The Downfall of Dan…

Yes, what we all knew would eventually happen has come to pass.  Dan is no longer with us.  He’s with someone else.  Dan managed to get himself fired after showing up to work drunk and driving a forklift into a door, breaking both the door and the forklift.  Dan was uninjured (OSHA… it works).

Some of you might be wondering why I haven’t been posting.  If you have, then thank you for caring.  Nigel and I had a very rough time of things.  The economy hit his company hard and he ended up having to find a job elsewhere, which pays less and has more hours, so we’re bothing having to work much harder.  It looks like he’ll be up for a promotion in a few months, so things might get easier then.

We also decided to get a legal divorce, though we remain domestic partners.  I just couldn’t hack the wife legal property business anymore.  Unfortunately, this means that I lost my insured status, and I can’t afford private insurance with my pittance artist’s income (though our household income is too high to qualify for government insurance).  Fortunately, I have a friend who is a doctor and he’s been looking out for me when I need prescriptions.

Although obviously the Dan Chronicles can be no more, I’m going to go ahead and leave them up for anyone to read as an object lesson.  I’ll be altering the FAQ to reflect our current situation more accurately.  Thanks for reading.

How to sexually harass in the workplace…

Ugh. 5am wake-up times on weekends suck. Nigel had to go into work this morning for his obligatory Saturday extra-extra-special overtime with… Dan. Dan has been a little tight-lipped lately around Nigel ever since the “get your wife’s bitch ass in the kitchen and make me some pie” conversation. However, because they’re both working together alone today, I expect to get a call at some point with another story. In the mean time, here’s one that Nigel observed but was only directly present for part of:
——–

The new female machinist (see post below) turns out not to be a dyke by Dan’s discerning standards, after all. Nigel figures that Dan must not have seen her before he started complaining, because now that he has, he won’t leave the poor woman alone. Nigel described her thusly, “She’s got a doll-like face, petite and thanks to Dan, has a perpetual look of paranoia”, which means that she is not a 50-year-old woman, like the other female machinist, and that places her within Dan’s available pool of pussy.

Dan’s been sneaking up behind her while she’s working and setting off her air gun to startle her, and then when she whips around to see wtf, he grins and leers and says, “Got you! It was me. Heh heh heh.” He’s constantly doing things like this to try to get her attention, humiliate her and generally harass her, which is very dangerous in that environment. Startling someone while they’re working on a machine can result in the loss of a hand, not that Dan cares.

Dan was bragging about doing this to all who were present in the break room yesterday. There were five men present other than Dan, and only Nigel saw fit to say anything.

Dan: So, I snuck up on her and you shoulda seen it… ha ha ha… it was so fucking great… her face!

Nigel: Why did you do that?

Dan: You know, just to scare her. She’s so cute! Ha ha ha

Nigel: She could have lost a finger.

Dan: Nah. I wouldn’t have let her do that.

Nigel: So, what then? You would have used your super powers to stop the machine from 5,000 RPMs before it snapped off her finger?

Dan: Ha ha… yeah. I’d use mah soopah powahs. I got the power right here. *grabs crotch*

Nigel: So you’d use your cock to stop the machine? Heh. That might not be a bad idea, actually.

Dan: … *laughs*

Others: *laughs*

Nigel: *not laughing*

Later that day, Nigel saw her talking with another one of the male Mexican machinists, though because él no comprende español he was not sure what was being said. However, he suspects that it has something to do with Dan, since later that day he saw Dan was squatting by her station, his face on level with her ass and with all the noise and such she did not hear him, and then suddenly the Mexican male machinist yelled across the shop, “HEY!” causing Dan to jump up suddenly and bluster something about checking her fan (a personal fan she brought in to cool herself, not a shop or machine fan) then skitter away.

Equal opportunity her ass.

——–

I just heard about this last night while Nigel was shopping with me for groceries after work, and I’ve threatened to report Dan’s behavior to the CEO on Monday. Really, this is going too far, and if none of the guys there saw fit to see anything wrong with putting her life in danger with Dan’s harassment, I can only assume there is a silent consent for it. Other than the one guy intervening and Nigel’s comments, all the other men seem to be perfectly content allowing Dan to drive her out of her work, or worse, into permanent bodily injury. I can’t tolerate that.

I know that if I do make this report, it won’t take long for everyone to suspect that Nigel might be responsible for my haranguing the company into basic compliance with the law, and this makes Nigel nervous about losing his job… and yeah, that’s a real concern with the culture there being what it is. This is such a fucked up situation when I can’t think about helping this woman without thinking about how it might cost us our insurance and his paycheck.

I’m going to do something anyway.  Anyone have any ideas?  Help would be good here.

