Nix Prized Pig

Though I may just be a simple minded male homo-sapien, it is still beyond my comprehension to how the female mind works. I understand the general workings; eating, sleeping, learning, and wearing white jeans while playing tennis during Tampax commercials, yet most of the behavioral things are still a mystery. While I’m well understanding that the majority of women desire a male counterpart of some sort, it’s become apparent during my years since puberty began that I am apparently not a Grade A product. Now, don’t go on saying “Alejandro, that’s not true!” unless you can give any specific scientific evidence that the following is not faithful to being genuine.

It’s fairly obvious why females (commonly known as “girls”) were not wowed by my appearance by the arguments given in my blog “Fashion By Alejandro,” and the fact that I was a smelly teenager with deplorable self-esteem levels, and my lacking personality. Yet once I entered college I was able to lose most of my previous wardrobes, and gain a crème-filled nugget of self-confidence. This proved only able to attract two certain types of people, insane girls who often didn’t bath and saw me as only a piece of meat on sale at Kroger’s for $2.99 a pound. The other type often found Larry the Cable Guy a rather funny fellow, which is a no-no in many people's books. Then again, these were the kinds of girls who were open about their interest in me, if there were any sane ones they were likely to have kept their mouth closed. Perhaps when God was giving out pheromones he ran out and scraped what he could out of the bottom of the barrel and handed it over, before bringing in a new case.



Working with the public only furthers my grief, not that I particularly like customers, but it might be nice if they accept the fact that I exist, and that I’m not just some fevered-hallucination. Tonight (8-12-2010) I was working in box with my friend David, and was able to have myself a jolly-old time especially since only about ten percent of the population of customers came to my register. I would be sitting behind the possibly bullet proof glass looking out at the line of people who quickly look in my direction then focus themselves back at David. I was largely fine with this, except the fact that none of the people who came over to my window was female, with the exception of pre-pubescent girls, and middle-aged women with their husbands. Has no age appropriate girl got any love for ol’ Alejandro? I know that I am not dashingly good looking, but that doesn’t affect my skill at selling tickets, and counting change, if anything it might make me more effective at those activates.

David even admitted that he was nothing special to look at, though for some reason any girl that was at least mildly attractive came to my window. I know I’m no prized pig, but I’m not so hideous that people won’t even want to purchase tickets from me, perhaps this is the way that Joseph Merrick experienced the world. But then again he didn’t work in a movie theater.



There was one example where a girl and her friend did come up to me, while there weren’t any other customers around and began to purchase a ticket from me. Midway through her sentence David went to his microphone and said “I can help whomever is ready over here.” Towards the girl’s friend, and a couple that walked up during the transaction. Instead of continuing her transaction with me, the girl who was buying a ticket from me, cut herself off, and with great speed stepped over to David’s register leaving me hanging. It’s not like I was going to ask for her number or bust out my accordion and attempt to serenade her. Apparently I was far to unappealing to even give money to, so I was immediately released from her business proceeding.

Despite the fact that I’m almost never out to try and woo women, the way some have looked upon me with such disdain leads me to believe that perhaps I should surrender and go live my life as an ice fisher who hates halibut. Years of being considered as some kind of un-castrated eunuch has made my view of the fairer sex warped and unable to see anything but their disdain for me. Then again maybe all of them are simply turned off by my constant un-trained ukulele playing.

Operation Slip Eater

As I have stated before, I was allotted a handful of electives during my tenure at New Braunfels Middle School, the Olympia of public education. Though the selection wasn’t the most expansive, there was some choice besides the physical education classes. The school included: art, theater, computer science, choir, journalism, computer programming, library science, the list went on for a yard. Being the sedentary child that I was, I never wanted to do something that required a lot of mental thought, nor physical activities, as rolling around the mat in the locker room really took it out of me. So, instead of doing something that might hone my skills, or give me any time of practical or creative skill, I chose to be an office aid.

Essentially I was a gofer, I would walk around the school handing out informational slips, and memos to various classes throughout the school. Besides occasionally letting teachers know to tell one of their students that their dear aunt Ronda had been smashed by an Amtrak, I would also collect attendance slips. My supervisor Ms. Slaughter was the person in charge of keeping track which students would show up to school, and which ones would be liquidated.

