, sometimes Higgins has nothing to say. Thank God the following tedious incident arose.

Okay, I am going to tell you a story, and I will let you know right now that I want no editorial comment whatsoever about the facts of this story. I deconstruct my own stories for myself, thank you. If there is one thing my life does not lack, it is self examination. If self absorption was an Olympic sport I would take the gold, silver and bronze. So I have already picked this story over for the positive and negative, okay?

Here is the only comment I want: "You know, Higgins, while not revealing you in the best of all possible lights, in some peculiar way this story illuminates your character in a way that is actually sort of admirable, your default position as a person seems to be one of complete dependability, and you are not old and pathetic in any way."

Feel free to cut and paste that right in.

Anyway, I had a drink or two (or nine) at the house last week and I guess suffered a small lapse of memory the next day. I'm not unduly worried about this because how much trouble can you get into drinking with your Mom? I don't drink to excess out anymore, and my blackouts are usually along the lines of "Did I forget to watch Top Chef this week? Oh, wait, I remember, they sent home the other lesbian." Then you get up and go to work. Nothing to get exercised about. So it was an evening where I drank too much and hung out at the house went to bed early and didn't think about it anymore.

On a parallel line, I have been really broke this week. I had to pay a bogus traffic ticket that cashed me out, and when I checked with the ATM it turned out that had about $365 to last me for 8 days, and my car payment was due, which was gonna wipe me out. So I've been staying close to home and not thinking about awesome spring shoes.

Side Note: I also don't want to hear a word about having to ask the ATM how much money I have, my sound financial planning friends.

So, continuing the short novella, I have been putting off the car payment just to make sure nothing comes up. It's not late until the 3rd, and I wanted to have it drafted on Wednesday knowing that my direct deposit hits midnight that night. And I wanted to have some money in case I decided to, I don't know, do something fun.

Well, the week evolved and it turned out I didn't have any fun. Last night is my usual poker night, and for whatever feeling-kind-of-fat-and-the-Atlanta-Braves-need-me-and-as-I-said-I-am-sure-I-am-broke reason I didn't go. And I regretted not going almost as soon as it was too late to get down there because I have been kind of hermit-ty and blue lately, and oh, what the hell ever, I'll just go on and pay the damn car payment because clearly nothing is going to come up.

(I know, GD, this is a long story; get on with it. This is backstory, people; literature students cannot appreciate the full meaning without getting the full context. If you don't know about the boat ride, the Ancient Mariner is just about getting trapped by a boor at a party. And I'm sure you think the Ancient Mariner is telling this tale.)

Long story short (too late): I cannot find my car bill anywhere. Now understand, due to some unfortunate interludes in my past life (the entirety of my twenties) I am religious about putting unpaid bills in the front of my accordian folder and filing them as soon as they are paid. I cannot find this bill anywhere and I am going out of my mind, tearing up the house and generally getting into a state.

You see where this is going, don't you? You know exactly where I found this bill, don't you?

In the paid file. With a confirmation number on it and everything (which was written three times by what looked to be an epileptic with the hiccups). I call the Ford Credit number whereby I pay my bill, and what do you think they told me?

My last payment was made on the night of the Bottomless Cape Cod.

Do we all get that, people? Can you understand why I am feeling this bewildering combination of Whoo-Hoo/Well, Hell/Do I Pat My Own Back Or Kick My Own Ass?

Some people Drunk Drive. Some people Drunk Dial. Some people Drunk Dance, Drunk Karaoke, Drunk Do Something Really Retarded With That Guy From The Bar.

I Drunk Paid Bills.

Even my hideous vices are just as boring as fuck.

I failed the Cosmo Quiz this month

First of all, please don't believe that I am a regular Cosmo reader. One of the little high school girls out here reads Cosmo Girl, and I wanted to show her that it is the exact same rag that Cosmo Grown Woman is (although Glamour is a good magazine).

Anyway, the subject was "How approachable are you?" and the answer is not very. Score: 0-4 points. The words "feral cat" were used, which if you have read this whole blog you will find a chilling coincidence. I guess no one would touch me with a cattle prod, either.

Or any other kind of prod. I'm not getting prodded at all these days.
If you know what I mean.
Heh, heh.

All this to say that the idea that I am a receptionist at a Wuntry Wub where it is criminally stupid to do anything other than be warm and friendly and never say no is pretty damned comical. More so because I'm really good at it.

I receive full points in heaven daily for the things I don't say to people. But since I do have Sarcasm Tourette's they have to come out. Just this week's examples:

Q: Can I speak to Comically Mispronounced Boss Name?
A. One moment. (Transfer to voicemail)
FPH: If you can't speak the name, you may not speak to the name.

Q: I need to talk to a professional.
A: Golf or Tennis?
FPH: Yes, you seem troubled.

Q: I'm the treasurer for the meeting that was out there yesterday and I left the cash and checks on the registration table.
A: Oh, no! Where were you meeting?
FPH: Wow. You are an awesome treasurer.

The point being I don't say these things and many people find me warmly approachable. And the last article I actually read in that magazine suggested that when you have sex outdoors you should wow him by rubbing his taint with a smooth rock.

So it's remarkably easy to forget that I have been criticized by the editors of Cosmo.

FYI: I also failed the Cosmo Girl quiz, "Are you ready for Prom?"

You're trying it right now, aren't you?

So yesterday was an aberration. Not the bad day; my helpless response. Yes, the phone calls are annoying, technology is thwarting me and I get no cooperation from co-workers.

In other words, I work a job.

In unrelated news, it is surprisingly difficult to make the Itsy-Bitsy Spider go back down the waterspout.

I am having a bad day...

