The Cognac Incident

Allow me to introduce myself, I'm stupid and don't know what I'm doing when I'm really drunk.

You know those classic sitcom episodes where, like, the guy gets a stain on his girlfriend's favorite sweater, proceeds to try and fix it, and only have it get exponentially worse?

Well, that happens in real life. It's not always a sweater though. Mine was a bottle of cognac.

Let's go back in time and first meet Leo, the one who started this fiasco.

He doesn't look like Heisenberg that much in real life. I named him Leo after Gerard Butler's character "King Leonidas" in the movie 300 because it's a friggin legendary beast. He can turn ice back into water in a matter of 3 pulses. And that's only when he's cranked up to level 4. Leo blends like a Spartan.

Considering the fact we had about 2 liters of tequila in the house (Yes. Yes we did.), I had to whip up some margaritas. Skippy's flavor of choice?

Watermelon.

I'm cruising through Google trying to find the perfect watermelon margarita recipe. Most of them required simple syrup which I didn't have at that moment.

Me: "Oh no problem, I'll just make some syrup."

There was a problem though. I needed to find a container for the syrup. I already used the pitcher to hold the ginger syrup for evil rum (I swear we're not alcoholics, we just like complicated drinks).

 I needed a vessel.

I was also already a little intoxicated from equaling out the watermelon to tequila ratios.

Leo and I are having a blast. Meanwhile, my simple syrup is warm and ready and so my idea was just to take one of the empty bottles off the counter AKA our bar and just label it with a sharpie.

I didn't write on just any bottle. I wrote on a cognac bottle, and not just any cognac bottle. A very special cognac bottle, a Hennessy. What my drunken mind called The Great Bambino of Hennessy Cognac, Skippy's Hennessy that he got directly from the Hennessy factory in France!

I was dead. I needed to fix this. I had to get the sharpie off the label.

I was off to Google once more searching for how to remove permanent marker from paper, the dumbest thing I've ever looked up.

I may as well been searching for a way to train a fish to juggle. Or... well it doesn't get much more impossible then removing permanent marker from fucking paper.

But I typed "how to remove permanent marker from paper" into the Google search bar and I was serious about it.

Some asshole suggested rubbing alcohol or nail polish remover.

Well.... being in a serious state of mind and all, I knew I had one of the listed materials that were needed.

Oh yeah, the sharpie totally came off... along with the rest of the label.

There I was in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, scrubbing an alcohol soaked piece of paper with a cotton ball. 

I thought of the next step in the sitcom story. "What do you do when the original object is completely ruined beyond repair? Find a replacement!!!"

The internet has everything. I could find a bottle on Amazon and switch out the destroyed one! The only problem with that was I'd have to hide the ruined one until the new one shipped AND THEN I'd have a whole bottle of cognac to drink in order to replace the old one, and well, I just don't like cognac. I think it tastes like man sweat.

I wasn't thinking about imbibing in man sweat just yet. I wanted to know where I could get the shit first.

So there I was on Google again...

And ummm... I looked up this "Very Special" Hennessy online. It turns out it's one of the cheapest of their products and you can get it pretty much anywhere. I don't think it was one of the bottles he got in France, more like the liquor store five minutes down the road.

Skippy doesn't drink the cheapest shit. He drinks the VSOP which is priced at around $60-$75. I graffitied the VS, a bottle that was only worth on average $45.

Hours pass. Upon returning home from work I asked him this:

Me: "I have 2 stupid questions. 1) How do you make a tuna melt? 2) What is the difference between VS and VSOP?"

Skippy: "Ummm... the VSOP is better and you just heat up the tuna and toast the bread."

Me: "Thank you."

Knowing he'd be confused (and he looked it), I proceeded to go to the closet where the ruined VS bottle was hiding in my snow boot. I revealed the damage to Skippy.

I blame Leo, but I can't be mad at him. He makes a mean watermelon margarita. Especially when there's a cup of tequila in the mix when the recipe only called for 1/2.

Good news

I was dealing with idiots at work yesterday. Meanwhile Skippy helped the neighbors carry in cases of water and they rewarded him with a Macy's bag full of snack cakes.

Why Are People Stupid?

I love my job. I really do. This is the first job I've actually stuck with and unless I somehow become famous over the internet, I'll probably keep this job as long as I can. 

However, it's retail. 

The one drawback to working retail is meeting the most retarded people in the world. Yes, I used the word "Retarded". I've worked with people with mental disabilities. They actually function better than most normal people I've met. Stupid customers who lose their shit over expired coupons are a whole different animal. If you start yelling and swearing at the associates because we don't have your one item in stock, congrats, you're a retard. You deserve the title.

"Oh, you were looking for that thing but we don't have it? Let me just go in the back to the time machine we keep in the bathroom and travel back 2 days earlier. I'll notify the person that bought the last thing they can't have it because someone much more important and easily angered needs it a lot more."

Here's an example of the stupidity I need to deal with. This actually happened last night.

So every couple of months we get new products and have to update the store. The store is closed. I'm with the team rearranging and whatnot and then....

I absolutely LOVE these people. You see that little square I drew on the door? That's my depicting of the goddamn sign that tells you the hours we're open. Despite this wondrous little invention, people will still tug on the doors baffled as to why they were denied access the proceed to knock to be let in.

No. No you can't come in. We've been nice in the past for the customer running in for "that one thing", but people take advantage of that and spend 30 minutes wandering. Our shift hours are strict. When our shift ends we have to go home or we eat into someone else's shift.

Anyway, this retard is like-

The team, including my manager, overheard what I said. And they cracked up.

I'm told I'm a blunt person. Sometimes in the factory that is my brain, the thought skips the sugar coating process and goes straight to delivery.

It got even more awkward. I stepped away to focus on moving stuff around when....

She really had the balls to knock again.

And I walked away. I just- I don't even... I didn't know what else to tell her. Well, I did have other things to tell her but that would have been rude. I might not have the sugar coating process, but I do have an inspector at the end of line that keeps the real bad shit from going through.

Lady, those coupons were good for like 2 months. You had all that time to use them.

We usually take coupons that are like a day or two early/late, because pffs whatevs, we all make mistakes and it's pretty fine print, but I wasn't about to hold a conversation with a retard through a locked door. The exchange went on long enough as it was.

I made sure to walk to the way back of the store so she'd actually leave.

If Homer were alive today, I'm pretty sure The Odyssey would have been about the trials of working in retail and hospitality.