I'm Ready to Tell the Story Part II

Ok so I talked with my boss and he hooked me up with a sweet schedule

I now go in at noon thirty and get out at 8:30

I still work weekend mornings but I'm out by 2pm

I'm off Monday and Tuesday

so I get off at 2pm on Sun and don't report back to work till noon Wed

sweet

everything was going great

until August

so in a nutshell what I do is quality control of the on air product

if you have picture and sound on CBS in Austin TV then I'm doing my job

well we recently got Telemundo to add to CBS

we had it for a while and I treat it like the red headed stepchild

well one Saturday morning because of an automated issue a paid program (infomercial)went on the air 15 minutes early cutting into Telemundo Sat morning cartoons

I didn't discover this until 15 minutes later

I thought "oh oh" and I dealt with it

next thing I know on Monday I get a call from my boss

he's not yelling but he asks me to come in and talk to him about what happened this weekend

so I did

he sat me down and with the master control supervisor explained what my mistake cost

he said that what happened got the fcc involved and the lawyers and they're knocking on his doors

he explained the seriousness of this issue

he went on to explain that the station is looking at a $10,000.00 fine

I'm not flinching at this point because I'm already picking up the plan from the first time I tried to quit in my head

he then goes on to say "Vince I'm gonna do what I can but this is probably gonna cost you your job."

he then tells me to go with my supervisor and make a timeline of what happened

I do

when explaining what happened I'm already thinking I'm fired so I tell the truth

I tell him I wasn't watching Telemundo

I tell him "I never do"

he just laughed and said well we can't put that down

he then points out some flaws in the way we monitor that station and we leave it at that

I went to ask my boss what do we do now

kinda like "hey Boss, can you fire me now or are you gonna fire me over the phone?"

but he wasn't in the building anymore

so I went home

and like Duper told me once over the phone whenever he got some bad news(sorry Dupes) he said, "well it's still the weekend and I'm gonna go to the pool"

so i enjoyed my days off

but still applied here and there over the past two days

I never got a call from my boss

but I got a call Wednesday from a job telling me they have an opening right when I'm supposed to go into work that day

so I had a decision to make

do I go into work to be fired?
or quit and go to an interview to be hired?

So I call my boss and quit again

he was at lunch so I left a message

I tell him, "Hey listen Dusty, I never got a call telling me my job status. I understand your position $10,0000 is a lot of money. Someone is gonna want some repercussions. You do what you have to do and I appreciate how you've treated me. But I have bills to pay and I have an interview today so I'm walking away."

so I go to the interview and talk to a guy and while he leaves the room for me to do a survey I get all kinds of calls and texts from work.

there's a message from Dusty and the engineer texted me telling me to not quit

I text back telling them I'm at an interview but I'll call them later

back to the interview, I'm told my job duties

it involves some phones

I hate phones

after the interview I call Dusty

he's yelling in the phone "Vince you tell that guy you don't want his job. You have a job, you work for me. You're not fired I need you, I want you here."

so I tell him

"ok"

I go in late and he calls me into his office

he applogized for not calling me and telling me he likes me, the GM likes me
the master control supervisor likes me they all think I'm a great guy and to hell with the fine

then he tells me "Jeez, I've never seen a guy that wanted to quit so bad."

so not only did I not get fired, I still haven't been written up

In closing, this month I got my yearly employee review

I scored all 3's which is meeting expectations

and I scored one 5 which is exceeds expectations

it was for dependability

scout's honor

Tuesday with The Swagger

So let me just jump right in

Swagger is back

he gets into town and picks me up

we're at the BArton Springs Saloon on South LAmar

so Swagger starts to mingle and I'm sitting there drinking 1$ Miller High Lifes

Swagger has two groups that want to party with him

he then sees a cute little country girl and her friend walk into the bar

he tells me "Cmon Tuna, let's go talk to them."

I say "Ok"

we go and ask if we could join the two girls at their table

the girls don't mind

So after chit chatting for a little bit, Swagger gets up and goes and checks on the other groups he's been working on

I stay and talk to the girls

we're getting along just fine

they're a couple of Florida girls that wanted a change of scenery

they did some research and said Austin kept showing up on the top of all the lists they looked at

one of the girls ,Shanna, reminded me of my old friend Crystal

I was taken a little aback by it

man those are some old feelings I haven't felt in a couple of decades

anyway we swap numbers and you may be hearing about them again

So it's time to go to the next place and Swagger picks a group he wants to party with

he tells me, "Tuna let's take these girls home. I'll take the ugly one and you can have the pretty one cause you've been so good to me."

