Chapter 104
The Goodbye Chapter
Well, I guess this thing is over. I mean, I didn’t start writing it for Sweet Pea; it was all about me…still is mostly. But I leave for California tomorrow and I give Sweet Pea a copy of this. Is it a faux pa to continue writing in it after there is a copy out there that ends here? I could always start volume 2 I suppose. I mean 195 full pages of rants and raves and secrets is a bit much. Maybe I should just start writing in my journal more often.
I’ve been writing in this think for so long that it’s going to be weird to not open it up on my desktop when something bugs me, or I have an interesting story to tell. It’s always the first place I go and now, now what? I’ve never been good at goodbyes. So if you were expecting the “goodbye chapter” to be some amazing reading material you’ll sadly find that it is the ramblings of a girl who has been slightly changed over the course of time that it has taken to write this thing.
I started off writing because I always felt depressed, and yes, I’ve still had days like that. You followed me through therapy, pretend husbands, graduation, moving home and adjusting to living with “girls”, the ups and downs of my job, and now we end with me getting ready to go to California for the very first time in my life. I bought a digital camera, it’s really nice and the cool part is that I’ve taken a couple of pictures and the batteries are still fine (My old one dies after about 5 shots). I can zoom in and still have enough battery to take the picture! It’s amazing. It’s the most expensive impulse shopping I’ve ever done, but I can rule it out as impulsive because I looked through all the ads and picked the cheapest for the best pixel. I love it. I can’t wait to show it to Sweet Pea. I can’t wait to see Sweet Pea. I was thinking about my trip last night. Wondering if I would be all shy and awkward around her family at first, even though I know most of them, and wondering if as we are falling asleep we’ll talk like we used to when we lived in Rexburg, having the most random conversations ever! Then I realized that it’s not a very long trip, I tried to make it as long as possible but no matter what Sunday evening is going to come and I am going to have to fly home. I hope I don’t cry. But I already know it’s going to be hard to say goodbye.
I was supposed to hang out with a friend last night. She’s fun, I like being her friend, but I don’t really like hanging out with her, if that makes sense and hopefully doesn’t make me look like a jerk. But I was thinking that I need friends that I actually want to hang out. I always wanted to hang out with Sweet Pea, even if we had just been fighting. How many friends can you have like that?
Life is going to be so weird without this thing.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Chapter 103
National Security
So I just got home from work and I went to check on my mouse. As I walk up to the cage I see that he is climbing up the wall. I push his little feet telling him to get down but he does so I open the cage and reach my hand in and let him crawl on my hand. He was covered in white stuff! I am taking this is a terrorist attack; I believe that Motor Mouth got her dirty little paws on anthrax and crop dusted my mouse with it!! Poor little guy isn’t running around, he is just sitting still on a towel on my lap right now. I don’t know if he can see all too well because the junk was all up in his eyes. I washed him off as best as I could but I’m still nervous for my little friend. What if he is dead when I get back? I’ll kill my roommates. I don’t know what the white stuff is, I’m sure it’s not anthrax, I don’t believe that Motor Mouth is diabolical, but I wouldn’t put it past her to “accidentally” poison my mouse.
I feel weird about leaving him here with my roommates while I’m in California but where else am I supposed to take him? Okay, he just came up and cuddled next to my arm…he does not cuddle up to me unless I am holding him and my hand surrounds him on all sides. He must be sick! Poor guy/girl…I‘m still not sure what he/she is.
Other than that life is all right. I plan to get most of my hours for next week in the beginning so that I can have the weekend off. I may even work the day that I come back from California if I am feeling up to it. But I might not. The next two days though, Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving? Heck yeah, I’ll be working those days and probably getting most of my hours then. Anyway. Nothing exciting to report except that my mouse may or may not be dying.
Um, okay, so I just went and put my mouse in his cage and then took him to the Florida room to get some fresh air. I saw him/her start having seizures! I didn’t know mice could have those! I watched helplessly as my mouse died!!! I came in here to add that little part and my music was going as it always does and the song “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. just started, I feel like I am in some movie and the soundtrack is so perfect. I cried when my mouse died. There has got to be something wrong with me because who cries when a mouse dies? I do. It could be because I’m emotional due to the period or I had grown attached to the little guy/girl. I’m pretty sure now that it was a girl. My roommate told me that she was trying to get out of the cage all day and I told her it was because she knew the end was coming and she wanted to see the world before she went. How traumatic for me. You know what, part of me doesn’t think that it was the mouse dying that is the real reason I am crying, but I can’t put my finger on it so I guess I’ll be taking it out in the form of remorse for a mouse.
National Security
So I just got home from work and I went to check on my mouse. As I walk up to the cage I see that he is climbing up the wall. I push his little feet telling him to get down but he does so I open the cage and reach my hand in and let him crawl on my hand. He was covered in white stuff! I am taking this is a terrorist attack; I believe that Motor Mouth got her dirty little paws on anthrax and crop dusted my mouse with it!! Poor little guy isn’t running around, he is just sitting still on a towel on my lap right now. I don’t know if he can see all too well because the junk was all up in his eyes. I washed him off as best as I could but I’m still nervous for my little friend. What if he is dead when I get back? I’ll kill my roommates. I don’t know what the white stuff is, I’m sure it’s not anthrax, I don’t believe that Motor Mouth is diabolical, but I wouldn’t put it past her to “accidentally” poison my mouse.
I feel weird about leaving him here with my roommates while I’m in California but where else am I supposed to take him? Okay, he just came up and cuddled next to my arm…he does not cuddle up to me unless I am holding him and my hand surrounds him on all sides. He must be sick! Poor guy/girl…I‘m still not sure what he/she is.
Other than that life is all right. I plan to get most of my hours for next week in the beginning so that I can have the weekend off. I may even work the day that I come back from California if I am feeling up to it. But I might not. The next two days though, Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving? Heck yeah, I’ll be working those days and probably getting most of my hours then. Anyway. Nothing exciting to report except that my mouse may or may not be dying.
Um, okay, so I just went and put my mouse in his cage and then took him to the Florida room to get some fresh air. I saw him/her start having seizures! I didn’t know mice could have those! I watched helplessly as my mouse died!!! I came in here to add that little part and my music was going as it always does and the song “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. just started, I feel like I am in some movie and the soundtrack is so perfect. I cried when my mouse died. There has got to be something wrong with me because who cries when a mouse dies? I do. It could be because I’m emotional due to the period or I had grown attached to the little guy/girl. I’m pretty sure now that it was a girl. My roommate told me that she was trying to get out of the cage all day and I told her it was because she knew the end was coming and she wanted to see the world before she went. How traumatic for me. You know what, part of me doesn’t think that it was the mouse dying that is the real reason I am crying, but I can’t put my finger on it so I guess I’ll be taking it out in the form of remorse for a mouse.
Chapter 102
The Meat Market
So my sister came with me to church today. Today was also when they announced that they had gotten my records. I’m glad she could have been there for that. It was nice having someone who would actually talk to me. Is it wrong to say that I was grateful that she is just as isolated, if not more isolated than me when it comes to knowing people in that ward? Maybe I don’t really like popular people because they don’t give you all of their attention, they are so distracted. I like people who can give me most of their attention. But I love my sister, for more than just that. It was fast Sunday, which means I didn’t eat, all day. Church is at 1 o’clock and by then my stomach is pleading with me for it all to be over. The past couple of fast Sundays my stomach has been ticking me off, because it is growing ever more impatient. The growls are louder and longer. I really don’t want to talk about it.
But we were sitting there in the quiet of Sacrament meeting and my stomach starts up, my sister gives me a look of surprise and I write her a note saying, “Lay of me I’m starving!” Which gets both of us laughing and then she’s nervous because she is laughing and she starts to shake her leg and all that fabric rubbing together is making me laugh because of the noise and my stomach is still growling. Then her face keeps going red because there is a guy in the ward who she thinks is really cute so if she ever accidentally looks over in his direction she gets nervous, and when she gets nervous her face gets red. When her face gets red, I laugh at her. I’m such a good sister.
