#or ur gonna try a) handing me a pile of hangers that are in all kinds of disarray or b) leave them on the counter

[risaonda]

not 2 b all “i work in a clothing store” on main but the hangers thing is so tricky bc like...sometimes i Do wish the customer would help w them instead of standing there doing Nothing and just watching me try 2 take Twenty Shirts Off Their Hangers and other times i’m like. please stop i know ur trying to help but ur not

mayb it’s the difference between already having the things off the hangers ready to go vs trying to take them off the hangers At the counter while i am Also trying to take the things off the hangers idk

[landofsomethingsomething]

ooo how about john trying to pull a prank on roxy but she either catches him in the act or pranks him back since shes been bffsies with jane for years and nothing surprises her anymore

Roxy woke to the sound of her phone buzzing incessantly on the nightstand. Half awake and grumbling to herself, she flipped over onto her back, reached blindly out with one arm, and flopped her hand around like a dying fish until it connected with something hard and square and probably her phone. Somewhere nearby her on the bed, an indignant cat meowed a rebuke, and there was a distinct thud as the jostled animal fled. Roxy called out an apology to the affronted cat and simultaneously unlocked her phone with a quick swipe, held it up before her squinting eyes, and frowned. 

One notification, from John. A simple text containing one ominous emoji: 🎭. 

So. It was gonna be that kind of day, then. 

She didn’t bother to reply, but she did open it up so it’d mark as read on his end. Stew in that one for awhile, Egbert. She tossed her phone beside her on the bed, sat up, and stretched. Let’s do this, she thought, grinning. Another cat peered in from the bedroom door, green eyes blinking slowly. Roxy blinked slowly back. 

Phase one was easy; bedroom to bathroom. She kicked off the covers and swung her legs over the bed – and hopped lightly over the waiting tub of sopor slime plunked down on the floor, right where she’d normally be standing. No sweat. She took three steps toward the bathroom, ducked without even bothering to look, and easily cleared a roll of transparent plastic wrap fastened expertly between her vanity mirror and an old wizard clock taller than she was. Her favorite slippers (cats, of course) were discarded on the bathroom floor, kicked off before bed last night, and she bent and picked them up and carefully shook them out one by one. 

Nothing. She frowned, quirking an eyebrow. Bullshit. 

She felt around the plush soles, and – “Hah!” A telltale square chip, slid into the padding. She fished it out with a finger, shaking her head. “Got you,” she muttered, peering curiously at it. She pressed it between her fingers just to see what it would do.

The answer, apparently, was emit a pressure-trigged garbled tinny mishmash of meowing sounds through a miniscule speaker. Perfect. Laughing, she pocketed the device and continued to the toilet. Seat down. Suspicious. Behind her, a cat pranced into the room, eagerly anticipating its early morning toilet scritches. 

She went to one knee. With one hand, she gave the confused kitty the scritches it had come for, and with the other, she lifted the toilet seat, cringing back – but nothing happened. She examined every inch of the porcelain throne and found absolutely nothing, and in fact, was about to just go ahead and do her damn business already, when she thought to check the fucking toilet paper. 

Tinfoil. Not a tinfoil covered roll of toilet paper, oh no. Just a goddamn toilet paper shaped roll of tinfoil. She snorted. Went to the cabinet to pull a fresh one out. Found six more tinfoil toilet papers. Muttered a few choice oaths under her breath. 

Whatever. Who didn’t piss in the shower every once in awhile? He’d love hearing all about it, next time he was over in the morning. She pulled the tinfoil roll still up by the toilet out a bit and crinkled it, and Mr. Morning Bathroom Scritches happily took the bait, pawing at it. 

To the shower. She saw the device on the head plainly – he didn’t even try to hide it. Curious, she turned the water on just to see what would happen. 

Pink water shot out. Food dye? Probably. The little bastard had probably filled her hair shit with it, too. It was almost tempting to just use it – who had a problem with pink hair? But the truth was, she didn’t trust John’s choice of dye material. Besides, this shit was meant to turn all of her pink, obviously, not just the hair. 

– Actually, she was kind of tempted to just let that happen, too. 

Maybe later. 

She disabled the food coloring (or whatever) device and took a quick shower – and a long piss – and remembered at the last second to check the towels before yanking one off the rack. 

She lifted the edge of one, gingerly. 

It stained her fingertips pink. 

She laughed. 

The towel itself was already pink, of course, that was its natural state… all the easier to hide whatever the fuck this pink powder was all over it. And they were all like that, of course. Naturally. 

