"I had a dream last night that Kristyl and I were making sandwiches, but instead of bread, we used cheesecake." - Christene.

With a nod to the Kurtenbloggers, who mentioned it on their TEAM 1040 appearance Wednesday, I present to you an easy, last-minute Halloween costume for your party tomorrow:

Go as John Gosselin.

All you need to do is wear an Ed Hardy shirt and leave your kids at home.

It's often hard to tell because I'm such a sarcastic asshole most of the time, but the truth is that I really don't like confrontation – especially in restaurants, or places of that ilk.

I hate returning things to the mall, for one example, and this dislike for confrontation is also one of the main reasons I won't go out for a meal with a certain friend of mine – because he (his whole family, really) ends up having problems with everything, making a big scene, and eventually demanding free food etc... Through the years, we've stormed out of more than a few restaurants – him in a huff, me just trailing behind.

If I get a subpar meal at a restaurant, I'm more apt to just suck it up, shrug my shoulders and tell myself, "Well, they can't all be good." Because it's true – throughout your lifetime, it's next to impossible that every single meal you ever eat is going to be perfect. This doesn't mean I won't complain about said meal for days after – because trust me, you'll hear about it until you wished I'd choked and died trying to eat whatever it is I'm whining about – but I just don't waste time demanding that my meal be re-cooked/free/served to me with complimentary bread/dessert/appetizer/sports car.

It's just not worth it.

But earlier this week, I hit my breaking point.

After work the other day, I went to Subway to pick up some dinner. I ordered a foot-long roasted chicken sub, on white bread. For starters, the woman behind the counter grabbed a loaf of the parmesan oregano bread – apparently she just didn't listen at all, because the two types of bread do not sound remotely alike – and I had to correct her. No big deal, I guess, but I should have known it was foreshadowing what was to come.

Next, she cut open the correct bread with the skill and precision of a six-year-old, essentially tearing the bread in half, rather than cutting it. And again, I let it slide.

But then it began. She put tomatoes on it when I never asked for any – so she had to remove them. Then she put peppers on it, which I also didn't ask for – so she had to remove them. Then came time for "a little bit of mustard and a bit of ranch, please." (Notice, I was still polite at this point).

She then proceeded to empty nearly the entire damn mustard container on the sandwich, followed by so much ranch dressing that it looked like somebody jacked off an elephant onto my dinner (Nice visual? You're welcome). This was the last straw.

"Oh c'mom, I asked for a little of each. That's waaaay too much. You wanna scrape some of that off, or something?" I asked.

I got a baffled look, followed by a lame attempt to scrape the sauces off with a paring knife, which ended up a) tearing the bread some more and b) smearing a lovely mustard and ranch combination all over the outside of the bread.

This did not sit well with the person behind the counter, and she seemed bewildered at such a request. Her co-worker, who came over, was also reluctant.

"It's fine," the co-worker said. "What's wrong with it? We can't make a new one, unless you want to order two."

It was at this point that I informed said employee that since I hadn't yet paid for the first one, they'd better restart the process – and not fuck it up – or else I'd just walk out altogether, paying for nothing.

"Either way, you're gonna be out the cost of at least one sandwich," I said.

I should also mention that, by now, there were a few people behind me in line, no doubt wondering what the hell my problem was. Normally, I would have resorted to my usual "Aw, shucks" mentality (see above), but this is not the first time this Subway has fucked up my sandwich. In fact, more often than not, the employees at this particular location have ruined, in some way, my meal.

Now, you may wonder why I continue to return if they suck so bad, and my answer is two-fold. First, it's close to my house and convenient. And second, I always go back with the assumption that "It can't be that bad again, right?"

I would have likely also given this woman a break if she had a trainee sticker on, like many there often do. Hey, she's new, she's learning. That's cool – I get it. But I've seen this woman there before many times. And for somebody dubbed a "Sandwich Artist" you'd think you wouldn't suck so hard at it.

I mean, seriously, your only job is to make sandwiches. If you can't do that, maybe look into a new line of work. I mean, if I am a bad writer, I probably don't get to keep the job I have. If Bucholtz was a dangerously incompetent subpar electrician, he wouldn't be one. If Jeremy couldn't plumb, he wouldn't be a plumber, and if Kelsey didn't do... whatever the hell it is that she does, well she'd probably run away to Fort McMurray try something else.

In the end, you'll be happy to know that I got what I wanted – a remade footlong, roasted chicken sub, on white bread.

And the best part was, they couldn't even spit it in – such is the benefit of having them make it right in front of you. I'm sure they wanted to, though.

I can almost guarantee it.

Just in case any of you were wondering, calling my office and beginning a phone conversation with the phrase, "I'm not going to leave you my name or my number because this information will get me killed," is a surefire way  – and I mean 100% lock – to ensure that whatever you have to tell me will not be taken seriously, nor will it probably ever appear in print.

