Story

Here is a story I wrote recently for my advanced writing composition class. Enjoy. Oh, and by the way, since it is a work by me it is copywritten by me, and MAY NOT be used without my personal permission. Thanks!

The Trade
Another night, another thorn in my side. A ball in the yard presented me with a perfect opportunity to send it into the dark abyss. I swear, one more night of this and I’m gonna end it. How I’ve managed to stay here this long is beyond me.
Where to next? Timothy Prelic? Ugh, not the Prelic’s again. This kid is losing teeth faster than I’m losing hair. Stepping up to the house, I peered through the windows – darkness. Man, I hate this! Just like a criminal. This job sure does have its benefits though; if I ever need to get behind locked doors, I’ve got the know-how. I paused wondering how to best make my entrance. Well, I’d better get this job done. End my night early. I hope McTuggan’s is still open, I need a lifter!
I’ve seen some nicer days in my time. I took this job because I like kids, well, used to anyway. I went over to the dark side years ago after I swallowing my pride time and time again. Never have I received a thank you for my deeds. In the 20 some years I’ve been working the trade, not one iota of gratitude.
As I looked up at the house, a small blue cube set with its classic white picket fence, punctuated with a hodge-podge of flowers, I knew the dangers that lurked within. I took my trusty equipment – two paper clips and a screwdriver – out of my briefcase. You’d think the company would splurge on better tools to do this crap! People depend too much on their deadbolts. Besides, there’s no stopping me with their puny security systems. We are trained in stealth.
I entered quietly, glancing around immediately for the part that makes my job difficult. No dog! Man, I hate those mangy things. I can taste the sweet ale already. Dog-less families are my favorite because they cause the least amount of trouble. There is no barking, no toys to trip over, a clean, well-kept house. Hmmm…his room is through the living room, down the hall on the left. Locating the kid’s room just comes after a while, but in this case it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. I’m going all out. This is my last night. Yup, that’s right, my last night. I’m gonna do it.
Walking silently to the door, I made preparations for what lay ahead. I smashed the door open loudly and the kid sat up in bed like one of those rakes that gets stepped on in old cartoons. I put on my most maniacal face, grinning widely fading into an evil snarl.
“GIVE ME YOUR TEETH, YOU LITTLE HELLION!” I exploded as swirls of red smoke wisped up from the floor.
The kid never showed a sign of fear, ”Tooth Fairy!”
As the words were uttered, the swirls disappeared, and I stopped where I was. With shoulders dropped and back hunched, I felt a slump coming on. My expression melted back into my features as quickly as it appeared; my mischief turned to disappointment. “Dammit! No, you will not take this moment from me!”
“What’s wrong Ms…. Tooth Fairy?” There was a long pause as a puzzled look crossed the boy’s face. “Why do you look like that, and… and what IS that smell?”
My failure was replaced with ire. “Okay, kid, you asked for it!” Since it was my last night, I figured, what the hell, I’ll scar the little bastard for the rest of his life. I went and sat on his bed and put my arm around his shoulder, smiling smugly.
“You’re going to sit and listen to me, kid. We’re gonna clear up some things about the tooth fairy,” I told him matter-of-factly.
“First, you may notice, I’m no spring chicken. In fact the thousands of employed tooth fairies around the globe look just like me! The smell is from a man who’s worked his… butt off all day. But you won’t know what that’s like until you’re older.”
“Really, just like you?” the kid stared at me, dumb-founded.
“Look, here’s the thing kid, we don’t get any credit. People make us out to be attractive, gorgeous women, and that, we just ain’t. 89% of us are men! How would you feel if everyone perceived you as this 5’6” woman, blonde as the sun, with a curvy figure that makes men roll out their red carpet tongues. I mean look at me, 5’4”, big-boned, wearing a tutu over a suit with ‘Tooth Fairy’ for a nametag. Do I look like Brittany Murphy to you? It couldn’t be further from the truth. This God forsaken job is for the birds – no, none of God’s creatures deserve this fate. I bet your mother feeds you all of this sugar. You get a dollar for every tooth you lose, but have you ever wondered what we do with those teeth, kid?”
“Kinda. Why would anyone collect teeth nobody wanted anymore in exchange for money?” the kid’s curiosity was growing.
“We sell ‘em to the devil. He pays a handsome sum for them, claims he can trap part of your soul in them,” I told him shrugging.
A look of pure dread came over the boy. “I’m kidding Tim. We just throw ‘em away. Tim, I’ve been your tooth fairy for a long time now, and I’m calling it quits. There’s no honor left in me. No pride either. That’s why I woke you up this time, so at least someone knows why.” I whipped out a Cuban from my briefcase, cut the end and lit it
“Oh, and I almost forgot. Since you sat and listened to my whining, I have a little treat for you. I owe you something for your tooth. Here it is.” I handed the kid the cut end of my cigar and some pocket lint.
“Hey! Where’s my dollar?”
“Get it from your mom. Inflation’s a bitch.”
As if snapping out of a trance, the kid starts up, “Hey! My mom doesn’t allow smoking in here!” I laughed.
“Oooh, is she gonna sic the Boogey Man on me?“
Suddenly, I heard a commotion from the next room. Tim’s mother came bursting into the room with the look of a banshee on steroids. !@#$%, here we go.
“What is going on in here? Bob, why are you here? And I thought I told you no smoking in the house!”
“Look Mrs. Prelic, I’m out of here. This is my last stop, so just cut me some slack okay?”
As I got up to leave, an audible poof sounded from somewhere beneath the bed, as a tall individual slinked out from under it. A look of complete confusion graced his grotesque features as I burst out laughing, ”Damn Phil, you sure got good timing!”

