Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Walks of Fame & Shame

I read today that Donald Duck earned his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The writer felt it necessary to include that "a person dressed in a duck costume," not Donald Duck himself, was present at the ceremony.

People are morons.

The whole Walk of Fame is ridiculous anyhow, with a CARTOON getting a square - not to mention the newest additions, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, alongside the old stand-bys of Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Pat Sajak. Oh yeah, very good company.

Anyhow, the whole Hollywood walk thing got me thinking that I should make a walk of my own. My walk is the Roomus Walk of Shame. It's imaginary though because I don't own any sidewalk. Here is a preliminary draft:

Square #1: Madame La Vache (Mrs. Cow)

(The name has been altered so that if she ever actually Googles herself - which she is vain enough to do - she will never, ever, EVER reach this site. And uhh the language - French - has also been altered. I really took a different AP language.)

La Vache (LV) taught me French. Well, she didn't teach me anything, because she was just about the worst teacher you can ever imagine. She had the worst French accent, and she was annoying as all hell, but basically, she was just an awful, awful person to know. I'm sorry. It sounds horrible, but you just don't understand. She was awful.

I would have to give oral presentations. During one of them, she kept making these horrible faces, which is pretty hard to do considering that she has a pretty awful mug already. But anyhow, I kept stopping because I couldn't concentrate with all of her exasperated sighs and scrunched up cringes. So she says, "Elana, could you please not stop all the time?" And I said, "Well, I can't help it, you keep making faces at me. I can't concentrate like that." That was the beginning.

I didn't take the AP French test, just to spite the bitch. (Wow, that sounds intense, but whatever, I don't think I've ever disliked a person more than LV.) So out of ten of us in class, five took the test. Five showed up for class while the rest of the class took the AP exam. She decided to give us a mock AP test - and count it - because she thought it wasn't fair that the other kiddies had to sit through an entire 3 hour exam for $65, earning them college credit. Riiiight. So I told her I wouldn't take the test unless the others had to, or unless she didn't count it. And she said to me, "Well Elana, you can argue with me from today until next year, and it's not going to make a difference." So I said, "Well, if it's not going to make a difference to you, I'd like to keep going becasue I'm not quite done yet." She hated that. She called my house on that one.

I think the whole relationship was shot to shit when she yelled at me one day. I was talking to my friend. She had been writing on the blackboard, probably fucking up the French language yet again, and she turned to me and said, "Elana! Do you know what I'm about to say?" So I answered, "No." Then she sighed a pathetic, whiny sigh and she said, "Do you think if you were paying more attention, you would know what I'm about to say?" And I said, "No. I don't think I'd know what you're ABOUT to say. I don't know what you're ABOUT to say either way. Do you even know what you're ABOUT to say? I don't know what you SAID because I was talking, but I can't be held accountable for knowing something you haven't even said yet." I think she wanted to slap me.

Anyhow, we didn't have a very good relationship at all. Donc,elle gagne la place supérieure sur ma Promenade de la Honte, que stupide, bonne à rien, porc-visage bete. (Loosely translated to mean: So, she earns the top square on my Walk of Shame, that stupid, good-for-nothing, pig-faced beast.)

Square #2: Warren Towers Dining Hall Sargeant Brad

Freshman year, I had this student teaching thing in Lexington. I'd leave at 7:05 AM. 7:05 because I waited until the dining hall opened to run in and get a pre-packed meal for breakfast/lunch. They had some moron operating the cash register area and she would swipe me in for breakfast, then she'd swipe my card again to charge me for the packed lunch. I couldn't deal with the fact that she was charging me for breakfast - $5.95 - when I wasn't eating anything, I was just walking to the back to get a brown bag. She was literally charging me for walking into the room. There's a policy that you're not supposed to take more than one item of food out with you at a time. This policy is flawed, not because you should be able to take anything, but because it catches the wrong offenders. They don't catch the people that pack away the salad bar in their backpacks. They stop the people with two bananas. Drives me insane. Anyhow, I had had enough of this crap about charging me for breakfast and lunch for just walking into the dining hall, so I decided I was going to have breakfast one day. So I didn't have time to eat breakfast, so what I did was, I took some bagels and fruit, roughly enough to be worth $5.95. I started walking out of the dining hall when Brad, who thought his position as Dining Hall Student Manager made him freaking National Employee of the Month, started following me out. I admit that I started walking faster. Then he broke out into his marathon run and caught up with me, stood in front of me and put his hand out to stop this theft from continuing. What a loser. All he needed was a freakin Gold Badge and he could have been Officer Asshole.

Anyhow, he told me that I couldn't take the stuff out. So I gave him my reasoning, and then he said that they had to charge me the two meals. He gave me some stupid excuse, and I wasn't having any of it. So he told me he was going to take the food back. So I asked him why, and told him he couldn't do that, how did he know what I had done to the food? He couldn't put it back out there. And he told me he didn't care, that he would put it back out there and assume I hadn't done anything bad to it between the dining hall door and where we were (about 100 feet). So I took out a bagel and licked it.

