Hi, I'm Pickleope, and I'm Pro-Feminism

I've debated whether or not to post this for a long time. The self inquisition involved:

"Why bother?"  "Shouldn't we all know how stupid misogyny is by now?" "Is posting something that beats up on dummies like this a form of bullying?" "Am I patting myself on the back?" "Does mentioning this idiot validate his pathetic existence?" "How in love with my own words am I?"

The answer that trumped all others is, "I can't resist my own words, I love them so much. Each one is like a butterfly kiss on the taint of my ego." So, here we go.

Back story: 

Some nefarious, wretched heap of spammer left a message about American women being awful because of embarrassing insecurities. I mocked said dumb-dumb.

His response to me involved calling me a “whore” multiple times, super-ultra-hyper-creepy statements about “young Asians”, and the usual unimaginative misogynist tropes about lesbianism and cats. The full exchange is in the comments here. He signed off with the moniker, "John Rambo, Anti-feminist Soldier."

My edited response:

I'm concerned about you, Johnny. If your go-to is calling women "whores" it reveals a giant mountain of unresolved mommy issues and a fundamental lack of imagination. You have spent countless hours pacing and cursing the heavens that these infernal women would dare defy your every whim, but the best you can do is "whore"? How about "insufferable harpy" or "crusty termagant" or "pastrami-crotched bleeder" just to get you started.

YUP!

Whatever sadness created this misplaced rage in you, let it go. You'll be happier. As angry as you are at whatever your mom did to you (including bestowing upon you the most microscopic of crotch-pimples), this is an unwinnable crusade that will only consume you. Pursue something positive, like crocheting or alternative energy, or ANYTHING that isn't at the expense of the happiness of others.

If not, I've imagined your (and any misogynists) eulogy:

It's okay to call him misogynist. 

"John Rambo died as he lived, a self-deluded knot of petty spite who spread more hatred than love. All consumed by a crusade which was lost decades prior, when he and his type became an endangered species, we bid adieu to his lone attempt to stop the inevitable progress of society. Rather than adapt to a world that values mutual respect that treasures happiness, he instead allowed himself to be pulled further inward, imploding like a dying star, until eventually the very venom that sustained him brought him to his ultimate self-annihilation. 
"Why oh why couldn't he just see people as individuals? Instead he clung to an outdated notion of gender roles and spent his life in unsatisfying faux-relationships concocted using some form of mail-order program which were predicated solely on a person's fear of being deported. Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, he stole that stupid moniker from that terrible series of Stallone movies out of some delusional jingoistic attempt at patriotism. Yet another in a series of threads of bewildering dipsh*tery he used to weave his mental tapestry of egotistic misanthropy."

Source

Sorry, "soldier", but your battle was lost long ago. You can't fight an ideology (wait, so what am I doing here right now writing this). Women will continue to not want you while finding comfort and enjoyment in the company of men with the temerity and confidence to not judge an entire gender and instead, see them as people.

Sincerely, 

Pickleope Von Pickleope, Pro-Feminist Sideline Color Commentator

[Again, in fairness, the full, unedited exchange is in the comments of this post. It's basically me calling him a micro-penis some more and explaining how his every point is ludicrously stupid through reason and logic.]

Hail Hail the Indifferent

Ambition is dangerous. What's that, imaginary person heckling me, we should encourage children to have ambition in order to succeed in life? DISAGREE!

Image Source

Sure, there are those people with great ambition who harness that drive to achieve greatness and march humanity forward toward our collective destiny, but for every Marie Curie there are fifty politicians. Oh, "too pedestrian to vilify politicians," you say, imaginary heckler? "Sure, I could mention Monsanto, lawyers, Scientologist actors, or just old ass white motherf*ckers in general, but what is a better personification of ambition than a scumbag politician," I say.

Ambition hurts people. It leads to a person stomping on the lives of others to achieve a goal. That's what ambition is, "the earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment."

There are degrees of ambition too. The person in your office who asks inappropriate questions about your relationship only to use that information against you? The person who lies about you as a strategy to advance his/her own career? That's the personification of ambition.

It's embarrassing, these people who set out to sabotage others for the sole purpose of achieving a minor managerial position.
Maybe that's all they can hope to dream of imagining is the pinnacle of their existence. Thus, they will do horrible things to those around them just to achieve that pathetic existence.

The truth being that we, the elite aloof, will not do anything that causes society fright. We aloof shall never exert enough energy to disrupt the established society. We, of the living diffidence, shall quell our inspiration and aspiration if we can just be comfortable.
Celebrate the settlers, the aloof, the easily pleased because they aren't going to be the ones that sacrifice humanity in the name of a few dollars. Praise the adequate. Congratulate the average! For it is we who keep the world going. The ambitious are the ones who commit genocide, the settlers are the cogs that allow the machine to run. Without us, the content, society would fall. 

