Someone on Reddit made this for me and I wanted to share it.

Thank you, grigri. I will cherish this for years to come!

How do you cope with holiday retail bombardment?

So, everyone who works in retail hates the holidays. It's busy, people are grouchy and in a hurry, and you end up having to work more hours because of this. Everyone is basically being bombarded with retail in one way or another.

I usually cope by consuming copious amounts of booze (at home, when I don't have to work the next day, of course), shopping online to stay away from the crowds, and more recently I've started taking vitamin D. I don't suggest that anyone become an alcoholic or a recluse...or a reclusive alcoholic. I do suggest taking Vitamin D because it's the shit, and if you're in the northern hemisphere, you probably aren't getting enough sun.

The purpose of this entry is this: for anyone who happens upon my blog and has a minute, I'm just wondering, how do you cope with holiday retail bombardment?

Ugh...Black Friday is lurking in the near future. I am not excited. Fuck every bloody one of you who gets up at 4am to go fucking shopping. You people are nuts. NUTS, I SAY! NUTS!

This is also coming from a girl who likes sleeping in and doesn't like being around too many in the same retail environment at once.

I wanna flyyyyy awaaaaayyy

You know that feeling where you're in control of your life and yourself and you feel like a solid person? I used to feel that way. Somewhat, anyway. Lately I feel like I'm full of holes. I've suddenly got all this shit on my plate and I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Yeah, sure, life's a bitch and there are people out there who have it way worse than I do. When I think about the things that others less fortunate than I are going through, I feel weak and immature. I haven't had THAT hard of a life in comparison, yet here I am whining about not feeling like myself. Kind of ridiculous, huh?

On the other hand, I guess you're entitled to your feelings. I just wish I didn't feel like sleeping so much; like downing a glass of Jim and Coke before I have to go pick my boyfriend up from work. ("I've got about an hour before I have to be there. That's enough time to sober up."); like avoiding calls from my mom...or my grandma; like walking out of that wretched pet store in the middle of my shift because I can't stand it anymore; like yelling at the next idiot who walks through the door of that place and asks if we sell dogs.

I haven't done any of those things...aside from avoiding calls. (Work makes that easy...) I just want to get away. I wish there was a pretty place I could escape to for free where I could just recuperate for a few months. Somehow, I don't think that place exists. What a bummer.

Taking sides

After a break-up (and even before, in some cases) friends of the couple like gas on about how they aren't going to take sides and they like you both. At least...that's what they say.

You see, my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years and I broke up last month. I wasn't in love with him anymore and I had strong feelings for someone else. So, instead of cheating on him, I broke up with him. And then I started dating the other guy.

I've been in this situation before, of course. I was dumped by the boy who took my virginity in high school for another girl. We'd been together for a year, and 2 months after we did the deed, he dumped me for some girl in his Spanish class. Being 17, I didn't take it well. I was a bitch about it. And now, experiencing it from the other side, I feel like I acted irrationally. All those hormones mixed with immaturity and inexperience kind of made me go crazy. Add in the way my ex and his new girlfriend reacted to my discontentment (which was to throw their happiness in my face, despite how depressed and crazy it made me), and it was an all-around bad situation.

That said, just because I broke up with someone who was still in love with me DOES NOT mean that I lose all rights as a human being. It doesn't mean I am to be strung up in the middle of town and stoned to death. So enough with the punishments, because I'm not having it. You're either my friend, or you're not.

Seriously, assholes - what did you want me to do? Cheat on him? This is none of your fucking business. It's between me and Derek. So can it. Capiche?

I really hate it when girls get the whole "alpha-bitch" complex. There's really no excuse for treating people like shit because it makes you feel important. Unless you're just...really immature. But who's ever willing to admit that kind of thing?

My mom's douchebag ex-boyfriends: Part II

I honestly don't remember this man's name, so I'm going to call him Sam.

My mom dated Sam when I was about 3 or 4. Sam was balding and had semi-long gray hair which he usually wore in a ponytail. At this point, you should already be able to tell he was a douchebag. Not as douchey as Dickie, but still douchey enough. He also apparently did some writing for a certain sketch comedy show which shall remain unnamed.

He didn't have any kids, of course. None of my mom's boyfriends ever did. So, of course, my antics bothered him more than they would bother someone who had experience with children...or even liked them.

Sam had one trick up his sleeve for entertaining children: The "Make The Cigarette Move Without Touching It" trick. It was supposed to be a magic trick. All he really did was put the cigarette down on the table and wave his hands around it and it would roll back and forth or some shit like that. I was always pretty sure he was blowing on it to make it move. Call it a hunch.

Now, it's important to note that my mom was dating this guy in the early 90's, right around the era of Problem Child and Problem Child 2, so I'd been watching (and quoting) them both. A lot. Some people would find it cute. (God bless those people.) My mom and her boyfriend found it embarrassing. More specifically, they found it embarrassing when they took me out with them one night.

Sam decided he was going to take us out to this fancy-pants Chinese restaurant in who-the-fuck-remembers-where-it-was, and honestly, the motherfucker shoulda known better. You've got a coherently speaking toddler who's hooked on a movie about a bratty kid who, at one point, pees in a pitcher, calls it lemonade, and lets his dickhead grandpa drink the shit. REALLY?

So we get to the fancy-pants Chinese place, and I stood up in my chair and posed a question to the entire restaurant. "WHAT CRAWLED IN HERE AND DIED?!" I yelled proudly. And I was damn proud of myself.

Quite frankly, that's the only part I remember, and from what I've been told, my mom and Sam stopped seeing each other after that.

It's okay, though. He was a douche.