Terror on the High Seas-A Lola Classic

Terror on the High Seas


I have been considering some of my experiences over the past year, and trying to make sense of it all. What purpose did working for Big Blue serve? Do I regret my move to Boston? These are all heavy handed questions, and as a committed journaler I looked to my past writings to see where I’ve been and how far I’ve come. I don’t have answers to these questions. But I do know one thing-I’m in a much better postion that I was in a year ago. If only cause I’m not sitting in a sailboat in the middle of the Aegean Sea yelling “Fuck” as the boat quite literally fills with water and descends.

A year ago today, I was in Greece, on the island of Ios to be exact. Party Pants and I had met and cemented our friendship based on our mutual lives of near constant drama. My days in Greece were spent idling along cobblestone hilly streets, looking out onto crisp blue water, drinking and partying into the wee hours of the night, and on one eventful afternoon engaging in some water fun.

Ios is a very ugly island. Comparatively. Aside from the water, it is very rocky and, well, beige. Beige is Blah. After a few days on blah island, my fellow travelers and I decided to rent kayaks and have a barbeque on an itty bitty island just off the coast of Ios. The Beautiful Lanky Australian (the same one I stayed with in Paris) and a team of others set out. Party Pants and I pushed off in a little double kayak. We had fun singing songs from Gilligan’s Island, some boozer song from the night before at the club, among others. Dirty limericks were all well and good. But they failed to distract me from the rolling waves, and my alleged sun allergy. About a half hour into the trip I was feeling a bit, erm, green. We stopped at a set of cliffs, where a bunch of my fellow travelers opted to cliff dive. My paralyzing fear of heights left my loitering around the edge looking down at the jagged rocks below calculating my odds of survival. I deduced that I wouldn’t bounce on my boobs and that the risk of me dying was too great.

I climbed back into the kayak. After another hour, I thought I was going to die. I was dry heaving over the side, and Party Pants was yelling medical advice at me. We pulled into the island for the barbeque, and I crawled to shore thinking, “Thank God land doesn’t roll.” I laid on the sand, underneath a towel to protect myself from the sun, as the other barbequed around us.

The pack of us had rented our kayak’s from “Captain Bobby”, a shirtless Australian who has no income to speak of and who apparently lives on his speed boat and spends his day kayaking with college students by day and drinking and partying with them by night. Captain Bobby pulled up in his motor boat to check in on our bon fire and assess his potential ‘ass for that night. He saw me lying on a towel in the corner of the beach. “Onya, gang, Onya, Christ mates, whatsa lil’ missy doin’ in da corna?” I looked up to the palpable sexiness that is a shirtless boat captain that hasn’t actually had the military distinction of earning his title. My face had fallen below my normal level of whiteness, so I looked, for all extensive purposes, like a corpse.

“Comea, lil’ missy, climaboard! Climaboard!” I happily crawled into the speed boat, happy to avoid the trauma of the hour and a half kayak ride home. Especially because in the time we had been on the beach, the water had gotten a great deal choppier. I squatted in a ball in a corner of the boat and watched as the kayakers climbed aboard their boats and paddled away. “Captain” Bobby tried to start the boat. Instead of starting the boat he started to swear, “Fuckin’ Shit’ Etc. Etc.” I wasn’t too worried, every Australian I’ve come across swears like a sailor on top of a STD laden prostitute. When the litany of swearing died down and the boat hadn’t started, I noticed that my formerly dry behind was now smack in the middle of about two inches of water. Captain Bobby was getting a mite more frantic. After a few minutes, and about 5 more inches of water slopping into the boat from the sides, I heard the phrase I fantasized about coming from a sexy Australian, “Fuckin’ Christ! I’m goin’ down.” The reality of the phrase outside of its sexier context is a great deal more traumatizing.