Scooby Doo Gave Me Trust Issues and Other Traumas Caused By Cartoons

Every Scooby Doo episode taught me that adults are not to be trusted, supernatural phenomena was all adult trickery to satisfy some form of greed. No wonder I don't trust anyone. Because I imagine that in the end, all the people I know will be unmasked to reveal some feeble ancillary character. How am I supposed to love anyone when I KNOW that beneath their facade is some real estate scheme?

Why is Scoob wearing an aviator helmet?

It's like the unrealistic expectations established in that damn Jiminy Cricket song, "Wish Upon a Star" nonsense. Oh, really, Jiminy? I just hope really really hard and stuff comes true? That song is a precursor to "the Secret" and vision boards. Yes, that worked in the very specific instance of Geppetto creepily wishing for a young boy to live with and comb his mustache, but no one else. Most of the time, wishes only come true if you work really hard to achieve them, in which case, they aren't wishes, those are just goals.
 

That's sooooo creepy. Where is Geppetto looking? What's he about to touch? I wouldn't leave my non-existent children with him. 

Also, with all of the personified animals singing about love, it's truly shocking there aren't more people into beastiality or a whole generation of Furries at least. Beauty and the Beast is just Furry propaganda. Between Jabberjaw, Josie and the Pussycats, Grape Ape, Lady and the Tramp, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their peculiarly flirtatious relationship with April, and all things Dr. Seuss, how is my generation expected to maintain normal relations with humans? 

This picture is so hot.

In cartoons, the humans are the evil ones, not to be trusted, while animals are the funny ones who sometimes play in bands and help make wishes come true. Is there any wonder why my dog is skittish around me?
(Get off my badunkadunk, PeTA, it's a joke, I don't own a dog...I rent one by the hour.)

If you found this mildly enjoyable, first off, what's wrong with you? But also, please vote for me on the Indie Chicks awards. Don't see "Pickleope" right away? Keep scrolling. No, don't stop there, keep scrolling until you can't anymore. There I am! The very last name on their entire ballot. But it's an honor to be nomi...Screw that, I wanna win! Vote! http://theindiechicks.com/badass-blog-awards-vote-for-your-favorite-bloggers/

The Terrible, No Good, Very Bad, Mostly Not Funny, Horribly Depressing, Really Sad, Extended Titled, Bad SEO, Unfathomably Crappy Job

There was a job I worked at for several years that incrementally drove me to the madness of perpetual misery, and because true evil is subtle, I couldn't bring myself to quit. Mostly the misery was due to my greedy scumbag of a boss, the vice president of the organization, and my inability to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship. Take a lesson. 

Source

This job was at a credit union, a supposed not-for-profit financial institution, where immediately after I started I noticed a biweekly series of firings. All firings were accompanied by a disturbing email notifying us that, "we wish them well in their endeavors." It became a joke. If someone had a meeting with HR, we all joked, "we wish you well in your endeavors!" I got three of those emails in one day my second week working there, and didn't recognize something was amiss. Note that this was 2006, when the financial bubble was nearing its peak.

Source

Here are some highlights of the other horrors I faced and compartmentalized until they all imploded on me:

• I spent a year rewriting all of their procedures only to be told that we were going to change our core computing system (a bit of info that may have changed my approach to procedure writing)
• The two people I bonded with were fired for seemingly arbitrary reasons
• For some reason I was compelled to work on multiple Sundays, including Super Bowl Sunday
• In 2010, two years after the financial crash, my boss saw an opportunity to do sub-prime loans in the auto market. This was all tied to loan metrics that equaled a big bonus for her. (The not-for-profit part did not apply to upper management.)
• I was told to "find a reason" to fire an employee...which I did. Writing that still makes me sick. I betrayed the very few morals I have.  
• I was told as the training manager to find ways around regulation changes
• The call center manager was fired and I was told to take over that department for two weeks
• Four weeks later I was yelled at for allowing my other work to slack off

What does it take to make me quit!?! Another job or a sense of financial security, is the answer. They could have had played hours of video footage in Times Square of me nude at my fatest, messy-farting in a blow-up kiddie pool, crying whilst watching Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus and shoveling Cool Whip into my gaping, drooling maw, and I STILL wouldn't quit. That's how cravenly loyal I am, or how dedicated I am to self-flagellation. 

As a result of all the stress and guilt over the system I was helping support, I developed a truly prolific drinking habit.

Eventually, in 2011, I hired my replacement, which I knew because when they hired her, my boss was in on the interview process and asked questions you would of a training manager (hey, wait, that's my job, I thought) and offered this person a job that paid more than what I, her supposed manager, was making. 

This is the most accurate depiction of any ambitious person in business I've ever met. 

