If you’re new around here, you might not know that I own a bakery. 

*snicker*

Of course you know, that’s what I like to complain about now, duh!

While most of the orders I take are cake or cake-related, I also make a fair amount of decorated sugar cookies. 

Surely you’ve seen one, they’re all the rage right now. The Mommies Who Know must have sugar cookies. And, not to brag, but I’ve been told mine are pretty damn good.

The Mommies Who Know (from this point forward MWN), like to order these by the dozen. Often times decorated to match the cake, the cupcakes or the invitation to the soiree. (In some cases, all of the above)

The thing about decorated sugar cookies is - they’re a pain. Really. 

Here are the steps I typically take on a sugar cookie order:

1. Make the dough. (easy enough, I now have a mixer that can make enough dough for about 100 cookies in a single batch.)

2. Chill the dough. (again, easy peasy)

3. Roll out the dough. Scrape it off the table because I didn’t use enough flour. 

4. Roll out the dough again. 

5. Cut out the shapes. Usually easy, unless they’ve asked for a shape that doesn’t exist in science. Like Dora the Explorer holding a microphone in one hand and a flower in the other. I don’t know why she’s holding those things, but I’m told it has to do with the theme of the party. 

6. In the event of a ‘non-exsisting shape,’ cut out cardboard shape and trace. Or piece together from other cutters. (A shooting star will make a great palm tree, muppet or Sideshow Bob).

7. Bake.

8. Do no burn!

9. After cooling, make icing. Fill bag, realize that icing is too thin and runs everywhere. Pour back into mixer and add more sugar. 

10. Outline cookies.

11. Let dry.

12. Flood fill cookies. Realize that you don’t have any of the colors you need. 

13. Make more icing. 

14. Too thin again. Curse. Eat a cookie. Add more sugar to the icing.

15. Flood fill cookies. 

16. Let dry 3-4 hours.

17. Add details.

18. Let dry overnight. 

19. Wrap each cookie individually with ribbon to match the invitation. 

20. Place in box ready to be picked up. 

21. Smile through gritted teeth when customer says, “Really? $2 per cookie? That seems high.”

22. Vow to never make sugar cookies again.

Once again I have decided to throw my self-imposed rules out the window. I try not to pick on people specifically. And I hate pointing out the stupid crap others do when I’m completely guilty of a similar offense. 

But this? I can’t let it slide.

There’s a house on the street leading to my neighborhood. It’s not in my neighborhood, if it were, my neighbors would have already gathered with pitchforks and letters and had this taken care of. 

It’s a pretty house, in the average ‘McMansion sort of way.’ The had a set of traditional French doors but have since replaced them with a single arched door. When I first saw it, I was smitten. “Look Brad! I love their new door!” I remember yelling. 

Whoever installed the new door carelessly threw the old doors into the yard a mere ten feet from the steps. 

THE DOOR IS STILL THERE TODAY. IN THE YARD, GRASS GROWN UP AROUND IT AND MOST LIKELY DEAD UNDERNEATH. 

How long ago did they get this new door? 

NOVEMBER OF 2011. Yes, we are approaching the 1 year mark of a nice house having a door in its front yard. 

This is a house that is probably valued at $300,000-$400,000 and they have garbage in their yard. They have landscapers who come and mow, (around the door, of course). 

What is wrong with these people? I have to wonder what it is. Laziness? A perceived lack of time to dispose of it? A strange attachment to a door that has been removed? A spousal argument resulting in a standstill of ‘you do it’?

I must know. 

So I’m sure it’s happened to the best of us, you met someone at an event or a place or a friend’s house and you heard their name. Either you were drinking, didn’t care or just assumed you’d never see that person again, you let their name slip right out of your head. 

And then it happens, you run into them. Most of the time, you can get by and just nod, you don’t have to say their name. But sometimes, there’s the awkward moment when the people you are with want to know who this person is. And you have to fumble around and either make the obvious move that says, “Hey, I didn’t think you were important enough to remember your name.” or just force the two people to introduce themselves. 

Unfortunately, with the bakery, I have found a new form of hell. 

People walk in and they know me. OBVIOUSLY IT’S ME. NO AWKWARD MOMENT FOR THEM. But for me? I have to

1. Pretend I remember them. Even when I don’t. 

2. Find a clever way to get their name so I can write it on their order form. (The most clever thing I’ve come up with is either getting it off the debit card or saying, “How do you spell yours again” and pray they have a name odd enough that it makes sense. Like Kelli.)