She stood in front of the mirror and resolved to air dry. It wasn’t that cold, anyway. Nothing in the hairbrush, but the blow dryer had what looked like the dessicated remains of a feather duster shoved up the barrel, so she set that down for another day. She’d make his enterprising ass pick them all out, later. Only fair. 

Back out and back under the wall of cellophane, and off to face the wardrobe. 

As it turned out, all her clothes were gone. Except her favorite dress. Which also happened to be his favorite dress. Which was a damn good dress, for like, a date. Not that it was horribly indecent – John wasn’t that kind of guy, which was usually charming – it was just, you know. Sequins. Ruffles. Showy. 

“I guess,” she said, pulling it off the hanger, “In Egbert land, prank day counts as a special occasion.” 

Another cat wound itself around her ankles, purring agreement. 

By the time she retrieved her phone, she had three more messages. Two were from John – the same emoji as before, but in greater numbers – and the third was Jane. Roxy opened that one eagerly. 

GG: Miss Roxy. GG: Might I inquire why, on this lovely spring morning, all of the clothing in my closet has been joined by what I can only describe as the most Roxy-like attire I have ever seen? TG: i would invite uTG: on this lovely spring morningTG: to ask ur fuckin son about that cause i guarantee you at this point he knows more than me GG: Oh my. GG: Prank day? TG: he was gonna turn me pink janeTG: pink from head to toeTG: pink dye pink powder and also he put a meow speaker in my meowcat slippersTG: might keep that one tbhTG: its p cuteGG: I gather from your phrasing that his dastardly efforts have been thus far unsuccessful. TG: hmmTG: actually not sure if i can trust you on thisGG: Roxy! TG: prank day is kind of an egbert AND crocker thing and u know thisGG: I cannot believe you would accuse me, your best friend, of collaborating with John to turn you pink. TG: the clothes ARE in your wardrobe apparentlyGG: And if I was in on this, why would I tell you so? TG: fuckTG: uhhhTG: idk but im sure theres a reasonTG: plots within plotsTG: wheels within wheelsTG: cats within catsTG: sec i gotta scritch a cat right fuckin nowGG: Of course. GG: Well. Since I am apparently suspect, I shall leave you to face your trials in peace. Please pick up these clothes in at least a halfway timely fashion, if you please. Closet space is an asset to be cherished, thank you very much. TG: pfft TG: u got like 15 closets all to yourself dont give me thatGG: Even so. TG: alright okayTG: if i survive this ill be by later maybeTG: maybe tomorrowTG: depends ;)GG: Not another word. GG: Tomorrow will be fine. Thank you. GG: And remember what I taught you. TG: he aint got me yetGG: Good. 

She pocketed her phone, checked her shoes five times for hidden gimmicks, found nothing, and sidestepped three buckets of glitter assembled above three separate doorways on her way out. He’d be cleaning all that up later, too, along with any cats who happened to inadvertently roll around in the glitter piles.

… After she took pictures.

The front door seemed strangely bereft of mischievous devices, and having found nothing, it was with some trepidation that she turned the knob and pushed the door open, squinting out into the daylight.

A series of loud pops and flashes nearly blinded her, as apparently an entire newsroom’s worth of photographers got to work snapping pictures. She recovered herself quickly – of course she did – and turned the arm she’d thrown up over her eyes into a dramatic wave, instead, swaying her hips as she descended the steps. The effect, she thought, was only magnified by the entourage of bounding cats spilling out around her.

“Are you serious!” John’s voice in the crowd, and then John himself, hovering up above it, arms crossed. “Not a single one?”

She waved her phone at him. “Not a one, and Janey’s already spilled the beans on where the clothes are, so you don’t even get to lord that one over me this time around.”

The cameras weren’t stopping – probably because the two of them were famous gods and the tabloids fuckin’ loved them, but whatever. She leapt up into the air and lunged after John, who made a not very sincere attempt to lunge away, only to be yanked back by Roxy’s fist bunched up in the back of his shirt. She spun him around in the air, laughing.

“What’s with all the pink, anyhow?” She elbowed him, and he caught her arm, trapping it in his. “First Jake with the blue, now you with the pink, is this kinda fetish a genetic thing I should know about?”

He wrinkled his nose – it was fucking adorable, actually – and stuck his tongue out at her. “It’s not like that,” he insisted. He was lifting her higher, high enough that the sound of the cameras was fading off into nothing. The boy did love to fly. She followed him up, smirking. “I was trying to pick something obnoxious, that you would hate, but also that you would secretly kind of like.”

“Pink kinda is my color,” she conceded.

“Exactly!”

“I liked the slippers.” She slipped the chip out of her pocket, holding it up. John laughed.