Brown women and big machines…

Before you get some Tarantino-esque B movie reel going through your head, let me start this post on a positive note: It looks like the shop has decided to hire another woman machinist, which makes 2. She is Mexican, and according to Nigel, does not speak much English, however I reminded him that this is one of those assumptions that white people make when a brown person chooses not to speak English, because a certain advantage can be had in a position of cultural disadvantage when people think you don’t understand them.

Anyway, it’s neither here nor there. The point is that there are now TWO SCARY BROWN WOMEN WITH GIANT METAL-CUTTING MACHINES! Dan is afeared of both of them.

Dan: Fuckin affirmative action. It’s bullshit. If this keeps up, the dykes are gonna overrun us.

Nigel: I thought you liked lesbians.

Dan: Pfft. Those bitches don’t have sex. Hell, they probably got teeth down there. Freaks me out the way they look at me.

—–

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha *breathe* hahahahahahahahaha!

Oh my. I have this wonderful mental image of a harsh-eyed glare from one of the female machinists, arc-welder in hand, suspiciously watching Dan as he slinks by on his way to his station jumping at the snap of the torch as she sets it off just to watch him skitter faster. I’m sure that’s probably not what happens, but gods above, let me dream.

I firmly believe that what that shop needs is more brown women who are skilled with large machinery. If I had the health to stay on my feet all day, I’d take my art-based metalsmithing skills and learn me how to lathe big pipes!

Nigel fails his privilege resistance test…

I love my Nigel.  He tries.  I know that we aren’t supposed to give cookies for effort, because then they won’t make effort without cookies, but I do anyway.  Well, not cookies.  I give him encouraging words.  The problem is that I also occasionally make cookies and other foods out of love for the culinary arts, and this has become an ongoing point of contention between us, viz. his privileged sense of entitlement to be fed rather than learning to cook vs. my actual enjoyment of cooking, which is only about 2/3rds of the time.  We have a budget that makes it impossible to live off of eating out and convenience food.  Therefor, the task falls to me to feed everyone even when I don’t feel like cooking (or eating for that matter) myself.  It’s hard enough to keep this issue from damaging our household calm, but when Dan was unexpectedly invoked into the inner sanctum of my kitchen, I almost lost my mind.

Dan: I asked my wife why she can’t be more like yours.

Nigel:  *goes very quiet and gets a serious face* Oh?

Dan:  Yeah, I told her that your wife cooks you lunch all the time and her food looks good, unlike that bitch’s.  I told her that if she doesn’t start cooking for me, I’m just gonna get you to tell your wife to cook for me, instead.

Nigel:  … My wife cooks when she wants for the people she wants, and she won’t be cooking for you.  I might could get her to cook for Ryan or Daniel, but I doubt you.

Dan:  … No, man… I mean, I was just telling my wife that, so she’ll cook.  You know?

Nigel:  Well, don’t.

——

GRRRRRRRRRR!  GRRR @ YOU NIGEL!  You don’t start talking about who I’ll cook for and blah blah blah like I’m some resource!  And don’t lie like that!  You know I don’t cook just when I want to;  I cook because your privilege kept you from having to learn how, and so we have no choice but for me to cook all the time whether I want to or not!  You tell him that he shouldn’t be using me against his wife like that, because he isn’t anymore entitled to be fed than you are!  FAIL!  NO COOKIE FOR NIGEL!

Seriously.  I’m not making you any more cookies for awhile.  Whining isn’t going to make me change my mind.

Me thinks teh menz doth protest too much..

Everyone in the shop has been working a lot of overtime for the past couple of weeks, because it seems that someone — probably Dan — didn’t make their parts right and when they sent the product to [Major Oil  Drilling Company], apparently it blew up one of the oil wells.  Millions of dollars literally down the hole.  The shop has been butthurt ever since and scrambling to try to make it better, working everyone for long hours often doing jobs they aren’t supposed to do, in order to get the replacement parts out.  Nigel’s refused to work both days last weekend, but being a machinist, Dan had to.  That made fourteen days with no day off, and so…

Dan:  I said fuck it and took Monday off.

Nigel:  I wasn’t here Monday, either.

Dan:  Good for you man.  Because this is bullshit.

Nigel:  I was sick.

Dan:  Oh.  Well, anyhow I took the day off, and  I was really looking forward to sitting around, drinkin some beers, watching some porn… and so Sunday my old lady tells me:  *in mocking falsetto* ‘Guess what, honey?  I decided to take Monday off so we could spend some time together!’  That fucking bitch!  I didn’t take the day off for her, I took it off for me. Instead of jerkin’ and drinkin’ I had to spend all goddamned day runnin’ around with her.  Fucking bitch.

Nigel:  Why didn’t you just tell her that’s how you felt about it?

Dan:  Oh, I told that bitch.

Nigel:  And yet, you went anyway.

Dan:  … Well… yeah.  Like I said, she’s a bitch.

