White Privilege: Being offended about a movie addressing systemic racism instead of actually being offended by systemic racism.

dire-sloth

you should have offered them four 12x12 squares and a bottle of glue

As hilarious as that is…

… we’re out of glue. 

Completely out of glue. The glue slime trend that has swept the middle schools in our area has maxed out all outlets of glue from December 18th to today’s date- February 6th. We keep getting shipments of glue, but they only come in 20-bottle boxes and they are completely gone by the time the weekend is out. Children are buying them by the armful. 

And I would find this cute and honestly amazing that these kiddos are getting their first taste of entrepreneurship (mine was in high school, where I made novelty school ID’s) if it weren’t for the involvement of the parents. 

Because the kids are like ‘aw, you don’t have any? Ok. We’ll try somewhere else- thank you! Where’s your glitter?’

The parents… oh gods the parents. 

Calling us up at 9am- “What do you MEAN you don’t have any glue!? ITS A BASIC CRAFT ITEM! YOU HAVE TO HAVE GLUE!”

“You’re telling me that you DON’T CARRY GLUE?”

“I’m calling your corporate office to tell them just how wholly unprepared you all are because this is the fourth store I’ve called and NONE of you have any glue.”

“Can I pre-order? What do you MEAN I have to order from the website?”

“When will you be getting more? You don’t KNOW! HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW!? Two weeks at the EARLIEST!?”

“Can you call me when you get some? YOU CAN’T EVEN CALL ME WHEN YOU GET IT IN?”

I once caught one of our framers taking a call like these and I saw her re-inact Winona Ryder’s entire range of facial expressions a la SAG awards, eventually ending in her left eye going slightly wall when the angry parent finally hung up. 

And there are some that call every single day, asking the same questions and hoping that they’ll get a different answer. But no. I’m sorry. The Glue Fairy didn’t make a surprise visit last night. We did not plant the glue seeds in time for the harvest and now there is a glue famine. The small child that we sent to fetch more glue has been captured by witches- who are now intent on raising her as their own and we wish them luck. 

One day, my brother will have children and they will ask me about the Glue Famine of 2017 and I will recall a very specific instance wherein I could feel flecks of spittle coming through the end of the phone. 

One day I shall die and a team of necromancers will raise me from my crumbling sarcophagus and the very first words from my revived, husk of a maw will be ‘WE ARE STILL OUT OF GLUE, CRETINOUS FILTH!’

And this is how I knew that 2017 was going to be a bad year. Retail-mancy: I divine the fall of our nation by the fact that we are perpetually out of basic adhesives. And its not the children that buy them that make it a problem, but the parents who imagine that we somehow have control over the entire damn glue industry. 

Here. Buy that shit online and teach your children the benefits of buying bulk, because apparently it’s too late for the fucking adults, if my previous encounters with adult entrepreneurs is any indication. 

Need I remind you that this is what our glue stock has looked like for the past two months:

We just got some in two days ago and its already gone. 

So you have to imagine the position we’re in here- where we’re advertising glue that does not exist for more than three days every two to four weeks because of these tots are hell-bent on selling slime to their sandbox buddies.

 We’re not selling glue. We’re selling the concept of glue. We are selling the desire for glue. We are inspiring others to covet the glue we do not have. The glue is unknowable. It is invisible, intangible, ineffable. One day the glue uprising shall be upon us, and none shall speak its name. 

So like just in case you didn’t get the message-

We are out of glue.

Glue we are out of. 

Out of glue we are.

Not even the first time this has happened, people. People are attempting to build a memorial to the glue that was, and will never be again. The time of glue has passed, we shall remember it fondly. Ashes to ashes, goop to goop. 

so anyhow, my gran sends me a message like “pls put flowers on ur uncle samuel’s grave because he’s gone over a century with none and it will make the ghost mad if he hasn’t already” because my family spends time in europe but never long enough to go all the way to père lachaise and give ya boy samuel jr. his death rites. so im like “ok gran I can do that” bc im a good grandson and you do not fuck with gran she doesn’t DESERVE THAT 

i figure out which plot he’s on and ask someone specifically where you can find uncle samuel jr. and they tell me where and so I arrive at the junction and. 

HE GONE. 

WHERE DID YOU GO UNCLE SAMUEL. 

*celine dion’s smash hit “my heart will go on” playing in the distance*