©Dana Wegener, 2005, All rights reserved.

Being of Pure Evil

I stared this post as an idea a couple of days ago. When I finally publish it, a week or so will have passed. I had this notion that I was a being of pure evil the other day. I don't recall exactly what I was thinking, but I can expand on this anyway. I get this mean streak in me sometimes. For example, when I'm a pedestrian and someone cuts me off, I have a rule that I will shove their car if I am close enough. It pisses me off that people are that impatient and inconsiderate. I have this thing inside me that really wants to teach people lessons when they make mistakes that I consider common sense. In past years, I've been able to curb this anger by realizing that they are just human and everyone makes mistakes, including myself. Not anymore. I've had so many people do stupid sh*t to me that I just don't care anymore. The world as is, is just a heaping conglomeration of betrayal, evil, stupidity, and ignorance. A cesspool if you will. If you've ever driven with me, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. There is no way, no matter how many people there are on this planet, that 10-20 stupid things can occur in front of me EVERY SINGLE TIME I drive. I really want a paint ball gun, so I can tag idiot drivers. I used to want to design this compartment in my car that would open and shoot something into their tires 'cause I'd get so pissed. Obviously this issue hasn't resolved itself yet....and it probably never will.

Moving on. I work right next door to a hospital which supplies its patients with outdoor smoking pavilions. I often see many people walk out of the hospital, often times still hooked up to machines, just so they can have smoke. This happens more noticably in the winter months. I don't believe how strong the urge for a smoke exists in people. These people probably just had a surgery and got well enough to get out of their beds, and immediatly started smoking again. It's too bad those individuals don't put that type of ambition into other areas of their lives (as I'm sure they don't). Just a thought.

Today in biochem lab I was struck with deja vu. A brief history entails. If there is any such thing as psychic powers, I have them in my dreams. I usually have a dream of some situation, and then, years later, it happens. Today's example was no different. I was examining a recently returned homework assignment, when it hit me. I can remember every detail - light, people, objects in the room or area, it's almost frightening. My lab partner was someone I had never met before in my life (before that class), I had never before been inside that room, in fact at the time of the dream, the building didn't exist yet. The last extremely vivid deja vu that occured was back in high school. I was standing in the school's parking lot with J.H. and E.C. I was facing the SE and they were in front of me. It was a sunny day, I remember the flag blowing in the wind across the street at the fire station. I brought this to their attention, to which they showed interest and smiled. There are many others, but by now, they have left me. Speaking of weird coincidences, I had another today. The song Muzzle by The Smashing Pumpkins just popped in my head this morning. I was listening to iTunes on random, and I bet you can't guess which song song came on...

I might talk about my BCQ tours (class that I teach) in future posts, but not in this one. They can be interesting for people who never get to see them. BCQ (Biology Colloquium) is a student lead class, where freshman are given tours of research facilities at the U. We also facilitate large group speeches by top researchers in the nation. Anyway, our small group tours can get into some pretty exclusive areas that not other people get to see.

See ya,

P-Wagz

P.S. I didn't want to wait till next week to post this.

Segmented 5ths

As you all may have noticed, my titles usually have nothing to do with my posts. This is just a unique characteristic of a man living in a fantasy world. I have come to realize that I have too many ideas to post and that eventually my drafts (not shown on my blog) will outnumber my posts. Onto the fun!