Then she leans into me and says, “That guy keeps looking over here and I don’t want him to” (as though I can force who ever it is to stop looking around). I look over in the direction that she is talking about and I see missionaries at first and I hope not one of them is the wandering eye. Then I see who is sitting next to them. It’s this guy that has been over to my house before and I write her a note asking if she is talking about the blond. She says ‘yes’ and I tell her that I feel like he does that every Sunday (and I really do) but I figure he just gets bored and looks all around all the time. It took me a while before I got to thinking that she seems to be the one looking around at everyone, but I let it go, because I know that’s just her personality.
After Sacrament this kid comes up and starts talking to me. We knew each other in high school, for a year, and I didn’t remember us ever really talking but he talked to me as though we had been best friends. So I tried to act the same way, but didn’t really know what to say. But we talked for a couple of minutes and then he said that he was going to go and I said I would see him later. We can be friends.
We were standing by the doors and Jim (my future husband who doesn’t even know me yet) walks by and I lean over to my sister and tell her that my future husband just walked by. He came back in and I pointed him out to her again. But she didn’t get a good look. Then I meant to take my sister to Sunday School but we ended up hanging out in the foyer with my roommates and this guy that my sister and I call him by our brother’s name because he reminds us of our brother. So he came over to tell us to go to Sunday School when it was never his intention to get us to go but rather to sit with us in the foyer. He had told us that he was the Enforcer (which I’ll call him) and I told him he was some enforcer, he told us once and then gave up. He said he did what he could. So I said, “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em right?” Oh P.S. he’s the one who gave us the mouse. I’ll tell you my new favorite thing though, talking about people while they are right there but trying to make sure that they can’t hear what you are saying and then randomly looking over at them every once in a while. I didn’t do it on purpose but my sister and I were talking about how much The Enforcer looked like our brother but we were being quiet because it’s not nice to talk about people while they are right there (behind the back is completely acceptable). Then we would look over at him and he’d be looking at us and then we would get all embarrassed because we felt like we were caught. Really I think we just gave the Enforcer a complex. But we finally spilled the beans and I had a picture of my brother in my wallet so we showed him and everyone else. The girls who actually knew my brother said that the Enforcer did look like my brother. The Enforcer said that he didn’t and we told him we didn’t mean twins, but there were similarities. I told him that it was what he would look like when he was 32 and one of the girls said that he should keep the picture so he would know what to aspire to. So finally the Enforcer says that my brother is a good looking guy (fully knowing that he was complementing himself).
Sometime in the course of “Sunday school” my sister lets it slip to Jelly Bean that I have my future husband picked out…oh wait, it’s because Jelly Bean asked my sister what she thought about this one guy who was talking to us briefly because they want to set me up with him. Then my sister said I had already picked out my future husband. So then Jelly Bean wanted to know and she wanted to know why I hadn’t said anything. She asks if it was someone they knew and I told her ‘no’ and that I actually found him more appealing because of it. She wanted me to point him out next Sunday but I’ll be in California! Muhaha. Maybe by the week after she’ll forget. I don’t know, it’s just more fun if no one knows about him. People know about him they’ll find stuff out about him, and then slowly I won’t like him anymore. I just want life to be a diminutively interesting for a little while.
So after Sunday school people start walking around the building again and Blondie (the bird watcher from Sacrament meeting) comes up and starts talking to me because he didn’t realize that I hadn’t already been a member of the ward. I introduce him to my sister and I could tell that he was going to keep talking to me but just then someone hit me on the back and it’s my friend and she’s holding the cutest little girl so I talk to her for a bit and when I turn back Blondie has been snatched up by some girl who was talking to him about something boring, because knowing this girl it was probably just about her. People start to clear the foyer and I ask my sister if she is ready to leave (because we are going to eat dinner at my parents). This guy who is always at my house comes up and says, “Oh I see you brought a friend with you.” I felt uncomfortable about how he was looking at her (not really). I introduced them quickly and then pulled her away from the predator. My sister kept talking about how she could tell Blondie wanted to talk to me more but I turned away. I told her I got hit on the back I really couldn’t help it. She said she felt bad for him and she knew she wasn’t good enough to talk to instead. An hour or two before she didn’t even want him looking at her, now she felt bad for him? He’s a guy, he’ll survive, if he really wants to talk to me, he’ll do it again next time. Pretty interesting Sunday I think. My sister should come with me more often.
The Meat Market
So my sister came with me to church today. Today was also when they announced that they had gotten my records. I’m glad she could have been there for that. It was nice having someone who would actually talk to me. Is it wrong to say that I was grateful that she is just as isolated, if not more isolated than me when it comes to knowing people in that ward? Maybe I don’t really like popular people because they don’t give you all of their attention, they are so distracted. I like people who can give me most of their attention. But I love my sister, for more than just that. It was fast Sunday, which means I didn’t eat, all day. Church is at 1 o’clock and by then my stomach is pleading with me for it all to be over. The past couple of fast Sundays my stomach has been ticking me off, because it is growing ever more impatient. The growls are louder and longer. I really don’t want to talk about it.
But we were sitting there in the quiet of Sacrament meeting and my stomach starts up, my sister gives me a look of surprise and I write her a note saying, “Lay of me I’m starving!” Which gets both of us laughing and then she’s nervous because she is laughing and she starts to shake her leg and all that fabric rubbing together is making me laugh because of the noise and my stomach is still growling. Then her face keeps going red because there is a guy in the ward who she thinks is really cute so if she ever accidentally looks over in his direction she gets nervous, and when she gets nervous her face gets red. When her face gets red, I laugh at her. I’m such a good sister.
Then she leans into me and says, “That guy keeps looking over here and I don’t want him to” (as though I can force who ever it is to stop looking around). I look over in the direction that she is talking about and I see missionaries at first and I hope not one of them is the wandering eye. Then I see who is sitting next to them. It’s this guy that has been over to my house before and I write her a note asking if she is talking about the blond. She says ‘yes’ and I tell her that I feel like he does that every Sunday (and I really do) but I figure he just gets bored and looks all around all the time. It took me a while before I got to thinking that she seems to be the one looking around at everyone, but I let it go, because I know that’s just her personality.
After Sacrament this kid comes up and starts talking to me. We knew each other in high school, for a year, and I didn’t remember us ever really talking but he talked to me as though we had been best friends. So I tried to act the same way, but didn’t really know what to say. But we talked for a couple of minutes and then he said that he was going to go and I said I would see him later. We can be friends.
We were standing by the doors and Jim (my future husband who doesn’t even know me yet) walks by and I lean over to my sister and tell her that my future husband just walked by. He came back in and I pointed him out to her again. But she didn’t get a good look. Then I meant to take my sister to Sunday School but we ended up hanging out in the foyer with my roommates and this guy that my sister and I call him by our brother’s name because he reminds us of our brother. So he came over to tell us to go to Sunday School when it was never his intention to get us to go but rather to sit with us in the foyer. He had told us that he was the Enforcer (which I’ll call him) and I told him he was some enforcer, he told us once and then gave up. He said he did what he could. So I said, “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em right?” Oh P.S. he’s the one who gave us the mouse. I’ll tell you my new favorite thing though, talking about people while they are right there but trying to make sure that they can’t hear what you are saying and then randomly looking over at them every once in a while. I didn’t do it on purpose but my sister and I were talking about how much The Enforcer looked like our brother but we were being quiet because it’s not nice to talk about people while they are right there (behind the back is completely acceptable). Then we would look over at him and he’d be looking at us and then we would get all embarrassed because we felt like we were caught. Really I think we just gave the Enforcer a complex. But we finally spilled the beans and I had a picture of my brother in my wallet so we showed him and everyone else. The girls who actually knew my brother said that the Enforcer did look like my brother. The Enforcer said that he didn’t and we told him we didn’t mean twins, but there were similarities. I told him that it was what he would look like when he was 32 and one of the girls said that he should keep the picture so he would know what to aspire to. So finally the Enforcer says that my brother is a good looking guy (fully knowing that he was complementing himself).
