silly-beggar

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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. 

And for a moment, the balance was restored. We could rebuild! There was enough glue to fill the dozen or so places in its home and have a good amount for the display. Sadly, we were only given a few bottles of clear glue- which is the one that people really want because…. clear slime. But things were looking better!

But little did we know… 

… President’s Day was coming. 

And the children… needed something to do… 

Here is a photo of the display on Saturday morning. 

And here it is on Monday morning:

They have ravaged our glue surplus to 1/10th. The glue that filled its home space is completely gone. I am honestly surprised that the meager 40 bottles we have left are still there, and by the time I finish writing this- they may not be. 

Why would you do this to us, Mr President?

So while we have those 40 bottles, we can at least fend off the screaming parents, but I anticipate that a considerable amount of screaming will have already started by the time I start my shift this afternoon. 

I shall scream as well. 

Well, I came in to work on Wednesday and I found this at our customer service desk:

Look out world- we have the gallons!

People asked for the gallons of glue, they got the gallons of glue. 

There were 20 of them on that endcap. I saw a woman buy three of them at once (and of course she wanted to use a coupon on each and every one of them because ‘gosh- who knew that glue would be so expensive!’ Like… lady- you’re getting this at 20 cents an ounce if you get it without a coupon. It’s not expensive, you’re just a cheapskate.)

By the end of Wednesday, they were all gone. We sold 20 gallons of glue in four hours. People were laying down $60 for glue. I could feel my Great Depression-raised grandpa shaking his head from…. I dunno, probably Purgatory.

Now the entire area knows that we have the glue gallons- the word has spread. But we don’t have them in stock and guess what emotions they have over it! If you guessed ‘anger’ then you’re right! So they do what they’ve always done when they need a literal gallon of glue and there are no gallons of glue to be had: they buy a ton of individual bottles. 

But now knowing that there is an easier way to do this that is yet inaccessible to them fills them with ennui, and as they walk through the store their excitement over their hoard wanes and they put some of it back. 

Now, any person of the retail-worker persuasion will tell you that a customer never puts an item back where they’re supposed to. That would be, frankly, preposterous. So instead, as they lose their grip on their desire for glue, they leave a single bottle where it is most convenient to them- a symbol of their defeat. 

tessa:

Formaldehyde is from the purification of the vaccine. 99.9% of which is removed. The reason it doesn’t give a dosage is the ammount is so minuscule that it can’t be measured without going into picograms. That’s one trillionth of a gram. You breathe in more formaldehyde by driving down a busy road than in a vaccine.

Thimerosal is NOT elemental mercury, It is a molecular compound made up of carbon, hydrogen, mercury, sodium, oxygen, and sulfur. This is used as a preservative for the vaccine. Thimerosal is used in a variety of other things, like tattoo ink, facial creams, nasal sprays. It’s toxic to humans only in fairly large quantities but highly toxic to aquatic born organisms like infectious bacteria. In short, it makes sure you don’t get salmonella from a stray bacteria from the chicken embryos. As for the dosage of the Thimerosal. That is the most laughable point in this post. It says 25 mcg, that’s micrograms, or one millionth of a gram. To put this in perspective, a dollar bill weighs roughly 1 gram, the average human eyelash is around 80-90 micrograms. The box also says that it contains a 5ml (milliliter/cc) vial which leads me to my next point.

I’ve made a guide to the ISU classified difficult steps/turns. For ice dance, the 6 difficult steps/turns are rocker, counter, bracket, choctaw, outside mohawk, and twizzle. For singles/pairs, the 6 difficult steps/turns are rocker, counter, bracket, choctaw, twizzle, and loop. For 3 of the difficult one foot turns (rocker, counter, bracket), I’ve also included examples from each of the 8 entry edges because in my opinion, they are the hardest to tell apart of the steps/turns. This is especially true for rockers and counters since skaters maintain the same entry and exit edge (inside to inside or outside to outside) in both. In singles skating, the direction of the step/turn (clockwise or counter-clockwise) is important because a skater must have 5 types of difficult steps/turns in both directions to achieve level 4 on their step sequence, so I will also separate them by their direction.

Rocker

The skater changes from back to front or front to back, maintaining the same edge (outside to outside or inside to inside). The blade turns in the direction of the entry curve.

Rockers that Rotate Clockwise

RFO-Rocker (RFO to RBO): Elena Ilinykh and Nikita Katsalapov enter on right forward outside edges and exit on right back outside edges. You can also see the ice marks of a rocker in this gif.

LFI-Rocker (LFI to LBI): Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir enter on left forward inside edges and exit on left back inside edges.

RBI-Rocker (RBI to RFI): Scott Moir enters on a right back inside edge and exits on a right forward inside edge. Tessa is doing a LFI-Rocker.

LBO-Rocker (LBO to LFO): Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter enter on left back outside edges and exit on left forward outside edges.

Rockers that Rotate Counter-Clockwise

LFO-Rocker (LFO to LBO): Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir enter on left forward outside edges and exit on left back outside edges.