3. Run and hide. (OK, I don’t actually hide. But I might force someone else to try to help them - if anyone else is there. So that I don’t have to be the one to write down their name.)

If you see me do any of these, just smile to yourself and know that I DON’T KNOW YOUR NAME.

The biggest problem is not that I have tons of people who’s names I have forgotten, but there are twitter friends that I would just want to start their names with “@” or customers who have been in so frequently that I really SHOULD know their names by now. And of course, I’m basically just an asshole who doesn’t even try to remember names. No mnemonic devices here, it’s literally a ‘in one ear out the other.’ I don’t even stop to process. It’s like a Charlie Brown moment, when you tell me your name, I here ‘wah way.’

Because I’m an asshole. 

So I’ve always wanted to keep this light-hearted hate as well as stick with topics that are broad enough to reach a wide audience. 

This post flies in the face of all of that. 

I have to talk about something serious.

My dumpster. 

Since I own a business, and this business generates trash, I need a place to put it. And I simply can’t roll a green trash can out to the corner of Cantrell like a home does. No, I have a dumpster. A 4 yard dumpster, to be exact. 

All of the shops here have one (Tazikis has two) and they are in a neat little row hidden behind cute little fences. We hide our garbage around these parts. 

Lately I’ve run into some problems with mine. I opted for a 4 yard dumpster that is emptied once every two weeks, instead of a 2 yard dumpster that is emptied every week. Mostly because if we continue to grow, there is not charge to change to once a week dumping, but there would have been a fee to switch out for a bigger dumpster. 

Clever, I know, you don’t have to tell me. 

The problem is, the little door for my dumpster fell off. And by ‘little door,’ I mean the 9 foot tall wooden slats that were held on by giant metal hinges gave up. So now my dumpster is exposed for all the world to see. 

And therefore leave their garbage. 

Did you know that people will illegally dump garbage in other people’s trash cans? They do. Granted I grew up in Sheridan where we just left it on the side of a dirt road. Anyway. The problem is, I HAVE ENOUGH ROOM FOR MY GARBAGE. I DON’T HAVE SPACE FOR YOURS. SORRY. Had I known you were planning on illegally dumping, I would have left you space and baked you a cake. Said because of that old song, “If I knew you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.” Complete coincidence that I do own a bakery.

But I didn’t and now, incidentally, I have no place for all of these powdered sugar boxes. 

ANOTHER problem with this here garbage disposal unit. The last time they emptied it, they dropped it too close to the back wall of the ‘cute fence’ and now I can’t get the damn lid to close. 

Do you know what it’s done here lately? Meteorologists? Rain. That’s right. 

Do you know what a 4 yard dumpster without a top on it will do? 

HOLD STINKY DUMPSTER WATER. 

You haven’t lived until you’ve splashed yourself with inches of bakery-laden dumpster water. 

Really, you haven’t. 

So if you need me, I’ll be in the shower, never getting clean.

I get it, I get it, I really do. When we are talking about money, you would say the words “Three hundred dollars.” I know, “dollars” is last. So, why do we put the dollar sign BEFORE the numbers? 

I don’t know.

We just do.

So start fucking doing it. 

If I see one more idiot typing “I’ve only got like 5$ until I get paid,” I think my head might explode. And, interestingly enough, I’m sure the reason you only have $5 is because you’re a moron. 

And yes, I can already see those little wheels in your brain moving, “What about francs and Euros? And basically every other country except America?” Yes, yes, in those countries, they do put the symbol after the numbers. 

You’re not French. 

So knock it off. 

I find this phrase particularly obnoxious for several reasons. And you’re here to read why.

First, the whole idea is based on the lazy mans joke. “I’ll say something really obviously wrong, then add a negative to the end.”

If you’re not familiar with it, it goes something like this: 

I love it when it’s 100 degrees outside and my T-shirt sticks to me with sweat. Said no one ever. 

Why don’t they just go back to the classics of sixth grade and end it with ‘Psych!”

I sometimes find myself angry when I finish reading the tweet or facebook update and get to the ‘no one ever’ part. I feel betrayed. I feel pissed. I just wasted a full two to three seconds reading that crap and I can’t get that time back. Thanks a lot. 

I guess my hatred of it also stems from the high rate of people spelling it ‘noone’ instead of ‘no one.’ I of course read this as noon. It’s two words people, just like ‘a lot.’ 

