(Yes, that is also the title of a Batman Animated episode, but trust me, it's especially fitting for this particular post.)

Sleaze-tastic day at The Job today, entirely due to one particularly annoying and somewhat creepy guy who comes in with the trucks and unloads them in the back of the store (termed a "swamper" apparently, I have no idea why.)

I originally met this guy a couple of weeks ago when I working out on the floor; he looks about forty or so and he just randomly walked up to me and began chatting me up.  It started out as simply a little weird and very soon became irritating as he continued to repeatedly and purposefully track me down in the store through out the day.  A co-worker in one of the departments I was working in that day had been keeping her eye on him and reported to me later in the day that he'd approached her and asked her to say "hi" to me for him.  o_O  Ick.  Just... no.

But whatever.  The day ended, he left the store, all was good.  I made sure to mention the stalker-ish actions of said Creeper to one of my managers (we shall refer to him as Manager #1, as we have an absurd amount of managers in the store at once at any given time) that day so he was aware of it, but figured that was the end of it.

Except today I was asked to help out back in the warehouse to scan in stock, and low and behold an hour or two into the morning I hear this voice and turn around and there he is.  The Creeper.  As he exclaims a surprised and happy hello as he recognizes me, I in turn walk out of the warehouse and track down Manager #1 where he's out on the store floor and poke him:

"Manager #1!  That guy that just came into the warehouse, THAT'S THE GUY."  D:

Manager #1 grimaces in sympathy, advises me to ignore him, and gives me the green light to tell Creeper to fuck off if necessary and I'm all damn straight. \o/  As we're talking though, Manager #2 comes up and is all "?" so I explain how the sleazy truck guy has a crush on me and won't leave me alone, and upon hearing this, Manager #2 squares his great big fatherly shoulders, turns on his heel and stomps off towards the warehouse purposefully. But I'm all "Nooooooooooo... *flail flail*" because while this guy is totally annoying he's yet to say or do anything actually inappropriate, and I don't necessarily want to get him in shit and feel even more uncomfortable around him for the rest of the day than I already did, so I chase him down and ask him to leave it be.  (In hindsight, I completely should have let Manager #2 rail on him.)

So I proceed to carry on with my scanning work, and all the while through out the day Creeper is working with the warehouse guys unloading the truck a dozen feet away and consistently popping his head around the makeshift wall of boxes erected between our areas to keep up a steady stream of chatter to me.

"So what are you're hobbies, Brenna?"

"What shows do you watch, Brenna?"

"What do you think of this music, Brenna?"

"They must have given you Employee of the Year award, eh Brenna?"

"Here, let me help clean up those boxes, Brenna."

I'm reaching a point where I'd very much like to tell him to shut the hell up, but because I am far too polite for my own good at times, I ignore him for the most part and try to appease him with my taciturn contributions to this one-sided conversation he's carrying on.  He actually goes as far as to ask me if I'd like to go to McDonalds with him when he leaves for lunch.  (Needless to say I favored the sandwich waiting for me upstairs in our dingy work breakroom to his invitation.  I also purposely timed my half-hour lunch to directly coincide when he returned from his lunch to make an entire blissful hour of No Creeper Time.)

During the afternoon though he apparently decided to raise his creepy flirtation bar though.

"So are you a student, Brenna?  Are you going to school?"

"Yes."

"What are you taking?"

"Library Technology."

"Ooh, librarian, eh?  I don't really see you as a librarian --" (Wait for it... the line crossing officially... starts...) "You're face, maybe, with the glasses; but your body is too smoking hot to be a librarian."  (... NOW.)

I can't tell you why I didn't speak up at that point, I know I should have.  A part of it, I think, was that I was a little nervous what would happen if I did tell him to shut his mouth.  Let's face it, I don't know this guy from Joe Bob Dandy and I didn't want to have to feel like I had to ask for an escort out to my car at the end of the day.  To be honest I think I was mostly too embarrassed and angry to even speak.  There was a definite skin crawling sensation and I remember very clearly thinking at that moment that I wish I'd taken Mason up on his offer of getting a bunch of his tradesmen buddies together to kick this asshole's teeth in.  But in any event, I did nothing, just turned away very pointedly and continued on with my work as he stood there grinning moronically at me overtop the (not high enough!) wall of boxes, mostly likely waiting for a reaction I wasn't giving him.

A bit later Creeper is back to try again and returns to a line of topic conversation he'd pried out of me earlier in the day when he'd asked if I lived in the city and I'd replied yes and with a very emphasized "WE" thrown in with my answer to hopefully imply to him that I was not single and not looking and he was welcome to bugger the hell off any time now -- he puts on that stupid, obnoxious smirk and is all:

"So that 'we' that you mentioned earlier, you're with someone?"

"Yes. I'm married."

"Oh and does he know about me? Did you tell him all about me?"

