Today I Owned a Customer

I don’t really care if someone scams the system for free parking. It happens all the time, and more often than not I’m powerless to do anything. However, on the off-chance that I catch someone blatantly trying to scam the system, in person or on camera, I try my best to screw them royally. Today was one of those days.

I was at the Monitoring Station, a room with a bunch of screens showing a bunch of parking lots, when I saw someone take a ticket at the entrance, give it to someone else, then back out. Now, if you park for less than 5 minutes, you get free parking. Well, I figured I’d be powerless to stop him so I waited for him to drive to the exit and put the ticket in the exit machine, so I could get a glance at his license and send him a bill for a whole day of parking (or maybe a week of parking, to teach him a lesson).

Only, he didn’t drive to the exit, but, put it into one of our payment machines to get the ticket validated. Guess he thought he still had to put it into this machine first, before putting it into the exit machine to open the gate (which is the normal process of things). Excellent! I checked the transaction to make sure it was the scammer, and sure enough the amount was $0.00. I turned on the intercom and heard a bunch of laughing, then, before they could put the ticket into the exit machine to open the gate, I shut off the machine. Gotcha bitch!

Customer: “What the fuck? The machine’s off. What do we do now?”
Red: “Hi there, how can I help you?”
C: “Yeah, your machine’s off. We can’t put our ticket in your machine, can you open the gate?”
R: “Yeah, I turned it off. Go back to the paystation and pay for parking and I’ll turn it back on.”

This was followed by me doing a victory dance inside the monitoring room. Lots of air-thrusting going on, and chest thumping too. I checked the payment to make sure they paid and it was $2.25.

!!

Bunch of cheap bastards. Well, since they were more or less forced to stay there until I turned on the machine…

Red: “$2.25? Wow, really? That’s less than the TTC! Seriously, you did that for $2.25? Damn…”
Customer: *turns music louder*

And so I let ‘em stew there for a bit, before I eventually put the machine back in service for them.

Lesson learned kiddies: don’t be cheap.

Aftermath

The sale wasn’t as bad as I thought. I actually managed to wake up at 7am (miracle), and got out of bed in time to get ready for a day of bargain shopping! I had a couple of goals in mind: get a compression shirt, and get a pair of cleats.

I called Phil to let him know I was on my way to pick him up, but when I got outside I realized that the car was iced down. With the absence of snow, I seemed to have forgotten that it gets cold around this time of the year. I warmed up the car and drove around the block as the heat melted the ice around the windows and let me see a little more clearly.

After picking up Phil and Cliff, we worked our way to the McDonalds for some breakfast. Looking at their breakfast menu, I think I’ve only ever had the Sausage and Egg McMuffin. I tried the McGriddle last year and I felt my arteries clog as I swallowed each bite. It felt like I was ingesting mini-snowploughs that went through my veins pushing all the cholesterol straight to my heart. It was too sweet, too greasy, and just not something you should start your morning with. That, and I was late for work because I went to buy this, and got in trouble as well.

When we got to the place there was already a lineup forming, which was a bit discouraging. I hoped it would not be a repeat of my experiences at the Nike Warehouse sale, but, it looked as if it might end up that way. I think we arrived at around 8:40am, but got into the place at around 9:20pm. I wish I was a little more accurate, but it was friggin’ cold and I didn’t want to take my hands out of my pockets to check the time. When we got in it wasn’t that busy, but as soon as the rack for compression shirts came out, the rack got swarmed. The picked the rack clean. Some asshole came away with 10 shirts and started sorting them out at the side to see if he wanted it or not. The selection was alright, I don’t think I wanted any of the stuff he threw away. I went to get some cleats and found one my size but it fit a bit funny, so I opted out of it. So my two main goals went down the shitter with that one.

I looked around a bit and managed to find another winter jacket for $135 and got that instead. It was pretty cool, I didn’t really want to look around for anything else. Phil and Cliff managed to find some other shirts, and it was pretty funny watching Philip try on a medium compression shirt. The shirt looked as if it was painted on.

The lineup after wasn’t that bad either, but as we were leaving, more and more people started to make their way into the warehouse. It got a bit hectic. It really made me question why I had to wait outside for so long, if people started streaming in after 10am. Wasn’t the whole point of waiting outside to control how many people are inside at once? Ah well.

Overall, not a bad day. I’m happy with my jacket, but I’m absolutely exhausted (we decided to hit up the gym afterwards), and I think it’s time I take my nap now.

Warehouse Sale

It’s been a while since I’ve been on one of these prolific blogging streaks, but, gotta keep going while I still can. It’s weird, I usually spend a long time in front of a blank screen, but lately it’s just been pouring out. Anyway…

About 6 months ago I went to my very first warehouse sale. I didn’t know what to expect, I’ve never been to one of these things before, but it was for Nike and I wanted a new pair of shoes, and maybe some other stuff for the upcoming softball season as well. I figured I’d go early, not too early, but 11am on like a Wednesday because, who the fuck would go at 11am on a Wednesday? Well…a lot of people apparently. The lot was almost full, and I was probably the last person to get into the warehouse before people had to start lining up to get in. It was, without hyperbole, the worst shopping experience of my life.

Two things you need to know about my shopping habits:

1) Things need to be organized.
2) There can’t be too many people around.

