April Fool's Day

April Fool’s Day, surprisingly enough, isn’t really my thing.

I mean, don’t get me wrong—I love screwing with people’s psyches as much as the next sociopath—I just don’t like having a designated day to do it.

It’s just like Valentine’s Day. Why do we pick one day of the year to focus on the one’s we love? We should be showing those people our love every day.

Or in my case, using crosses, wooden stakes, holy water, and garlic to keep intimacy/human emotions as far away as possible.

Me, yesterday 

Just like that, I feel like cruel jokes and pranks should be celebrated year round.

Also, April Fool’s Day pranks are too predictable. I, for one, never allow my back to be turned on anyone the whole day on the chance that they are going to try to get me. That’s just common sense 101.

If, however, you insist on being #basic, here are a few ideas to make your April 1^st memorable. And remember, the best defense is a good offense. Get them before they get you.

Technology is your best friend

            This is KB tested and approved. Download a creepy sound onto your phone as a ringtone. I recommend a child singing. Nothing is creepier than child singing. I recommend this although you can do what you want (I guess, I mean, this is called KB Thinks for You, not YOU Think For You but whatever.) Hide your phone somewhere in the person you are pranking’s room and wait for them to be in there alone. Then have an accomplice call your phone and wait for your friend to panic assuming they are being haunted by creepy kid ghosts (aka the creepiest kind of ghost)

Would you like me to sing you a song?

Pro-tip: Set your phone on “Do Not Disturb” except for calls from your accomplice so “Baby Got Back” (your default ringtone, obvi) does go off unexpectedly ruining everything

Earn your Oscar

            Sometimes the best pranks are simply well executed lies. This is a great prank because of its versatility. Pick a friend, any friend. Pick a lie, any lie. Then go to town. Divorce, pregnancy, marriage, jail, or whatever else your diabolical little mind can come up with is fair game. (If your mind isn’t diabolical enough, you can either ask me for help or, better yet, let the adults play. It’s April Fool’s Day; not April Fool’s Amateur Hour). Let your imagination run wild. If you are going with a pregnancy prank, try something about not knowing who the father is or having twins. For divorce, I recommend an “I’ve been cheating on him/her” to hit maximum discomfort levels for the listener. For marriage, try elopement or a really intense family feud. Jail can potentially be the best option just because you have so many options. Try something that would be ridiculous to get arrested for like downloading music illegally or embezzling money from your grandmother’s nursing home.

First of all, I'd like to thank God...

Pro-tip: as long as you can keep a straight face while lying, the world is your oyster.

Mix, match and make them crazy

            Science break: your brain and taste buds are trippy as hell. If you think you are going to be getting one thing and instead get something else, you’re going to freak. For instance, I once thought I was going to take a nice, refreshing sip of Mountain Dew. Instead, it was Lemonade. After I finished washing my tongue off with rubbing alcohol, I cried for 20 minutes in the fetal position. Learn from my mistakes and use it to make your coworkers pay. I say coworkers because this is a great way to get multiple people with one simple prank. The quickest, easiest, and cheapest is to buy a bag of M&M’s and a bag of Skittles. Mix them up, put them in a bowl, and wait for people to lose their minds. This also works with sweetened/unsweetened pickles, sweetened/unsweetened tea, water and vodka, and (if you’re into the long con) decaf and caffeinated coffee.

*insert maniacal laughter here

Pro-tip: doing this is kind of an asshole move. I highly recommend it

If all else fails, scare the sh!t out of them

Never discount the old but good sneak up. There’s nothing better then quietly coming up behind someone, especially when they think they are alone, and then making a loud noise. Some people might not like being snuck up on but if you think about it, most people have, at one point or another, paid to see a scary movie. Here you are, willing to give them a 3D experience of a lifetime—for FREE. Really, you’re being a good Samaritan. You’re welcome.

Ellen gets it

Pro-tip: try to stay at least two feet away from the person you’ve chosen to prank just in case they fall in the “fight” category of “fight or flight”

Now, go have some fun

You're Rich and You're the Reason I Cry At Night

(To best enjoy this experience, I recommend listening to “Without Me” by Eminem while you read this. Well, not the whole song. Mainly just the first part. Over and over and over.)

In summation “20 million other white rappers bloggers emerge/ but no matter how many fish in the sea/ it’d be so empty without me”

Yep. I’m back and better than ever.

Wait, did I say “better”? I meant “bitter.”

Since the last time we’ve talked (i.e. I talk; you listen and learn), I’ve started a new job. The where is not important. All you need to know is I get paid to eat delicious food (YAY!) and, more importantly, cheese all day (DOUBLE YAY!), boss other people around (QUADRUPLE YAY!*), and deal with rich customers (BOOOOO).

Me, yesterday

(* yes, I am aware I skipped from “double” to “quadruple.” No, I don’t care. If you want to read something mathematically accurate, try this … nerd)

*Pause for dramatic effect*

Yes, you read that right. I, Katherine Anne Buhler,aka Lady Voldemort, am working somewhere that requires me to interact with people all. day. long.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the customers fall somewhere on the scale from “totally awesome/can’t wait to see again” to “100% forgettable/ if they were a color; they would be beige.” But I wouldn’t be the KB Thinks For You that we all know and love if I didn’t look at the 5% of people who absolutely suck and talk only about them.