So, at some point during my daily hour spent in the front office I would get up and retrieve half of the school’s attendance slips, usually clipped to the outside of the classroom door. Though occasionally the instructor would forget, so I would knock on the door, walk in and ask for them to conduct a headcount, and hand me that foot long piece of green paper. Though there was one teacher, who later became my journalism teacher, who would never remember to do the attendance, like ineffective clockwork he was. Despite the fact that I went all around the school, kicking in doors to tell people to give me the slips, I was able to do it to Mr. Brooks, because there was a particular girl in his class.

Being the unfit, socially awkward kid that I was, I had become infatuated with this girl Danielle the previous year in sixth grade, and she had chosen journalism as one of her electives. So, I would see her through the window, and was unable to enter the room and be blasted by her pheromones which lingered in the air. While the class was happening, a extremely meek knock came at the door, and my chunky face appeared behind the chicken wire lined window.

Besides going on out to deliver and pick up notes across campus, I spent a lot of time just sitting around the front office with nothing to do but stare at the walls. There was another office aid whom I will call Gregory as I don’t recall his real name, so I would talk to him about Dragon Ball Z, and looked at the covers of my Deltora Quest books as I would read them. One of the more odd memories I had of me and Gregory was the fact that we both knew that located in the office, there was a security camera that would record our every move, granted it was when we were sitting at the round table within the office. Then one day the camera was gone, and we pointed it out to the lady who worked the front desk. She completely denied the existence of it ever being there, maybe the government would off her if she exposed their plan to control children by way of permanent records and stale coffee.

Something on the Inside of the Bus!

Nearly all American school children have been forced the experience of having to ride around in those large yellow coffins known as the bus. The joyous time children would have driving along in what was essentially a hallway with wheels, the bumping of the wheel well, and the chipping of teeth on the seat in front of you when the breaks were applied. Over the years I attended public school, there were many a trip where we took the mustard eyesore, whiter it was riding home, or going to some abandoned concrete structure for a field trip.

Though I would sometimes receive a ride home from my parents, I would usually ride the bus home during my elementary school tenure. Though I don’t remember my specific bus driver from second and third grade, but I do vividly recall my driver from fourth and fifth grade, as she was fit to be tied woman both years. I’m not sure if this is her name, but I think she was Miss Maybry, or possibly Mayapple, or at least that that’s what the nametag above the windshield read. Her face was not unlike a melted snow monkey, but that might also be my memoires muddling up the truth, but she wasn’t the nicest lady in the world.

Everyday, at three when the school day was done, we would have to go into the gym to wait for the busses to pass though and let children on. Whenever my bus came along the teachers would usher us out to the bus, where the driver would give us a stone-grimace as we would walk on-board, and hang our heads in shame. Once we were all loaded onto the bus, the door would close, locking us inside the iron rectangle, preventing our freedom to escape. Seeing as we were children, we did feel the need to talk to one another on the ride home, but apparently our volume level was too much for Miss Mayparade.

As we were driving along we would talk, and make some noise, but apparently it was far too much for the driver, as she would slam on the breaks in the middle of traffic and yell at us. So after slamming my head on the metal bar supporting the seat in front of me, I would look up at the blurry vision in front of me and see her face turning back and screaming “Sit down and shut up!” perhaps she always mad because she never got to watch Oprah as it was on while she was working. So, the bus route would take twice as long as she would make us quiet down if our noise level ever got above ten decibels.

Yet, despite her constant shouting and threatening us with garden rakes, she was nice to us on one occasion. It was the Friday before Halloween, and we were all eager to get off the bus, and go home were our parents would yell at us instead. But on that particular day, she would say happy Halloween and give us a zip lock bag full of commercial brand candy. Seeing as we were children, we happily accepted the gift, and went on our merry way, not realizing the fact that this was the same woman who spent most of her days screaming at us, and was likely trying to poison us with her candy. The bus held fifty children that day, only three survived.