Sometime in the course of “Sunday school” my sister lets it slip to Jelly Bean that I have my future husband picked out…oh wait, it’s because Jelly Bean asked my sister what she thought about this one guy who was talking to us briefly because they want to set me up with him. Then my sister said I had already picked out my future husband. So then Jelly Bean wanted to know and she wanted to know why I hadn’t said anything. She asks if it was someone they knew and I told her ‘no’ and that I actually found him more appealing because of it. She wanted me to point him out next Sunday but I’ll be in California! Muhaha. Maybe by the week after she’ll forget. I don’t know, it’s just more fun if no one knows about him. People know about him they’ll find stuff out about him, and then slowly I won’t like him anymore. I just want life to be a diminutively interesting for a little while.
So after Sunday school people start walking around the building again and Blondie (the bird watcher from Sacrament meeting) comes up and starts talking to me because he didn’t realize that I hadn’t already been a member of the ward. I introduce him to my sister and I could tell that he was going to keep talking to me but just then someone hit me on the back and it’s my friend and she’s holding the cutest little girl so I talk to her for a bit and when I turn back Blondie has been snatched up by some girl who was talking to him about something boring, because knowing this girl it was probably just about her. People start to clear the foyer and I ask my sister if she is ready to leave (because we are going to eat dinner at my parents). This guy who is always at my house comes up and says, “Oh I see you brought a friend with you.” I felt uncomfortable about how he was looking at her (not really). I introduced them quickly and then pulled her away from the predator. My sister kept talking about how she could tell Blondie wanted to talk to me more but I turned away. I told her I got hit on the back I really couldn’t help it. She said she felt bad for him and she knew she wasn’t good enough to talk to instead. An hour or two before she didn’t even want him looking at her, now she felt bad for him? He’s a guy, he’ll survive, if he really wants to talk to me, he’ll do it again next time. Pretty interesting Sunday I think. My sister should come with me more often.
Chapter 101
Teenagers
So I went to see the movie "Flushed Away", now this movie was not on my must see list, but my cousins had the day off from school so my sister and I decided that we would do something nice for them, and besides, movie theater popcorn from the actual movie theater is the best there ever was. The movie was okay, I found myself oddly smiling near the end and I quickly made myself stop. There were funny parts and then there were parts that I totally disapproved of for a children's movie. Like the rat saying, "How the hell do you expect to do that?" My cousins are like the rest of my family and like to quote movies, I don't want my 8 and 6 year old cousins saying 'hell'. Then there was an incredibly inappropriate joke at the end which kids wouldn't get, not now at least. Because someday a kid out there is going to have had this for their favorite movie all of their childhood, but they hadn't watched it in a while and they are going to pull it out when they are 20 years old and realize that maybe the source of all their problems lay in the hidden dirty jokes of their youth. Maybe not, I've always been an over reactor, but it's happened to me. There have been movies that I loved as a child and then I watch them again and I don't remember that one part or that line, because when I was a kid I just didn't get it, and I wish I still didn't, it just kind of ruins things.
Also, what is so funny about a guy getting hit in the family jewels over and over again? That seemed to come up a lot in this movie, I don't find it funny. It's like America's Funniest Home Videos. What is so funny about people getting hurt? Yes, I know, I'm the girl who laughs when you tell her your dog got run over by a car…but come on, how cliché. But if I saw your dog get hit by a car I would be far from laughing. I don't really delight in the pain of others, I can't say I never do, but I don't enjoy all forms of people getting hurt. Especially in sensitive spots, and if something falls on someone, oh, I cringe at that. So the Jessica rating for this movie: Kind of cute, I liked the slugs, but I wouldn't own it.
Work-wise: I began my week with the trainees from hell. I had been excited because I remembered training one of the guys to be a courtesy clerk and I remember that he had been a lot of fun. Well, paired with the other guy he wasn’t all that fun anymore, he was just the spawn of Satan. I think I said aloud that I would be quitting that night maybe three times (To which on of them says, “You’d be the second person I made quit their job”.
The first part of training we are just in a room and we talk about the check cashing policy for the company, even that was a struggle to get through. They kept trying to get me to go off the subject, which normally people can do, but when I can sense that they are doing it intentionally the stubborn side of me refuses. They did ask if I trained Shameless Flirt, I said I had and he behaved a lot better then them, they said that’s only because they weren’t with him. Well thank goodness for that. I finally finished with that and had them take their test. One of their cell phones goes off while he’s taking the test and he actually asks me if he can answer it! I told him ‘no’, but when he finished his test his break would begin so as soon as he finished his test he could. P.S. my kids can only have a cell phone if they pay for it 100%. After they finished their test and Kid 1 finished his phone call I told them they had 15 minutes for break and they could meet me at customer service when they got back. Kid 1 asks if they could hang out with me in the training room, I told them ‘no’ then Kid 2 said, “But you’ll be coming to eat with us right?” Suddenly they are attached, sweet, and friendly? I don’t think so. I told him ‘no’, and added that they were bugging me so they should just go on break.
Silly me for thinking that 15 minutes could do the trick and make the rest of the night better. The moment I started to talk about the register it was like working with chimpanzees. They were all over the place, getting into everything, and even when I put my foot down or threatened them they wouldn't behave. Kid 2 stood too close to me the whole evening and I kept pushing him back saying that I had a bubble and he needed to respect that. Then he would come in close again and rest his arm on the part of the register behind me. Turns out that the whole time he was feeding the receipt tape through to make the world’s longest receipt. I stood at an angle from then on to make sure that he couldn’t do it anymore. Unfortunately part of the training is to show them the phone and tell them how to use it. Which they did. They called over a manager once, but didn’t even call them over, just said, “Manager” into the phone. Luckily I was at my usual training store and not Short Pump where they hate me so they just took it in stride.
Near the end they finally calmed down as I told them several different ways I could kill them and make it look like an accident. I'm so glad I had an emphasis in Criminology in school; it's really come in handy in my career. After going over ways to use a wire hanger, dry ice, and anti-freeze Kid 1 sat there with his mouth open and finally said, “You’re creepy”. Thank you. Finally it was about 4 minutes before they were scheduled to leave so I told them it was 9 o'clock and they could go home and they said, "Oh it's not 9 o'clock yet". They enjoyed torturing me, which is why I'll take great pleasure in finding where they live and sticking that wire hanger into the soft spot behind their ears while they are sleeping. They helped me bag my pretend groceries, if you want to call what they did help, and then they wanted to help more but I told them they could go put the produce back and they decided it was 9 o'clock. Then kid 2 came over and gave me a hug…I didn't trust him so I didn't hug back and I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Then he stood really close to me after the hug and I waited ready for an attack, seriously, that's how I felt with them the whole day, just waiting for the next attack. I was so glad when they finally walked away.
Then I had two days of training at Short Pump and things actually went well. No major problems but I’m still pretty sure they hate me. These people hold grudges. I never even did anything to them, one of my trainees messed up and they are going to hold it over my head. One of the days that fell between me working at my usual training store I went into my store, the one I work at when I’m not training and I just went in there to get my paycheck. There is a kid there who I trained but I can’t stand. However, there was no real reason to fail him, he knows his stuff, but he’s just aggravating. Every time I go into that store he says something to me like we are friends or something. “Oh, JSD girl, where’s your black shirt?” Up yours. So this past Friday when I was in there he says something to me, but I don’t hear it and I ask him to repeat it, but just then something gets his attention. I’m watching him for a second trying to figure out what his problem is and I realize that he is looking into his pocket. The only reason someone looks into the pocket of their work pants so intensely is because they have a cell phone in there. So I take the opportunity to let out a little frustration. I say, “Excuse me, but in your training you were told no cell phones on the sales floor.” He’s been outed. Why do these idiots think that I can’t tell they have their cell phone on them? It’s not that hard to tell. People don’t just randomly look at their pant pocket. So he says something about how I’m not in uniform. I tell him that I love my job, and uniform or not I do my job. (I don’t really love my job, and I usually let people slide on a lot, but I really don’t like this kid). I wish I had the power to fire people. Then maybe I’d have more clout and people would listen to me, they wouldn’t treat me so badly if they knew I had the authority to ex their asses. Sorry, I was going to work on my profanity, I think I’ve been doing really well lately.
