Good Omens

[radiumgirl]

 I generally fear my mailbox. I rarely get fun mail. The coupon bundle is the highlight of my week.  Seriously.

Today's mail? Today's mail was awesome.

Two things have been causing me angst lately: the impending verdict of my application for an income-based payment plan for my student loans and news of whether or not I was rehired by Adventureland for the 2011 season.

The student loan wait was reaching ulcer-levels of panic because I applied for the revised payment plan in January and my first payment was due at the end of this month and I wasn't going to have it. Or, rather, I would have the payment, but I'd find myself evicted from my apartment and facing repossession of my car.

But guess what? I was approved. \o/

The Adventureland dilemma wasn't as nauseating because it's not like I don't have a job, and I'm not quitting my temping gig to go back to the park full-time anyway because I practically double my hourly wage over at the Evil Empire, but it would have been nice to have the extra cash, right? Right.

I tend to bite my nails every year before the rehire letters go out because I've come to realize that I'm a rather divisive figure in park mythology. The people who love me love me and the people who hate me really fucking hate me and there are very few people who simply whatever me. And last year, in particular, I may have gotten a little cheeky towards the end of the season, under the impression that I would score a "real" job right out of college and have no need for summer work.

I mean, I didn't tell my boss to fuck off to his face and I didn't kill anyone (you laugh but you haven't met my charges from my last season as a ride manager...none of them were fit to tie their shoes, let alone operate heavy machinery) but I'd show up to work with a shorter-than-regulation skirt, or I'd prank call the switchboard operator and everyone does these things, but I tend to get caught, and flaunt it, because I'm a rockstar immature.

I even called Gabe because I was worried and he hangs out with the hiring manager and I wanted him to do some spywork for me. Gabe was like, "Of course you'll be hired back. You're one of the most experienced workers in the park and your teams love you every year."

"They love me because I don't enforce time limits on breaks and they think it's funny when I come to work hungover."

"Well...you never killed anyone."

Thanks, Gabe. You're a pal. And you have nice abs.

Whatever. I got hired back. Guest Services, bitches.



















Hey switchboard, is your refrigerator running?

Comments

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

My notifications have been reinstated, wheeee.

At least you can roll in hungover and not have to worry about heavy machinery. I do think highly of you, honesty. ;)

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Whee!

Oh god, Guest Services sucks so bad when you're hungover. Like, you'd think the rides would be bad because you have to move around and think and not kill people...but the thing is...most people understand the concept of said right and don't need much instruction regarding how to get on it, what not to do, etc. So, you can totally get away with pretty much just grunting at people.

Guest Services is the information hub of the park. You have to talk to people. You have to answer their freaking stupid questions. You have to be polite.

On the plus side though...we have our own bathroom, which makes barfing really convenient.

<3

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

That's very true! I don't think I've ever had a conversation with a ride operator, and even when you smile, say "thanks", whatever... they just... stare.... blankly... I'm sure it is mind-numbing work, but c'mon.

Did you try to convince Owen to take up a weekend job at the park? ;-)

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

It CAN be mind-numbing. It really depends on which ride you're at and, for me at least, how awesome your co-workers are. I did a stint in Kiddieland and hated my life because the rides are lame and everyone is miserable. I LOVED working at the RolloCoaster because it was more fast-paced and the team members were really fun and silly. We would play chicken when the train came into the station. We'd all line up at the very edge of the platform and see who jumped forward first when the train came in.

Owen would stab himself in the jugular before he went back to the park. He never got on fun teams. One year, he got assigned to Confusion Hill, which is this redneck themed funhouse, and he'd have to give tours in a fake southern accent. He was so unhappy. Haha. Aw.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Although the southern accent thing does sound hilarious, I can imagine that it'd suck. I would never do that, I'm too shy! Heh, well, I say shy... when I'm at work, I'm fine. But I'd never be able to put on an accent. Never, ever . I bet that's where you met him; you thought he was a redneck and fell in love. Teehee.

I wanna go themepark-ing now. There aren't many near me, and it's sad.

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Owen isn't shy...but he likes to pretend he has dignity, and southern accents are beneath him. Or something.

NO. NO REDNECKS EVER. (Although, I have a soft spot for Owen's "Yinzer" routine.)