He didn't take the food back, but I didn't make any dining hall buddies that day. He earns Square #2.

Square #3: Jose Offerman

Read the rant in the July Archives. Piece of Junk!!!!!!

Square #4: Mario Lopez/A.C. Slater

Mario earns a spot for cheating on his wife like the night before they were married, causing her insane amounts of pain and humiliation when she had to file for divorce like a week after their wedding, before they had even opened all of their wedding gifts. Looooooooser.

A.C. Slater because his name is Albert Clifford, and because he thought he was cooler than Zack Morris (impossible) and because he did a ballet dance, and because he had Brillo-pad hair, and because he called Zack "Preppie" and thought that was owning him, and because he dated Jessie Spano and called her "Sugarlips," and lastly, and possibly most importantly, because he constantly wore sweatpants with those elastic cuffs at the bottom.

Square #5: Ting-Ting

Ting-Ting will be a graduate student at the School of Education this fall. Because she is deaf and was born one hundred years and two days after Helen Keller, she believes she is the Chinese Helen Keller. Puhleaze. She would call daily to ask the same question. Because she is deaf, she would have this AT&T relay service do the call, and we'd have to talk to her through that. The relay person would even get fed-up and say to me, "You just answered her question," but I'd have to maintain this very nice, steady tone while saying to her, "No, Ting-Ting, you must send the financial information to our office. We do not call your bank and request it," when I really wanted to say, "You fucking lazy moron, I do not give a fuck if you are Helen Keller reincarnated, if you have had a movie inspired by you, airing on the Chinese version of Lifetime television, if you have written four 'How to be a Moron Like Me' books, I don't care if you're calling from a fucking hut in China, do it yourself." Because I never got to say that to the lovely Ting-Ting and more, she earns spot number five.

Square #6: JoAnn, who apparently runs J.Crew

I placed an order with J.Crew about a month ago. I paid for standard shipping. No kidding, three weeks later, my stuff arrived. So I called up J.Crew and told them that I wanted a refund for the shipping costs. JoAnn, the person who picked up, politely told me that my request was impossible (turns out, it's not). So I asked JoAnn to speak to someone else. I was polite about it. I thanked her for her help. I said, "I appreciate your help and understand that you might not be able to do anything for me, but could I please speak to someone else or a manager?" JoAnn responded to this by saying, "No. There is no one else." Hmmm. That's funny. I didn't think J.Crew, a major national clothing company, would only employ one person. She would have to answer phones, take orders, place orders, design inventory, order inventory, staff stores, fold clothes, stock rooms, clear the registers... I mean, this is a lot for one person! So I said, "So, JoAnn, do you run J.Crew then?" And she kind of laughed and said, "Well, no..." so I said, "Well then, there MUST be someone else! Can I please speak to whoever that is?" And then she transferred me.

WITHOUT EVEN SAYING GOODBYE! For idiocy and bad phone manners, JoAnn gets spot #6.

Square #7: Joseph Lally, the guy who signed off on BU's

This guy is the guy who signed off on all of BU's elevators and said they were in working condition. He earns Square #7 for being a fraud.

Square #8: Cab Girl

Last night, I met this dad guy who was waiting for his daughter to get to the park. He needed some guidance in how to get his 19 year old daughter to Fenway. She was a student at Northeastern. He was in town for a few days, and he had gotten them (amazing) seats to the game last night. I heard his daughter scream at him from the phone that she was TRYING as hard as she could to get there, but she didn't want to take the T. She kept giving him the worst attitude ever. Anyhow, he finally says okay, she should just take a cab. So fifteen minutes later, the guy comes back. He was such a nice guy, just wanted to see the game with his daughter. I was surprised to see him back, and he said, "Yeah. She walked all the way from Northeastern to the Ritz, because she didn't realize you could just put your hand out and hail a cab. She went to the hotel where there had been a whole line of them."

And I thought Northeastern was toughening up its admissions criteria.

Square #9: Bloggers & IM addicts

People who take their blogs and IM profiles seriously deserve to be shot in the leg.

Square #10: The Hollywood Walk of Fame Committee

The whole Hollywood Walk of Shame is a big farce. I should be on the committee. I did some research on it earlier today and found that although Mel Gibson does not have a star, Mary Kate and Ashley do. So does Pat Sajak. Actually, MK and Ashley were upset that they had to share a star. Well, I'm upset that they actually get a star. Really. Since when does being the "inspiration" behind a $300 million White Trash Walmart franchise get you a place on the Hollywood walk? There needs to be tougher requirements. They're giving them out too freely if you ask me. Nobody asked me, by the way, which is why Tim Allen is getting one this year. His last big hit was "The Santa Clause" and Mr. Braveheart is still waiting on an invite. This is ridiculous. I think you should need an Oscar or Grammy to get one of these. Limit it to one person per year. Before you know it, Joey Fatone will be getting a star for being the ugliest NSYNCer, right next to Marlon Brando. This just isn't right. In twenty years, if the Olsen twins haven't done anything, they will have gotten a star for playing a pig-tailed moron on "Full House." Do you understand the severity of that offense?