Oh and just an update, I’m doing better with my road rage.
So on Saturday I go back to main training store. So far this week they have seen me get overtaken by two chimpanzees and I’m all nervous for what could go wrong that day. I was relieved to have a group of mostly girls because they are a bit more mature and if they act the way that those two boys did then they are considered words which I am trying to refrain from saying. See…we are not equal, men and women are called different names for the same action, and most actions that men do are seen as out of the ordinary, if not improper, for girls. Which I’m okay with, I just felt the need to point that out. Needless to say I still had butterflies in my stomach that morning. First off I was supposed to have four trainees and I got five. One girl had cancelled her training but then said that on Monday she told her manager that she could still train. So they told her to come and see if she could train. I called TDH (I pretty much just call him every time I don't know what to do) but he was training so I couldn't get a hold of him. I decided that since she was officially cancelled on the JSD website that I would send her home. I felt bad, but I figured it wasn't my call to add her.
Then I was back to four trainees. First part went well and then we went downstairs to look at the register. We were all looking at the register but the boy in the group seemed a little distracted so I moved the screen so that maybe he could see it better, but that didn't get his attention. I moved on to the ever exciting coupon menu and the kid asks to go get some water. So I say that's fine and pause the training while he goes and gets a sip. I’m off in my own world for 1.3 seconds and I hear a loud thump! We all turn in the direction of the rest rooms and there’s a kid lying face down on the ground…but not any kid, the kid I just sent to get some water. He wasn’t even near the water fountain, I assume because where he was near was where they are at in his store but not that store. At first I thought he had just fallen and I was waiting for him to get up. But you know, some people when they fall just decide to lay there for a bit, you see it a lot in Rexburg in the winter. But I noticed that his hands were down at his side, usually your hands would be up in some way to show that you tried to stop yourself from falling. This kid didn’t look as though he had tried to stop himself. By this point one of the managers was running over telling people not to move him and someone else was yelling out to call 911. He seemed to be conscious at first, though a little disoriented but he wasn’t responding to the manager talking to him. Then (what I am told because I went to call his mom) he lost consciousness.
I called his mom and told her what I thought was going on to the best of my knowledge and that we were on the phone with 911 (who by the way don't know the first thing about emergencies I could get a pizza delivered to the store faster then they could dispatch the EMS workers and the dispatcher kept asking the lady at customer service questions about the kid (questions that he would have to answer first) and the lady kept telling the dispatcher that he wasn't responding, so how was she suppose to be able to answer that question? Finally the firemen showed up. The mom and I kept exchanging phone calls as she called the store from her cell phone and I called her cell phone.
The firemen told me to tell her what hospital they were going to take him to and then she got there but the ambulance wasn't there yet (and she was coming from further away) so she called to make sure that it was the right one. It was insane.
I came back to my little group of trainees, now dwindled down to 3 and wasn’t sure what to do. I felt extremely weird continuing training, but I talked to the other three trainees and asked them if they would think I was a heartless person if I kept going, they said that they wouldn't and I figured that if they had just been working on the front end they would have had to keep working, you don't just shut down the store right? And since there were no ethical dilemmas I went on. Of course two of the girls asked me if they could go to the bathroom when we started back up, I don't know if it was just a coincidence or if it was a side effect of the craziness they just witnessed. The strange thing is, we finished everything in a timely manner, even with all the craziness that had happened. At the 30 minutes break one girl left (she was scheduled to leave then and finish training a different day). So I started with five trainees and ended the day with two (but only one was taken away on a gurney to the hospital.)
TDH and I were exchanging e-mails by the end of the day. He had read my e-mail about this kid passing out and e-mailed back that that was the kind of training he liked to see, where I pushed them to the point of exhaustion. I e-mailed back saying I would lose sleep over pushing the kid too hard, but then said that all I was doing was talking about register. He also said that I would be branded from this time on as the trainer who caused a trainee to blackout. Curses and dirty words.
I told my trainees about the time that Sweet Pea went for a job interview at Arby’s and passed out. I even told them the part where the interviewer asked her something about why she needed the job. For food, but she was okay right now. Then she passes out? Yeah, the interviewer believed her story. But she got the job, so sometimes blacking out does the trick. All I can say is, thank goodness next week is my vacation and I get to go to California! Arnold Schwarzenegger here I come!
Teenagers
So I went to see the movie "Flushed Away", now this movie was not on my must see list, but my cousins had the day off from school so my sister and I decided that we would do something nice for them, and besides, movie theater popcorn from the actual movie theater is the best there ever was. The movie was okay, I found myself oddly smiling near the end and I quickly made myself stop. There were funny parts and then there were parts that I totally disapproved of for a children's movie. Like the rat saying, "How the hell do you expect to do that?" My cousins are like the rest of my family and like to quote movies, I don't want my 8 and 6 year old cousins saying 'hell'. Then there was an incredibly inappropriate joke at the end which kids wouldn't get, not now at least. Because someday a kid out there is going to have had this for their favorite movie all of their childhood, but they hadn't watched it in a while and they are going to pull it out when they are 20 years old and realize that maybe the source of all their problems lay in the hidden dirty jokes of their youth. Maybe not, I've always been an over reactor, but it's happened to me. There have been movies that I loved as a child and then I watch them again and I don't remember that one part or that line, because when I was a kid I just didn't get it, and I wish I still didn't, it just kind of ruins things.
Also, what is so funny about a guy getting hit in the family jewels over and over again? That seemed to come up a lot in this movie, I don't find it funny. It's like America's Funniest Home Videos. What is so funny about people getting hurt? Yes, I know, I'm the girl who laughs when you tell her your dog got run over by a car…but come on, how cliché. But if I saw your dog get hit by a car I would be far from laughing. I don't really delight in the pain of others, I can't say I never do, but I don't enjoy all forms of people getting hurt. Especially in sensitive spots, and if something falls on someone, oh, I cringe at that. So the Jessica rating for this movie: Kind of cute, I liked the slugs, but I wouldn't own it.
Work-wise: I began my week with the trainees from hell. I had been excited because I remembered training one of the guys to be a courtesy clerk and I remember that he had been a lot of fun. Well, paired with the other guy he wasn’t all that fun anymore, he was just the spawn of Satan. I think I said aloud that I would be quitting that night maybe three times (To which on of them says, “You’d be the second person I made quit their job”.
The first part of training we are just in a room and we talk about the check cashing policy for the company, even that was a struggle to get through. They kept trying to get me to go off the subject, which normally people can do, but when I can sense that they are doing it intentionally the stubborn side of me refuses. They did ask if I trained Shameless Flirt, I said I had and he behaved a lot better then them, they said that’s only because they weren’t with him. Well thank goodness for that. I finally finished with that and had them take their test. One of their cell phones goes off while he’s taking the test and he actually asks me if he can answer it! I told him ‘no’, but when he finished his test his break would begin so as soon as he finished his test he could. P.S. my kids can only have a cell phone if they pay for it 100%. After they finished their test and Kid 1 finished his phone call I told them they had 15 minutes for break and they could meet me at customer service when they got back. Kid 1 asks if they could hang out with me in the training room, I told them ‘no’ then Kid 2 said, “But you’ll be coming to eat with us right?” Suddenly they are attached, sweet, and friendly? I don’t think so. I told him ‘no’, and added that they were bugging me so they should just go on break.