"Yes, I told him there was some guy at work who keeps --"

"Oggling you?"  *Eyebrow waggle now accompanies motherfucking stupid grin WANT TO PUNCH HIM IN HIS STUPID SMIRKING FACE*

That is the point something snapped in my so far previously impassive front and I basically dropped the box of merchandise I was holding and looked him right in the face and wanted to scream at him "FUCK THE FUCK OFF, YOU MOTHERFUCKING FUCKER" -- but really I could never say that because unfortunately I'm a giant wimp -- but I did instead say "Can you GO AWAY?" which admittedly lacks the extra oomph that the string of expletives would have delivered, but still, bully for me I think and in any event it seemed to do the trick.  He looked startled and sort of backed away and that was the last I heard from him for the remainder of the afternoon.

I passed Manager #1 as I was heading upstairs to clock out at the end of my shift and told him how I'd had to finally tell the guy to screw off and Manager in question promised that he'd be making a phone call to Creeper McCreepinstein's employer tomorrow morning.

This is the first time I've experienced any sort of male harassment like this.  In my time I've gotten the odd catcall aimed towards me a couple of times as I walk down the street, but if I have to be perfectly honest those have never bothered me at all.  This was different.  This guy made me uncomfortable, and more over he made me angry.  I hate that he was so thick he couldn't take a hint from my stony reception towards him that he should back off.  I hate that he for some reason felt it was acceptable to say those sorts of inappropriate -- and frankly douchebaggery -- remarks to me, especially while present in front of other co-workers.  I hate that the two warehouse guys in question who were there knew that I didn't like the guy, because I had told them I didn't like him, and yet they never bothered to step in and quietly pull him aside to tell him to lay off.  I hate that this guy made me wish that a manager was present hovering over my shoulder all the time to chaperone for me.  I hate how, even despite how he finally backed off after I'd yelled at him, I still kept looking over my shoulder as I walked across the parking lot to go home.

Mostly I hate that I didn't stand up for myself and tell him to stop sooner.

And mostly I hate that I didn't kick him right in the balls, because he deserved it.  Talk about empowering.

As much as I loved the ol' Boston Legal design, the beige-on-brown text and background color scheme has always been rough on my eyes for some reason and routinely gave me headaches if I was reading for any extent of time.  :P  So what better excuse to spruce up the site and usher in a new pretty blog theme?  And what better theme to center this one around than my obsession of reading!  \o/

(Excuse me while I go all web developer geek on you all now.)

This layout was an interesting lesson in incorporating all sorts of fun new behind-the-scenes tricks that made it a bit of a horror to code.  For example, it was my first time dabbling in both CSS rounded corners and drop shadows!  How could I have never used these two things before?!  Very cool.  No transparent PNG's to mess with for layout this time around, folks.  What made it a small nightmare at times during the build though was all of the layering and positioning of everything that I overlooked during the designing process.  What looked so straightforward in Photoshop made for lots of frustrated flailing and teeth gnashing when it came to putting it all together.  Usually my templates are very block-centric and this layout broke all of my usual rules with content and sidebars and headers and footers all running into each other and mashing together.  :x

Yes, I'm aware that I've utilized some CSS3 and HTML5 elements that aren't fully supported on all browsers yet -- and who knows to God what this poor blog looks like in Internet Explorer -- but one of the neat perks about working on web design for yourself is that HEY, YOU DON'T HAVE TO CARE.  Yes, there are a few padding issues in various browsers that I'll try to eventually look at, but as far as IE goes I actually hope the entire blog is a hideous, unreadable mess of toxic proportions -- because maybe if everyone actually stopped bothering to coddle that horrible browser and its shit web standard practices, maybe it would finally WITHER and DIE and NEVER BE USED AGAIN!  :)

No, seriously.  If you're using Internet Explorer right now as you're reading this, please go download a new and better browser.  Like Google Chrome.  Everything looks good on Chrome.

(End geek-out.)

So anyway, always a yay for new layouts~  This makes six now, so I've almost managed to have a new for one each year.  Sometimes I don't really realize that I've been writing in this blog for over seven years -- jeeze, since high school.  That's a lot of years worth of memories and thoughts and events and emotions all preserved in one little online journal.  Every now and then I go and re-read entries from the very beginning; it's kind of like flipping through a photo album (only with many more lame internet memes and obnoxious teenage ramblings) and I realize how important this blog actually is to me.  It's like a constantly ongoing and ever expanding time capsual keepsake~  :3  Some people scrapbook their lives.  I blog.

Mood: Old and curmudgeony

About bras. Or more pointedly, about shirts over top bras.

Like many ladies out there, I like a nice bra. I too enjoy pretty, frilly, and occasionally brightly colored undergarments. They're that fun, sexy little addition to your daily wardrobe that hardly anyone will actually ever see, but still add that extra ray of girly sunshine when you get dressed in the morning and a little bounce to your step during the day.

So therefor it perturbs me when after a very careful and thoughtful undergarment deliberation, I then pull on a t-shirt and discover that my bra is very clearly visible, loud and proud and lacy, through the fabric. D:{ *Pulls at hair* Wonderful. Carefully selected wardrobe is now in horrific shambles, and now a choice must be made whether to stick with happy yellow, feel-good bra of the day and change top; or keep detailedly crafted ensemble and swap for ugly safe-for-any-and-every-outfit beige bra.