I was up at this point, and told to wrap myself in a life jacket. Captain Bobby called a friend, who assured him that he would come and also suggested we try to push the boat to shore. Brilliant. Fucking Brilliant. I can see why these geniuses are working on Ios outside of civilization. Bobby threw me overboard, and told me to “Kick and Push! Kick and push!” After an hour his friend arrived. I was beyond sick at this point, I was advised to vomit “outside” the boat. We got to shore an hour after everyone else. Party Pants was waiting for me…with medication.

Dear Scumbag

For those that don’t know, my Dad is a king of law enforcement. The biggest baddest cop in the Midwest, and most definitely in the State of Michigan. There have been occasions when I have heard the man respond to the question “What are you gonna do today, Dad?”, “I’m gonna make someone cry today. And if I do my job right…they’ll shit themselves.” and with a skip and a kiss to my forehead he’ll be out the door humming an off key rendition of “I wear my sunglasses at night.”

I grew up with the law quite literally in my backyard. I know about my right from wrong, and I follow the law to the Gray letter. It seems, however, that whenever I wander out of Big Bill’s jurisdiction crime gravitates towards me and that there is, in fact, people in the world who lack basic human decency. In Chicago I was stalked, in Boston I have been mugged, and have run into a repeat offender who seems to take great pleasure in stealing my packages. Today, I arrived home after a mini-break to NYC to visit with Party Pants to a most egregious sight. My package containing my new Victoria Secret Blue bikini that, according the tracking system, was supposed to be sitting on my doorstep. Was not. It was the FOURTH package to go missing.

I was livid. I did not know what to do. How dare this jackass steal from me, me!! Law abiding Lola. I don’t even jaywalk for Christ’s sake…the lone deviance I have is stealing toilet paper from hotels which has enabled me to avoid purchasing it for myself this past year. Why then, does this jackass steal from me? Knowing that there was nothing I could do, I stewed. And then I wrote the following letter, which I printed multiple copies of and posted on the mailboxes downstairs. I thought I would share it with you.

Open letter to the Scumbag that lives in my building and has on 4 separate occasions stolen my packages.

Dear Scumbag,

While we both share a residence on Marlborough Street, we have never formally met, though you have had quite a few encounters with my possessions. Over the past year you have stolen no less then 4 different packages from me, and I just wanted to let you know, those would be the last. I got a PO Box today, and when questioned as to why, I informed the post office that my packages keep falling into the proximity of a raging kleptomaniac who apparently has no morals to speak of. I just wanted to tell you a bit about the packages that you have stolen from me.

GMAT Book:

In an effort to save some money, I ordered myself a GMAT textbook from half.com, because despite what you seem to assume about me, I don’t have oodles of money at my disposal to buy things, let alone the same things over and over again so that we can both enjoy them. Unfortunately, I never got the GMAT book. It appears that you to have aspirations of going to grad school as well. While I was angered by your thievery, I must admit that you need it more than I do because you are going to have to study up to get a score high enough to counteract your admissions interviews. I’m fairly confident that your basic lack of morals will come through to the admissions office. And generally speaking Business schools don’t want to endorse candidates that lack the moral cognition to realize that taking things that belong to someone else is wrong.

Children’s Books

I am blessed to have a lot of cute nieces and nephews in my life. I take a lot of pride in selecting good gifts for them around the holidays. There is a good chance that your name is Alexander, or possibly Andrew, because you stole their personalized children’s books that depicted all the letters of their name with fun rhymes. One of my nephews also has a condition that limit’s the type of food he can have, in the same package of books was a dietary based candy assortment that I ordered to meet his needs. Congratulations Scumbag, you quite literally took candy from a baby.

Textbooks

A large box of textbooks arrived for me last July…or at least I assume they did because I found the empty packaging in our dumpster. Prior to discovering the packaging, when I noticed that they hadn’t arrived yet, I comforted myself with the knowledge that at least when you stole them you were exposing yourself to countless hours on a topic as mundane as Software Sales and ERP systems. That was punishment enough. Then I found the packaging in our dumpster, confirming that you had stolen them and I knew I was dealing with a real monster. You couldn’t even bother to recycle after ripping me off of 300 dollars worth of SAP textbooks.