Silly me for thinking that 15 minutes could do the trick and make the rest of the night better. The moment I started to talk about the register it was like working with chimpanzees. They were all over the place, getting into everything, and even when I put my foot down or threatened them they wouldn't behave. Kid 2 stood too close to me the whole evening and I kept pushing him back saying that I had a bubble and he needed to respect that. Then he would come in close again and rest his arm on the part of the register behind me. Turns out that the whole time he was feeding the receipt tape through to make the world’s longest receipt. I stood at an angle from then on to make sure that he couldn’t do it anymore. Unfortunately part of the training is to show them the phone and tell them how to use it. Which they did. They called over a manager once, but didn’t even call them over, just said, “Manager” into the phone. Luckily I was at my usual training store and not Short Pump where they hate me so they just took it in stride.
Near the end they finally calmed down as I told them several different ways I could kill them and make it look like an accident. I'm so glad I had an emphasis in Criminology in school; it's really come in handy in my career. After going over ways to use a wire hanger, dry ice, and anti-freeze Kid 1 sat there with his mouth open and finally said, “You’re creepy”. Thank you. Finally it was about 4 minutes before they were scheduled to leave so I told them it was 9 o'clock and they could go home and they said, "Oh it's not 9 o'clock yet". They enjoyed torturing me, which is why I'll take great pleasure in finding where they live and sticking that wire hanger into the soft spot behind their ears while they are sleeping. They helped me bag my pretend groceries, if you want to call what they did help, and then they wanted to help more but I told them they could go put the produce back and they decided it was 9 o'clock. Then kid 2 came over and gave me a hug…I didn't trust him so I didn't hug back and I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Then he stood really close to me after the hug and I waited ready for an attack, seriously, that's how I felt with them the whole day, just waiting for the next attack. I was so glad when they finally walked away.
Then I had two days of training at Short Pump and things actually went well. No major problems but I’m still pretty sure they hate me. These people hold grudges. I never even did anything to them, one of my trainees messed up and they are going to hold it over my head. One of the days that fell between me working at my usual training store I went into my store, the one I work at when I’m not training and I just went in there to get my paycheck. There is a kid there who I trained but I can’t stand. However, there was no real reason to fail him, he knows his stuff, but he’s just aggravating. Every time I go into that store he says something to me like we are friends or something. “Oh, JSD girl, where’s your black shirt?” Up yours. So this past Friday when I was in there he says something to me, but I don’t hear it and I ask him to repeat it, but just then something gets his attention. I’m watching him for a second trying to figure out what his problem is and I realize that he is looking into his pocket. The only reason someone looks into the pocket of their work pants so intensely is because they have a cell phone in there. So I take the opportunity to let out a little frustration. I say, “Excuse me, but in your training you were told no cell phones on the sales floor.” He’s been outed. Why do these idiots think that I can’t tell they have their cell phone on them? It’s not that hard to tell. People don’t just randomly look at their pant pocket. So he says something about how I’m not in uniform. I tell him that I love my job, and uniform or not I do my job. (I don’t really love my job, and I usually let people slide on a lot, but I really don’t like this kid). I wish I had the power to fire people. Then maybe I’d have more clout and people would listen to me, they wouldn’t treat me so badly if they knew I had the authority to ex their asses. Sorry, I was going to work on my profanity, I think I’ve been doing really well lately.
Oh and just an update, I’m doing better with my road rage.
So on Saturday I go back to main training store. So far this week they have seen me get overtaken by two chimpanzees and I’m all nervous for what could go wrong that day. I was relieved to have a group of mostly girls because they are a bit more mature and if they act the way that those two boys did then they are considered words which I am trying to refrain from saying. See…we are not equal, men and women are called different names for the same action, and most actions that men do are seen as out of the ordinary, if not improper, for girls. Which I’m okay with, I just felt the need to point that out. Needless to say I still had butterflies in my stomach that morning. First off I was supposed to have four trainees and I got five. One girl had cancelled her training but then said that on Monday she told her manager that she could still train. So they told her to come and see if she could train. I called TDH (I pretty much just call him every time I don't know what to do) but he was training so I couldn't get a hold of him. I decided that since she was officially cancelled on the JSD website that I would send her home. I felt bad, but I figured it wasn't my call to add her.
Then I was back to four trainees. First part went well and then we went downstairs to look at the register. We were all looking at the register but the boy in the group seemed a little distracted so I moved the screen so that maybe he could see it better, but that didn't get his attention. I moved on to the ever exciting coupon menu and the kid asks to go get some water. So I say that's fine and pause the training while he goes and gets a sip. I’m off in my own world for 1.3 seconds and I hear a loud thump! We all turn in the direction of the rest rooms and there’s a kid lying face down on the ground…but not any kid, the kid I just sent to get some water. He wasn’t even near the water fountain, I assume because where he was near was where they are at in his store but not that store. At first I thought he had just fallen and I was waiting for him to get up. But you know, some people when they fall just decide to lay there for a bit, you see it a lot in Rexburg in the winter. But I noticed that his hands were down at his side, usually your hands would be up in some way to show that you tried to stop yourself from falling. This kid didn’t look as though he had tried to stop himself. By this point one of the managers was running over telling people not to move him and someone else was yelling out to call 911. He seemed to be conscious at first, though a little disoriented but he wasn’t responding to the manager talking to him. Then (what I am told because I went to call his mom) he lost consciousness.
I called his mom and told her what I thought was going on to the best of my knowledge and that we were on the phone with 911 (who by the way don't know the first thing about emergencies I could get a pizza delivered to the store faster then they could dispatch the EMS workers and the dispatcher kept asking the lady at customer service questions about the kid (questions that he would have to answer first) and the lady kept telling the dispatcher that he wasn't responding, so how was she suppose to be able to answer that question? Finally the firemen showed up. The mom and I kept exchanging phone calls as she called the store from her cell phone and I called her cell phone.
The firemen told me to tell her what hospital they were going to take him to and then she got there but the ambulance wasn't there yet (and she was coming from further away) so she called to make sure that it was the right one. It was insane.
I came back to my little group of trainees, now dwindled down to 3 and wasn’t sure what to do. I felt extremely weird continuing training, but I talked to the other three trainees and asked them if they would think I was a heartless person if I kept going, they said that they wouldn't and I figured that if they had just been working on the front end they would have had to keep working, you don't just shut down the store right? And since there were no ethical dilemmas I went on. Of course two of the girls asked me if they could go to the bathroom when we started back up, I don't know if it was just a coincidence or if it was a side effect of the craziness they just witnessed. The strange thing is, we finished everything in a timely manner, even with all the craziness that had happened. At the 30 minutes break one girl left (she was scheduled to leave then and finish training a different day). So I started with five trainees and ended the day with two (but only one was taken away on a gurney to the hospital.)
TDH and I were exchanging e-mails by the end of the day. He had read my e-mail about this kid passing out and e-mailed back that that was the kind of training he liked to see, where I pushed them to the point of exhaustion. I e-mailed back saying I would lose sleep over pushing the kid too hard, but then said that all I was doing was talking about register. He also said that I would be branded from this time on as the trainer who caused a trainee to blackout. Curses and dirty words.
I told my trainees about the time that Sweet Pea went for a job interview at Arby’s and passed out. I even told them the part where the interviewer asked her something about why she needed the job. For food, but she was okay right now. Then she passes out? Yeah, the interviewer believed her story. But she got the job, so sometimes blacking out does the trick. All I can say is, thank goodness next week is my vacation and I get to go to California! Arnold Schwarzenegger here I come!