A month later (presumably so I could train my replacement to take my job), my boss called me into her office and passive aggressively fired me by offering me the choice of a part-time teller job or quitting. This is a technique used by companies to try and prevent people from collecting unemployment. 

Their mistake was offering the part-time job. That allowed me to collect sweet-sweet unemployment checks. 

It was that period of unemployment that lead to me starting this blog. Which I shall not quit, because it allows me to exorcise demons like the above.

The moral of the story? Not every story has a moral, some are just maudlin examinations of your own capacity for evil so you don't repeat it.

The Pickle Who Cried Dead Grandma

I foolishly thought I was alone when I "revealed" that I used the dead grandma (on my father's side) excuse to quit a job because I was too craven to quit outright. Apparently, after reading a lot of the stories the rest of you have, no one should believe anyone else who claims they can't do/attend something because of a recently deceased grandmother. 

He doesn't seem soo broken up. Don't selfie with dead grandma. Just don't. If you do, have the class to take off your hat. Image Source. 

Here's how I picture an exchange between those of us inveterate liars who've used a dead grandma as an excuse:

Dirty Liars: "I'm sorry, I can't go to your five years sober pseudo-graduation ceremony, my...my grandmother just...oh gawd, can I have a hug? My...My grandma just...snort...burp...just died."

Like Minded Dirty Liar Who Knows This Excuse All Too Well: "BULL..."

Dirty Liars: "FINE! You caught me. I'd rather not go because what your thing sounds intensely boring. Respect that I used 'Dead Grandma' instead of the truth because I wanted to spare your feelings. You're welcome."

~Fin~

Being that I know a staggeringly high amount of people have lied about a dead grandma, I've rewritten Aesop's Fable about "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" to our modern understanding. Enjoy, "The Pickle Who Cried Dead Grandma" using the original fable [whilst substituting Pickleope" for "the boy", "Cubicles" for most "hill", "the villagers" for "Shepherds", "Dead Grandma" for "wolf", and variations of substitutions for "watching"...with minimal other alterations]:

Source

There once was a Pickleope who was at the top of the Cubicles, bored at work acting as a sheep. For amusement, the pickle took a great breath and sang out, "Dead Grandma! Dead Grandma! My Dead Grandma is why I have to stop being a sheep!"

The Managers came running up the cubicles to help the pickle drive the Dead Grandma away. But when they arrived at the top of the cubicles, they found no Dead Grandma. The pickle laughed at the sight of their angry faces.

Image Source

"Don't cry 'Dead Grandma', Pickleope," said the Managers, "when there's no Dead Grandma!" They went grumbling back down the cubicles.

Later, the pickle sang out again, "Dead Grandma! Dead Grandma! The Dead Grandma is chasing away my desire to act like a sheep!" To the pickle's naughty delight, the pickle watched the managers run up the cubicles to help the pickle deal with grief.

When the Managers saw no Dead Grandma they sternly said, "Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don't cry 'Dead Grandma' when there is NO dead grandma!"

But the pickle just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the cubicles once more.

Image Source

Later, the pickle saw a REAL dead grandma prowling about emails/phone messages. Alarmed, the pickle lept up and sang out as loudly as a pickle could, "Dead Grandma! Dead Grandma!"

But the Managers thought Pickleope was trying to fool them again, and so they didn't come.

At sunset, everyone wondered why Pickleope hadn't returned to work with the other sheep. They went up the cubicles to find the pickle. They found Pickleope weeping.

"There really was a Dead Grandma here," said the pickle, "My emotions scattered! I cried out, 'Dead Grandma!' Why didn't you come?"

An old, bedraggled accountant who takes strange pride in never having taken a day off, tried to comfort the pickle as they walked back to the cubicles.

"We'll help you look for your desire to act like a lost sheep in the morning," he said, putting his arm around the disillusioned pickle, "Nobody believes a liar...even when the pickle is telling the truth!"

~Truly Fin~

Source

The moral of the story being, "If your job is so boring and awful that you would metaphorically kill your grandmother in the minds of others, it might just be better to be honest with your manager and say, 

'I would LIE about my grandmother DYING and risk the guilt of her actually dying or besmirching her memory, ANYTHING to not have to work here another day! I know this comes as a shock as you have resigned yourself to this existence which depresses me so, but surely I'll settle into my own compromised depression equivalent to what my youth is condemning, but this is NOT it. Good luck to you.'

Don't lie about anyone dying, it's wrong and you have nothing to gain. What, are you going to use them as a reference? Just give two weeks, or just don't show up anymore. Both of those, as I now have learned, are better stories than lying about a relatives demise.

Quitting Ain't Easy

No, give up you idiot! Even if she LET you kick the ball (she won't)
there are no uprights, you're just kicking it into a field! Where's the
satisfaction in that? Play catch with your delusional dog instead.