So Wal-Mart, Costco, and any Boxing Day event is generally out of the question, so when I walked into this warehouse sale and was handed a giant, clear, plastic bag to put everything in (not even boxed up!), I almost freaked. Not only was stuff everywhere, and I was unable to find what I wanted, but the stuff that was there was not my size. People were reaching over me to get stuff, and it was just havoc! The sales were nice, don’t get me wrong, but Jesus Christ, I don’t think I ever want to do that again.

The line-up to get out was even worse. Once I had picked out what I wanted to buy, it took 3 hours to actually buy what I wanted. I walked out of there shaking my head and telling my mom that I would rather pay full price than get my ass to one of these places again.

And with that, I’d like to announce that I’m going to the Underarmour Warehouse sale tomorrow morning. I’m gonna get up at 7am, grab breakfast at McDonalds, and wait in line to get in to this stupid place and get what I probably don’t need. Why? Because my life sucks and this is actually better.

H1N1 Running Diary

9:00am Someone is calling my house. I’m not sure who, but it’s too early for me to give a crap.

9:15am God! Once you hear the answering machine, just leave a fucking message and stop calling.

10:00am Alarm goes off. I think I’ll go for breakfast and a shower, but first! *Presses snooze button*

11:03am Alright, time to actually get out of bed. Snooze buttons should be banned. Someone should invent an alarm clock where pressing the snooze button makes the alarm louder and more annoying. Appointment is at 11:40am, so, either I eat breakfast, or take a shower….I think I’ll take a shower.

11:35am I’m crossing the street to get to the doctor’s office when a car zooms past the stop sign and almost hits me. For those of you who live in my area, and are familiar with “The Plaza” (the one with Dick ‘N Jane, Tai Ko etc.), my doctor’s office is right at the corner, near the entrance from Alton Towers Circle. There are two stop signs and a crosswalk, and while I was crossing some stupid bitch decided to run the stop sign and damn near kill me. The irony it would have been if I died on my way to get a flu shot. The person that almost ran me over was….Ms. Lu! My former music teacher. I never really liked her, and now that I know that she can’t drive, I like her even less.

11:40am My doctor’s office is completely packed. I line up just to get my health card to the secretary and have to stand and wait because all the seats are taken. I reach for a magazine, but, they’re all Chinese magazines, so I flip through and look at the pictures like the illiterate scrub that I am.

11:55am My doctor is a freakin’ machine. He just cleared the whole office out in 15 minutes. There must have been like 15 people he gave the shot to. And now it’s my turn.

“Redford, this shot is going to hurt more than the normal shot.”
“Alright doc.” *raises my right sleeve*
“Are you left-handed or something?”
“No, right-handed.”
“Ok, then give me your left arm. Now you can still use your right arm, you don’t have an excuse to be lazy.”

12:05pm Alright, mom decides to take me to a Korean restaurant at Midland/Steeles. It’s called Ga Bin and it’s near the Promise Piano Bar, which is probably the oddest place to put a piano bar in the city. I imagine piano bars to be nice and classy, and not situated in plazas where the main demographic are kids between 16 – 19 that stab each other after drinking bubble tea.

The place is pretty quiet and the menu looks pretty good so far. Bibimbap isn’t a dish here, but a category (like rice, or noodles, there’s varieties of bibimbap that I didn’t know about). They charge $1 extra if you want it in the stone pot. I opt for the Kimchi one that comes with fish eggs, zucchini, onions, kimchi, and an egg on top of it. They have a BBQ Bibimbap which costs $11.99 in a stone pot. Worth a try!

12:15pm Hot damn this is so friggin’ good.

1:38pm I’m not really feeling anything yet. I guess I will a little later on. I’ve got work from 4:30pm – 8:30pm today, and maybe somewhere down the line I may or may not develop dystonia. Philip jokes that if it comes down to that he’ll start blasting rap music whenever I walk.

3:00pm Set off for work, and it is bloody cold outside! I also hate how they’re not issuing tokens anymore, because there’s an unattended entrance right next to my lot, but an attended one like 10 minutes away. Dammit!

4:30pm Numbness is starting up in my left arm. It’s not as bad as when I tried stopping Big Phil in Football, but it still friggin’ hurts. My friend called me a pussy, and I said that next time I’ll take the injection in my neck just to prove that I can take the pain (not sure if it’s possible).

4:45pm No sign of anything else. I can walk forwards and backwards just fine. *snickers*

8:15pm The most uneventful shift I’ve ever worked. Now time to walk my fatass over to the TTC station. I hate tickets, and it’s so damn cold out. This can’t possible be good for me.

8:35pm The booth collector looks comatose. This might as well be unattended.

9:30pm Ok, so my left arm is officially dead. I can’t lift it up past my head, which means I’m gonna have to shampoo with one hand tomorrow, and hopefully be able to reach all areas of my head. Shit.

1:39am I’m not a wuss. This left arm thing is more bothersome than painful. I feel like a T-Rex on my left side.

Facebook

But I see him like three times a week.

Then there’s the “Make Facebook better for ____” messages.

Really? I don’t think they give a shit about their experience on Facebook.

And the next person who sends me something on Farmville, I’m going to go to your house and salt your fucking lawns and turn your yard into a desert, then I’m going to staple a duck to your door.

Peace out bitches,

- Red