Downers, Sandbags, Sunburns and Geurilla Hotel Hijinks

A little bit of turdy news to start. I’ve managed to squeeze every bit of juice out of my digital camera battery, and to add insult to injury – I’ve misplaced the battery charger for my digital camera. This comes as no surprise as I lose my keys and cellphone no fewer than three times a day. So, I’ve got almost a week’s worth of freshly completed missions to tell you about and unfortunately, no pictures. Dang.

Good news: I ordered a new battery charger after ripping apart my bedroom last night, so if Amazon and the USPS stay on their A-game, I should have a replacement very soon. In the meantime, scant mission photos for the week. And it didn’t occur to me until AFTER I ordered the replacement charger that I could have picked up a battery to tide me over in the meantime. Double-dang. Moving on.

So…it seems I’ve been picking up many more odd jobs than I’ve actually had time to write about this week, so for the sake of an update…and for the sake of brevity, here’s a short list of missions accomplished from the past week:

Mission 2:

Codename: Flyer Flinger

Mission Description:

Traipse around Oakhurst and East Atlanta with a hefty supply of promotional door hanger flyers for FitWit fitness boot camp. Hang the flyers on everyone’s door until supplies are exhausted and in the meantime, hope to high Heaven that I didn’t encounter any lunatics with firearms screaming “Get off mah prop’ty!” Luckily, this was not the case. But being from South Alabama, I had no choice but to remain on high alert and above all else – move quickly.  In the middle of the sweltering heat. And jeans. And sans-sunscreen.

Mission accomplished.

What I Learned:

Be kind to Jehovah’s Witnesses. And always wear sunscreen. Oh, and if you’re pissed every time you come home to your door jamb stuffed with Dawa and Burger Win menus, calm down. Believe me. You couldn’t possibly hate having a menu jammed in your doorway more than the person who jammed it there hates their job. Just saying.

Mission 3:

Codename: Sandbagger

Mission Description:

This mission consisted of measuring out 30-35 lbs of sand to be split between 2 bags, then put into a larger, more durable bag for use in exercise drills by female FitWit campers. This mission was an exercise in tedium and with a side of depression, as I had to stare at my weight on a scale like, 50 times.

I had take the bags to a scale, stand on the scale repeatedly with sandbags in-hand to verify the proper weight. Subtract the weight of the sandbags from my weight, then add or subtract handfuls of sand until the proper weights were attained. When the weights were accurate, the bags then had to be tied and duct-taped, then double-bagged and double-tied, then double-duct-taped, then triple-bagged and triple-tied and triple duct-taped. Oh yeah. Then I had to pick them up and lug them into the storage building.

So yeah, this is me now.

Mission accomplished.

What I Learned:
Staring at your weight 50 times doesn’t necessarily follow the law of diminishing returns. It pretty much blows each and every time.

Mission 4:

Codename: Closet Cleanser aka Trip C’s

Mission Description:

This was a fairly simple mission. I traveled to a woman named Kim’s house and helped her purge her closet. Kim is an incredible mother of two with a couple of awesome dogs and a really sweet (but treat obsessed) cat. During the course of 2 hours, we ripped everything out of her closet, created a sell pile, a give-away pile and keep pile. She tried everything on. Based on fit, style and use, we managed to whittle down the good from the bad and ugly.

In the meantime, her cat ripped into a grocery bag and tore open and gorged on a bag of cat treats. He also puked on the table adjacent to the damage. Substitute the cat for me in college, the bag of treats for a McDonald’s bag containing a Filet o’ Fish and fries, and the table for my bed- and there we have a perfect tableau depicting my college experience.

At the end of our time together, Kim had an excuse to go shopping. She was officially down to 13 usable pieces of clothing, less than 1/3 of the pairs of shoes she had before and seriously pared-down collection of handbags.

Bonus: During the elimination process, she also found a more than suitable dress for the EAV Zombie Prom!

Mission accomplished.

What I Learned:
Sometimes the buddy system is all you need to purge. Or, if you’re a cat…you just need a bunch of treats. And maybe a puke plate. Hork hork hork.

Mission 5:

Codename: Security Breach aka the Omni Cock-Block

Mission Description:

For now, this mission description remains classified. But here’s a teaser:

Dude, we got so busted at the Omni….

Coming soon: Mission Codename: Milky Chunklet and Mission Codename: Frank. Stay tuned.