Diddly Design

I tend to spend some of my time working on what might call “art” though others, may simply believe to be some kind of hand spasm I had while holding a pencil. Though apparently today, a spasm on paper, or canvas can be considered art, the days have long since past where artists needed to put a great deal of effort into their work to receive some recognition. But now, any stripling with a ratty jacket and a beard can tape some yarn onto a pizza box and call it art.

Though I occasionally doodle, I do it as a hobby, rather than trying to make a career out of it. So, a lot of the time I may just jot something down in a sketch book, then not draw anything again for a week or more. Yet, as a child I would apparently try and fill any empty sheet of paper with some kind of visual representation of my insane imagination. A lot of my work usually consisted of atomically incorrect felines, often wearing sun glasses, because they were in effect “cool cats.” Because when you are a child, a pair of Blues Brothers’ style sunglasses was the definition of what it was to be cool, or perhaps it was just me who believed that.

Anyhow, during elementary school, it seemed that less was emphasized on reading, and more one things being covered in glitter and macaroni, or perhaps I was in the wrong classroom. Whenever we had some free time, I was usually choose to doodle, even doing so on the blank spaces of the practice TAAS test. “What?! A blank space? I’ll remedy that!” sounds like something I may have blurted aloud once I finished that pancake of a test.

On the occasions when we were assigned to draw something, or had the option of drawing something for class, I would nearly wet myself with excitement. My first memory of such an occasion was back in the first grade, when I was attending Memorial Primary in New Braunfels. From what I remember we were supposed to draw some kind of a representation of what people did on their summer vacation. Being the realistic young lad that I was, I choose something rather sensible and mainstream: A cat riding a wave on a surfboard. What else do cats do in the summer?

The picture was fairly basic, two waves, two fish, a towel, a cat, and a mighty happy sun. Like the cat, the sun also sported a pair of sunglasses and had a refreshing drink in his hand. Now, despite the complete lack of any kind of proper depth, or lighting properties, my teacher found a fault with my picture that she decided to bring to my attention. The sun had a brown bottle in his hand, of a refreshing drink, but apparently because I had labeled it as Beer, I had offended everyone in the entire school, and brought shame on the heads of my family. She let the fact that a cat was surfing, and wearing sunglasses slide, but horror of horrors! The sun drinking a beer? How dare he!

Seeing as the sun is 4,570,000,000 years old, I’m fairly sure it’s old enough to drink. But alas, I believe I gave up on the battle, and added the addition of the word “root” to the bottle, allowing for my classmates continuing their non-alcoholic ways for at least another ten years. How was I to know what Sol was a member of AA, and had been trying to stay sober for the last two epochs?


Surely, not even all of Rembrandt's work combined could compare to this.

Elipse Absurdity and a Raging Redhead

As currently I am largely given box office shifts at work, I happen to have to deal with a lot of the crazies that come up to expel their pointless flap at me through a sheet of glass. Though sometimes I get the pleasure of witnessing someone throw a hissy fit without their anger being directed at me. Last Sunday (8-1-2010) I was in the box office with Ricky and Miss Bow, so thankfully I knew I wouldn’t be completely bored to death during my six hour shift.
Occasionally customers will pre-order their tickets, usually when they are buying a large amount of tickets, or for a movie that is expecting to sell out on it’s opening weekend. While working box with me Ricky had a customer, a blonde woman wearing a white blouse, she had apparently pre-ordered tickets for Eclipse, and wanted to redeem them to see the movie. She flipped Ricky her credit card so that he could put it through the machine, and print the tickets, as flying platypus jumping out of the machine isn’t likely to happen. And that way…was no different. Though strangely enough, the card did not work, as a message reading “No Transaction Found” appeared on the screen when the card was swiped.
Ricky told the blonde lady that apparently the card was not the one that she used to pay for her tickets with. She took this to be some kind of strike against her, and began to yell at him for what was obviously his attempt to publicly humiliate her in front of the absent customers behind her. Following this she went inside and knocked at the door, and Ricky went to open the door without checking the peep-hole. As he opened the door the woman began ranting at Miss Bow who stood by wishing for psychic powers, so that the lady would blow up. We closed the door on her, and barricaded ourselves inside the box offices as if he were under attack by sasquatches from the future. Eventually the blonde woman found her ticket conformation code, and we put it in the machine, waiting for a dingy-load of tickets to come up. Alas only one ticket popped up, leaving us very disappointed.