I wanted to comment on some things that happened a couple of weeks ago. First it was my non-gf's birthday back in January. That brings up another interesting point. I seem to continue to introduce her as my girlfriend, when she is, in fact, not. We do hang out as much as we used to so I have a hard time distinguishing between her being girlfriend and non-girlfriend. Anyway, it was a fun filled night of sushi. You know what, I have already talked about this....and now that I've gone back in read it, I found a funny error. I said it marked my girl's 22nd birthday as well as my mom's. I have to clear that up. No, my mother isn't 22, she's 53. Well, that takes care of that part of the post. We move on to my roommate, Bizzle's, birthday. I don't even remember what I was gonna say about that. We went to Applebee's on campus (we being a group of friends from h.s., our other roommates, his gf, my non-gf, and myself. When the emloyee's started singing the birthday song, it got better. It went something like this: I don't know what I've been told, but someone's gettin' pretty old. I don't know what's been said, but their face is turnin' red. I realize it's not very original since it's borrowing from the classic army call-outs during a march, but it got the job done. If anyone who was there reads this, they can add a comment or two. We were sharing some pretty crazy stories, most of them involving animals, such as emus, ducks, and geese. I'll elaborate if I get requests for such, otherwise, I'm moving on. The last thing I wanted to say dealt with a an annual TGI Friday's get-together that a friend from h.s. and I plan. It was our 2nd most successful year in the four years we have done it. The first year was the best, with like 15-20 people. The second year we had less than 10, and last year we didn't do one. It was good seeing some people who attended it though, some of which I hadn't seen since they graduated. It was great to know they were still around and alive. Next time we are planning something to do afterward so everyone gets a chance to talk to everyone. It was hard to talk to each individual person there, since we had 12 people and sat at at a rectangular table. Now that I mention it, I think I've mentioned this event before too, but not in as much detail. This was the night before my Russian Orthodox Church experience. I have more to write, but I'll save it as another post and post it mid-week so you all have something new to read, and I know there are thousands of people with nothing to do but read about me and eagerly await my next post....

Have a Great Weekend, y'all!

P-Wagz

I've been listening to Jay-Z Vol. 3...The Life and Times of S. Carter (phenomenal) I have to say, Jay-Z f*cking rocks! Oasis Definately Maybe, My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, 30 Seconds to Mars, 311 - Soundsystem, Kill Hannah - For Never and Ever, Nickelback - Silver Side Up (for those of you who know my musical tastes, I hated Nickelback for a long time because the lead singer always talked about how he smoked pot and sounded like a 50 year old man when he did everytime I saw them perform. You would also know that bands I say I hate, I often end up loving. This album is frickin' awesome.), Hoobastank - The Reason, and Self-Titled, and Filter - Short Bus.

Speaking of...

One more thing guys and girls.

Speaking of weird phone experiences, I had one as well (my friend's blog). Today, I received this text message on my phone, "What up, baby?" I thought it may have been from my non-g/f, but it was from some number I had never heard of. I ignored it and went on my way. Several hours had passed, I'm sitting here doing my own thing, and I get this same message again. This time I was curious. I asked who it was. "J. Dizzle" was the response. Ah, it's Bizzle (see previous post for name explanation), calling from some weird number; he's fucking with me (Dizzle is his nickname for me). I asked again, "Who?". "J D" was the reply. OH, I thought, it must be Gavin's brother and he's just goofing around. This time I said, "Unless you're Gavin's brother, I don't know you." I searched some websites to see if I could find who it was, if it were someone I know. Nothing. I searched the area code; Arizona. I had no clue, who it was so I replied again, "I don't know you, because your area code is from Arizona." His reply was, "Is this Titi?" "You've got the wrong number, dumbass."

Man, people are...well, I'll just leave it as that.

Dizzle

The Meaning

So it's come to this.

I just realized that I never explained the meaning of my blog's name. I chose Ying Yang for a number of reasons. The first, I love the ying yang sign and what it represents. Good, evil, light, dark, etc. etc. you get the idea. A balance. How I perceive the world, how I perceive God and nature. Ying Yang represents who I am; a Libra. The scales. I'm a very neutral individual. When you ask something of me that forces me to chose one way or the other, it's difficult for me to do. My first inclination is to say you can go either way depending on your personality. This isn't always a good attribute. So recently I've been trying to chose a direction. Speaking of that, I've decided that I will more than likely switch majors. I'm close to graduating and am now taking classes that deal mostly with my major, biochem. I hate them. I have a biochem lab now, and it's one of the most annoying uninteresting things ever. I'm also taking a microbiology class which I am really enjoying. In the past, microbiology was my other choice for a major, but I liked the chemical aspect of life, so I figured I'd take biochem. Hopefully, this will be a more fitting major for me.

