Well, as most of you know by now, I am preparing to leave my home state of two years for the great non-state of Washington, DC.    I'm the obvious mix of excited and heartbroken: excited to start fresh in a cool new city, and heartbroken to leave Vermont behind, a place that has been such a kickass place to live for the past two years.  Thus, I decided to compile some of my favorite "Vermemories" (Ooo! How kitschy am I?).  Most of them involve my roommate, Tatiana (or 'Tot').  A small disclaimer: a very large portion of my best Vermemories are from the clinic, but for ethical reasons, can't be Xangaed about.  Boo-urns.

Mardi Gras Guy:
Back in the day, when Tot and I were living in the Old North End of Burlington (read: the ghettoiest ghetto that ever ghettoed) we were blessed with some awesome neighbors.  The night of Mardi Gras (or more specifically, very early the morning after Mardi Gras) I was snuggled asleep in my bed when I was awakened by a loud crashing noise.  I peered out my window to find that my illustrious neighbor was repeatedly kicking his door.  I watched him for a few minutes, kicking so hard at times that he fell over into a nearby snow bank.  Since he was obviously drunk, and of limited entertainment value to me at such a heinous hour, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, Tot and I were both jolted back into consciousness by a loud pounding on our own door.  We got up to investigate, and were greeted by a group of three people, plus the aforementioned drunken door-kicker.

"Hey," said one girl apologetically. "We found him crawling around out in the snow.  He says he got locked out, and since it's so cold out, we figured we shouldn't leave him."

"Hey, man I just wanna crash," the drunken door-kicker said, trying to push past us into our apartment.  When we hollered our protest, the girl who had spoken before asked,

"Wait.  He doesn't live here?"

When we replied with an emphatic no, she attempted to reason with our unexpected house guest, who was doing his best to make a beeline for Tot's room.

"Hey, my room's right there, man. I just wanna crash."

Several repeated attempts to reason with him that this was not, in fact, his apartment and that he would not, in fact be crashing, failed miserably.  He seemed unconcerned that two women whom he didn't know were living in "his" apartment.  When we pointed out that he lived next door in an apartment that was remarkably similar to (but not interchangeable with) our apartment, he merely reaffirmed his desire to "just crash."

A mild kerfluffle ensued, and the group of Good Samaritans were finally able to hustle him out the door and in the general direction of his own apartment.  Tot and I watched from her window, and when the interaction deteriorated into him throwing wild, drunken punches and loudly protesting his inability to crash, we called the cops. We went back to bed and left him to face-plant angrily into snow banks until they arrived.

Totcicle
Almost a year later, Tot and I had moved into the Swanky McSwank-Swank district of Burlington, into her own condo.  This condo has a balcony off of the living room, and one cold winter's night, Tot decided to wander out on to the balcony to ponder the cold, sterile landscape and/or smoke a butt.  Long story short, she locked herself out on the balcony. At the time, I was at work at Borders, and she realized she was stranded until I got home.

Fortunately, she had her cell phone in her pocket, and thought to call the store.  She got ahold of me, filled me in and then sat back awaiting rescue.

However, me being the bitch that I am, I did not run home and let her in. No indeed.  Instead, I finished out the remaining hour of my shift.  I don't know what I was thinking. Perhaps that she'd called me to tell me of her plight merely to amuse me for my last hour of work. Or to alert me to her last-known location, should the canine unit fail to find her. I'm not sure.  But when the first words out of her mouth when I let her in were, "you finished out the rest of your fucking shift, didn't you?!" I realized my error. I apologized profusely, and Tot told me it was okay, because she been able to "sorta see the reflection of the TV through the window."

Unacceptable
One night I returned from working at Borders and was getting ready for bed.  Around 12:30 am, I received a phone call from Tot's friend Ashley.  Ashley told me that she had been out with Tot, and Tot had gotten sick.  Furthermore, Ashley was too drunk to drive Tot home, so was there any way I could come downtown and pick Tot up?

Being freakishly geeky, I was honored to be appointed designated driver for the evening, and hopped in my car to go meet them. However, upon my arrival it became apparent that I had been grossly misled about Tot's level of inebriation. She got into my car, and then spent the next fifteen minutes leaning out the side puking, while younger, more sober college students walked by with expressions of bemused awe.

I was beginning to think the designated driver job was seriously overrated when the ten minute drive home stretched into twenty, due to the repeated need to pull over so she could vomit.  We finally managed to pull into our parking lot, and Tot crashed out of the car, leaving her door open.  With a sigh, I leaned over and shut her door, then gathered my things and stepped out of the car.

Oh crap.  Where was Tot?  A quick glace down revealed that she was lying on the pavement, apparently unconscious behind the rear wheel of the car.