Blue Bikini

I can only assume that you really needed that bikini that likely doesn’t even fit you cause it’s a size small with a D sized top. Forgive me for assuming this, but there is no way your bulbous body will do it justice. I run 40 miles a week and deprive myself of an assortment of foods in the name of bathing suit season. The fact that you are a thief tells me pretty clearly that you don’t know anything about the discipline that comes with earning something- be it the money to buy yourself a bikini or the discipline required to earn the body that fits into it.

While there is nothing I can do to ensure retribution, I find great comfort in the fact that Karma comes back around and that I’m sure one day, possibly one day soon, you will get what’s coming to you.


Yours Sincerely,

Your Neighbor-just look at the “ship to” label on all the packages you stole for more specifics

P.S. To my other neighbors, I apologize for littering our hallways with this letter. I hope you will understand that I posted it out of frustration and a desire to call our thieving scumbag of a neighbor out on his or her douschbaggyness.


An aside for my Dad who reads my blog: Dad. I’m sorry I haven’t actually bought toilet paper in a year. I know I shouldn’t steal from the hotel chains.

Grand Theft Auto and Other Grandiose Mistakes

Have I mentioned that I have the most awesome sister in the world? Well, in case you have missed the memo, I do. A sister who fortuitously lives in Austin-the scene of my depression after losing my position at IBM. On my last day on the project in Austin I opted to remain at her place and turn her spare bedroom into "Battle Station Job Hunt". Plus, my 2 and a half year old niece running up to me to announce, "I had a booger. Now its in my tummy.", is one of the only things certain to pull me out of my job-loss coma. The night I completed my project, I got into the ugly blue Nissan and dropped it, and the driver's side mirror, off at the rental car company and drove back to the burbs with her.

The next morning I realized that I hadn't gotten my reciept emailed to me. So I called the office. Alledgedly...the car had never been returned. I flipped out. Really, after losing my job-I did not want to hear that the car company had lost an ugly blue Nissan that I was responsible for. Goiing to prison for grand theft auto was not a worry I wanted. It took them 3 days to find the car. Who would take a ugly Nissan with a missing mirror?

Weeks later, I got a call from the doctor who had performed the exam in Austin about another mistake that had been made by someone else in my life-the faulty cancer scare. The doctor asked me, "When you took your inital exam were you under a lot of stress? You don't have anything, but we think that stress could have triggered your initial results in Boston." Am I stressed? Is the pope Catholic? Is 'Bust a Move' not the greatest karaoke song of all time? I rest my case. Thank God I lost my stupid job that was literally stressing me to the very core...of my girly equipment.

Yes, I am Okay

BTW-Boston hospital sucks, they completely messed up my original results and had me flip out for nothing. I am happy to report that I am fine, the results story will be yet another tale to be added to the blog, but in the meantime know that I am OK.

The Nine Lives of Lola Shadows

For months my brother has been nagging me whenever we spoke about my blog. My words are apparently not appropriate, and if future employers could see them-I might be in trouble. I ignored him. What did I care if IBM knew I had been barreling down Boylston at 3 in the afternoon bare breasted (see "The Boobs on Boylston Debacle")? Then I got laid off.

So I very quickly took it down to protect myself from future employers who may perform a google search of my name. Afer a few weeks though, I missed it. I enjoy blogging, I find it a positive outlet for me to rant about my adventures.

Rather than continue my former blog, I decided to employ a pen name. Its a little gay. I thought on what my pen name should be for several weeks. Then when performing a quiz "What is your soap opera name?", it came to me. Lola Shadows. Lola is my cat, and I like the idea of having nine lives to bounce back from. So, from now on, to protect my professional integrity I will hide behind the mask of Lola Shadows.

Happy Reading.