So the next time you try to be funny, remember, this one is about as obnoxious as the ‘Keep Calm and…” minus any catchiness that phrase might have had. 

No, I didn’t misspell ‘pringles;’ those things are the shit. I’m talking ‘prinkles,’ or ‘pre-wrinkles,’ if you will. 

At the ripe old age of 32, I’ve begun to notice that things aren’t quite the way they used to be with this here body of mine. Since opening the bakery, things have actually improved with how most of me looks (or at least in my opinion. The rest of you get to keep yours to yourself. m’kay?) I have muscles in my arms that have never been there before. I’ve lost fat and gained muscle. It’s been a win win all the way around. 

But, the stress, long hours and gobs of coffee and soda I have been consuming have all ganged up on me and invited some new friends. Pre-wrinkles. I don’t have wrinkles, not yet at least. I guess that’s where the pros of having a baby face come in. But I do have these occasional eye crinkles that give me a hint of what’s to come in the future. 

I do not look ‘distinguished.’ 

I do not look ‘mature.’

I do not look ‘interesting.’ 

I look fucking tired. And it’s just not cool. 

Here’s the deal, I don’t really know what you call this, but I’m calling it photo spam. As far as I’m concerned, spam is anything I don’t want to look at or deal with. So I consider this to be spam. 

Have you seen what I’m talking about? Businesses are coercing people into ‘sharing’ their photo with the chance to win the pictured item.

Those clever bastards! I’m not sure if I’m mad because my feed is now FLOODED with photos of ruffled rompers or because I didn’t think to do it with a cupcake. 

Call me a purist, or maybe just naive, but I want people to share my photos because they really like them, not because I’m tempting them with something free. 

I think we might all feel like Facebook has jumped the shark and we’re over it but there’s nowhere else to really go, so we stick around. (Yes, I’m a twitterholic, but there is something to be said for the more static nature of Facebook, where as twitter is more about a specific point in time.) 

The photo spammers take on several different forms. They range from:

The apologetic one-timers. These people will post along with a message “Sorry to post, but I really want to win this!” Usually these are attached to high value prizes like an iPad. I usually let them slide. They know what they have done is wrong but the potential reward is too high. They’re blinded by the shiny light and I can’t exactly blame them. 

to the:

The I Must Have Everything-ers! Man, these guys (although usually gals) are about as lame as the guy at the bar who hits on everyone. It’s all fair game. A new dress? I like it. Rompers? Let me like three! If it’s free, dammit, they will try to win it. And I will hide them all.

As far as I’m concerned, they must be stopped. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss all those damned Some E-cards. 

Rather than my typical rant, I’m going to share portions of a phone conversation that happened recently.

Man: Yes, this is [name] from [daily deal site], I noticed that some of our reps came in there and weren’t able to get you to sign up. What seems to be the problem?

Me: I don’t really want to discount. 

Man: I’m not sure I understand. 

Me: I think that we’re creating a society where people will only buy things when offered a reduced price and I don’t want to contribute to that. 

Man: I understand, but we hand-select our vendors specifically for our audience. We picked you.

Me: I appreciate that, but I’m not interested. 

Man: Who would you say is your ideal customer?

Me: A person who will walk into the bakery and not bat an eyelash at a $340 price tag on a cake. 

Man: Well, {spews a bunch of stats that I don’t remember.}

Me: Awesome. But you’re not listening to me, I still don’t want to give them a discount. I’ve been open 7 months and I’m in the black. I don’t need to discount. I get a fair amount of earned media and haven’t had to pay a penny for advertising yet. 

Man: What’s your cost to obtain a new customer?

Me: I don’t really know. 

Man: You must have some kind of marketing budget, this would simply come from that. 

Me: My marketing is me. I do everything. I have a degree in advertising and a Masters in Business. It doesn’t cost me anything. 

Man: Well I guess I can’t compete with that. Have a good day. 

It took me 7 minutes to convince this guy that I simply wasn’t interested. I never even cursed. That was probably my first mistake. 

So, it finally happened.

My desires to write and have something focused to work on has overcome my desire to not bitch about the bakery. 

Which means, I’m back. If, my other blog, twitter stream, or facebook updates are any indication to what my time will allow, this will be spotty at best, but I hope that you enjoy what little time I can carve out for my misguided anger. 

I hate that I left you, my little minions of hate without anything for us to collectively gripe about. I hate that I’m probably going to have to censor myself more than I have in the past. I hate that I’m going to have to be more creative about my hate. 

But I love that I’m here now.