RFI-Rocker (RFI to RBI): Scott Moir enters on a right forward inside edge and exits on a right back inside edge.

LBI-Rocker (LBI to LFI): Yuzuru Hanyu enters on a left back inside edge and exits on a left forward inside edge.

RBO-Rocker (RBO to RFO): Yuzuru Hanyu enters on a right back outside edge and exits on a right forward outside edge. You can also see the ice mark of a rocker in this gif. 

Counter

The skater changes from back to front or front to back, maintaining the same edge (outside to outside or inside to inside). The blade turns in the direction of the exit curve.

Counters that Rotate Clockwise

LFO-Counter (LFO to LBO): Mikhail Kolyada enters on a left forward outside edge and exits on a left back outside edge.

RFI-Counter (RFI to RBI): Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir enter on right forward inside edges and exit on right back inside edges.

LBI-Counter: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir enter on left back inside edges and exit on left forward inside edges.

RBO-Counter (RBO to RFO): Scott Moir enters on a right back outside edge and exits on a right forward outside edge.

Counters that Rotate Counter-Clockwise

LFI-Counter (LFI to LBI): Tessa Virtue enters on a left forward inside edge and exits on a left back inside edge. Scott is doing a RBI-Counter.

RFO-Counter (RFO to RBO): Scott Moir enters on a right forward outside edge and exits on a right back outside edge.

LBO-Counter (LBO to LFO): Yuzuru Hanyu enters on a left back outside edge and exits on a left forward outside edge. This is also his entry to his triple axel and the “back counter” entry to make the axel look as if it “came out of nowhere” that skaters do, since counter-clockwise jumpers take off for the axel from a left forward outside edge.

RBI-Counter (RBI to RFI): Tessa Virtue enters on a right back inside edge and exits on a right forward inside edge.

Bracket

The skater changes both direction (front to back or back to front) and edge (inside to outside or outside to inside) and the blade turns in the opposite direction of the overall turn.

Brackets that Rotate Clockwise

LFO-Bracket (LFO to LBI): Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir enter on left forward outside edges and exit on left back inside edges.

RFI-Bracket (RFI to RBO): Tessa Virtue enters on a right forward inside edge and exits on a right back outside edge.

LBI-Bracket (LBI to LFO): Lorraine McNamara and Quinn Carpenter enter on left back inside edges and exit on left forward outside edges.

RBO-Bracket (RBO to RFI): Michael Parsons enters on a right back outside edge and exits on a right forward inside edge. Rachel is doing a RFI-Bracket.

Brackets that Rotate Counter-Clockwise

LFI-Bracket (LFI to LBO): Mikhail Kolyada enters on a left forward inside edge and exits on a left back outside edge.

RFO-Bracket (RFO to RBI): Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir enter on right forward outside edges and exit on right back inside edges.

RBI-Bracket (RBI to RFO): Nikita Katsalapov enters on a right back inside edge and exits on right forward outside edge. Vika is doing a LFI-Bracket.

LBO-Bracket (LBO to LFI): Quinn Carpenter enters on a left back outside edge and exits on a left forward inside edge.

Choctaw

The skater changes feet (left to right or right to left), direction (back to front or front to back), and edge (inside to outside or outside to inside).

Rhumba Pattern “Double Choctaw” (Wd-XF-LFI-OpCho, Wd-XB-RBO-ClCho)

Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte enter on left forward inside edges, cross their right foot in front of their left, and exit on right back outside edges in the first Wd-XF-LFI-OpCho (LFI to RBO). On the second Wd-XB-RBO-ClCho (RBO to LFI), they enter on right back outside edges (also the exit edge of the first choctaw), cross their left foot behind their right foot, and exit on left forward inside edges. 

Closed Choctaw

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir do a LFI-XB-Closed Choctaw (LFI to RBO). They enter on left forward inside edges, cross their right feet behind their left, and exit on right back outside edges.

Swing Choctaw

Scott Moir does a LFO-Swing Choctaw (LFO to RBI). He enters on a left forward outside edge, swings his right leg forward, and exits on a right back inside edge. 

Outside Mohawk

The skater changes feet (left to right or right to left) and direction (front to back or back to front), but maintains the same edge (outside to outside). 

Open Mohawk

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir do a RBO-Open Mohawk (RBO to LFO). They enter on right back outside edges and exit on left forward outside edges. 

Closed Mohawk

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir do a LFO-Swing Closed Mohawk (LFO to RBO). They enter on left forward outside edges, swing their right legs forward, and exit on right back outside edges. 

Twizzle

A continuous traveling turn that must not turn into checked three-turns or a pirouette 

Clockwise Twizzle

Anastasia Gubanova performs a right back inside twizzle that rotates clockwise.

Counter-Clockwise Twizzle 

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir perform a right forward inside twizzle that rotates counter-clockwise. 

Loop

A turn that maintains the same edge and direction

Clockwise Loop

Anastasia Gubanova performs a left back outside loop that rotates clockwise.

Counter-Clockwise Loop