I looooove amusement parks. Pennsylvania has more amusement parks than any other state (I looked it up because I'm a dork) and I can think of four that are within an hour's drive from my apartment. I usually just go to the ones that are affiliated with my park because I can get in for free...but its nice to know they're there.

There's only one near Kalamazoo though. SAD.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Hehe, okay, no rednecks for you.

We don't have many in England that are actually "good". I went somewhere with my family last year and the best they had was a pirate ship, and even that we were sharing with six year olds. It's terrible, really. They're really expensive too (£30 sometimes!), so yeah, getting in for free sounds great!

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, no, parks are expensive here too. One of the reasons I wanted to go back to Adventureland (aside from the, you know, PAYCHECK) was for the free pass. I think our park is actually pretty reasonable. It' s around $30, but we have a waterpark adjacent to the theme park, so it's like two parks for one price.

The other park is more expensive though. It's bigger and it has better rides, so I usually go there (and I won't get roped into working on my day off) and it's like, $55. If I actually had to pay that, it would not be happening.

One of our coasters actually came from a UK amusement park! The Wild Mouse. We bought it from Alton Towers, like, a billion years ago, but it's easily our most popular ride. People get so mad when it's not operating. I loooooved working at the Mouse. Aw. *flail*

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Alton Towers is about an hour away from me and I've been there a couple of times. The only problem with it is last time I went, I queued for an hour each for the two biggest rides. It got a little tedious, especially in the hot sun! It's all in the spirit, I know, but some of the smaller rides I got on within five minutes so it was frustrating.

I'm just in the hair salon with my sister, she got her hair done by ms smelly fingers. I am so mature, heh.

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

You've been there! Yay! Kennywood gets like that, with the crazy lines. I once waited an hour and a half to ride the Exterminator. I'm so impatient, it's terrible.

I'll have to drag you there, in between the food and the drunk truckers and the skeevy hotels. (We better score some exceptionally well-paying jobs, heh.)

My park gets insanely busy depending on the day, but it's rarely as packed as Kennywood. We don't have as many big rides, but we're HISTORICAL. And pretty. I occasionally nag Owen that we should totally get married at the park. It would be cute, because we met there, and in the middle of the summer when all the trees are blooming, it's so pretty, and alot of our buildings are original. The original picnic pavilion is my favorite. It was built in like, 1898 or something, and it's HUGE, with hardwood flooring (all the newer ones are cement or dirt) and high ceilings with lions and flowers carved into the woodwork.

OH GOD AND IT WAS SO CUTE THIS SUMMER! THIS SUMMER! There was 65th wedding anniversary going on up there, and the couple's daughter brought us cake because we had to shuffle pavilions around to accomodate them because they OMG HAD TO HAVE THAT ONE and it had been booked and they were adamant and yeah, HEADACHE, and she felt kinda bad. So, she brought us cake (amazing awesome cake with raspberries inside omg mmmm) and told us about why that pavilion was so important.

It turns out her parents totally met there during a dance for soldiers getting sent to Europe for the war, the very last dance to be held there because the park closed for awhile due to rationing, and they hit it off and her dad got shipped out, but they wrote letters to each other the whole time and when he came back they got married, and she showed us a snapshot of a bunch of soldiers and chicks IN the pavilion during the dance and pointed out her parents and OMG IT WAS LIKE OUT OF A MOVIE. A MOVIE.

And the most amusing thing about G-serv is that it's staffed entirely by women, except for our supervisor. So we were all like, "AWWW OMG AWWW" and he was in his office like, "I hate estrogen. Gimme some cake."

Eeew smelly fingers. DNW.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, they set the lines out so you think it's quite short; then you start waiting and realise that it winds and bend and doubles back on itself so it's insanely long. *Head shake of disapproval*

Historical and pretty is good. They could totally film a SPN episode at a theme park; Dean get sick on the rides. It would be awesome.

It sounds lovely though, my University was really historical and red-brick and pretty. I liked sitting in the main square in the summer where we have a huge clock tower and nice buildings. People would leave "free books" under trees and the guys would play frisbee whilst the girls sat around eating lunch and chatting. I'm going to miss it heaps. It's funny 'cause I used to hate making the hour-long commute up there, seeing as I didn't move away just lived at home, but now it's not necessary... I want to go!