Chapter 100
Random Thoughts
Okay, my little experiment isn’t working that well. I could easily blame the horrible Virginian drivers or I could blame my roommates having people over until all hours of the night, and the fact that their friends are Virginian drivers and can’t even park right. But I know that I am the person to blame. I have to admit though that I could have exploded more times then I have so far. But yesterday was a struggle for me with trying to get to Spam’s baptism. Cars were pulling out of parking lots onto the six lane road I was driving down (three lanes for westbound three lanes for east bound). First they would come into the middle lane so I would move left or right so that I wouldn’t have to slam on my brakes because these morons shouldn’t have pulled out in front of me in the first place, then they would go right into the lane that I was moving in to so I wouldn’t hit my brakes, and then I would have to hit my breaks. At least I haven’t cussed in my rage, unless you count “hell” as a cuss word, and I don’t. Just simple “morons”, “idiots”, and a lot of the word “shiz”. And at least now when I do it I feel bad afterwards…so I am getting a little better.
Friday night I was suppose to go for ice-cream with The Warrior. I called him when I got off of work to let him know I would be on my way to Gayton Crossing, but he wasn’t home. So I went there anyway to see if I could get my paycheck, and also on the off chance that he went ahead and just went up there to meet me. No such luck, but I was able to get my paycheck, and I went ahead and did my grocery shopping. I had a conversation with Gotta Pee (remember him?) It scared me a little, but not because of content but because I’ve never talked to him before. He just came up to me randomly and said (sarcastically), “Don’t you just love working here?” so I said, “Oh yeah,” in a tone to match his because honestly I didn’t know where this was going. So then he says, “How old are you? 18, 19?” (A lot of people have been guessing that about me and I think it’s because I’ve been breaking out, or maybe I just have a young face). I tell him “23” and then he says, “How old do you think I look?” I already know he’s in his thirties, but I go ahead and pretend I don’t know and guess according to what he looks like, which is 20/21. He then says he’s 31 and starts to tell me a story about the new guy. He describes the new guy first, “You know, the one who talks a lot.” And I know exactly who is he talking about. So he tells me that this guy comes up to him and says, “Man I love you, you look like you’re twelve.” There are a couple of ways to receive this comment, first way and also the way that Gotta Pee took it was that maybe this guy is a pedophile, and after Gotta Pee pointed that out I had to agree. The next way is just plain rude, who says that to someone? If someone said that to me I would probably punch them in the gut…or maybe just never talk to them again. Yeah, that’ll teach ‘em.
I’m sad I didn’t get to go for ice-cream because I saved up calories for it, and because I feel a little like I got stood up. I should have probably called again, just because maybe he was on his way home and just missed my call and he doesn’t have my number, even if he did its long distance for him. Oh well, maybe next time we’ll just plan it better.
I came home with my groceries and found a million cars outside of my house and had to park in front of the neighbors….again. So I was a bit upset. But there weren’t too many people in the house, just three extra. I hung out with them and it was fun to hang out with people my own age. I sat next to a boy during a movie and over analyzed everything until I told myself to shut up and enjoy the movie. Which I finally did.
Last night I went to my friend’s house to watch a movie, but we were both falling asleep less than an hour into it so I let her borrow the movie and came home. The moment I got home though I was wired and cleaned my room.
I’m almost finished with Sweet Pea’s birthday present (which is a copy of all of this). I bought a new binder yesterday and transferred all the pages I already had printed out into the book. I’ve also decided to add pictures of “the cast” of “Brutally Honest”, well at least the people I could get pictures of. Some of the people in here (such as Gotta Pee) I have no reason to take their picture, so therefore I won’t be weird and just randomly take pictures. So not all the characters will be in it, but most of the main people, if not all the main people and then extras. I hope that she likes it, it feels kind of like a lame gift (which is why I added the pictures to try and spice it up) but I remember her telling me that she would love a hardcopy of it. So I hope that she does. I can’t believe I’m going to California soon, it still hasn’t sunk in and I hope I don’t wake up on the morning of my flight and remember I have it, I hope I start to realize it a lot sooner. I am excited; I just can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. It will be a little over 6 months since we’ve seen each other. How weird is that? Hey, good news it, I still remember who she is, which is more then I can say for most people I used to know.
Random Thoughts
Okay, my little experiment isn’t working that well. I could easily blame the horrible Virginian drivers or I could blame my roommates having people over until all hours of the night, and the fact that their friends are Virginian drivers and can’t even park right. But I know that I am the person to blame. I have to admit though that I could have exploded more times then I have so far. But yesterday was a struggle for me with trying to get to Spam’s baptism. Cars were pulling out of parking lots onto the six lane road I was driving down (three lanes for westbound three lanes for east bound). First they would come into the middle lane so I would move left or right so that I wouldn’t have to slam on my brakes because these morons shouldn’t have pulled out in front of me in the first place, then they would go right into the lane that I was moving in to so I wouldn’t hit my brakes, and then I would have to hit my breaks. At least I haven’t cussed in my rage, unless you count “hell” as a cuss word, and I don’t. Just simple “morons”, “idiots”, and a lot of the word “shiz”. And at least now when I do it I feel bad afterwards…so I am getting a little better.
Friday night I was suppose to go for ice-cream with The Warrior. I called him when I got off of work to let him know I would be on my way to Gayton Crossing, but he wasn’t home. So I went there anyway to see if I could get my paycheck, and also on the off chance that he went ahead and just went up there to meet me. No such luck, but I was able to get my paycheck, and I went ahead and did my grocery shopping. I had a conversation with Gotta Pee (remember him?) It scared me a little, but not because of content but because I’ve never talked to him before. He just came up to me randomly and said (sarcastically), “Don’t you just love working here?” so I said, “Oh yeah,” in a tone to match his because honestly I didn’t know where this was going. So then he says, “How old are you? 18, 19?” (A lot of people have been guessing that about me and I think it’s because I’ve been breaking out, or maybe I just have a young face). I tell him “23” and then he says, “How old do you think I look?” I already know he’s in his thirties, but I go ahead and pretend I don’t know and guess according to what he looks like, which is 20/21. He then says he’s 31 and starts to tell me a story about the new guy. He describes the new guy first, “You know, the one who talks a lot.” And I know exactly who is he talking about. So he tells me that this guy comes up to him and says, “Man I love you, you look like you’re twelve.” There are a couple of ways to receive this comment, first way and also the way that Gotta Pee took it was that maybe this guy is a pedophile, and after Gotta Pee pointed that out I had to agree. The next way is just plain rude, who says that to someone? If someone said that to me I would probably punch them in the gut…or maybe just never talk to them again. Yeah, that’ll teach ‘em.
I’m sad I didn’t get to go for ice-cream because I saved up calories for it, and because I feel a little like I got stood up. I should have probably called again, just because maybe he was on his way home and just missed my call and he doesn’t have my number, even if he did its long distance for him. Oh well, maybe next time we’ll just plan it better.
I came home with my groceries and found a million cars outside of my house and had to park in front of the neighbors….again. So I was a bit upset. But there weren’t too many people in the house, just three extra. I hung out with them and it was fun to hang out with people my own age. I sat next to a boy during a movie and over analyzed everything until I told myself to shut up and enjoy the movie. Which I finally did.
Last night I went to my friend’s house to watch a movie, but we were both falling asleep less than an hour into it so I let her borrow the movie and came home. The moment I got home though I was wired and cleaned my room.
I’m almost finished with Sweet Pea’s birthday present (which is a copy of all of this). I bought a new binder yesterday and transferred all the pages I already had printed out into the book. I’ve also decided to add pictures of “the cast” of “Brutally Honest”, well at least the people I could get pictures of. Some of the people in here (such as Gotta Pee) I have no reason to take their picture, so therefore I won’t be weird and just randomly take pictures. So not all the characters will be in it, but most of the main people, if not all the main people and then extras. I hope that she likes it, it feels kind of like a lame gift (which is why I added the pictures to try and spice it up) but I remember her telling me that she would love a hardcopy of it. So I hope that she does. I can’t believe I’m going to California soon, it still hasn’t sunk in and I hope I don’t wake up on the morning of my flight and remember I have it, I hope I start to realize it a lot sooner. I am excited; I just can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. It will be a little over 6 months since we’ve seen each other. How weird is that? Hey, good news it, I still remember who she is, which is more then I can say for most people I used to know.
