The Daily Derenger

12/13/2002

Have no fear Scott Derenger is here. Well I'm in Wausau, WI. And I know you were wondering if I was alive or if I had been trampled to death by a gaggle of ardvarks. Or whatever a large number of them is called. My laptop sucks and is going in the shop again so that explains my lack of updates to my Web site. Until it's fixed, I will have to resort to visits to my friendly neighborhood library or mom's or any friend with internet access.

Here are just some random thoughts from the last few days.

I was eating in a food court the other day and saw a sign on the cash register that read "WE DON'T ACCEPT BILLS LARGER THAN $50." I made my own sign that read "I DO" and stood next to the register. But all I got was a few chuckles and no money. Can't blame a guy for tryin'.

That same day I was working another temping job in downtown Chicago. My duty for the day was to bind an info packet for some financial communications company. You know that often times colored binding that holds a book-like concoction together? Well I had to see that that thing was put in place. I guess the thing was made up of 35 pages or so. First I had to collate, then I had to stick my collation into an automatic binding machine, and then I had to insert the binding strip. All that work for 10 bux an hour.

I managed to screw up only 2. The first one messed up was the result of me grabbing 2 strips and sending them through the machine which could only accept one at a time. What was I to do? How about move on like nothing ever happened.

The next mishap was when I sent a book through the machine only to find that I had not grabbed all the pages to collate. That book was then put with the double-strip bound book in the "THIS TEMP'S A FRICKIN' IDIOT" pile. I began to sweat a bit after this one and thought that I might never again be able to temp again.

Later in the day I was assigned to send some papers through an automatic hole puncher. That seemed easy enough. Or so I thought. Maybe I should have paid closer attention to the job at hand instead of the ticking of the clock. It was about 45 minutes until I was out the door but my concentration was already closing the door behind me.

As a royally messed up the hole punching, I thought that the books would still be able to be binded with some plastic spiral thing. (Believe it or not there was even a machine designed to hold that open while the books were set-up through the holes.) Now I knew that I had screwed up a few of the books but I figured if I shuffled the pages together the mistakes would be covered up. No such luck was had. Seeing my idiotic blunder and subsequent poor attempt at a cover-up, the guy who bound the books with the spiral thing had to then print up new pages to punch holes into. And this was all as the clock hit 5p.m.

I felt bad. I was trying to earn some much needed cash by getting paid to do a job fit for a one-armed, red-headed step-child. And I was messing it up. I then was ordered to pick up some trash around the area that I had wreaked havoc on throughout the day. I figured that was the least that I could do as I tried to make jokes to prove that I was funnier than I was an efficienct and effective temporary employee. At this place, I'm sure I was as temporary as they could hope for.

I have to go now as my time at the Wausau library is up. Be back on next week.

12/09/2002

SKUNK! SKUNK! SKUNK! Don't let Pepper out this door! SKUNK!

That's what was written on the message board above the phone at my mom's yesterday. Apparently a skunk has nestled under the deck outside the kitchen. And Pepper thinks it's her job to either get it out or bark at it until it she tires from pure exhaustion. And retreats back into the house to bark at the skunk from inside.

Now my step-dad and his partner in crime, his brother whom he once went deer hunting with for a entire weekend only to just see but one deer and not even shoot at it, are planning an attack and building a trap to lure the skunk out. That should take months and the skunk will probably have a family of its own by then.

This all is the result of my mother playing the role of Noah. Or at least feeding the animals two at a time. Whether they're birds, deer, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks - whatever - my mother has something for them. And it's generally something left over from what we didn't eat. Certainly a doe would like some lasagna for her fawn. Even mama chipmunk would salivate at the site of some pizza crust. And what beast would not welcome a helping of the fat cut away from a tenderloin with a granola bar for dessert.

I tell my mom that she's gonna not only attract small, harmless animals but larger, more ferocious ones as well. You know the squirrels run by the the mountain lion's den raving about the free meal they just got down the street. Then the lions will call on the alligators and it before you know it, Steve Irwin will be called out to wrestle a bloody croc away from a giant chimpanzee.

Time to go watch the live version of Emeril meets The Discovery Channel. Stay tuned.