The wedding anniversary sounds adorable. And cake! Mm.. cake. It does totally sound like a movie. You should write a novel with those two people in mind. It'd be sweet.

At my work I used to be behind the tills with all girls and just one guy, and it was awesome because we used to be silly and make jokes and it was awesome. The other girls left for uni, and now... now it's just me and a bunch of guys. They talk about football and leave me to serve the customers when it's quiet. Guys, that's not how you should treat women! Sheesh.

I'm trying to think of any particularly sweet incidents at work... hm... a couple of weeks ago I saw a tiny, tiny baby. I asked the Dad how old she was and he said six days. Six days old! That's ridiculous and so adorable! I felt like I'd been a part of a new generation, baha. As for crazy stories, I have plenty.

I once was approached at the till by a police officer an an apprehended criminal of sorts. He was forced to get a refund on a huge carving knife because apparently he has a history of mental problems and the police/security guards feared for his use of that knife. He was all shifty and creepy. *Shudder*

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

They could totally film a SPN episode at a theme park; Dean get sick on the rides. It would be awesome.



Yes. Please. Now.

Your campus sounds pretty! Free books would make me really happy. We have a grove of oak trees in the middle of the original part of campus called the Oak Grove because we are so original. It's so pretty though, and there's always something going on there. I never got any free books, but I got free condoms! <3 the student health center. Heh.

I miss school alot too. My brother still goes there and whenever I visit him I'm both happy and completely devastated. Even things that drove me nuts when I lived there seem so quaint and wonderful now. Aw.

Heee...I wrote a story about an amusement park called "Dreamland" when I was still in undergrad. I got to present it at a conference and I'm ever so slowly working on editing it and expanding it into a novel. I love it, and it draws on SO MUCH of my Adventureland experience, and I feel like it could be really epic if I ever get it to where I want it. Right now, it's very rough and I feel like I got in over my head when I initially wrote it. I wanted it to be this, like, defining piece of American literature...but I was twenty years old, so it was just...alot to chew. I tried to make the park itself a character. The story started in 1905 when this Polish immigrant working in a steel mill in Pittsburgh, and he's a little bit sad because he came to America with his Big Dreams and he saw Coney Island and thought everything was going to be great and then he got stuck working this crappy job. So, he wins a ridiculous amount of money in a card game and opens Dreamland, which basically consists of a fishing pond and a piece of crap carousel that he bought for cheap and repainted himself and blah blah blah.

ANYWAY. The park takes off and he gets his big shiny American Dream. Sort've. I mean, he still dies all broken and miserable and sad because I'm a serial killer when it comes to my characters and Sam Winchester because he has these twin sons, and one son is amazing and wonderful and good and the other is just...I mean he has good intentions, but he's a screw-up.

The Great War comes along. The boys go to France. Only one boy comes back. It wasn't the one Daddy was hoping for.

But, yeah, it pretty much continued on like that with BIG THEMES about family and fate and it traced big events in history and how they impacted society and the family and the park and I still think it could be the greatest thing ever written...with alot of work.

BUT I TOTALLY HAVE A WORLD WAR II COUPLE IN IT! AWW. ANDREW AND FRANCINE. AWW. THEY WERE MY FAVORITE. And they had such EPIC backstory. Andrew was the not!favored son's son and Francine's aunt had an illegitimate baby with the favored!son (but no one knew about it because she got sent to a home for unwed mothers and was never heard from again) and they were IN LOVE and had relations in the back room of the arcade. AWW. I need to work on this more. These were my babies.

You should kick your guy co-workers butts. Our lone male supervisor likes to lock himself in his office and play fantasy baseball all day, but then we make him clean the bathroom.

Knife!guy sounds really creepy. We never had anything that creepy (but we've totally come close.) That's very unsettling. :( *clings*

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

I don't even think epic is a strong enough word for what you just described. I definitely do think that it's easier to write about something once you'd had the experience yourself. If I wrote about a theme park I would be clueless, but given the challenge to draft a novel on towel-folding? I might just be able to pull together romance from the threads of a pima towel.

I want to say so much about what you wrote right there, about the Polish guy and his life... his sons and his money... but yeah, words elude me. I'm jealous of you, biatch. With your English degree and writing skills. I just stutter through my everyday life and crumble under pressure.