Such action does, however, provide me with an afternoon's worth of good stories to tell co-workers (and blog-readers, apparently).

Thanks for calling.

Chris: Hey, nice pants - I thought you said you didn't have sweatpants anymore.

Sean, excited: Yeah I know, but the other day I found two pairs!

Sean: Found them at my house...

Sean: They were mine... I'd already purchased them... then I found them again later... God, I can't believe I had to qualify that.

Memo to woman I just overheard:

The phrase is "a fine kettle of fish," and not, as you suggested in your recent conversation, "quite a kettle of worms."

Nobody has kettles full of worms.

Conversely, and for future reference, it's a "can of worms" that can be figuratively opened, not a "can of fish."

Just in case you were wondering.

It's just after noon right now, and I am starving.

However, going into the lunchroom to retrieve my lunch from the refrigerator is a difficult task, as two of the most notorious talkers are currently in there, eating lunch. I have, as you've probably guessed, absolutely zero inclination to speak with either or them – especially one, because the conversation always ends up being about her somehow.

Also, once any type of food is put on display – my lunch, for example – the conversation with inevitably turn to one of the following topics: how said person only eats organic food, how she ate just the most marvelous tomato from a hillside market on her recent trip to Central America, or the local farmers' market.

She's a self-proclaimed "foodie" (chief ingredient: pretentiousness!). Meanwhile, I'll be microwaving a panini sandwich that came frozen in a cardboard box (From Wal-Mart no less, which is really nothing more than a global farmers' market, when you think about it).

Had I brought a sandwich or something similar to work, I would likely be able to swoop in while the two were engrossed in conversation, and slink out without being noticed. But unfortunately my lunch today, as mentioned, is of the microwave variety, and there is absolutely zero chance that I can prepare it, wait for it to cook, and run away without getting trapped into a conversation about the healing power of asparagus, or how smart it is to cook 7 meals on a Sunday afternoon, then freeze them, thus freeing up your evenings for the rest of the week.

Thankfully, I've been eating far less the last few weeks as part of my latest weight-loss infatuation ("Hi, you may remember me from failed fitness regimes such as"Carb-free January 2007" and "Yo-Yo dieting attempts 1 through 6.").

And as such, my body has gotten used to always being at least a little bit hungry. My willpower is at an all-time high, which is why I am content (sort of) to wait out "the talkers" in the lunchroom, even if it means eating lunch way later than I'd like to.

My appetite is no match for my hatred for awkward, boring conversations.

There is very little work-related banter that I enjoy. That's not to say that I don't like talking with the people I work with – because I usually do – but I just despise the usual, cliched workplace topics of conversations (ie: My rant in an earlier post about people complaining that it's Monday).

And aside from that whole Monday thing, there are few things I hate more than somebody who greets you with a "Working hard or hardly working?" After which, they almost always chuckle to themselves with glee. Now, I admit that the phrase was probably funny the very first time somebody said it – Oohhh, I see what you did there, you flipped the words around! – but that was probably some time ago, in the 1950s.

I imagine that soon after that, the hilarity died considerably. And now, three-quarters of the way through 2009, the phrase is essentially Michael Jackson.

Dead.*

Anyways, the reason for all this is because, about 20 minutes ago while meandering through Wal-Mart across the street from the office (I was, during this time, "hardly working" for those of you keeping track), I overheard a guy talking on his cell phone.

And how he greeted the voice on the other end of the line was, essentially, a re-working of the "hardly working" question:

Uhhh, what?

After I gathered my thoughts – my initial one being that this guy was the world's biggest idiot – I began to dissect this ridiculous phrase.

First off, it has absolutely no meaning. How does time kill you? How is that possible. After careful consideration, the only two ways in which I think that time could in fact be murderous in nature are 1) Dying of old age, and 2) People who are so busy they say that "There aren't enough hours in the day."

As for Way #1, it's pretty self-explanatory. You're old. You've been alive for a long time, and when that time is up, you die. Technically, it's time that kills you.

As for #2, well, these people are apparently so busy that they are being "killed" – figuratively speaking – by having a limited amount of time in which to complete a number of required tasks.

I get it, and I'm pretty sure that's what the intention of the "is time killing you?" line is all about. However, that does not make the sentence any less stupid, nor the speaker any less retarded.

It's no different that the original phrase – which is lame to begin with, as I said – and by trying to make a new version of said phrase, he just looks like a huge douche. You can usually get away with spouting lame cliches – Hell, athletes who are always taking it one game at a time and giving 110% do it every day – but who is this guy to try and coin a new phrase?