I tell him, "Well why don't we just throw them in the mix together with you and me like a big ol stew."

I was half joking

when we were leaving I was getting in the car and saw this parked right next to me


Swagger is waiting for me to get in Smokey and unlock his door

but instead I'm saying, "Swagger come here."
Swagger:"What?"
me:"Come here."
Swagger:"What? Are you peeing?"
Me:"Come here."
Swagger:"Tuna you're worrying me."
Me:"Just come here."

he comes over and I show him the car

while snickering at it

then Swagger spears me

onto the car

we're both on top of this little gay car laughing our asses off

when we get off and get in the truck I say, "I hope we didn't deflate it."

so now we go to The Crow Bar

it's kinda a rough joint

there's some bikers and some very experienced looking ladies

upon entering the place there's a big lummox of a man sitting at the outside bar

he's one of those big goofs wearing a tight t-shirt letting the flies go in and out of his mouth

kinda like this:

I go right up to him and say hi

he says his name is Roger

I say "nice to meet you Roger"

then I follow Swagger and his group inside

they go up to the bar but I go and sit at a booth all by myself

since it's close to Halloween the bar is decorated as such

there's a guillotine right at the center of the bar

I see a man sitting by himself two booths away from me

I ask him if he thinks that's a real working guillotine

he tells me to put my head in it and find out

I tell him no thank you

then he tells me to come sit with him in his booth

I do

He asks for my name

Me:"Tuna"
Him:"I'm Batman."
Me:"no your not."
him:"Well youre making shit up, so , so am I."
Me:"No, people really call me Tuna."
HIm:"But when you were born, your mama did not name you Tuna."
Me:"No she named me Vincent Anthony DeLuna."
Him:"There you go, it's nice to met you Vincent, I'm James."

we shake hands

he tells me he built that guillotine

he goes on to tell me he's a master electrician and he's wired this whole bar

this whole time he's rolling a joint

then I tell him that he looks exactly like Michael PS Hayes

he says "really? Cause I've been told I look like Shawn Micheals."

Michael Ps Hayes just told me he's been told he looks like Shawn Micheals

Michael PS HAyes:


just told me he's been told he looks like Shawn Michaels:


not even when PS Hayes was 14 did he look like Shawn

anyway I laugh it off and James says

let's go smoke this joint

so I follow him outside and we toke it up

while smoking he tells me that if I ever get burned on my finger don't put the burn on my tongue but rather grab my ear lobe

he says it transfers the heat

then he says "I'll show you, I'll burn my finger then grab your ear."

I tell him ,"no, I'll burn my finger and grab my ear."

so he flicks his lighter and I put my finger in the flame

I leave it there so it can burn

then I take it away and then touch my earlobe

it....kinda....worked

when we were walking back in he asked, "it worked didn't it."

I told him, "Kinda, but it feels like I burned my finger and my ear now."

He laughed and we went back into the bar

I found Swagger sitting at the bar with the regulars

Swagger asks"Tuna, where the hell were you?"

I said, "I was getting high with the master electrician

then Swagger introduces me to everyone at the bar

it's quite the cast of characters and Roger

I tell them I already met Roger

ok now it's time to go home

Swagger wants to go back to the girls place and I agree

It was looking like Swagger was gonna ride with the girls

but then I saw it click with him that If left alone I would probably disappear

so Swagger sent one of the "ladys" to ride with me back to the place

this lady was a little bit um...piggy

and she was wasted

we took off and making small talk I told her I love her voice

it was very raspy like Jessica Rabbit

then she tells me I should hear her singing voice

without a moment to respond she starts to sing

really badly

a whole complete song

when she was done I said "wow, I've never heard a voice like that, you..."

she started to sing another song

then a jazz song

the whole time it felt like the judges on American Idol already said thank you but she kept trying to audition

we finally get to her house

but I don't see Swagger

I ask her if her friend is here

she said no

and to come upstairs

now I'm thinking great

I'm here with a last call lady

I haven't done that in a while

I want to leave

then I notice Roger sitting in his car in the parking lot

I ask the chick, "is that Roger?"

she says yes as she grabs my hand and tries to take me in

I tell her ,"look I gotta go, I don't feel so good all of a sudden."

she looks hurt

so I give her a christian side hug

as I go to my truck I look back and she's rushing up the stairs

she yells out "come on Roger!!!!"

