Karin Logic on: marathons

The Zombie Dash

I have this wonderful friend, Becca. We’ve known each other for a very very long time (we generally don’t add a number to the length of time we’ve known each other as that makes us feel old) and share many memories. Basically it’s:

Becca enjoys doing great things like walking her dog, going to school and also crazy things like marathon running and exercise. Recently we had a discussion about a marathon (or large group gathering of people running…) called “The Warrior Dash”. I don’t quite know what was going on in it other than lots of strangers running towards a common goal which apparently somehow segues into much fun being had by all. Usually the fun takes the form of placement ribbons and fun pictures and high fives:

Apparently they’re contemplating bringing something to Vancouver called “The Zombie Dash”. I’m sure many of you are very excited at the thought of this coming to our fair city…

YOU FOOLS!

You know what the “zombie dash” is a great place for? ZOMBIES. Yes. If you’re being chased by people dressed like zombies, then it’s the perfect spot for real zombies to find victims. That costumed person chewing on that racer’s arm may be a real zombie chewing on a victim, and those screams for help are real!!!

It may be a fact that I have an overactive imagination - however let me explain. If I were a serial killer, I’d go to where people find crazy killing people A OK! So in this case, probably Fright Nights at Playland or something like that! You wouldn’t question a scarily dressed person carrying around a knife covered in blood, right? *I* wouldn’t. I’d assume it was all part of the show.

So if I were running a fun run being chased by “zombies”, I’d assume all the zombies were just actors, right? BUT WHAT IF THEY’RE NOT! They could be zombies disguised as actors pretending to be zombies!!!!!

This is completely logical.

So going down this path of thought, I was thinking about what would happen if someone like myself partook in the wonderous festivity that is the Zombie Dash. I’m assuming it would go something like this:

At this point, my stellar argument skills will visibly bring Becca over to my side of the logic scale….

All fun race bets would now be off! Screw the “safe” ways to kill the “pretend” zombies. It’s them or us! THEM OR US

If it moans, groans, stumbles, lumbers, lurches, crawls, oozes goo, looks dead (or even smells bad…) IT IS GOING DOWN.

And it would end with fun high fives, and photos... most likely mug shots and crime scene photos. But we would win.

And this is why I shouldn’t be allowed to participate in marathons of any kind, especially when zombies are involved.

**please note this blog was entirely not dedicated to getting me out of any kind of marathon…. I love running!!! But not…**

The Day Batman Came to Town

One of the most awesome things in the world is… BATMAN.. On a wonderful day in my youth, the dream of meeting Batman (or a crazy bastard dressed as him…) came to fruition.

One summer my fantastic friends (we’ll call them Friend 1 and Friend 2 because I haven’t had permission to name them…) and I were sitting around and thought “what would make this beautiful day even more great?”. The answer was simple.

BATMAN

Trying to get the real Batman to really come out would be next to impossible, however Friends 1 and 2 had pre-planned this event and came supplied with a Batman costume. Unfortunately, this costume was for children 7-10. This was a predicament. We were all 19 at the time. Much older (and larger) than the costume’s recommended age and size, and there was no way we could squeeze into it.

How could this be resolved? Well luckily I had been dating a guy that was a size 6 (LADIES) and really that could be considered a 7-10yr old boy size, right? ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!!!!!

Forcing a small 19 yr old man (boy) into a Batman costume was surprisingly easy… after about 5 minutes, this:

INTO:

So now that we had a moderately passable Batman, we needed to move forward with our summer day’s entertainment. What’s the best thing to do with a grown man dressed in a child’s batman costume that’s boot covers are sticking out the middle of his legs while the rest of his calves and feet stick out the bottom?

MAKE HIM WALK AROUND IN PUBLIC PRETENDING TO BE BATMAN!

So we loaded him into the car, and drove to the mall. Every time we had to stop (red lights, stop signs, etc), we made him lean out the window to speak to the pedestrians.

This resulted in many people huddling on the curb trying not to make eye contact or get close enough to the car to be within “swiping” distance, lest the crazy be contagious.