Do Not Freak Out Do Not Freak Out

I do not like going to the doctor. When I was little I never got stickers to reward me for good behavior, mostly because I did not demonstrate good behavior of any sort. My bad behavior has continued into my twenties. My resentment of the medicinal smell and the cold hands of medical practitioners keeps me far away. As much as I deplore the doctor's office, I concluded that I had been to the emergency room no less than 5 times in the past year and a half, I needed to stop behaving like a brat who didn't deserve stickers and go to the doctor to try to head off some of my future ER visits. God knows, I don't want to wind up crying in heels on a bed watching liquid get pumped into me because I abused my kidney again. One week when I was home in Boston I made an appointment to get a check up for my blood, girly equipment, a skin biopsy, and overall health. It was all very routine, my entire diet, medical history, and day to day activities were analysed. Goody. I am pleased to report, I behaved myself.

Weeks later I found myself in Texas working on the administrative tasks of our project. Which in layman's terms means that I no longer had time for myself. Long hours with little credit was the norm-and I became used to getting about 3 or 4 voicemails by the end of everyday. After work one day, I went to check my messages, I had 7. As per usual, my Mother's voice rang from one of them demanding to know my location, and the other 6 were all from the Doctor in Boston. 6 messages. I called back and left a message on their machine. Then promptly called Party Pants, who assured me all was likely well.

The following day another round of phone tag commenced. Between the two of us, 8 messages were left.

After two days on not knowing what was up, I was starting to get agitated. I was in the middle of a very dull 4 hour meeting on Order Management, when the fire alarm went off in the building. Business people love fire alarms, its a mandated excuse to go outside. I barreled outside with all my co workers, gleeful to be in the sun. My glee was interupted by my phone, Boston had finally made contact.

Let me just say, if a hospital calls you 12 times-they are not fooling around, and that something is generally bad if they are working that hard to get in touch with you. After revealing rather scary news which included many words I did not understand, the alarm outside stopped going off and we were readmitted into the building.

It was impossible during the meeting that followed to focus on anything other than the bomb that had just detonated in my brain outside. I was supposed to be taking notes on order management and SAP systems, instead my notes involved the words "Do not freak out/do not freak out" over and over. Which come to think of it are generally applicable to an SAP implementation as well.

The Gun Show

I associate certain things with Texas. Tex-Mex, Barbecue, Cowboy boots, compensating large trucks, and guns come to mind. I hate guns.

In Texas though, guns are the norm. After the news that I had taken like a bullet before my order management meeting, I got proactive. I found out about the procedure that may need to be performed and opted to have it done in Texas so that my sister could swoop to the rescue if need be. I made an appointment for that Friday. Not one to be down, I made a point to work harder than ever to distract myself. I threw myself into work, and when the opportunity arose that Wednesday to head out with my coworkers I headed out with the team.

At dinner we discussed the recent announcement that IBM was going to be laying off 5000 employees. To deviate from that depressing topic, my oratorically gifted (or not so) team leader started to tell us about how multiple people on his last project had died. He then went into a story with, "There was this girl on my last project, she was about your size LOLA, but you know, thin." Like most women would, I glared at him. What the hell did he mean, "But thin?" I am 5'6" and a 127 pounds, by all accounts I am damn petite. He had just successfully gotten my brain off of Friday, nothing is more distracting for a girl than being called "not thin" which then translates to fat. The other participants at the dinner shared my horror. After identifying that the conversation was not improving my doom and gloom mood, I decided the only thing that could rescue my night was alcohol.

Only one other member of the team shared my desire to partake in some Texas sized drinks, and we bounced off into the night. My coworker and I had shared a few conversations given the proximity of his cube to mine but given the amount that we were drinking the conversations were no longer revolving around ERP systems. After several Jack and Cokes which were 2 dollars, I no longer was thinking about Friday or my "fatness". I was also heartily entertained by my increasingly drunk coworker who inspired by the Texas gun mentality, asked me, "Do you want to touch my arms?" and proceeded to flex. It was such a toolish statement, but after groping his arms I had to admit that they were quite spectacular. After the "Gunshow" though, I concluded that no good could come from the flirting that was commencing, aided by all the alcohol. So I decided to practice some gun control and go home...after a couple more drinks and dancing around like a jackass with my coworker who shall forever now be known as "The Gunshow" for the guns that he is packin'.