Melissa's gaggle of high-schooler coworkers were having toooo much fuuuuun at work tonight to bother getting everything taken care of so they could leave at 9. No. At ten of, Melissa is up front gathering up cardboard to be taken outside, and shutting off helium tanks, and the copy machine, and everything else they always forget.
At 9:02, Melissa wonders where in HELL half her night crew disappeared to, when it's been like 5 minutes since they left the front of the store and the lights in back have yet to be turned off.

So Melissa gets out a few minutes late, not a big deal, just annoying that these kids don't get the concept of leaving on time.

Melissa and Tom go to Wendy's for dinner. Tom is veryhungry, and Melissa is prettyhungry, so Tom orders two burgers and Melissa orders the new Swiss Cheese mushroom burger thing.

TEN minutes later, the only thing on the damn counter still are their two drinks.

On the way home, Tom mentions to Melissa that the toilet broke right before he had to leave for work, so it is not currently working. The flush-handle had gone slack. Luckily, this is something Melissa conceptually knows how to fix.

Tom goes back to work, and Melissa comes upstairs to nest in bed and write her daily chunk of novel. Melissa goes to fill up a water bottle, and then remembers - oh yeah, I should see what's going on with the toilet.

Melissa jiggles the handle - nothing. Darn. So Melissa takes the 4337892 bottles and things off the back of the toilet, and takes the lid off the tank. She is slightly disgusted by the ridiculous shade of red-brown that coats the inside - but reminds herself that it's only the same little bits of iron and crap that's always in the water, just built up over the last, y'know, decade or two.

Melissa jiggles the handle, and looks to see what should be connected that is not connected.

Melissa discovers that there is nothing but a stub of broken PLASTIC attached to the back of the handle. There is a long piece of PLASTIC down at the bottom of the tank, attached to a metal chain attached to a drain.

Melissa lifts said piece of PLASTIC and, voila, the toilet flushes.

The PLASTIC is broken right at a corner, thus making it un-duct-tape-able.

...so Melissa goes downstairs and gets the super glue.

Melissa has yet to test this by actually flushing, and is not going to do so until absolutely necessary. For now, the FREAKING PLASTIC seems to be holding together. Thank freaking God for super glue. Tom can help Melissa sort out a better solution tomorrow. Melissa's hands were ALREADY cracked and dry and in pain, and dunking them in water some more is not exactly going to help the situation.



...and that's a good 500 words or so that should have been novel-writing. damnit.

 
This is not a prime example of LOLhilarity, but...


more animals

I cannot get over that little baby zebronkey. Those legs!!! Not only is it an adorable little baby thing but I can't get over how cool those legs look. I had this dream a few months ago with a fairy in it, but the fairy's skin had basically Appaloosa spots from the waist down, and it was *so* cool looking, and it was basically the same effect as this little baby critter has and I FREAKING LOVE. I can't get over.

//random

(NaNo's word count counted A THOUSAND freaking fewer words than my little text editor was doing... I realized it's partly because of the italic html tags I throw in there. But I'm still a crankypants over it. Luckily, Linux + Unix = uh, hi, friendly. And someone on NaNo posted the command for Unix's word count feature, which gives the same numbers as NaNo, so that's what I'll use now. I've already made up the difference from whatever word-debt I had and added another 1,667 for today, so I'm all caught up to where I should be, even after taking the day off for a migraine yesterday... but I was so faaar aheeeaaad! I was 2,400 words ahead day before yesterday, so even with yesterday being a dead-day I would've been a good 800ish up. But no. Now it's gone. I'm going to try to push out just a little more tonight, but, ICK.)

 
Tom: What book is it?
Melissa: The Martian Chronicles - it's really good, you should read it.
Tom: *mock-innocent* I wonder what it chronicles?
Melissa: Martians! Well, no, actually Earth people on Mars. The first few stories are about martians though.
Tom: Are those the fluffy, white things?
Melissa: No... they're glowing blue spheres in one story, where they've surpassed the physical form, but...
Tom: What are those fluffy, white things, that you roast over a fire?
Melissa: ...
...
...bunny rabbits?

Tom: *looking rather shocked* NO!
Melissa: What??
Tom: That you put on a stick, and roast over a fire... white and fluffy...

Melissa: Marshmallows aren't fluffy! You mean *puffy*, fluffy implies fur, and fuzziness!