(Terrified bystanders)

When we got to the mall, the blank stares, awkward silence and whispers followed from the parking lot through the mall. Batman sauntered through the mall, swooshing his cape around, and was asked to not even enter several stores. Apparently a grown (sort of…) man dressed as Batman in the middle of summer walking through fine retail stores is “suspicious”.

We wandered around the mall offering to hold doors open for old ladies, pulling chairs out for people in the food court, and offering to watch children for moms who were trying to go through their purses. By “we” I mean Batman. This too was considered socially unacceptable and we were asked by several people to leave.

The fun would have continued at another public venue, however Batman needed to pee and the only way to get the costume off was to cut it (in an effort to force him into it, we had to tie the back up in knots…).

But this will always be remembered as:

THE DAY BATMAN CAME TO TOWN (and was asked to leave… repeatedly).

Karin Logic on: Sleeping

I often get asked how I sleep. This is a long answer that usually ends in a battle of logic that alas, anyone not Karin will lose.

Starting with… I sleep fully clothed. That’s right, top and bottom, and on most evenings, socks. This can be explained very easily. Sleeping partially or completely unclothed equals:

THE NAKED DREAM!!!!

And NOT the fun kind. This results in showing up at work naked, taking a public bus naked, pretty much any kind of naked that results in super awkward termination of job/social status. Because of this, I go to sleep fully prepared for any event my messed up subconscious may come up with!

You’d think I’d be prepared for bed at this point, but no, I’m really not. I have another mandatory accessory. THE EYE MASK! I require an eye mask to sleep because I’ve found that it’s hard to sleep with any light and I sleep with a light on. At this point, the battle of logic comes in.

Everyone else’s logic: Why the hell do I sleep with a light on if I can’t sleep with any light on??? If I turn the light off, I don’t need an eye mask and can sleep face obstruction free.

My logic: The answer is completely obvious! The things in the dark will get me if the lights are out. Am I too old to be afraid of the dark? Probably! But does that stop me? Hell no. Let me explain through a picture.

It’s true. I do believe that the dark demon monsters travel and stand in V formation. Like Canadian geese, but more fangy.

**Please note: To save myself from writing dark demon monsters over and over, I will be referring to them as DDM from now on**

So the light is left on! You see, the DDM can’t get you when there’s light. It makes them sad.

See? Complete sense. Light goes on, eye mask goes on, DDM go sad, Karin lives to see another day! Regardless of what you can come up with to turn the light out, the fear of the DDM will win out… UNLESS:

The only time I can sleep in complete darkness is when someone else is there. There is a completely logical reason for that. The DDM will go for the other person first, so while they’re eating them I can run off to well lit safety.

What, you can’t see my drawings? Well that’s because the lights are off in it, duh. So although this scenario does have 100% success of me surviving, this is only the case if there is another victim in the dark. If I’m alone in the dark with the DDM, those would be my legs they’re chomping, and I need those legs for things like walking and grocery shopping and driving. I also need them for running off when the DDM have other victims. I will shove my friends down when running from Rottweilers, and also to leave them in my dust when the DDM are there. Can your logic beat that? I think not.

What’s This Crap You Send Me?!?!?!

I work in pest control. I know, it’s full of multi legged excitement. Every day is a new adventure!!!! One of my fun jobs is to respond to the emails that people send. This may seem easy, and in most cases, I’m sure it is. Unfortunately for me, a majority of the emails are requests to ID bugs.

The level of paranoia people have for the potential life threatening bugs that may or may not exist is fucking insane. INSANE. As I am a firm believer in group suffering, I have decided to share with you all a taste of wtf goes on in my wonderous world of bug identification.

The standard request for bug emails is “please provide a CLEAR photo with a coin in it for size reference. Awesome examples of this would be:

For anyone curious the answer is yes, those are in fact, BED BUGS. Not invisible after all! Quite large, and disgusting… the dark splotches inside their tummies would be blood they’re digesting… DELICIOUS

This is a fabric beetle larvae (commonly mistaken for bed bugs). If all photos were this awesome, I wouldn’t have something to write about!

