I was in some suburb where I had to fight off invading aliens to save the locals and after all was said and done, some jackass cop arrested a good friend of mine on trumped up charges. WTF mate?

I battled my way through ninjas to the police department where he was being held. The cop who had arrested him was the corrupt partner of Gordon from ‘Batman Begins’ so already I didn’t like him. Plus he had falsely arrested a friend so I decided that merely getting my friend free wasn’t enough - I had to get this guy fired.

So I provoked him. I started out telling him what a wuss he was, how I’d get my friend off the hook easily and what an insecure guy he must be to want a job where he can boss people around. I continued in this manner for a bit until I got his attention and he started coming after me. I threw a few mugs near but not directly at him for signs of a struggle and started yelling for help. Taking a queue from Tyler Durden, I even threw a few punches on myself, to make it look better. It wasn’t necessary though because I managed to get him so furious that he threw me down against the floor and stabbed me in the leg with an arrow while trying to strangle me. And right then, at our most excellent moment, his boss walked down the hall we were in. More than enough.

So I was feeling pretty good. I mean, it’s better than the usual dreams I’ve been having lately where I assemble desks.

Then I checked the time and it was going on nine. God. Damn.

I jumped in and out of the shower, rode to work furiously, dodging cars and running all the orange and red lights (which was all I managed to hit). The whole way, I was perfecting my excuse that my girlfriend had suffered an allergic reaction and I had gone with her to the hospital at 4am. In my rush to get there, I had forgotten my wallet where I keep the business card with the phone number for work to call them.

Once I was at work, though, I threw out the idea of lying and just told the fucking truth. And it really wasn’t a big deal. I was nervous but Tony didn’t care and when Jeff finally got back from a meeting at Plant 1, he didn’t care that much, either. Just told me not to do it again. So… whatever.

Not counting the fact that I missed the first quarter of the day, time flew today. Every time I’d check the clock it was about time for a break or to go home.

This new girl, Arlene, started on Monday and I finally got to work with her today. Over the past couple days, I had seen her around and she seemed… lazy and bitchy. But I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt because maybe that’s not her. Maybe she’s a hard worker and I just caught her at all the wrong times. Maybe she’s not a bitch.

Nope, turns out she really is all those bad things. Spacing out regularly, not doing work, standing around watching me do stuff she could be helping with. It’s all quite frustrating. But that’s not it. The work she does do is poor. She screws up carefully measured things, and puts screws in at 45 degree angles so they look ugly and stick out.

Then there’s the way she treats others. Apparently in the morning before I got there, she went up to Jonathan, asked him to move over for a second, and then stole the mat he had been using. Didn’t ask or anything, she just took it. In the afternoon, Chris borrowed our roll of paper and when he returned it, he knocked off her purse and Discman from under our work station. She called him over with a bitchy finger and then pointed down to her stuff. Not sure what was wrong, Chris asked and she told him he had knocked her stuff off. Chris was very polite and apologetic but mentioned to her that she shouldn’t be putting her personal stuff on the workstation. Her response was that he should be more careful.

In fact, she was so frustrating that when Marvin pulled her off of work with me and gave me Josh (the annoying, immature 15-year-old) instead, he was a welcome break, for once.

As I came up to King Street after work, I saw a giant billowing cloud of black smoke coming from down Wellington. I biked down to check it out and it was a big fire kitty-corner to a school yard field, now full of onlookers. The smoke was billowing out in giant, thick black clouds and I figured it must be almost over since there were so many people and fire trucks there but it just kept getting worse. I was about a soccer field away from it and could hear the crackle of the fire quite clearly. there were 22 firemen working on it today (they’re still there dousing it now, though it’s supposedly under control) and apparently they had a problem with heat exhaustion. In this hot weather, I’m not at all surprised.

Ryan got an interview and then a job at Heidt today. He’s working at Plant 1, helping with deliveries or something. Starts Monday.

Also, my mother apparently had a stroke or something yesterday and I’m not really sure what to make of that.