Chapter 99
Your Permanent Record
If I say that I absolutely adore Baby Face then it means I absolutely adore Baby Face. It creeped me out at first, I thought that maybe I had a crush on a 17 year old. I’m slowly learning to identify this strange new feeling that I have towards Baby Face, good news I don’t have a crush on him…at least I really don’t think I do. I just want him to make the right decisions some times. I worry about him. So while I absolutely adore him it doesn’t mean he is immune from disappointing me. He is making all the wrong decisions and I am worried about where he’ll end up in life. I don’t know, maybe all young guys are like this and I just never realized before, but they can’t be. I’m trying to remember when I was 17 what the guys were like. Then it makes me realize that I didn’t really know what my guy friends were like. So I’m at a lost.
Baby Face’s locker is filled with stolen products from the store. He’s not the one putting stuff in there (at least not that he’s informed me) but he is letting random people do it. What did he do for Halloween? Got drunk with his friends. He told me about that and I said something about under aged drinking and I may have sounded mean because I was really disappointed. He doesn’t want to go to college and he’s trying to figure out if he can make a living working at Ukrop’s. I can answer that, “No, you can’t.” I barely make a living and I lucked out with my rent, my parents pay my car insurance, but I don’t have health insurance or any benefits what-so-ever. Need I mention that I think he has a juvenile criminal record? He did get arrested and had a court date, though he’s still here so I guess that court date went well. Either that or he really should be hiding out somewhere.
The Warrior and I are going out for ice-cream on Friday (sorry to get random but it all happened in the same night). I have to work until 9 so he gave me his number and I’m going to call him when I’m headed over to our store and he’ll meet me there. When I was getting his number Baby Face came up and asked if I was giving the Warrior my digits. Made me laugh to hear Baby Face say “digits” for phone number. I told him I was getting digits. He had to go do something so as he walked by he grabbed my piece of paper that I had begun to write The Warrior’s number on. I had to go grab it from him.
One pretty funny part from the night (at least it was funny to me) was when we were flipping coins around…I don’t know why, but I picked up a penny and told Baby Face to look up (I was going to try and throw it in his shirt). He begins to look up and then stops, probably wondering what I am about to do. But then he grabs his shirt (he’s figured it out) and says, “Oh, do you want to get into my shirt.” I couldn’t help myself and I said, “Well, I don’t want to get into your shirt, but I’d like to get the penny in there.” His face turned a little red. Sometimes you have to be careful with your wording around me because I’ll turn it on you.
I have decided however, that I am officially lonely, because last night I shouldn’t have even seen Baby Face and The Warrior because I should have just gone home after work, but I impulsively drove there and hung out for half an hour. I can’t hang out in grocery stores, it’s weird, it’s Unabomber-ish, and it’s pathetic.
Speaking of lonely people, I found out that my dad took George away yesterday afternoon. So no more George, the deed has been done. It’s good and bad, good because it’s liberating, no more dog jumping on the counter eating our food, bad because I had gotten attached to the guy and taking him on walks is what was really helping me to lose weight. He was a good dog really, just too active for what my family could handle. We made sure to tell the S.P.C.A. that he needs a home that can provide him with enough activity.
In other news (still revolving around loneness) I cut my hair yet again. I just felt weird yesterday. I got home and I came into my room and I just laid down on my bed. No music, still in uniform, I just stared at the ceiling. Then my stomach started to hurt, so I had a reason to be laying there but it wouldn’t go away and it reminded me of the commercials for some anti-depressant drug where it says, “Where does depression hurt? Everywhere.” The music itself in that commercial makes me want to cry and cut myself. Depression has physical as well as mental pains. Maybe my body was so sick of being lonely it felt like it was going to throw up. Not completely absurd.
Then I started to get text messages from Crunchy asking me about my visit out west. I told him I was definitely coming and couldn’t wait that long. I checked with him to make sure he’ll be in town to hang out otherwise the trip is a waste. Then he had my old friend (his ex-girlfriend) to text me about my trip out west. Well I can only assume that he had her text me because what are the odds that they would both text me on the same night about the same thing? So I said, “Oh Crunchy told you? Yeah I’m so excited.” She asked when and I told her I would e-mail her my itinerary. Which I promptly did. I e-mailed her an update about my life as well and went ahead and planted a seed for a possible en-gag-ment in the near distance future. If Crunchy can use her for his purposes I can use her for mine. I mentioned that I was going out with this guy on Friday for ice-cream (ahh…the Warrior) and that we’ve been on dates before and I actually look forward to dates with him, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t mention that ice-cream wasn’t really a date and that The Warrior and I are not starting anything. Just wanted to put the bug in there. I feel kind of bad because she didn’t do anything to me, but she’s close to him I can’t let her in on it. I talked to Oreo about it last night and decided that she should get him to hang out with her and then when they are hanging out I’ll call him and tell him that it was a prank, the whole trip and then Oreo can take a picture of his reaction so that we both can get to see it. It would never work out that way but its wishful thinking, he’ll probably forget I even ever said that I was coming out there.
Your Permanent Record
If I say that I absolutely adore Baby Face then it means I absolutely adore Baby Face. It creeped me out at first, I thought that maybe I had a crush on a 17 year old. I’m slowly learning to identify this strange new feeling that I have towards Baby Face, good news I don’t have a crush on him…at least I really don’t think I do. I just want him to make the right decisions some times. I worry about him. So while I absolutely adore him it doesn’t mean he is immune from disappointing me. He is making all the wrong decisions and I am worried about where he’ll end up in life. I don’t know, maybe all young guys are like this and I just never realized before, but they can’t be. I’m trying to remember when I was 17 what the guys were like. Then it makes me realize that I didn’t really know what my guy friends were like. So I’m at a lost.
Baby Face’s locker is filled with stolen products from the store. He’s not the one putting stuff in there (at least not that he’s informed me) but he is letting random people do it. What did he do for Halloween? Got drunk with his friends. He told me about that and I said something about under aged drinking and I may have sounded mean because I was really disappointed. He doesn’t want to go to college and he’s trying to figure out if he can make a living working at Ukrop’s. I can answer that, “No, you can’t.” I barely make a living and I lucked out with my rent, my parents pay my car insurance, but I don’t have health insurance or any benefits what-so-ever. Need I mention that I think he has a juvenile criminal record? He did get arrested and had a court date, though he’s still here so I guess that court date went well. Either that or he really should be hiding out somewhere.
The Warrior and I are going out for ice-cream on Friday (sorry to get random but it all happened in the same night). I have to work until 9 so he gave me his number and I’m going to call him when I’m headed over to our store and he’ll meet me there. When I was getting his number Baby Face came up and asked if I was giving the Warrior my digits. Made me laugh to hear Baby Face say “digits” for phone number. I told him I was getting digits. He had to go do something so as he walked by he grabbed my piece of paper that I had begun to write The Warrior’s number on. I had to go grab it from him.
One pretty funny part from the night (at least it was funny to me) was when we were flipping coins around…I don’t know why, but I picked up a penny and told Baby Face to look up (I was going to try and throw it in his shirt). He begins to look up and then stops, probably wondering what I am about to do. But then he grabs his shirt (he’s figured it out) and says, “Oh, do you want to get into my shirt.” I couldn’t help myself and I said, “Well, I don’t want to get into your shirt, but I’d like to get the penny in there.” His face turned a little red. Sometimes you have to be careful with your wording around me because I’ll turn it on you.
I have decided however, that I am officially lonely, because last night I shouldn’t have even seen Baby Face and The Warrior because I should have just gone home after work, but I impulsively drove there and hung out for half an hour. I can’t hang out in grocery stores, it’s weird, it’s Unabomber-ish, and it’s pathetic.
Speaking of lonely people, I found out that my dad took George away yesterday afternoon. So no more George, the deed has been done. It’s good and bad, good because it’s liberating, no more dog jumping on the counter eating our food, bad because I had gotten attached to the guy and taking him on walks is what was really helping me to lose weight. He was a good dog really, just too active for what my family could handle. We made sure to tell the S.P.C.A. that he needs a home that can provide him with enough activity.