Now to explain what I usually deal with, I’ve saved a few examples. Most of these have very very VERY limited descriptions (if any) along with the request “please identify”. I bring you…

Example 1:

Yes, we can all assume this is a spider. OR CAN WE??? I can only count 3 legs. 3. WTF has 3 legs? And weird knobs shooting out of (the top of?) it. I think at this point, you need to contact the government to report some weird assed species has come into existence in your house… Or take another picture that may actually show what it is. You know, whichever is easier.

Example 2:

That is definitely a penny, and a finger. And… a dark spot? Lint? Food?

**please note after a request for a clearer photo, this ended up being a sow bug**

Example 3:

The penny is clear. 1985 was a good year! (probably). Ohhh that could look like a bug, right? On closer inspection:

No, it’s a blob. A blob that may look like it has legs. Or may not. I never got clarification on this. It may even have been a piece of mouse poop.

Example 4:

A rock? A house infested with rocks? Tiny pebbles of doom? DOOM PEBBLES ARE INFILTRATING THIS LADY’S HOUSE! HOLY HELL VACATE NOWWWWW!!!!

No really, it was actually a drugstore beetle.

Example 5:

This came with no description other than “please identify droppings on left”. This looks like rocks of some kind. Kidney stones? I know of no bug (or rodent) that craps out yellow crystals. This too may be something that needs to be reported to some kind of scientific official.

Examples 6, 7, and 8:

I don’t even have any words for these, which is why they’ve been grouped together in one example disguised as 3 (I’m sneaky like that). I think the one in the middle *may* have been someone’s attempt at showing bed bugs, or it’s an old sandwich.  I’m not going to even try with the ones on the top and bottom.

Either way it’s crap. Unidentifiable crap. I love you, random people that call/email me at work, but please please PLEASE give me something to work with here! Otherwise you’ll end up in my next rant. I may not legally (or morally) be able to name you, but I will have negative feelings towards you and will give stern scowls when reading your email, which could (if karma exists) cause you to rue the day that you emailed me your blur!

WELL! GO ON! START RUING!

The Questions I Get Asked

As I’ve mentioned before, all my stories are true (unless otherwise stated). I’ve decided to compile a list of the most awkwardly weird questions I’ve been asked while working for pest control. I get asked weird things, but this handful takes the cake. And it’s not delicious cake. It’s dry chocolate cake with cheap artificial tasting icing. I’d still eat it anyway because hey, it’s food. But still. I wouldn’t enjoy it. Much.

Question the first:

“If I shower, will it make bed bugs go away?”

Seriously. Someone asked me that. My first thought was, “how dirty are you??”

If bed bugs were that easy, many many companies would be out of a job and bed bugs wouldn’t be the epidemic it is. No, bed bugs do not live on you. Regardless of your hygiene, bed bugs do not live on your body. But to play devil’s advocate I replied, “Hm, I guess it couldn’t hurt to try?” YOU’RE WELCOME, FAMILY OF AN UNSHOWERED BED BUG HOARDER.

Question 2:

“Can you put a coat on my house to keep out the mice?”

HOLY SHIT! WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS!!!!

It makes complete sense to fashion a giant coat for a house, that mice, who chew through PVC piping and drywall, wouldn’t be able to figure out to chew or scratch holes into the fabric and either live in the coat itself, or get into the house. This person may put me out of a job.

Question 3:

Do rats give birth to mice?

… No, seriously… what? Yes. When mice grow up, they want to be a completely different species of rodent and aspire to be a roof rat. There is no such thing as a rat baby, or an adult mouse.

Giraffes also give birth to tigers, didn’t you know?

Really, where do you think the saying “The birds and the bees” came from? Birds+bees=raccoons.

Mother Nature is that much of a weird bitch.

Question 4:

“I see your preparation sheet says you use PCP. Does this mean you will be treating my unit with illegal drugs?”

Which leads to:

Question 5:

“If I return home too early will these drugs make me want to run around naked?”

I… Uh… Wait… What?

What?

What?

Yes. Pest control’s secret plan is to make all people run around naked.

This will distract you from the potential fail of your treatment. We deal with the gangsters in the back alleys to get our huge quantity of PCP and also pay off cops with a poofer of crack a week to keep them at bay.