Roger gets out of his car and goes upstairs

Ok I'm Ready to Tell This Story Part I

SO this happened earlier this year

I had accepted a full time position at Keye here in Austin

the only problem was that the shift started at 4:30 am

I was sure I could do it

but by nature I'm a night owl and I kept going to sleep at around 1 am or so

I don't need much sleep, but weeks of this kept building up

I was losing more sleep week after week

then pulling all nighters on the weekend I was going negative on sleep

was staying up for something like 30 hours

and after a few months it started to affect me

I was like a zombie during my waking hours

and whenever my alarm would go off I was getting more and more pissed in the morning

and I was going in later and later

some people would call me to help me out but I was about to reach a breaking point

and I reached an ugly one

one morning I was woken up an hour after my shift was supposed to be at work

I went in and someone was there in my spot to cover for me

I told this person that I quit

and I was going home and sleeping for a month

I called my boss and left him a message

I told him I couldn't do the shift and that I quit

then I went home

I just quit my job and had no idea what I was going to do or what was my next step

I slept like a baby

my boss called and left me a message

I didn't listen right away

I went to get some food

while gasing up my truck I decided to listen to the message

since I was filling up my truck I went to the side/back of the gas station to listen to the message

my boss was very kind and told me how much he likes me and would hate to lose me

he said I was a great guy and did a great job and to take the day off and call him whenever I was ready

while I was listening to this I was looking down at the ground and noticed an ant hill

I had bought one of those gel ant farms recently and had not mailed off for my free ants

the ant farm was empy

well I was staring at this ant hill and while listening to the message I was thinking "ooh I need some ants, those look like good ones."

I hung up the phone and went to get a little jar and collected some ants

I took them home and placed them in the ant farm

watched them for a little bit

then went to eat

I thought about calling my boss but still wasn't motivated

after I ate I went and checked on the ants

to my surprise there were no ants in the farm

upon closer inspection I notice two tiny air holes on the farm

the ants escaped

I had placed the farm on my window seal

and with my eyes I traced the natural path that I thought the ants would take

when I got to the other end of the window

I saw that all the ants had crawled into a spiderweb

and I watched the last ant be wrapped up by the spider

I thought "man, that didn't go so well. I got those ants killed."

I called my boss

"I'm ready to come back to work."

this is a true story

my buddy Kevin said it's gonna be hard to top this

then I quit again 8 months later

to be continued...

A Couple of Stories about a Spoon and the Moon

-A SPOON-

So I took one of those ravioli bowls to work for lunch one day

so this is exactly my thought process when heating it up:

"what do you eat ravioli with?"

"I'll grab a spoon."

I walk back to master control

I sit and open the lid

"no, wait I need a fork."

I go back to the break room

I was about to throw the spoon away but then thought,

"wait, I didn't use the spoon I just held it."

"I'll put it back."

"no, wait I'll be polite and wash the spoon off."

then while washing the spoon

"wait, this is stupid, there's plenty of spoons in the cabinet."

"and since when do I care about who grabs this stupid spoon after me."

so I threw it away

I went back to master control

I then proceed to finish the ravioli

then noticed all that delicious sauce left over

like tomato soup

so I thought,

"Oh yeah I forgot about the sauce."

"I need a spoon."

-THE MOON-

So I'm all moved in and settled into my efficiency

sort of

there's all kind of weird things in drawers and cabinets

and I'm moving weird things from cabinets to drawers

and trying to make mental notes of where I'm seeing these things

for example

in the previous house I lived in I bought a moon

it's called "The Moon in my Room"

you put it on the wall

it lights up and it looks like...well the Moon in my room

anywho I was looking for a hammer and looked in some drawers

I opened one and saw the Moon in there

It kinda went like this, "hammer, hammer,no, hammer (opens drawer) there's the moon, hammer, hammer."

ha, what if it was on and was all aglow

all you see is a bright light shinning on me

"there's the moon"

anyway soon after I found the remote to the moon in the walk in closet that's in bathroom

you'd think I would grab the remote and put it in the drawer with the moon

goes to show you my organisational skills

I can't even keep the moon and the remote for the moon in the same room

in an efficiency