So buckle in, grab a drink, and get ready for a much overdue rant I’m going to title “You’re Rich and You’re the Reason I Cry at Night*”

Me, Yesterday

* I haven’t cried in years; in fact, last year I had the doctors remove my tear ducts to make more room for me to fill with rage

1.     People that need someone to buy them a wallet

Before I started working retail, I naively thought that people carried their money around in some sort of organized manner. Whether it be a wallet or a purse or even just a pocket with some nicely folded bills in it; I figured most people had a rhyme and a reason for money storage. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that a large portion of the adult population stores their money like a toddler stores candy wrappers. I can’t tell you the number of grown ass adults that

a)    carry 3,200 credit cards all bound together with a single rubber band that they then have to dig through for 5 minutes to find the card they want (potential identity thieves carrying around a bevy of stolen cards?)

b)   take the nice, flat bills given back to them by retail workers or the bank, crumple them up like I crumple up the dreams of children and then shove them into their pockets. Then, when they go to pay, they have a softball sized wad of bills that takes 5 minutes to find the right amount of and then immediately fucks up any bit of feng shui I had going on the cash drawers

c)    carry purses the size of small children* filled to the brim with random bits of bull shit specifically calibrated to make me lose my mind when they have to empty it out on the counter to find that last nickel they desperately needed (side note: if you have prenatal vitamins, you probably don’t also need tampons)

TBH, I'm more concerned with that old cell phone this person has been lugging around

* I never actually seen a small child in the wild but from what I’ve seen on TV, the sizing is accurate

d)   special mention to the gentleman who wears a coin purse around his neck and consistently plucks out chest hairs that he leaves on the counter

2. People who are almost too rich to function*

* shout out to Mean Girls

            The place I work tends to cater to a more affluent crowd than say… Walmart. I don’t have anything against rich people (other than the fact that I’m not one of them) but there are quite a few who clearly don’t live on the same planet as I do. At least once a week I have people coming in buying two dollars worth of items with a $100 bill. I also have people ringing up multi-hundred dollar orders and paying for them with multiple crisp $100s. I’ve also had someone tell me (on more than one occasion) “Sorry, I don’t have anything smaller than a hundred” to which I respond “I know, I just saw you digging through about 3,000 dollars worth of hundred dollar bills. Sorry about your struggles.”

Being from what, in the olden days, would be referred to as the “peasant class” and is now more commonly called “broke ass,” I have quite a few questions for these people: Where do you get 100 bills? Every ATM I use only gives out $20’s. Are there special ATMs for rich people only? Did you get them from the bank? If so, why didn’t you ask for your money in smaller denominations that don’t scream “ROB ME PLZ!” every time you open your wallet? Are you a drug dealer?

Me, yesterday

3.     People who expect perfection

A large part of my job involves weighing and measuring things (which I actually really enjoy because I have been weighing, measuring, and finding almost everyone I’ve met lacking for years). However, some people expect absolute perfection on their weights, which isn’t always possible; no matter how perfect you (meaning “I”) might be.

Typically, when I cut cheese (my middle school self is judging your middle school self for giggling at that), I’ll be within .1 of a pound on either end or anywhere from a couple cents to a couple dollars at the most. Not a huge deal considering I’m trying to maneuver a huge ass knife around a huge ass wedge of hard ass cheese, right? Wrong. Some people will actually ask you to go back and get the quarter pound of cheese they wanted or, at least, a little closer to it. That’s cool. I totally expect humans to be able to perfectly eyeball weights and get upset with their incompetence when they can’t do it. I can’t wait until we get machines that can replace people at everything.

You brought this on yourself, America

Whew. Let’s all take a couple of deep breaths. I’ve laid a lot on you right now and I could definitely keep going but I think, for all of our sanities, I’ll leave you here tonight after a shared vision quest.

Close your eyes and imagine this scenario with me (don’t actually close your eyes, idiot; you won’t be able to read this!).

You’re working at a popular deli/cheese shop on a Saturday, a notoriously busy day in retail. You’re slaving away trying get people through the line as quickly as possible even though the ever growing line looks like the wait to get into a Bieber concert.

 Saturdays at the cheese counter

After helping a nice old lady who just wanted to get a half pound of two year old cheddar (aka the most basic cheese alive #gmasabasicbitch), a gentleman in a suit comes to the counter with a list the size of Chris Brown’s felony charges. Instead of asking why he’s wearing a suit on a weekend or, better yet, turning around when you see that his list is probably going to take you 45 minutes to get through, you paste a smile on your face so fake that the purse dealers on Canal St are cringing and say “what can I help you with today?”

After taking him on a veritable tour of every single cheese in the 250+ cheese case (complete with tastes of each), he says “and lastly, can I get a pound of the Parmigiano Reggiano?” making Giada De Laurentiis roll in her grave* with the mispronunciation.

HOW did you just pronounce that?

*apparently she’s not dead. Just her marriage (ba dum cha!)

You breathe a sigh of relief and grab the chunk of parm that weighs just about as much as you (no joke, full wheels weigh 90lbs) and use every last remaining amount of strength in your body to cut off a hunk. You walk to the scale, glad to be done with this when *GASP* you cut him a 1.23 lb chunk instead!

You timidly walk over and say “I’m a little bit over, is that alright with you?”

The suit-clad gentleman silently seethes with rage for a couple of seconds before removing his tie, fashioning it into a noose, and saying in a voice as cold as ice “Actually, I’d like it a little closer to a pound please.”

More like "50 Shades of Gruyere," am I right?

While you want to respond, “Yes of course, sir. No problem, I’ll just glue this extra little bit back on with my blood, sweat, and tears,” you simply choke back the scream, get it as close as you can, and hand the cheese over to him along with a sizable chunk of your dignity.

All until he gets to the register, pulls out wadded up ball of hundreds and you rage black out.