“Dirk made that just for you,” he said. “He said you’d find it, though. Guess he was right.”

She pressed the panel down and the tiny speaker erupted in heavily compressed meow-sounds, mingling with the wind. They were far, far up, now, with damp little wispy cloud trails swirling around them. “Hells of cute,” she said, waving it under his nose. He laughed and slipped an arm around her and shot up through the clouds, pulling her with him. It should have been cold up here, especially in the damn dress she was wearing, but godhood came with a number of pretty good perks.

“Tell you what,” she said, grinning, and he looked back at her curiously, eyebrows shooting up. “One day I’m gonna get you so good, you never try any of this prank day shit on me again.”

He scoffed at her. “Yeah right. That’s what they all say.”

She stopped cold in the air, and he drifted to a stop a few seconds later, looking down at her, hands on his hips. Curls of cloud stuff danced between them. Roxy grinned devlishly at him, darted forward, and –

“Hey!” John gasped, as she shot past and grabbed his legs, turning him over in the air. He reached up to grab her, missed, and she worked his shoes off with ease. “Knock it off!” He kicked at her, socked feet far too slow to actually connect, and she laughed a wild laugh and shoved him forward, somersaulting him in the air. “This is not a prank!” he insisted, righting himself and huffing at her, cheeks red. “It doesn’t count! Give me back those shoes.”

“Not a chance,” she said, sweetly, dropping them. He gasped, and predicably, he dove for them. Simultaneously, Roxy dove for him.

She caught him by the waistband as he went darting by, and momentum did the rest. He made an absolutely hilarious yelping sound, gave up on catching his shoes, and spun upward to witness her hovering above him, waving his pants in one hand like a flag.

“Roxy!” He shouted, flushing crimson. “Give those back, come on! This is not how pranking works!”

“Says you,” Roxy said, blowing him a kiss. “See you later! And remember: I love you very much.”

“Roxy, wait –”

He shot for her, but she was already gone, pants in hand, in a rush of wind and void. She laughed uproariously as the blue and white folded around her and changed abruptly to starry black.

Sucker.

[mobs100]

WHAT HAPPENED

OK ANON SINCE IM STILL HEATED UR GONNA GET THE FULL WAY TOO RAMBLY WAY TOO DETAILED AND OVERREACTING VERSION USUALLY I DON’T CARE BUT I’M SO M A D

so i was doing a stockroom run for my store and that involves lugging this behemoth of a hand truck around (is called a magliner gemini xl look it up) and stocking it full until it’s like over my head

and this cart already towers me by a few inches when it’s standing up, and i usually am sent on really big runs so the pile will usually be a foot taller than i am and be around 300 lbs i have to drag it across the mall from out offsite stockroom back to our store and that involves a lot of me saying “watch out” to shoppers who clearly don’t give a fuck abt a four foot ten child pulling around a pile of boxes taller than ur average man it’s hard to maneuver the cart once it’s going so i always tell ppl to watch out so they don’t get squished

BUT ANYWAY i’m maybe 100 feet from my store and saying “watch out” to a group of teenagers standing in the middle of the hallway i pass thru ok until the last girl just stands there and i hit her a little bc i can’t move the cart once it goes down the incline and i’m apologize and ask if she’s okay meanwhile she’s already halfway thru saying something and i’m just like ???? bc a lot of people ask me for directions while i’m doing heavy lifting (pulling) for some GOD DAMN REASON

and she says “you mean excuse me”

at this point i’m just confused so i just put on my retail smile and ask her what’s up

and she says “you don’t mean watch out, you mean excuse me. you can’t say watch out to me and my friends you say excuse me. walk around us or say excuse me”

the smile legit just slides off my face bc i’m tired as fuck i’m halfway thru a nine hour shift and i was going to go on break after this stockroom run so the patience is fucking Gone okay like i have No Time for uppity little teenagers who act like I’M the one who needs a lesson in manners it’s not even like i was Rude abt saying watch out it’s a literal warning to watch out for the big ass cart barreling down the hallway

so i point to my cart and i say “no i mean watch out” trying to get across that there is no way this giant ass cart is gonna have the ability to make tight little turns so that she and her friends can continue to stand in the middle of the hallway

i walk off pulling my cart and the little shit goes and pushes off a stack of boxes as i pass by it clatters to the fucking ground and so much shit in a lot of them Break

in that moment i felt all the Rage and Hanger take over me and i automatically raised my hand to like smack her hand off my cart or SOMETHING but i remembered who i was and where i was and didn’t want to get fired for beating a child l o l

anyway i tell my manager abt this and then she was tilted and she ran out looking for them to give them a piece of her mind BUT YEAH I HATE WORKING RETAIL SOMETIMES

[garlique]

hal's grand plan to unfuck their room

first: put on music. most essential

first step: remove all non clothes things from laundry basket. place somewhere not on floor or bed. folders on shelves??