——

This is what makes me start to think that Dan is a puppy at home, and all of this is sheer bloviation.  If he is talking like that to his wife, then really, I fear that she is so far drowned in the mire of patriarchy that she may die before anyone could save her.  But, I’m starting to think it’s more likely that she has no idea that he talks like this, referring to her as his “cumbucket” to the other fellas at work and such, and would be shocked to find out that she’s married to a misogynist who is so bad that he warrants his own website.

This is what makes Dans so sinister.  Is your husband a Dan?  Your boyfriend?  Your brother?  It’s enough to make a girl think of shooting them all and letting Kali sort them out.

Dan on stalking and your mind…

Dan and teh menz were sitting in the break room having lunch.

Dan: Dammit, I saw something yesterday that pissed me off.

Nigel: Oh?

Dan: Remember those hot lesbians that live next to me?

Nigel: The ones you assume are lesbian, because they are two women who live near you?

Dan: … Yeah…

Nigel: I remember.

Dan: Well, I was watching their house waiting for them to come home–

Nigel: So you were stalking them.

Dan: … *grins* Yeah, I was stalking them. And so this fucking guy goes in while they aren’t there. That means he has a key. So, I figure that he’s either their brother, or one of them is playing around with being straight and that fucker beat me to it.

Daniel: *walks in* What are you talking about?

Nigel: Dan is stalking his neighbors.

Dan: Yeah, there are these two totally hawt lesbians living next door. I’m thinkin’ of goin’ over there and experimenting. They seem like the kind of girls that like to experiment. You know how lesbians are.

Daniel: Really. So what’s your wife think about that?

Dan: *snorts* What does my wife think? Please. Women don’t think.

—-

And that kind of says it all, doesn’t it? There are many layers of nested wrong within this paradigm. A pipe beating, I’m convinced, might be the only way to break through that much interdependent women-hating fuckwittery.

Dan’s entitled to you, too…

Dan was explaining to listening ears that his wife had been asking him to stop by Wal-Mart on his way home from work for the past three days to pick up something-or-other for the house.

Dan: “I told her, ‘But honey, I don’t have time to stop by any pussy shacks on the way home. You expect me to have time to stop by Wal-Mart?’… But then I thought, that’s all Wal-Mart really is, anyway.”

—–

Extreme creep factor here. Next time you’re doing your shopping chore at your local discount store, keep in mind that odds are one of the guys wandering around is a Dan, thinking of you as a pussy in the pussy shack.

It burns…

Nigel and Daniel (a different person from Dan; see Characters & Setting) were working on a project together, with Dan tinkering in the background.  Nigel and I only have one working vehicle right now and I keep it after dropping him at work, so Daniel invites Nigel to come with him to forage for lunch.  Daniel informs Dan that he can take his lunch break now, but doesn’t expressly invite him to come along.  This doesn’t stop him, however, and as Nigel and Daniel are heading out to Daniel’s truck, Dan comes bounding out volunteering to take the back seat since Nigel’s legs are so long.  So, they were stuck with him.

Dan is chattering in the truck about this and that with the other two men riding along in pained silence.  When they arrive at the restaurant, Daniel goes inside to get the food, leaving Nigel alone with Dan, who brings up the subject of his wife.  Again.

Dan: *sighs*  That fucking bitch is spending all of my money.  The other day she tells me that she needs some underwear, and asks me if she can use my stash to buy ‘em, right?  I tell her sure, and she goes and takes it.  There’s like $100 in the drawer.

Nigel:  Uh huh…

Dan:  I figure my underwear cost like… what?… a buck a piece, right?  So she’ll spend maybe $20.  She’s gone for a few hours and comes back with this little bag.  I ask her, ‘Did you get your underwear?’  She says ‘Yes.’  I say, ‘You got the change?’  and she says, ‘No.’  So I say, ‘What do you mean?  You didn’t spend all $100 did you?’ And she say, ‘I did.’  So, I’m like, ‘How many underwear did you fuckin’ buy?!’ And she says, ‘Eight pairs.’  EIGHT PAIRS!

Nigel:  Women’s underwear are expensive.  It costs a lot to look pretty for men, you know.

Dan:  Fuck that.  I told her that those underwear are gonna have to last her the rest of her goddamned life.  If I spent $100, that’d be all the underwear I’d ever need, so that bitch is NEVER going to buy another single pair.  Ever!

Daniel:  *opens the truck door*  They aren’t doing to-go.  We have to go eat inside.

Nigel:  Cool. *looks at Dan*  I don’t even know what to say to that, man.  You’re an asshole.

Dan:  *laughs*  Yeah, well, seriously though… $100?!