...and it's so much worse because I'm the only one who is having one. You know what I mean, you say "Holy Cow, today is busy and hectic and awful" and everyone else says "Really?"

Yes, you are not having a bad day, and do you know why? Because you are not answering your phone. Oh, for the luxury.


Other phone language pet peeves:

"Can you direct me to the bookkeeper?"
Okay, front door, ten steps forward...or would you rather I just connect you?"

"Can I have the Golf Club?"
Yes. And the Tennis Racket.

Already late...

I just started blogging and already I'm slack. The problem is it is twenty five times easier to do this at work than at home, so if I get busy or just want to slack over the weekend, days will go by.

Here are my random thoughts for the day (so far, stay tuned):

There is no way in hell the Atlanta Braves could have taken a three game sweep last year without Tim or Smoltzie starting. Well done, 3-5 starters.

Biggest current English language pet peeve:
"Can I talk to the restaurant?'
Sure. If buildings could talk.

If I had designed the human body, there would be a way to suck in your arms.

...I though it was a goner but....

Regards last night's Braves-Marlins game: that's what I'm talking about! For those of you who live out of market, John Smoltz with 10 K's in 5 innings, and Jones-Tex-Mac go back-to-back with the long ball. Final score: 8, zip, with 15 hits from my boys. Well done.

I promise this whole blog won't be exclusively baseball; it just so happens that I am doing actual work today at work.

I caught another feral cat at work today. Well, technically, I didn't, and technically "another" is the wrong word, but a cat was caught and I'm doing my part.

We have a regular here, a lovely veternarian person who is horrified by the many stray cats she sees running around on our Molf Mourse (brief side note: I'm trying to avoid saying too much about the specifics of where I work in case someone sees it that would be offended, so I am disguising the nature of my place of employ by obscuring the real identifying traits. Clever, no?).

Anyway, this particular cat has laid several clutches of kitchens over the past three years and is very pretty and very evil. The last batch of kittens she birthed in our linen bin, so every time you'd try to toss in a tablecloth there would spitting and hissing and general cat craziness.

Dr. Better-Person-Than-I-Am decided that she would try to catch the calico and get her fixed. My job is to check the cage every day. So far, we've caught two cats, aborted seven kittens, and removed a bullet. The cats have been vaccinated, spayed, and rereleased---back on to the Molf Mourse.

This is the third time this week that the calico has been in the cage in the morning. I guess now she's just grooving on the free food.

This morning there she is again, raising hell in a cage that she has now entered of her own accord four times. Three times, after the operation.

Dr. BPTIA asked me if it was the same cat. I said I couldn't tell from where I was. She said what does it look like. I said they all look exactly like dark, dirty, kinda gross feral cats.

I genuinely could not tell because unless it had a very distinctive characteristic (say, Clean. Or Not Clearly Riddled With Fleas), they all look the same to me. I said I wasn't sure I wanted to get any closer to find out.

This sweet lady actually warned me not to touch her.

Because as if.

I might be the only person in the world who has ever told a sweet veternarian with her heart entirely in the right place: "I would not touch that animal with a cattle prod."

Okay, see, this is why I haven't done this before

I was totally not ready to post that yet. I don't know what the hell happened.

Anyway, in case you are a random person who discovered this by accident (the odds so high and all), here are some of my personality traits, included to help you make an informed decision to keep checking in. Or not. I am a person

• whose whole day is ruined when she can't find her "good pen".
• who will go to the mattresses defending The Sound of Music and somehow end up talking way too much about The Sound of Music.
• who changes from bourbon to vodka in the spring just like changing from ankle boots to peep toe pumps.
• who has a massive historical crush on William Henry Seward and genuine historical LOVE for Abraham Lincoln (in unrelated news, I'm still single)
• who hates emoticons. Hates them. Also, the usage of "whenever" when you mean "when", drinks with too much ice, and the phrase "can of corn" when describing line drive outs. And C.B. Buckner.
• who can't find her good pen because she took it home for safekeeping and then changed purses.
• who knows many jokes, all long, all filthy, and many requiring accents.
• who is secretly saving it all up for her scandalous novel.
• who people at work believe is an OCD neat freak but whose car is trashed, trashed, trashed.

Okay, I have no idea how to wrap this up. The point of the blog is to avoid writing my sister mini-novels that she forwards around. I guess now that the initial getting-to-know-you is out of the way I'll just write here the way I write to her.

Tune in tommorrow for the next exciting episode of Higgins.

Happy Now, Sis?

Okay, okay, here is a blog.

I thought I would call this blog Omphaloskepsis, but I worried it wasn't pretentious enough. I've decided to call it Higgins instead.

• Probably shouldn't use my name in case of indiscreet work story (of which there will be many).
• I always thought if I got a basset hound I would name him Higgins.
• I might get random hits from Magnum PI fans.

I don't know, this feels pretty contrived. I've kept a blog my whole life, I guess, but I've always called it a diary. Of course, I am an unsung eccentric comedy genius, but it's weird to be adjusting my diary for mass viewing.

Oh, yes, mass viewing. Well done with the arrogance there on your first post, Higgins.

What you can expect if you read this blog regularly:

• Fairly regular updates
• Many mentions of Abraham Lincoln
• Books I reccommend
• Serious misspellings, particularly words with double consonants(Spellcheck is for pussies).
• Excessive use of parentheses
• Excessive discussion of baseball, particularly the Atlanta Braves
• A front row seat to my upcoming mid-life crisis, now open in select cities, nationwide in June 2008
• Bullet points
• Many, many work stories because my place of employment is so utterly comical and bewildering(more to follow on that later)
• Cussin'