"Tot?! Are you okay?"

Tot responded by making a noise akin to what I imagine a bagpipe would make, were it being sat on.

"Tot, did you mix anything with the alcohol? Did you take something else?"

"Noooooomphhs"

"Well, as reassuring as it is to hear you slur that into the pavement, you're starting to scare me."  Tot responded by telling me she would get up "in a minute."

"Listen, Tot: I'm not comfortable taking care of you if you're this intoxicated.  Seriously.  So either show me you're sober enough to get up and walk into the house, or else get back in the car and I'll take you to the emergency room.  But if you can't get up off the ground, I'm going to call an ambulance."

That motivated her enough to get her up and staggering for about 20 feet, at which point she collapsed back onto the pavement.  The next moment was one of the most memorable and defining moments of my two year tenure as Tot's roommate: I leaned over Tot's semiconscious form and said in my best "oh-you-do-not-want-to-fuck-with-me" voice, "Tatiana, this is an unacceptable level of inebriation.  Unacceptable."

"I just need a few more minutes"

"Tatiana, that was not one of your options.  Now, I mean it, it's late, I'm cold, and I want to go to bed. So decide what you're going to do now."

Anyway, to make a long story short, I got her into the stairwell, where she collapsed.  I abandoned her, then had a crisis of conscious and ultimately succeeded in dragging her into the condo. One call to the local drunk tank later to assess my options, I left her there in the recovery position.  She put herself to bed an hour later.  But the highlight of the evening was definitely imagining my neighbors watching me yell at uber-drunk, semiconscious Tot about her 'unacceptable level of inebriation.'  Hey, I spent two years working in a methadone clinic.  I have standards. 

Cooking with Tot
One day at work I was joking around with a coworker about cooking skills.  I remarked offhand, "well, my roommate doesn't even know how to boil water."  I assumed I was just making use of a common American idiom, but I realized how hauntingly prophetic my words were that very night.

I came home from work and was watching TV with Tot, when she got up an announced she was going to make some pasta for herself.  Now, this is very unusual for Tot, but I merely raised an eyebrow and went back to watch my stories.

A few minutes later, Tot poked her head out from the kitchen.

"Hey, is the water boiling when the bubbles are coming up through it, or when they're little and sticking to the bottom?"

Spooky, right?  I filled her in, but a moment later, Chef Tot reappeared with more questions.

"Hey, so I'm going to make half a box of pasta, so I only cook it for half the time, right?"

When I told her no, she needed to cook it for the full time listed on the box, she turned on her heel back into the kitchen exclaiming,

"Well, that doesn't make any sense!"

Popeye's Real Secret? Whole Wheat Crackers.
One day I came home from work to unexpectedly find Tot passed out on the couch.  She groggily told me that she had gone to work that morning and developed such a terrible migraine that she'd had to have a coworker take her to the emergency room.  She had spent the morning there, getting pumped full of the finest painkillers her HMO could buy, and had then come home and slept.

She was still asleep when I left for my dance class.  And still asleep when I came home. 

Finally, around 9 pm, she staggered downstairs fully dressed.

"Are you going somewhere?" I asked, somewhat alarmed.

"Uh, yeah, I'm gonna go meet Saralyn for some drinks.  Girls' night."

"Is that such a good idea? I mean you were pumped full of drugs some people would give their right arms for just this morning."  In fact I personally know someone who broke his own foot for the contents of Tot's IV bag.

"No, it's fine. I've been sleeping it off for like the past 9 hours."

"Uh, okay, well have you even had anything to eat today?" I demanded

"Yeah. I had some crackers."

"Oh, well that sounds healthy." I said sarcastically.

Tot rolled her eyes.  "They were whole wheat."

"That's not what I meant. Your body needs vitamins and-"

"Fine. I'll take one of your multivitamins," Tot said, staggering back upstairs.

Ah, One-A-Days and vodka. Isn't that what Britney was accused of putting in her kids' sippy cups?  But for the record, Tot did wind up sticking to Shirley Temples that night.

Tact, Thy Name is Tatiana
For Halloween 2006, Tot put on a pink tutu and a tiara and went as JonBenet Ramsey.  Right about now you're wishing I'd left her out on the balcony a little longer, aren't you?

So it is with a heavy heart that I announce that I am leaving Borders.  I know, I know, how could I leave a place that has yielded so many Xanga entries? It's true that I am going to miss the nonstop ridiculousness of the place, but any time I get too nostalgic about it, something happens to remind me of why I can no longer work there.  (Incidentally, there are a variety of reasons why I'm leaving, but getting into it now is a little outside the scope of the Xanga.)  Allow me to leave you with an example of the best of the worst Borders moments.