—

There are so many things wrong with this mentality, and I’ve heard it before from other guys who complain about how much frou-frou girl-frillies cost, totally ignoring the fact that, as Nigel pointed out, women’s underthings are more expensive, precisely because the woman is trying to design herself a visual sex object for a man.  In a very real way, Dan’s wife was buying the underwear for Dan, not for herself.  Thongs are not comfortable, lace is scratchy and there’s no such thing as a pair of cute panties that work well when you’re on your period.  If she wasn’t thinking of his cock, she would have just bought cheap Hanes, like he does because he doesn’t care what she thinks when he peels off his rank pants.

Then, of course, there’s the whole declaration that she can’t buy more underwear, ever.  Since he’s infantilizing her, it’s worth pointing out that if I did that to my child, I could be arrested for neglect.  But it’s fine to neglect the wife you’ve transformed into a child-object without rights and then abuse her, because… well, she’s a woman.  Who cares, really?

Even if he isn’t really going to get away with restricting her undy-purchases in the future, do keep in mind ladies that this line of bullshit talk is incredibly common when the subject of your patriarchy-serving self-pornographication comes up.  Just buy Hanes.

Wives: Can’t live with ‘em, but you can always shoot them…

Dan got on the subject of his gun collection.

Dan: I’m not a redneck, but I do like my guns.

Nigel: Do you have many?

Dan: Oh yeah. I got some nice ones, too. I mostly keep ‘em for hunting, and in case my wife needs to be shot.

Nigel: *blank, stunned stare*

Dan: I have to keep ‘em locked up so she doesn’t touch ‘em. I told her not to touch ‘em, but the stupid bitch kept tryin’ to play with them.

Nigel: … My wife keeps a shotgun by her desk. (And I surely do. With incendiary rounds.)

Dan: Wow, man. You’re brave. I bought my wife a little two-bit shooter so she’d have something to play with, but I’d never give her a real gun.

Nigel: … *flabbergasted*…

——

I was disappointed with Nigel for not reaming Dan out for casually mentioning the murder of his wife, but I can understand the lack of social response to something like that. I’m pretty sure I would have stood there gaping, as well, unless I had my gun on me…

This makes me want to walk into the shop with my .38 special and have a chat with him about girls and guns.

Sometimes, she’s just asking for it….

Nigel is trying to fit some sleeves into pipes that Dan is manufacturing along side him.  It is precision work.

Dan:  Man you take a long time to fit those.

Nigel:  *from beneath the pipe with a crow bar and a laser level*  Just doing it right.

Dan:  Well, don’t sweat it man.  Everyone screws up sometimes.

Nigel:  If you do it right the first time, you won’t have to correct mistakes later.

Dan:  Ha.  You’ll fuck it up.  Wait and see.

Nigel:  Fuck ups don’t magically happen out of nowhere.  They happen when you don’t measure things correctly.

Dan:  Everyone loses, man.

Nigel:  This isn’t a game.  If I don’t measure this right, it will explode early.  Besides, I don’t lose.

Dan:  Ha.  One of these days your wife is going to kick your ass.

Nigel:  … What?

Dan:  Ha ha ha… Yep, you’re gonna fuck up and your wife is gonna beat the shit out of you.  (This confused me.  As Nigel explained it, to Dan, getting your ass kicked by a woman is among the worst humiliations, and so he intended this to be an insult.)

Nigel:  *sighs*   You know, I’ve never lost a fight, but I would be afraid of my wife, because if I gave her a reason to hit me, then I’d probably deserve to die.  But she will never have that reason to attack me.

Dan:  They all do sooner or later, man.  It’s just a matter of time before they go crazy.

Nigel:  …You could always try talking.  Talking with women often helps to prevent them from feeling insane.
Dan:  When she talks, all she does it bitch.

Nigel:  *shakes his head*  I can’t imagine why.  But regardless, violence isn’t an option between us.

Dan:  Well you’re a good man, I guess.

Nigel:  Why?  Because I don’t beat her?

Dan:  Yeah.  I mean, I don’t hit my wife, but sometimes… whew… you know?  She’s just asking for it.  You know what I mean.

Nigel:  No, I really don’t.  *glares*  I can’t fathom hitting my wife for any reason.

Dan:  Oh… *goes back to his lathe*

——

Why won’t men just beat us when we ask for it?  We try asking politely, saying please-may-I and everything, but no… we are consigned to suffer without the abuse we so clearly desire.  All day long I try to think of ways to convince men to hit me, but goddammit, my fairytale fantasy is squelched by the longsuffering restraint of men like Dan.  It’s good that there are men like him out there to protect us crazy wimmins from ourselves.  If it weren’t for epic patience like that, in our desperation to be beaten, we’d give up asking and just fling our faces into their fists to get that which we so clearly want.

Dan’s Moral:  Women deserve to be hit sometimes for being displeasing, but good men spare us, and for this we should be thankful.