Outrage! And it doesn't stop at the tops! No, four out of my five poor little dresses must be saddled up against not only drab-colored bras, but equally as unflattering skin-toned underwear because they're crafted from some sort of material more likened to the undergarments they're intended to cover than to actual clothing fabric. Way to rain down some sadness on that happy little summer dress. WHY, I ask you? WHY?

I don't think I ask for much. A tasty piece of chocolate cake, a cute kitty cuddling up on my lap, maybe a re-run of a good West Wing episode. Is it really too much to presume that a garment that I've probably already paid too much for and am bound to a complicated and hassle-full washing regiment just to own not have the molecular structure of tissue paper?

Sigh. Annoyed Brenna is annoyed.

Mood: Deeply disgruntled

I finally went for the long-overdue professional bra fitting (that every women really should look into.) I figured I was pretty close to wearing the actual size I should be, and sure enough I -- almost -- was. The right cup size, but just one band size too large. Apparently I should be wearing a 30 - 32 depending on the brand, instead of my former 34. No problem. Heck, that was hardly worth going in for. Should be an easy switch, right?

WRONG. D:{ I venture to the St. Albert mall to pick up some new bras in the new size aaaaand... nothing. Apparently while 34Cs are plentiful every where you turn, 32Cs are this craaaaaazy size that no one carries. The hell? The only size 32s on the racks were all A cups. WTF. This is ridiculous. Why do so many bra manufacturers seem to think that all women with breasts of a certain size are automatically all the same band size? Now I can relate to my sister's plight finding her size all these years.

I realize bra boutiques like Midnight Magic probably carry them, but I seriously can't bring myself to pay $60 - $100+ for a single bra, I just can't. My head would implode. I did some Googling and some people say that places like Victoria's Secret carry some, as well as La Senza -- but I've heard that to get them you have to order online because they don't stock them in store. So much lame. It almost just makes me want to scrap the whole thing and just carry on wearing the wrong size. :P

On a happier note, I did manage to finally track down a couple of pairs of affordable new bootcut jeans -- from Bootlegger, of all places. (I haven't been in that store for years. I forgot how exceedingly annoying the sales staff are there. Look, I realize you work on commission, but if another peppy salesgirl prances up to me and opens her mouth I'm going to strangle her with this dark-washed Brody denim.) As we speak my new jeans are hanging up at the tailors anxiously waiting for their turn to be hemmed. *Glee*

Also, we are now closing the fourth day of me being practically deaf in my left ear. It's been blocked since Monday evening, and despite using copious amounts of Cerumol and even going into the medicentre to get it blasted clear, I'm still saying "WHAAAAAT?" every time someone to my left is speaking. Seriously, this is passed annoying now. Annoying was four days ago. I'm considering just cutting it off.

Mood: You know I have too much time on my hands when...

I've been watching a little bit of Discovery Channel's Shark Week and it got me thinking. In all of the survivor accounts from shark attacks, someone always remarks that the shark always "mistakenly" attacked the person. You've heard it, all this crazy talk about "Oh, the shark thought the surfer was a seal."

The HELL? When a grizzly bear eats an innocent camper, no one ever says "Oh, well the bear mistook her for a giant salmon," or "Oh, the bear confused him for a gangly-looking, walking, talking raspberry bush." When a cougar stalks and kills a hiker, no one defends the cat by insisting that the hiker resembled a deer. So why are sharks let off the hook so easily? I'm not saying that the unfortunate victim need go all Captain Ahab vengeancy on said shark, I'm just out for a little equal accountability for all creatures big and small here.

I just don't buy into this "sharks don't eat people and if they do then the shark was just very confused" explanation. Yes, a lot of the reports insist that the shark was just curious by the fact that after taking a chomp out of the dude's leg, they all of a sudden abandon the idea and swim off. I personally think we could safely chalk that up to a more plausible theory -- that the shark in question who decides it's up for some Sunday Surfer Supper often realize that while we human prey are vastly stupid and easy to catch, we're also a royal pain in the ass once we're caught. After all, I doubt many seals they grab start to sucker punch them in the eye and kick them in their soft, fleshy gills. BAM! POW! BIFF! Maybe a Great White is just lazy when it comes to messing around with food that fights back and is quick to abandon us for some sweet smelling school of fish where all that is involved on Jaws' part is to swim straight and fast with his mouth wide open like a giant toothy fish net.

I have respect for sharks. I mean, obviously more so unbridled fear and overwhelming terror, but also respect. You think a shark can't tell the difference between a seal and a person? That they mistake the glint of light off an underwater wrist watch to be tasty fish? If I were a shark I'd be offended. I'd be all, "Fuck you, marine biologist, and guess what, you've just been added to my next weeks lunch menu. What's that, fancy pants shark researcher? You wanna say something about me too?"

So let's give the shark community a little credit here and say that more likely they were super hungry, there weren't currently any seals hanging around, "but hey, here's a convenient nibblet that was dumb enough to swim into my watery domain!" Luckily for humans, we have long agile limbs adapt at punching predators in the eyes with, which if I were a shark would be the last thing I'd want to put up with at the end of a long, grueling day. After all, I'd rather be labeled lazy than stupid. I have my shark pride to think of.