My #$@! Co-Workers IV:The Mudds

I completely forgot about these guys until a week ago, for some reason. I can't use their real name, so I'll call them the Mudds.

The Mudds were a family of two brothers and a dad (I'm assuming there was a mom in there somewhere, or the effort of cloning was wasted). They started running tournaments there to help fund their habit (where have we heard that before?). You know, I guess it isn't such a bad idea. You spend a lot of your spare time some place, why not get some compensation for it?

The dad was a fellow in his late 40s, early 50s. He had a handlebar mustache and out-dated glasses and hair. He wasn't such a bad guy, actually, and was probably the most tolerable out of all of them. He did have a weird opinion on his sons smoking, including one that was under 18 at the time, which was that he was fine with it. Yikes.

The oldest one was a year older than me but in the grade behind me. Then he dropped out. Weird how people assume all nerds/geeks are smart. There's probably a large percentage of unambitious, intellectually lazy fanboys out there. No, not probably. Definitely. He was kinda nerdy in high school, then moved on to being kinda scary. I think Bryan Ferry's Mom described him as looking like if Jesus was a pedophile. I feel like I'm going to Hell for typing that. He had long hair, a scraggly goatee and big glasses as well. And I think he wore a vampire cape once. I hope it was on Halloween.

The youngest was terribly awkward. He was tall and super skinny. I remember he came in once when he was in high school and he talked about Pokemon cards. He was in high school. He also had a bad habit of wearing t-shirts way bigger than he should have, with the collars all stretched out... it just looked trashy. Fashion tip: wearing a tee with a stretched out neck says that you stopped caring and you don't mind if you never show your genitals to anyone ever again.

I had some great moments with them. I used to always be late on Sundays (before pretty much being always late every day) and I would lock up shop at 5 on the dot. I used to just shut off the power and I remember Mudd the elder yelling "Oh, come on!" Now that I think about it, maybe he was secretly hip and knew about Arrested Development and GOB before anyone else.

Mudd the elder turned out to be a bit of a suspected thief as well. The owner found some discarded Magic: The Gathering wrappers and saw him quickly toss an empty box of cards in the trash when he came in once. Nice. They stopped coming in pretty much when they discovered Worlds of Warcraft and figured that playing with paper cards was for pussies, and playing with pixels was for big-dicked studs. Or something. Speaking of big-dicked studs, I guess Mudd the elder might like them as I overheard a couple of teenagers talk about how he had moved and was bisexual, and sure enough thanks to MySpace it has been confirmed. Man, if you ever didn't want a dude on you, or under you... it's this guy. I don't know what would be grosser.

I don't know where they are now, but I like to imagine them all still under one roof, no one going to school, no one bettering themselves, just a group of guys drinking Red Bull, listening to metal, smoking up a storm and playing RPGs. Fuckin' A.

Primus - New Music - More Music Videos

My #$@! Co-Workers I: Beware The Phoenix

Oh, I've been waiting for this one.

Due to my quirks, I don't want to run consecutive types of posts, so I don't want to run two "I hate ____" in a row. However, enough posts have been made since my first (and definitely not last) asshole customer that I can now talk about the types of dipshits I worked with. Different subcategory, similar posts.

There is a type of person that exists in the dank, smelly culture of fandom that is one of the most ruthless and despicable of all the scum found within it. That is the (often self-appointed) Cute Comic Chick™. I know what you're thinking. "Who in their right mind has issues with attractive females reading comics?" "Who would have an issue with any female reading comics?" "This is sounding increasingly misogynist, I'm going to place a notice to all the Friends of Lulu. And frankly, this loser is probably bitter because he asked her out and he turned him down or something." Oh, you sad, deluded fools.

The industry is rife with so-called "cool" comic fans who would sooner burn their original copies of Watchmen than not worship these chicks. For reference, see the reaction of the Taki Soma scandal and go search around Suicide Girls for these people.

All of this will be fodder for another example in another post another day. For now, let me regale you with the tale of the Phoenix.

Why the Phoenix? Well, for one Jean Grey was this chick's favorite character. Probably because for two, she bore a passing resemblance to said character. Dyed her hair red, though.

The Phoenix first came into the shop seemingly at random one day, I dunno, probably spring or something. Me and another co-worker were bagging books on Wednesday, and she came, sat down, babbled on about crap and left. We were flabbergasted. Who was this broad? Why was she in here? Did she seem a little "off" to you?

Over time, I got to know the Phoenix. Well, as much in that one can truly know her. She was underage at 17 (you know what they say-Dad says she's too young, but she's old enough for me!-Kip Winger) but seemed to attract a steady stream of dudes in their mid-20s. She was cute, but I recognized that in the comic world she was stunning. Curvy, relatively height-weight proportionate, aforementioned dyed red hair. It was the classic ego-boost of hanging with the nerds. Guys who love George Perez would worship her, guys who love the Patriots would poke her if slightly inebriated. Big diff.