Despite my obviously angry and gladiator-like exterior, I don’t try and get myself into fights with most people, seeing as they would instantly lose once I showed them my incredible kung-fu grip. Recently, Linzie; a colleague of mine returned from an extensive trip of a certain boot shaped country located in the soft underbelly of Europe. Though we aren’t the closest of friends, we aren’t above saying “hello” to one another in passing, or perhaps we were. As for a long time we would simply open our eyes wide as we passes one another in the hallway, as though we had just seen something rather shocking.
On one of her first days back working Stateside I was in the box office changing the movie times, when my manager Chris walked in, followed by Linzie. We had gotten to chatting while I was going through the plastic rectangles in a fastidious fashion, and replacing the now outdated show times for movies. At some point of the conversation I had mentioned that Linzie’s hair was the same color as a well known citrus fruit, this was my undoing. She flew into a rage, and gingerly (pun) picked up a local screwdriver and reeled it back to strike me down into the ground. I bravely cowered in fear as she stood above me with a flat head, ready to hack my ineffective brain all over the floor, while Chris stood back and laughed.
I’m not sure how I survived, perhaps she felt I was too pathetic to kill, or just not good sport. Whatever it was she learned in me a lesson I shant soon forget. Unless I do.

Fashion by Alejandro

My own personal style has never caught on among the public, it has thankfully become lass garish over time, though it’s far from high fashion. I divide up my choice of clothes into three separate categories, each of which last a few years. The first I call “Hawaiian Workman,” the second “Marmy Pan,” and the third and current style is “Crapabilly.” Now I shall bestow to you a description of each of these three stages of my clothing choices.

Phase 1: Hawaiian Workman, 2001-2003

When first entering puberty, I had no sense of being any kind of attractive to the opposite gender, and never really seemed to worry about it for the first few years. Perhaps my subconscious knew that there was no possible way I would be desirable to girls, as my personal bathing habits were far from nominal.
Mercifully the only photographic evidence of this stage is that from my eight grade yearbook, where I look not unlike a Belgian lesbian. Every day I went to school wearing garish button up shirts, usually with a pattern featuring palm trees, or faux Chinese lettering, as all cool kids dressed this way. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used Jimmy Buffett as my example of how a man should dress. Besides the fabulously smelly nerd shirts, I also equipped some cheap denim jeans, and work boots on a daily basis. What woman wouldn’t swoon at my presence?

Phase 2: Marmy Pan, 2003-2007
Though my high school required me to wear a uniform, I still had my own personal vogue which I wore on the weekends. I had emerged from my Hawaiian shirt and work boots, and slipped into an endless closet of black shirts and cargo pants, with Chuck Taylors that looked bad with any color. Perhaps I believed that if I wore clothes vaguely similar to what GIs wear, I might obtain some kind of physical prowess, or even some dignity. As well all know, that was not the case. My lack of physical activity and combat training would have led me to instantly wet myself and spaz-out across the battle field, leading to some interesting psychological warfare. Not only did I wear cargo pants, but ill fitting cargo pants, which were either too long, or high waters, so I looked a fool no matter what the occasion. This was also the point in life, where I refused to wear blue jeans, perhaps I found them to be bourgeois or something.

Phase 3: Crapabilly 2008-now
After my first semester in college, I lost forty something pounds, rendering my previous line of clothing to be more useless than a can opener in the frozen food isle. So, as opposed to continuing my use of pockets on my lower thighs, I found another person in which to emulate my dressing abilities; Josh Homme. The front man of Queens of the Stone Age was never my favorite as he was to my friend James, but I did think his post-modern rockabilly look was much better than my parachute pants. Though I bypassed the sleeveless shirt action, I did find an affinity for pearl snap buttons, which made my arms looks like they contain more than tapioca pudding, and the torso shape, which makes a mild attempt at hiding my love handles. So, as I venture onward through life, it's unknown how I will dress. Though I'm fairly sure I won't follow Lady GaGa's example, despite the fact she wrote that song about me.