CLOTHES -sniff test/memory: does this smell disgusting?? when was the last time i wore this?? overall does it need washing?? IF YES: laundry basket. IF NO: see below

clothes clean, no laundry: fit test!! does it fit?? if no, laundry –> donation bag. if yes: when did i last wear it?? if within last month, or is only summer clothes: to fold pile. if not within last month, laundry –> donation bag. if sentimental value, hold on to and decide later. clothes clean, after laundry: fit test!! does it fit?? if yes, to fold pile. if no, donation bag. if sentimental value, hold on to and decide later. when laundry hamper is full: put first load in. maybe put sheets in here. stop clothes sorting (for now) intermediate step: unfuck closet. closet step one: pull all clothes off hangers. fit test!! do they fit?? have i worn them/had an occasion to wear them in the past month?? if yes, re hang. if no, laundry then donation bag. hold on to gifts or sentimental value - separate pile. inventory free hangers and what type they are. (side note: create a google doc for organization?? or will hand pen scribbles be enough) closet step two: pull everything off the top of the dresser. put every non clothes item somewhere outside the closet, not on floor. fit test!! do they fit?? have i worn them in the past month?? (note: most of this will be donated. keep camisoles as possibility for homemade binders) if no, laundry, then donation. if yes, sniff test, then either laundry or to fold. closet step three: pull the rest out of the dresser. repeat closet step two. closet step 4: take everything else out of the closet. non clothes things: shelves. clothes: the Process. congrats!! clean closet. at this point, start folding and hanging clothes that are in the to fold pile. choose a way to organize drawers - maybe shirts on top, undergarments in the middle, pants on the bottom?? maybe organize hanging things by color?? flip laundry. once the laundry hamper is empty and both loads are in the wash, return to floor clothes. floor clothes part 2: repeat earlier steps: sniff test, memory test, then laundry, donation, to fold. (side note: save the donation clothes for washing until after the regular clothes??) repeat steps until there are no clothes on queue to be folded, only a queue to be washed. as this continues, take breaks from other tasks to fold clothes as they come out of the dryer. (note: do not put on any of the clean clothes until you have taken your shower!!) next step: books. collect all the books of your floor and stack them on your bed. leave the books under the bed and by the foot of the bed; those are whole separate areas. try to make the books organized. right now the point is mostly to get as much as i can off the floor. leave the books for now. next step: the boxes. school supply box: remove the school supplies, organize them in the cupboard. do the same with school supplies not in the box. other box: go through it. rescue anything you think you need. cds, old stuffed animals, books. everything not needed: trash bag. remember, be impartial. when done: remove the boxes. if trash bag is full, remove trash bag. next step: main floor garbage. pick up all the garbage off the floor. you can use gloves or towels, just get it all up!! don’t leave anything larger than crumbs for vacuuming. remove trash bags as they fill. remember, stay away from the foot of the bed and under it. cursed space. once main floor is clean: desk and desk chair. all scarves and clothes on chair and desk go through the Process. books go on bed. consolidate birchboxes. don’t touch the shelves. everything else, organize it or throw it out. at this point, it’s probably okay to take a small break. maybe go bug dad About looking at the computer. lay down for a minute. queue up a few of ur fave songs. keep folding clothes. tackle the Foot Of The Bed next. big concerns here?? garbage and The Apple. be careful to save anything you want to keep. garbage in bags, deal with everything else as it comes up. next: small shelf. sift through the papers on top. keep what you want, archive what you want, throw away the rest. consolidate birchboxes. books on the bed. throw away the rest of the trash. be impartial. ONLY WHEN EVERYTHING EXCEPT FOR UNDER THE BED IS CLEAN: tackle the large bookcases. remove everything except the already organized school supplies. go through and trash vs keep everything on all shelves methodically. books on bed. put money in jar. when you know what you’re keeping, make dad bring up the other box of books from the basement and start putting the books back. alphabetical order. when you run out of space on the big bookcases, fill the little one. put records on top shelf. once all books are away, arrange everything how you want it to be displayed. at this point, everything is done except for maybe laundry and some of under the bed (note this may take a few days) at this point, see how much you can move the bed. clean under the bed. do laundry with all clothes under there. throw almost everything else out. be warned: may need to wear gloves and long sleeves for sensory issues. move bed back. last step: vacuum strategies to prevent this level of mess: get more storage. utilize the storage i have. put trash can near bed. more will be added