Now I generally believe that there is good in every person, and that we should all treat each other accordingly.  However, recent events have also led me to believe that there are some people who we should just kick and kick and never stop kicking:

One day my coworker L was walking back through the kids' section when she came across a stack of pornographic magazines. She scooped them up and brought them up to the registers to be destroyed (once people open the shrink-wrap we can't sell them).  When L got to the registers she commented to another coworker about how horrible it was someone would leave porn in the kids' section, and what kind of person would do that?

A customer was nearby and overheard her.  The customer heaved an impatient sigh, and then explained to L,

"People do that because they think it's filthy and disgusting that you people sell those kinds of magazines.  So they put them back there to show you how easily they could fall into the hands of a child.  I've never done it, but many of my friends have."

Now I want you to reread that, and then determine whether or not it offends you on every level of your being.  Because I've been telling this story to anyone who would sit still long enough to listen, and frankly I've gotten pretty mixed reactions. And since the rest of the Xanga is going to be devoted to all the levels on which this comment/behavior offends me, you might as well stop reading now if you think the woman has a "good point" as one of my coworkers commented.

Okay, so only people who are in a "kick and kick and never stop kicking" kind of mood are still with me? Good. So let's examine the levels of offensiveness together:

First of all, the complete and utter departure from all acceptable forms of logic. In this scenario, let's allow Activity X to be "people making porn accessible to children."  So by this woman's logic, in order to prevent Activity X, she engages in Activity X, in the hopes that it will inspire people to take steps stop her and others from engaging in Activity X. Excellent.

Second of all, the complete ineffectiveness of the plan.  When staff finds porn in the kids' section, it doesn't make us think we should stop selling porn.  It makes us think we should keep a better eye on the skeeze-balls that are bringing porn back into the kids' section.  I think the assumption has always been that people bring it back there because later at night there's not a lot of traffic, so they can ogle in peace.  I don't think it ever occurred to us we were being taught a lesson by some sort of deranged morality militia. Okay people, listen up: if you have a problem with Borders selling porn, don't shop there.  If you simply can't let it go, ask to speak to a manager about it.  Or write a letter to the editor of the local paper.  If you still can't move on with your life, organize a petition or boycott. Whatever. But engaging in convoluted and passive-aggressive mind games will get you nowhere except my Xanga.

Thirdly, the tone of moral superiority. "...it's filthy and disgusting that you people sell those kinds of magazines"  Oh?  See I don't think you get to be all judge-y when you're putting porn in the kids' section.  Because that kind of makes you a bad person.  I mean let's not lose sight of the fact that this woman (oh, excuse me, 'many of her friends') were actually Putting. Porn. In. The. Kids'. Section.  Yeah, I'm sure when some mother catches her seven year-old reading the issue of Penthouse he found in the Harry Potter books she'll say, "Oh thank God some guardian angel made an example out of my child for the Greater Good!  Now if only the filthy and disgusting people at Borders would learn from this and stop selling these magazines!"  Yeah, that's exactly how it will go down. 

Finally, the sheer stupidity of it all. I was talking to one of my coworkers who went to another Seven Sisters college, and we were lamenting the alarming number of dumb people in the world.  When we were in college, we were surrounded by brilliant, insightful, witty people and we grew to believe this was the norm. That the world was filled with thoughtful and self-aware people.  Sure, there were stupid people out there, but they were the exception to the rule.  Cautionary tales, if you will. Our job as the patrician intelligentsia was to smile knowingly at each other and give them reality shows to embarrass themselves on, or elect them president.  We never expected the real world to have so many ridiculously dumb people.  My coworker also pointed out the fact that as we work in a bookstore, we are dealing with the subsection of people who on some level appreciate books.  Or at least porn.

She also raised the possibility that the woman/her friends had never actually put porn in the kids section, but had seen some back there once and theorized that that was the reason.  Or that the woman had made the story up on the spot because she thought it was an eloquent means of making a point.  I honestly don't know which explanation is the most disturbing. 

Anyway, sorry for the self-righteous rant, but as you can see I think it's time to retire from the Borders experience before I become any more jaded.  Although I have been inspired to consider writing a book, which I would title, I Hate Brian Clunk* and Other Tales Out of Retail.  *Name has been changed to protect the identity of an insanely irritating regular whose capacity to abuse the coupon system knows no bounds. 

After talking with some coworkers about the idea, we decided it would be awesome to collect essays from retail workers across America about the most outrageous, hysterical and offensive experiences they have had working with customers.  So if anyone has any suggestions on how to get that idea off the ground, I would consider giving you a cut of the millions of dollars worth of royalties this inevitable bestseller would garner.  Call me.