BECAUSE SOCIAL WORK IS TOTALLY THE JOB FOR ME. *FACEPALMX10*

You should totally finish writing it. I'm sure you'd find somebody to be your agent and then publish your life story and this and everything you ever write.

I know you said I shouldn't feed you compliments, but you are quite awesome.

Annnnnd... *clings*! Creepy men are creepy. I do not approve. I do however feel safe at work with our big burly security team, and like... the police... who find it appropriate to walk past my till every hour and look at me.

<3

ALSO

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Consider this a comment fic prompt.

DEAN AND SAM AT ADVENTURELAND.

I give you a month. Write it.

♥

Re: ALSO

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is SO happening.

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

I might just be able to pull together romance from the threads of a pima towel.


Do eeeet! I love when writers make mundane crap seem epic. I once made a comment about how the world seems so much more vibrant after a hangover and my friend, Rooney, yelled at me, "THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM. YOU JUST TURNED YOUR HANGOVER INTO A RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE."

Stuff like that. Yeah. Heee.

I just stutter through my everyday life and crumble under pressure.


No, no, this is me. See, I can write well, but you ask me to function, to, god forbid, answer the phone at work, and I'm completely out of my league.

I'll totally finish writing it one day. It's too close to my heart to ignore it. I let my one boss read it when it was a short story and he said it's like a love letter to our jobs. I did actual research for it. I think I know more about roller coaster break systems than I will ever need to know again in my life.

I think I keep postponing work on it because I feel like it has so much potential that I couldn't possibly do it justice. Nothing I ever write again could possibly live up to it.

*blush* <3

Big burly security teams are awesome. Every night at Guest Services, we get a security escort up to the main office because we have to carry the cash bags with us. I always feel so important being flanked by giant dudes (and a chick!) with pepper spray and batons.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Dude, it is true though; everything looks different when you're drunk! Even Sam and Dean! *drunk!e-strokes the guys*

Just to reiterate that I totally do not have a problem, I totally didn't buy a bottle of cheap Chardonnay earlier with the intention of drinking it with me, myself and I later. I didn't do that. Nuh uh.

Answering the phone is a daunting experience. With writing, say, an e-mail, you can correct mistakes and plan your escape route, but with a telephone call... it's just you and your quick wit. Make or break.

When I was on work placement at a hospital I had to make a phone call to close the assessment of a 93 year old woman. She was 'with it' until the very end, but after surviving major surgery. she contracted hospital-acquired pneumonia - it was a real shame. I had to send condolences to the family in that phone call, and seeing as I'd never, ever done that, I was so scared. But it went well and I grew from it.

Never the less... phone calls... *shudder*

I have to carry cash bags! It's so fun, I think every time we do it we joke about quickly pocketing it all. But once we're officially closed, the only exit is through the reception/security desk and yeah. I'm not that desperate, not yet!

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

I wish I could use email for everything. I'm not good at deflecting phone calls. *whines*

I have no idea how/if I could handle making a condolence call. I'm really crappy at condolences, actually. I used to tutor a mentally challenged man, he was fifty and had the mentality of an eight-year-old, and his father passed away over the course of our sessions, and I was pretty much useless.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

I don't want to do it again! At least not any time soon. I'm sucky with that kind of thing anyway; I didn't cry at either one of my grandparents funerals, but then when our hamster died I bawled my eyes out. I work in strange ways.

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Aww. It's okay.

How was your evening?

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Pretty uneventful - I really haven't done anything at all. I'm just lying in bed now on my laptop listening to the Footloose soundtrack.

What are your plans?

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Pretty uneventful here too. I need to clean my cat's litter box, take the trash out, put laundry away. I might watch some Supernatural before bed. Not sure what season I'm feeling up to though.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Wow, kitty litter. Sounds like a party right there. I had to clean out the goldfish earlier, I know, restrain yourself from being too impressed by my life.

What time is it over there? I still haven't fully figured out the time difference.

[radiumgirl.livejournal.com]

Our lives are so awesome!

It's nine o'clock.

[si-star-x.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah. Everything okay? I think I'm too used to our 500 word comments!

I'll make a note that my 1am = your 9pm. Awesome.