work shenanegins
Yesterday my one coworker came up to the info desk and dropped . . . a copy of Twilight.

"Gonna burn it?" I asked.

"Gonna read it," he replied.

I looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"We're gonna have a midnight release party for it," he said. "So I figure I should at least know what we're dealing with."

"I've told you what we're dealing with."

"I should see," he said.

"I can show you the pages."

"It's not the same."

I shrugged--it's his eyeballs, and I could always laugh at him for it later. But for the release party . . . "That night's gonna be squealing-teen-girl-infested hell on earth. I'm so not gonna be there."

"Yes you are."

I looked at him like he'd lost his mind and had started peeing on my shoe. "No I'm not."

"You said you'd help out with events."

"I said I'd help you with the D&D release party."

"You're gonna help with this too. We might even get the staff members shirts with little fangs, and--"

"Can I dress up as Buffy?"

"No."

"Can I dress up as Faith?"

"No."

"How about Dawn? No one likes Dawn!"

"No."

"You're killin' me."

"It's our job to sell the stuff," he said, and put the book aside for himself.


Today he came in, sat down in the cafe, and started reading.

I watched.

Over the course of about twenty minutes his expression went from blank, to confused, to pained, to boggled, to even more pained, to half-covered by the hand over one eyeball, to determined, to disgusted, to nearly agonized. Eventually the book thumped down onto the table beside him and he sat, hand over his eyes, fingers rubbing at his temples.

"So," I asked cheerily. "Would you say it's more like watching paint dry, or like taking sandpaper to your eyeballs?"

"That," he said, "is shit. A crackhouse of monkeys rubbing feces over their own heads could write something better than that."

I snerkled. He ranted: The MFC's set up as a perfect victim, with shit self-esteem and a bad family life; the other characters are predictable cookie-cutter paper-flat 80's movie stereotypes; the wording, the pacing . . .

"So," I grinned. "Can I dress up as Buffy?"

"You can dress up as whoever the fuck you want."



I'm not sure I have the hair for Buffy. I may have to be Faith--unless newageamazon has tattoo-granted dibs, of course. If that's the case, I get to look into making a Buffy Scythe.

Now to see if I can be a storm trooper for the release party of Paolini's third book.

New icon courtesy of katrinaswift, who put a big pile of 1" square Twilight snarkery up here.