Could someone stop for just a second and tell me what in the hell is going on?

Butsoanyway.

I spent the first part of the day trying to help an out-of-state Eviljob comrade access something on our internal network that we ended up having to give up on because the dimwit had never (basically) gone through the ‘red tape’ of requesting off-site access. From his personal laptop. These last two points he didn’t bother to share with me until I had already been trying to walk him through it for over an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half. Fricking idiot. No, you cannot just (basically) copy a program over to your own computer and expect it to work. Sigh. So this was, basically, a morning completely wasted. And if anyone were to ask me, he knew he wasn’t supposed to be doing that, and that’s why he phoned *me*. Grr. And Stupid Me even gave him my password (everyone knows everyone else’s username) trying to help, which I promptly changed and probably won’t remember now. Idiot.

Then I skipped lunch in favour of running around the parking lot looking for signs of cats and putting food and water down. No cats.

Then I went on to Job II stuff, and spent the rest of the afternoon in a morass of paperwork, and Mom phoned and begged me to meet her for dinner…oh, and by the way, she was already in my driveway.

Hmmm…lonely, are we?

So we drove out to Mummers’ favourite halal Chinese food restaurant. Mom has been busy recently—she’s writing a book (no, really) with a co-conspirator. Sigh. Our conversation was completely nuts, as usual (and the two Indian men sitting behind us were literally in stitches for most of the meal), but I posted via phone to remind myself of one point Mummers brought up: That we should not support slave labour in third-world countries by eating fortune cookies.

No, really.

She says that she heard it on ‘the news’, which for her may well mean on Coast To Coast AM (ol’ Georgeanory).

‘You shouldn’t eat that! There are people in slave-labour factories overseas that are living their lives in squalor…’

‘The fortune cookie?’

‘Things like that; people slave away making pennies a day…’

‘…in a fortune cookie factory?’

‘…overseas…’

‘Overseas?’

‘Yes, Ancodia! Overseas! They go to work in the factories as children, and work there all their lives!’

‘…making fortune cookies?’

‘…and things like that. It’s inhumane. How do you think all those cookies get made?’

‘A really big machine in Hoboken, probably.’ I peer carefully at the wrapper; ‘…wait a minute! You’re right!’

‘What does it say?’ Mummers leans over the table to look at my wrapper.

I point to the fine print; ‘It says, “Made in a slave-labour fortune cookie factory in Guam”; Waiter,’ I call, waving the wrapper, ‘I want my money back—these aren’t genuine Chinese slave labour cookies!’

Mom stares into her tea, and the two Indian men seated behind Mom are literally shaking with laughter. Finally, Mummers starts laughing.

‘You aren’t as funny as you think you are.’

‘I’m not trying to be funny; I’m as outraged as you are—look!’ I try to look outraged, and fail miserably. ‘So what does your fortune say?’

‘Oh, I always get the same fortune,’ Mummers says, resignedly.

‘…which is,’ I prompt.

‘It says, “Help! I’m trapped in a Chinese Fortune Cookie Factory!”’.

I should have seen that one coming.

Then she got irritated at me ‘cos she thought that when I ordered falooda I was making fun of our server with a remark about Fallujah, and I had to explain to her that our server was Romanian, not Iraqi (this is the same server that has worked there for two years; one would think she would remember by now, and yes—this halal restaurant has a Romanian server. One.), and it would be a nonsensical ‘insult’, anyway. Sheesh. But at least I know she’s not been going there without me and scoping out their desserts. :-)

And when the Indian men paid and left, I smiled at them and one of them said to me, ‘good night to you and your beautiful mother’. :-) That’s cute—we’re the dinner show.

Or Mom is, rather; *I* am normal. I think.

Sigh.

So then I get home, and watch my new most favouritest show EVER, Who Wants To Be A Superhero. Here’s their official site: WWTBAS. But the Wikipedia link will have episode updates.

And I want some answers—how come *I* didn’t hear about this when they were looking for superheroes? Hmm? Damn it, *I* want to be a superhero!

Bastards.

Butsoanyway.

So then I got online to vegetate and play trivia, and I checked my email; an email that I received about ten minutes after I pulled out of the drive with Mummers informs me that I have to go tomorrow and see about changing work-groups. As in involuntarily.

Okay, this potentially sucks. Bigtime.

Sigh. Whatever. I don’t care. Sell me into slave labour. Do your worst; I tried to make fortune cookies once, and ended up with a tray full of fortune lumps. ;-)

I guess that I will see what this is all about tomorrow.

Pfft.

.