I just have to get it off my chest

I know it sounds like all I do is complain about my coworkers, but there really isn't any other place to do this and if I have to say "It's MY blog and I'll write what I want" one more time I am afraid my head just might pop off.

So. There's this chick. You know the type, I bet everyone has one in their office. She's mildly white trash, but is trying hard not to be. She doesn't have me fooled, because I'm really smart, but I am not sure the rest of the staff is on to her. She has sort of a Roseanne-esque air to her (well, not as much as her mom does, and I know her mom, as she was once my client) (and that's the only hint you get) that makes me think there probably was a time when she sent the phone bill check to the electric company and the electric bill check to the phone company in a weak attempt to not have to pay either bill for another week or two. EVERYthing bad happens to her, and by cracky it's never her fault.

Today we were having a not-at-all-heated discussion about families and God and religion sort of, and after two people in the discussion said we were raised Catholic, she pipes up with: I hate Catholics. Well. Okay, to each his or her own. I don't think she meant that she hated me and the other Catholic in the room (and after all, I'm a recovering Catholic so I wonder if I still count), but it was an odd thing to say and you just knew you were less than two seconds away from finding out WHY she hates Catholics. Apparently when (one of? I don't even know)her kid(s?) was born she went to her local Catholic church and told the priest she wanted to baptize him there. The priest asked if she was a practicing Catholic and she said no. She hadn't been to any church (and I think, though I often don't listen, that she might have gone to Catholic church as a kid with her mom, Roseanne) in years but SHE didn't want to get baptized, she wanted the kid to be baptized. The priest told her, okay, we'll baptize the kid but you have to go to church. Apparently the question also came up about Godparents, and she said that the two people she chose to be Godparents to the kid also were neither a) practicing nor b) Catholics. She said, He told me I have to have two strangers be the Godparents! Turns out he was just suggesting that Godparents are supposed to commit to raise the kid, in the untimely death of their single parent, IN THE CHURCH. So it would stand to reason that he would want said Godparents to be practicing Catholics. I can only imagine that what happened next in real life was that the priest looked at her like she was crazy and either just turned around and walked away or asked her politely to leave. That would make perfect sense to me.

So I asked her, after she was done explaining the story and looking at us incredulously, Why did you want the baby baptized if you don't go to church and it doesn't sound like you have any intention of going to church? Least of all the Catholic church? She said it was because the kid's father's family was "real live Catholic" from Puerto Rico, and they demanded the kid be baptized. Not the father of the kid, but the family. I tried to calmly reason with her that of course the priest wouldn't baptize the kid - in the Catholic church they kinda want you to commit a little. I told her she should have just gone Christian - most of those places will take anyone they can get. She said she went to the Catholic church the next town over and they refused to baptize the kid too. I told her she should have just agreed to everything the priest said and promised to take the kid to church if she was so hell-bent on baptizing a kid into a religion she had no interest in, and her answer was Well, then I went to five OTHER Catholic churches and THEY wouldn't do it either! Well of course you did. Therefore the Catholic church is bad. I told her, Hey, man, I'm in recovery, so I don't need to defend the church, but rules are rules in most organized religions. So if you don't believe in it, then why be a hypocrite and baptize the baby in the first place? No answer and the conversation died, but not before the rest of the people in the discussion slowly slunk back to their offices to get away from the absurdity. I went out and smoked.

So it's a long example, but in the course of my time here, chick has called in sick five days in 2 1/2 weeks. That ALONE annoys the piss out of me. And her kid (now a teenager) is a troublemaker (but it's the school's fault) and goes to bed at all hours of the early morning (I know this because she comes in and tells us all about how she was in bed sick and sleeping at 1am and the kid storms into her bedroom and turns on the TV because his broke or something) and has no discipline and is on all sorts of crazy meds and she probably "raised" him to be a complete wreck of a non-contributing-to-society-in-ANY-productive-way-EVER human being and it's EVERYone else's fault but hers. Plus she hangs out with people who just AREN'T NORMAL - one good friend of hers was living with some chick who decided one day to be pregnant with triplets but never let him come to the doctor with her and got like 9 months into this triplet pregnancy, had the baby shower and got a fuck-load of baby-related gifts, and even WENT TO THE HOSPITAL IN "LABOR" and when the doctor came out he said, Um, your girlfriend isn't pregnant and never was. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?? I mean, this is the kind of crazy shit that is NORMAL in this chick's life! What in the holy hell are they DOING over there in Scappoose??

It's frustrating because you can't have a normal conversation about your colorist and stylist or where you bought your handbag because she always pipes in with some white-trash comment about knitting her last pair of shoes or something fucked up like that. She's a nice enough girl but for God's sake.

So this reads like a really snobby rant but I had to get it off my chest and it's MY blog and I'll write what I want.

Woops, there went my head.