Quitting is a natural part of life. The saying, "quitters never prosper" is flawed because it automatically rejects the notion of quitting something that makes you miserable. If you've never quit a job, that means you're an assistant manager at a place that makes you permanently smell of hamburger approximation, or you've been fired more times than a forklift operator with a breakfast-drinking problem (although, a breakfast-drinking problem implies that every day is brunch for that person). 

No matter the job, though, I've always had a problem quitting. My first job was as a busser. I sucked at it and the manager was stealing tips (oh, sure, all the tips after the week just happened to equal 5% of each of our paychecks). So, after only two weeks, and seven total days of working, I quit. That was the first job I quit. The manager tried to guilt me because there would be no bussers available to cover my shift. I actually felt bad. That moment taught me that I have too much empathy within me to be honest. I was honest with him and told him I received a better job offer and took it (for perspective, that better job offer was working at a gas station, and yes, it was a way better job). What I SHOULD have done was guilt him first! This is a lesson I took with me throughout my life. 

Most jobs I've been able to quit with honesty because I was either moving or going to college. But I've still encountered the "oh my god, this job is a nightmare, someone please break my legs so I don't have to drag myself into this den of non-sexual torture."

Image Source

When I was going to college I took a job at a beer distributor. I know, I thought it was an ideal job for a college student too. I would go out to supermarkets and check-in deliveries and stock shelves. Any extra cases of beer not on the order, were mine for the taking. Free beer! 

But there was a catch, I had to start work at 5AM. The other problem? All of my coworkers were dropouts from the very college I attended and all were on some drug of some sort. It was clear where this job would take me. I had to get out (besides, I was in college and had no business being awake before noon). So, after two weeks (one of training, one on my own) and several cases of canned Modelo later, I planned to quit. The problem was, I didn't want to give two weeks notice, that would be two more weeks of doing something crappy. 

Using the lesson I learned from my first restaurant job, I marched into my bosses office and told him point blank, "uh, my, uh, grandma died in Oklahoma and I have to, uh, go there to, uh, help settle her estate." 

If you don't know Chuck Testa, here's a link, treat yourself.

That's right, I used my living grandma's fake death to quit. The guilt was laid on HIS side of the table now! Something unexpected happened, he started to tear up. Apparently he recently had a death in his family and empathized a little too much with my lie. He even offered whenever I want to come back and restart where I left off. It took all of my free Modelo to quell the guilt of that one. Strangely though, I did not feel compelled to call my grandma who was alive and fine. She's dead now, though, so it was kind of like I was a cowardly Nostradamus, right?

That is why I can't foresee quitting this blog. Even if it's torture, I will stick with it...unless I have an unexpected death in the family. (Does this make me "the pickle who cried dead grandma," the lesser known Grimm's fairy tale?)

Being Single is Creepy

In this modern age with the rapid advancement of technology, I am very very happy that I'm married. Before the internet, if you wanted to know something about the person you were going to go on a date with, you had to ask friends, lurk outside their window at night, or sexually harass him/her until he/she succumbed to Stockholm syndrome. 

Now you can compile a full dossier on your date just by printing out their Linkedin profile...By the way, if you're about to go on a date with someone who has a LinkedIn profile, break that date off now! If they have a LinkedIn profile, he/she probably also talks about "synergy," "networking" and calls him/herself a "foodie" and ties sweaters around their shoulders. Undateable. No one should date anyone with a LinkedIn profile. If you're reading this and have a LinkedIn profile, seriously, delete it, you're better than that. 

Because of things like Facebook, you can, in theory, keep a date going for years. Staring at their old pictures, copying those pictures, photoshopping yourself into them, podcasting about your feelings regarding the date, recreate his/her activities using Four Square, make a Vine (that's a six second video, Grandpa) about how you're eating the same exact menu he/she is based on Tweets, then confess all of this on Reddit. 

The internet entices people to become weird stalkers. All the information is right there, waiting for you. Who can resist that? 

And it's only going to get worse. Now that we have 3D printers, how long before some creepy dude uses that technology to print a 3D mold of your face with a surprised look on your face? (You know what I mean by surprised look.) How long before a guy goes on a date, then creates an avatar of you in Second Life just so he can virtually sex you up? You can try to set up all the security features on Facebook (good luck with that, by the way) you want, but no amount of firewalls will stop an obsessive girl who thinks she's your girlfriend after one date.

Meanwhile, you know it was some creepy ex-boyfriend who was stalking her that probably started this meme.

It's a terrifying world out there. I think I'll wrap myself in this cocoon of commitment and hide from the big scary internet. 

Wait, it just occurred to me, you don't need to necessarily be single to have a stalker! Damn youz, Internet! Damn youz to...aww I can't stay mad at youz, Internet, you have so much fun time wasters that distract me from my toxic thoughts. I love youz, Internet.