If pest control really could get people naked that fast, we’d have expanded into other businesses.

I think before I speak (most of the time, and usually just say it anyway). All y’all may want to try it some time. Otherwise you may end up in a story like this, but that person may not be as skilled in stick figures. Think about it.

My Romanian Friend, A tale of... Love?

For a few years I worked for eBay account security. Yes, there really are REAL people like you and me (well, not YOU, but definitely me) responding to those emails and helping in chat. I know. Shocking. Well, that’s a lie. There’s no longer a real person like *ME* there, they outsourced! But there’s a fine person behind those responses (this is me assuming a majority of the people doing that are the people I trained…). As proof here is my photo of me (right) hard at work with my good friend Bessie, wearing our eBay issued security badges. On a completely non Romanian related topic, rumour has it that the lanyards they used for these were recycled… that is potentially dozens of other people’s neck cooties that touched my bare neck skin. Sick.

Other than how stupid people are, I learned a few important things, mostly about Romanians. If you are Romanian, stop reading this. Don’t you have someone to swindle? Emails to send requesting financial support because you’re a king trying to transfer money to America to help the one armed orphans in the ghettos of Hollywood?

**DISCLAIMER 1: I apologize to any Romanians I offend. I am fairly confident there are honest, hard working Romanians that are pleasant people. I just haven’t met you. My (limited) contact with Romanians has been through fraud attempts. **

**DISCLAIMER 2: I also feel the same about Nigerians. If you are Nigerian, please refer to disclaimer 1 and replace the word “Romanian” with “Nigerian”**

This is what I assume a Romanian looks like:

I assume a majority of the accounts stolen by Romanians were stolen by the same person, and every time I talked to a hacker in chat (it happened waaaay more often than people would assume), I was convinced it was indeed my Romanian friend.

I loved my Romanian friend. He made my life so much more entertaining, and was always so predictable. I look back on our first interaction with such fondness. It all started one beautiful evening when he stumbled into my chat. Please note this is all memory script, direct word for word may be a little faulty. I apologize to my Romanian friend if he is reading this and is disappointed that I did not recount our interaction with perfection. I have bolded and changed the colour to all the comments that I KNOW are fact:

Me: Welcome to eBay Account Security, my name is *NAME*, how may I help you?

Vlad (I named him Vlad…): Hi Friend! I no get in my account. Give me password!

Me: I’ll be more than happy to assist you, in order to do that could you please provide your name, address and phone number?

**Vlad provides it… Since the beginning of the chat I know this is a fraudulent fraudster but I still need to go through the account verification steps to give him a slight chance... Maybe the account holder was vacationing in Romania?**

Me: Great! I just need to verify you are in fact the account holder. In order to do that, I need to place a quick verification call to the registered phone number. Are you currently at *registered number, in Texas*?”

Vlad: Friend! No, I next door watching the babies. Can you please call my side house? The number is *Romanian phone number*?

At this point, it’s getting ridiculous. Really Vlad? Really? Because I took geography in high school, and I *KNOW* this is how the USA is laid out:

And here is this Romanian person trying to convince me the world is all:

So the logical request was:

Me: Oh, unfortunately I cannot call another number other than the registered number. Could you please walk next door (or hop the picket fence aka ocean between your COUNTRIES) and answer the phone at your house? I’ll call you now.

Vlad: no no, I here at *Romanian number*. I wait for your call.

At this point, I’ve done other things to occupy my time for a few minutes as the registered owners did not answer the phone so I couldn’t be all like “HI RANDOM AMERICAN! YOUR EBAY ACCOUNT IS STOLED!” (I am aware stoled is not a word, but I choose to use it here). Approximately 5 minutes later:

Vlad: Friend? Friend? Why you no call?

Me: I did call. You no answer.

Vlad: Friend! I is waiting your call!!!!

And then I ended the chat requesting they send us proof of their identity.

This was not my only run in with my friend Vlad. He would constantly come to chat, and almost all opening lines would be, “HI FRIEND!”

Hi Friend. Hi Friend indeed. I miss you, Vlad, my Romanian friend.