He's just some wahoo shopping at Wal-Mart in the middle of a work day and therefore likely unemployed**. And while it can be argued – pretty easily, I might add – that I, too, was in the exact same situation, there was one big difference: I wasn't coming up with asinine new twists on old phrases, thus making myself appear totally unhip and out of touch.

Nope, I was just killing time before it killed me.

Just a few quotes to get you through your day...

"The woman with the peg leg got to dance more than I did!!" - Christene's mom, who was unhappy with Christene's dad for not dancing with her at a a recent wedding they attended.

"I won't stop until all the computer are mine!" - Christene, menacingly, after winning another computer in an office raffle draw. (Every few months when the company gets new computers, they raffle the old ones off. She won one earlier this summer, too.)

"I'm so bored all the time now, during the week. I mean, yesterday I actually called Jeremy just to talk." - Ian, living the single life to the fullest.

In life, there are only a handful of non-breakfast foods (for lack of a better term) which can acceptably be eaten for breakfast. For example, any type of dessert – pie, cake, whatever – are usually delicious if eaten before 10 a.m. Also, traditional leftovers such as cold pizza or cold KFC are staples of the It's-Saturday-morning-and-I'm-hungover-as-fuck diet.

But, as I alluded to, most of these foods are consumed for breakfast when one is in a hangover state, usually on a weekend. It's a desperation breakfast borne out of laziness, essentially.

Which is why I had to look twice this morning when I arrived at work, walked into the lunchroom, and saw a colleague of mine – a woman in her late 50s – sitting at the table, scarfing down cold, rubbery-looking tempura prawns out of a Chinese take-out box, along with her morning coffee.

At 8:15 a.m. on a Tuesday.

I mean, find a bagel or something for Christ's sake.

Yesterday after work, Christene and I drove to the Quizno's in Murrayville, so we could grab something to eat quickly before I had to go play softball.

As we waited at a red light at an intersection, two people crossed the street who could not have been a stranger match. Individually, they were each bizarre-looking enough to warrant a second (or third) look (or laugh), but together, well, they were a tandem on par with that time Macho Man Randy Savage teamed up with Hulk Hogan.

Now, I tried to take a picture with my cell phone, but couldn't get a clear shot - and when a clear shot did finally present itself, we were moving, so it was impossible. As a result, I will have to describe them to you, as best I can.

The man looked to be in his late 40s or early 50s. He had a very large potbelly, on which hung a very ill-fitting shirt which may or may not have had sleeves. On his head he wore a cowboy hat that appeared to be made of, if not plastic, then some other kind of shiny material (Authentic, it was not). Below the waist, he wore some cut-off jean shorts which looked to be a do-it-yourself job – the bottoms of them were quite frayed.

Oh, I forgot to mention – he was holding these designer shorts up with suspenders. Honest to God, suspenders.

And, in a move he obviously cribbed from those cute kids who wear gumboots and shorts (and sometimes capes too, just because it's awesome), this fine middle-aged gentleman was wearing big brown boots – possibly of the steel toed variety.

It was like a perfect storm of fashion mistakes – all that was missing was the aforementioned cape, or possibly some kind of scarf.

The woman he was with was not dressed quite so oddly, but she, uh, stood out in a place like Langley. She was a large black woman, wearing capri-type pants which appeared to be far too tight; she had a short, afro-like hair, and walked with a pronounced limp  – slowly, and awkwardly.

What a team they made. I expect they were just coming back from a trip to the post office, where they went to pick up their complimentary "Best of Maury Povich" DVD box set, which they received as a gift after appearing on the show. 

Either that, or they were mailing an angry letter to the creators of Cops, in which they demanded residuals be paid to them since they'd made so many appearances on the show.

Maybe they were doing both.

Lately, and with increasing regularity, I've been browsing MLS.ca for houses, and Christene has since become as addicted to doing it as I have. Today, she found a nice rancher in Walnut Grove, and messaged me to tell me about it. After I checked it out, we compared notes.

Christene: It's a nice little house, and there's even a big wall for your TV.

Me: Yeah, it looks pretty nice.

Christene: Backyard is a pretty big, too.

Me: Yep. You could build a nice deck back there.

Christene: Or even a wrestling ring!

This is why I keep her around, folks. For brilliance like that.

Assuming that you are not somehow stuck in 2006, you probably shouldn't rock a faux-hawk. Secondly, you should further be discouraged from said hair style if you are in your mid- to late-40s, which clearly you are.

And you should definitely not dye it blonde, while keeping the rest of your hair its natural brown colour.

However, if you do insist on this particular style – I mean, if you absolutely must – I would strongly suggest that you actually "spike" the whole faux-hawk, instead of simply concentrating the gel on the first few inches of it, and leaving the rest to fall flat against your scalp, thus making you look like a rooster with bed-head.

Trust me, it's for the best.