In less life impacting news, I started watching an anime today called Naruto, suggested by my roommate, Bizzle (his nickname). I'm already hooked after watching 1 & 1/2 episodes. To give you a taste, it involves a boy named Naruto, who has a demon fox with nine tails sealed within him. He learns about this on the first episode. This giant demon almost destroyed his village and killed many people. There are individuals called Horayak or something like that, who sealed the demon in him. There were twelve of them that knew about this terrible truth, along with all of the adult villagers. Everyone hates Naruto because of the beast living within him, but he doesn't know. The exception is his teacher and the village elder, among a few others. Apparently there almost 200 episodes of this thing, so I have a long ways to go. It's much more interesting than how I'm explaining it, so if you want to check it out, you have to download bit torrent (a program) and that will let you download it from people (I think). I don't know, because I don't have it, nor do I have the time to download it and the animes. I'll leave that to my roommate.

Another interesting thing that happened. I went to church, yes, church! The whole schpiel, how ever that's spelled, went down at Christmas, well a little bit before. Becka, as we'll call her, a girl I work with noticed the last name printed on my cousin's letter jacket (yes, I work with my cousin, in fact I've worked with three of my cousins [total], since working at the bio-med [we're running a family owned business now]). This particular cousin has the last name of my grandmother, whom attends the same church as Becka. This sparked some curiosity, so Becka asked my cousin if she knew my grandma, aunt, uncle, and two younger cousins (they all go to the same church). They were in fact the same people, so Becka asked me about it, to which I professed the truth. The informed me that she was teaching my younger cousin, M how to play a traditional Russian instrument, the balalaika. When Christmas rolled around, and I saw my entire family, I asked my cousin about it. She was really excited about the fact that I knew Becka, and invited me to come to church with her. I agreed that I would, thinking that I would get to see her play the instrument. Two weeks ago, I received a call from my aunt asking me to come to church with them. When I brought up the fact that I'd like to see my cousin play the balalaika, my aunt paused and said, "Oh, no. She doesn't perform, she's just learning. She just wants you to come to church." I said I would just to see them, and visit with everyone. Then my aunt told me that my cousin wanted me to come to church FROM NOW ON. I explained that I don't believe in Christianity, to which my aunt was slightly saddened (how would you feel if your beliefs said that a member of your family will burn in hell...). I still insisted that I would like to go, as I do enjoy church (I was Christian at one time [see other posts]), so I scheduled for last Sunday. This portion of my family attends, you guessed it, a Russian Orthodox church. I learned that this is not the same as being Catholic. I attended a very nice service, which was different from my Lutheran ones I used to attend. I always attended the contemporary service when I went to church. This was the first time I was told that I was a sinner (a bad one) directly. Of course I knew this, when attending Lutheran church, but never was I directly told so. I kinda made me feel bad. After the service, there was a coffee get-together, which I attended. I ran into Becka, who was surprised to see me there. I talked with her briefly, before grabbing a donut and coffee and visiting with my family. I ended up meeting a few connections for pharmacy school, an admin person, and a prof. Now I have a little more knowledge of what to do, and where to go.

I'll wrap it up here, for now.

Wishing you all well,

P-Wagz

The Experience

Are you ready for THE experience. Nah, I'm just kidding. But I do have an experience to share. This happened one week ago today.