My Dream House - a completely true story, although oddly very few people believe that ...

When I was in my early 20s, my father agreed it was time to start looking for a potential home/investment opportunity for me. We discussed budgets and what I would need, and started looking through listings and at homes for sale.

My logic was (and still is…) I am an amazing fixer upper and any slum home can be transformed into a dream home with my magical know how. I assume that I can do carpentry, cosmetic upgrades, and basic plumbing (which as of yet has not been disproven so could be entirely possible!). So this:

Would definitely become this:

After much searching and many duds, I found it - my beautiful, marvellous future palace!

Of course, my dad - well aware of my “I can fix it up real nice!”attitude - requested that one of my trusted friends take a look at this home prior to any attempts at a purchase.

ENTER DEE:

She understood me and knew I had magical non-trained carpentry-plumbing-home reno power. She would COMPLETELY agree with me and I would be one step closer to having my dream slum!

After an excited build up to how amazing my new house was going to be, I took Dee there, so she could see the marvellousness of Karin’s new home.

As we drew closer to the house, Dee started getting fidgety, which I of course assumed meant she was just SO EXCITED to see my new future house (and not concerned at all with the neighbourhood of boarded-up windows and high crime rates).

We pulled up, and sat in the car for a moment so she could really take in the “yard” area of the home:

The pile of garbage (easily disposed of!) was 20 ft or so high, and several feet wide, and blocked the view of the house from the street.

“Karin….”

“No no! It’s ok! That’ll clean right up!”

“…”

So after much convincing, we got out of the car to go around the obstacle course of garbage and high grass with unknown things in it. The lot the house was on had several other small run-down miner houses on it, and no signs of life.

As we were nearing the house, a growl came from the garbage. Dee was only slightly reassured when I determined the growling was not coming from the garbage itself (which was sad, actually, because how cool would that have been! I could have funded my entire home reno by charging the public admission to experience a pile of mutant garbage!) … However, the growling was coming from behind the garbage. And it was MOVING. This was explained when a Rottweiler came stalking from around the side of the trash pile.

“uh… Karin…”

“Just don’t make eye contact, it’ll be fine!!!!!”

So we finally neared the house enough that Dee could see it in all it’s fixer upper glory. A lovely tiny red two floor home, missing front steps, windows boarded up and newspapered, with potential holes in the roof. As I was about to explain the miracle of hammers +duct tape + Karin, another growl rumbled from the other side of the garbage pile.

  

Low and behold, another Rottweiler. At this point, even I was getting nervous. I could shove Dee in the path of one Rottweiler and while it was distracted I would be able to make a break for it… but two? I was beginning to doubt the odds of a safe getaway.

*lest I offend: Inspired by http://www.snorgtees.com/if-zombies-chase-us

“Ok Dee… maybe it is best to get back to the car….”

We turned to make a break for the car, but froze as from behind us a new noise erupted. If it were to be described, it would be as though there were an angry toothless hillbilly stomping across rotten floorboards to kick open a door while wielding an axe. A glance over our shoulders showed us the sound was caused by:

AN ANGRY TOOTHLESS HILLBILLY WHO HAD STOMPED ACROSS ROTTEN FLOOR BOARDS AND KICKED HIS DOOR OPEN WHILE WIELDING AN AXE TO CHASE US FROM HIS GARBAGE PILE!

We ran. At least I ran. I got to the car, got in, got my seat belt on, got the car started, and was still waiting for Dee. For someone who hadn’t wanted to get out of the car in the first place, it sure took her forever to get back to it.  Of course, this is one of the great things about Dee.  If there’s ever a zombie (or axe-wielding hillbilly) apocalypse, I can count on her to be slower than me! But finally Dee managed to join me in the safety of the vehicle, and I floored it out of there, review mirror showing:

As we calmly sped off, I looked over at Dee to inform her, “If this were a zombie movie you’d be completely dead right now…”

Her response was “yeah those are some nice neighbours you have there!”

Needless to say, she did not see the potential of my new home, and my father was not sold on the idea. I should have made a pie chart.

This could have been in my front yard… Thanks, Dee. Thanks a lot.