Before too long, she was employed. We thought we had an ace in the hole. A cute chick... working the counter! Getting vulnerable young nerds to spend money! Yeah, didn't really work out like that. She favored spending time on her computer doing who knows what, or using her credit to pay her friends way into the Magic tournaments ensuring we didn't make any money.

One of the weird things with Phoenix was her lust for lying. She loved to lie. A lying liar that lied. Her parents forbade her from passing out flyers in front of a movie theater for fear of being arrested or fined or something, yet she told tales of dating a middle-aged gay with AIDS. She talked of attending an orgy, and yet her most interesting story regarding the orgy was visiting the locale a year later with her friend and finding a condom in the balcony. Whaaaaa? Has she ever heard of an orgy? Seen "Caligula"? Read an issue of "Penthouse Forum?" And bear in mind, she's telling us these events of her past when she's only 17. Apparently her parents were dead, shot down by Joe Chill inspiring her to date middle-aged gays with AIDS and attend orgies but not to screw, see, or hear.

She had quite a temper, too. After I insisted (on the orders of the boss) that I would collect and keep track of the Magic tournament participants/losers, she complained to the boss and threatened to take the Magic tournament with her. Towards the end of the reign of the store, she built a website proposal for us. Pretty much spent a weekend in bed doing it, and wanted something like $600 for it, and blithely informed us that if we didn't accept it that she would shop it around to all the other local comic shops. Needless to say, we didn't acquire her webmastery and neither did any of our competition. Imagine that.

She happens to be the other person from my involvement from the store that has written about their experiences (that I know of). I've read a few entries before my temper told me I should quit while I'm ahead and unarmed. Nothing too upsetting regarding me, but some definite truth-related exaggerations. When in doubt, make shit up. And lo and behold she has a fanbase ready and willing to trade in dignity for a chance of a "cyber"... if the kids still do that.

The stores changed hands at least twice since I worked there, and I go to a better school than she does, so I consider myself at least partly avenged, with the added bonus of being able to sleep at night.

The moral of the story: a lot, not all, but a lot of girls that read comics are weird. If someone tells you shit that sounds made up... they made it up. It's weird to date someone in high school if you're not in high school. And sooner or later everyone gets what's coming to them, whether in the form of a relationship ending, a firing, a changing of schools or the loss of friends. You can't be a weirdo without some form of karmic retribution.

The Bathroom Run By Mephisto

If there's one thing that little liar that I worked with was right about, it was on the condition of the bathroom. Granted, bathrooms aren't generally the cleanest of areas. Public bathrooms are worse. And the type of bathroom that would be found in a fast food restaurant, gas station, or locale where there are tons of fat people, snacks, and reading material (I'm talking about a comic shop)? ...it's over, son.

The bathroom was always a little off, mainly because the store was run and more often frequented by guys, and all guys typically do is stand for a few seconds, flush, and leave. Somehow when we moved stores, however, the bathroom went from "meh", to "I must have died and landed in a circle of the Inferno where I have to use this thing every day for all of eternity".

I think most of the blame resides, believe it or not, on the Friday night Heroclix crowd. Often would be the time when on Saturday morning it would be revealed that there was a little "present" in the toilet for whomever were to come across it. I blame this guy with a ponytail, who despite the fact that he lived at home at age 30, managed to date consistently attractive women. He also wrote a 12-part epic on Atlantis that somehow ripped off "Tango & Cash". I don't get it either. And once ran from the shop to puke on the sidewalk. Pure class. However, it could just as easily been the Mole Man.

Every once in a while, it would get to be too much even for me, and I would enlist in my poor mother (what do you want? I'm lazy and cleaning shit up wasn't in my job description) to clean it up. Oh, the redhead might have talked about her cleaning, but the only thing she liked to do was straighten up (big effin' deal) and type on her computer with no line of sight of the customers. She was really good at that last one.

Whenever the bathroom would be cleaned, we would always make vows to keep it to employees only, or friends only, but sooner or later someone would slip up and it would look like the Golgothan exploded in there once again.

What I really hated was being seen as "responsible" for the mess. Like I went around to outhouses and collected waste material to dump in there. Some asshole consistently shat with no regard and it was my duty to clean up after that booty? Not for the low, low pay I got. I remember one lady asking if some kid could use the bathroom as I was ringing her up. I politely explained that the toiler was out of order, and that even the employees closed up and walked to the grocery store 100 feet away to use theirs. Then she asked why it was out of order and I explained that it hadn't been fixed yet. She asked why not and I said the guy hadn't gotten here with his plunger. I mean, for all she knew it had been clogged not five minutes before. I guess we could have closed the store, called a plumber, and called a locksmith to put a lock on the bathroom... but fuck it.