I work at a copy center at the Bio-Med Library. I get all sorts around here, nice people, jackasses, pompous doctors. In fact I get more surly people than I do nice. I have to say that student workers that work at service jobs really get the sh*t end of the stick.
Anywho, I'm working in my ordinary fashion, when a 70 something man comes in to make copies. He goes to a machine, starts to copy. After a while, he hits a button that fills the screen with some options and prevents him from copying. He asks for help in a deep aged voice. I go over and show him how to leave the screen he's at and continue copying. I sit back down to my computer, and continue on with my thing. Later on, I hear the machine start whirring, denoting multiple copies at once (I know these things because I've worked here way too long). From the "gentleman's" direction, I hear, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS FUCKING THING! STOP IT, STOP IT!" as he strikes the copier many times. I run over and hit the stop button for him. He retains his composier, and explains what happened stating that he didn't want all of the copies and that he would bring them up to me later. I acknowledged him and went back to the desk. I thought, this is gonna be one of those people. How right I was! He comes up to pay, "How much was that?"
"$1.28," I reply.
"That's impossible, that's ubsurd! I won't pay it!
"Well, sir, our policy doesn't cover user error."
"That's ridiculous! If I went to Kinko's™, they would refund me for any mistakes I made!"
"I'm sorry, sir, but we aren't Kinko's™, and this is our policy."
"No! I won't do it, here's a quarter, that's 10 cents a copy plus tax! Good day, sir!" And he strides off towards our locked 3rd floor doors.
"Um, excuse me sir, you can't exit those doors after five, and if you leave without paying, you are stealing." At this point, he gives me a look like I've just crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed. His eyes bug out slightly, and he turns red, and storms back over to me. "Fucking son of a bitch!" and he slaps $2 on the desk.
"EXCUSE ME?! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME??"
"YOU HEARD ME, 'FUCKING SON OF A BITCH'!"
"You have no right talking to me that way, that it unexcusable!" Now a buddy of mine who's working as a page comes over.
"What seems to be the problem, sir?"
"This gentleman here, says that I have to pay for copies that I don't want, when I can go to Kinko's™ where they'll refund me for any mistakes," replies the old man.
"Well, that doesn't mean you have to act like an immature child and cuss him out," says my friend.
"Ire. It's ire," interjects the old one. (For those of you who don't know [I didn't], ire means to openly display one's anger)
I give him his change and tell him that he can contact my supervisor if he wants about the issue. He agrees to take the number, so I write it out for him, give it to him and he leaves. I was about to throttle that fucker! I'll tell you though, it really made my day better, because I was having a weird one, and it felt good to stick it to someone who deserved it. The crappiest part is that people get upset, although not to this extent, about measley sums of money like this all of the time. I can't believe the headache over $1.28! Just imagine if it were $10 or more, the guy wouldn't killed over right in front of me. Another good thing happened afterward, I won a free coke off of a bottle left there by someone.

Anyway, I hope you all are well. 'Til next week!

P-Wagz

I'm listening to Blink-182 - TOYPAJ, The Beatles - 1, The Offspring - Conspiracy of One, The Prodigy - Fat of the Land, Green Day - American Idiot.

P.S. Please share with me your stories of crappy people. If it's one thing people like to discuss, it's their work-related incidents!!

I like grapes, the very best of grapes!

Good Evening,

Another week, another segment of time closer to the final destination. It's been quite the strange day. First of all, the weather here was fantastic! If you've ever been to Minnesota in Feb., you know what I'm talking about. I stayed up until 5:30 this morning typing a paper and finishing my lab for biochem. Yuck! I'm still seriously thinking about changing majors to micro. It's just more fun. Anyway, I've been out of it all day. I got really depressed after biochem today, but I don't know why. Now, I'm just feeling funk-ay.
This weekend was exciting. It marked my girl's 22nd B-day, as well as my mother's. Friday night consisted of some fine sushi, and semi-clubbing. The original plan was to go the Spin, but my friend and I didn't have the right shoes, or something recockulous. We next headed to Brother's, where it donned on me that it's the straightest bar in the city. After my girl and her friends got bum-rushed on the dance floor, we left in search of something better. We ended up at the Gay 90's. It was my first time there, and it was quite the experience. It was fun watching my friend squirm all night! When my friend had to go to the bathroom, his girl told me to go with him, because you just don't go alone. We ended up getting hit on by a passive guy in the bathroom. I was later informed that that is THE hotspot to be picked up at if you are a homosexual male. Good to know. I didn't feel as comfortable as I thought I would have there, and I'm extremely comfortable with my sexuality. We stayed until close and went home.
Saturday was my mom's birthday. I didn't end up going over there until about 9 p.m., and she was in bed. My dad was deep frying home-made french fries (a task unfamiliar to him). We, my girl and I, stuck around and chatted for a while, and my mom eventually awoke. I wished her a happy birthday and we all ate french fries. I promised to return the next day, which I did, and hang out.
To make a long story short, the week passed quickly. And here we are. Man, this is an unusual post. I never write like this. It's reminiscent of the journals I used to write back when I was a teen. Perhaps I'll post those someday.

~Out

P.S. I haven't been writing my music I've been listening to list, lately. Here 'tis
Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, Definately Maybe, Jay-Z - The Black Album, Vol 2...Hard Knock Life (both phenominal), 311-Grassroots, Filter - Title of Record, The Smashin Pumpkins - Siamese Dream.