In other news (still revolving around loneness) I cut my hair yet again. I just felt weird yesterday. I got home and I came into my room and I just laid down on my bed. No music, still in uniform, I just stared at the ceiling. Then my stomach started to hurt, so I had a reason to be laying there but it wouldn’t go away and it reminded me of the commercials for some anti-depressant drug where it says, “Where does depression hurt? Everywhere.” The music itself in that commercial makes me want to cry and cut myself. Depression has physical as well as mental pains. Maybe my body was so sick of being lonely it felt like it was going to throw up. Not completely absurd.
Then I started to get text messages from Crunchy asking me about my visit out west. I told him I was definitely coming and couldn’t wait that long. I checked with him to make sure he’ll be in town to hang out otherwise the trip is a waste. Then he had my old friend (his ex-girlfriend) to text me about my trip out west. Well I can only assume that he had her text me because what are the odds that they would both text me on the same night about the same thing? So I said, “Oh Crunchy told you? Yeah I’m so excited.” She asked when and I told her I would e-mail her my itinerary. Which I promptly did. I e-mailed her an update about my life as well and went ahead and planted a seed for a possible en-gag-ment in the near distance future. If Crunchy can use her for his purposes I can use her for mine. I mentioned that I was going out with this guy on Friday for ice-cream (ahh…the Warrior) and that we’ve been on dates before and I actually look forward to dates with him, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t mention that ice-cream wasn’t really a date and that The Warrior and I are not starting anything. Just wanted to put the bug in there. I feel kind of bad because she didn’t do anything to me, but she’s close to him I can’t let her in on it. I talked to Oreo about it last night and decided that she should get him to hang out with her and then when they are hanging out I’ll call him and tell him that it was a prank, the whole trip and then Oreo can take a picture of his reaction so that we both can get to see it. It would never work out that way but its wishful thinking, he’ll probably forget I even ever said that I was coming out there.
Chapter 98
Liability
Happiness is a choice. That means that anger is a choice; unhappiness is a choice, right? If you can choose one emotion then you must have the ability to choose from all the emotions which one you are going to let overtake you. I say overtake you because if a person has ever been angry they know that you let it start but it takes great strength to make it stop and a lot of the time people don’t even think about their ability to make it stop. I’m thinking about it. Lately I have been angry, I’ve felt this before, near the beginning of this (this book thingy) I felt uncontrollable anger a lot of the time. Usually I would write in here. I still do that. I’ve realized that I have a problem though and this morning as I was contemplating life, I realized that it is solely up to me how I react to situations in my life. I’ve been told this time and time again and I suppose I just placed that information in storage and now it’s out. I understand it, though it was always understandable…unlike me at times.
So my personal experiment is to choose to be happy for the remainder of the week. I am going to choose how to act to situations rather then reacting to situations. We’ll see if I can do it, but I’m pretty sure that if I get back up when I fall that I can accomplish this goal…who knows, maybe I’ll be a better person for it, wouldn’t that be something? I guess this means that I have to give up cursing, and flying of the handle when I’m driving, and remembering that people are only human and humans make mistakes. I guess getting some patience back will help as well. I’ll keep you updated…unless I forget, in which case this may be the last you ever hear of this experiment. It’s the thought that counts right?
Liability
Happiness is a choice. That means that anger is a choice; unhappiness is a choice, right? If you can choose one emotion then you must have the ability to choose from all the emotions which one you are going to let overtake you. I say overtake you because if a person has ever been angry they know that you let it start but it takes great strength to make it stop and a lot of the time people don’t even think about their ability to make it stop. I’m thinking about it. Lately I have been angry, I’ve felt this before, near the beginning of this (this book thingy) I felt uncontrollable anger a lot of the time. Usually I would write in here. I still do that. I’ve realized that I have a problem though and this morning as I was contemplating life, I realized that it is solely up to me how I react to situations in my life. I’ve been told this time and time again and I suppose I just placed that information in storage and now it’s out. I understand it, though it was always understandable…unlike me at times.
So my personal experiment is to choose to be happy for the remainder of the week. I am going to choose how to act to situations rather then reacting to situations. We’ll see if I can do it, but I’m pretty sure that if I get back up when I fall that I can accomplish this goal…who knows, maybe I’ll be a better person for it, wouldn’t that be something? I guess this means that I have to give up cursing, and flying of the handle when I’m driving, and remembering that people are only human and humans make mistakes. I guess getting some patience back will help as well. I’ll keep you updated…unless I forget, in which case this may be the last you ever hear of this experiment. It’s the thought that counts right?
Chapter 97
Dreamland
Okay, it’s dreamtime again. I know you’re excited because I apparently smoke pot before I go to bed and that leads to interesting dreams. So this dream last night which I had the hardest time waking up from had a lot of familiar faces in it. I don’t remember how the dream started so I’ll just pick up where I remember. I was at a birthday party for my cousin (Spam) and we were letting her cut the cake and she sucked at it. So I started to take over for her. I cut the cake eerily well, I was almost hostile towards it but always cut it perfectly. I started to serve it up to people and my sister added the ice cream to each plate. For some reason I had to move tables so this guy that goes to church with me but I barely know him in real life decides to switch tables with me. I ended up sitting right next to him and we expected everyone else from our original table to move over as well but they didn’t. Our new table was darker and I was trying to turn on a stove range light (why we were sitting under the stove range I have no idea). I remembered turning on the light the day before or even early that day but I couldn’t find the button. I was pulled into finding this button, it was my main mission in life and I was frustrated that I couldn’t see it. The boy I was sitting next to kept looking at me because he didn’t know what I was looking for and I suppose the angle we were at it made it look like I was looking at him the whole time. So for some reason, either finding the button or giving up, I was suddenly serving drinks instead. It was root beer and someone had one and said it tasted funny. I was pouring drinks and then setting up people’s plates. I poured the last of the root beer into a cup and went to put pretzel sticks on the plate and had a brain fart and put them in the drink. It was for my friend so I called out to her and said, “You wanted pretzels in your soda right?” trying to find humor in my big blunder. So I go to the dining room of my parent’s house to grab another drink because there were a lot of people there and I knew that we didn’t just have one 2-liter bottle to quench all these thirsts. I found an empty bottle of lemonade and half a pitcher of kool-aid…some party. So I poured her some kool-aid and gave the drink to her. Then the guy that I was sitting next to had to leave for a long trip but he hoped he’d see me soon.
So then I’m skiing down a mountain…skiing…me…never going to happen. But I was pretty good and I was watching myself (you know, I wasn’t viewing it as myself but as though I weren’t in my body). But then I messed up and went flipping down the slope. A guy on a snow mobile saw it happens and comes over to check on me. He asks me if I’m okay and I recognize his voice as the guy from the party. I get up but then he rides off. So I start to follow, which is quite the feat, going uphill in skis…at least I suppose it is. He turns into a cave or something and some other guy comes riding out on a snow mobile…some very unattractive guy with a beer gut and no shame in showing it. I don’t fall for the trick though, I know they aren’t the same rider.
Suddenly I’m in this room with party boy and he is talking to me about how he missed me and blah blah, and that he brought me some gifts from his travels. So over by the bed (I suppose we are in his room either that or he decorates with beds…I should be scared) there are some books. I pick up the first one which is a very nice copy of W.B. Yeats poetry. I recognize it because I already own this book, but this is a hardback and the cover is prettier. I was pretty excited and thought it was sweet that he knew I liked W.B. Yeats and got me a nicer copy of the book. I started to flip through it though and there were little pieces of paper stuffed throughout it. One of them was a cipher leading to a message that I had to decode on the bottom. I recognized it because apparently earlier in the dream he had given me one (a cipher) to find him (at the location we were currently at), but I don’t remember dreaming it, I remember remembering it…if that makes sense. So at first I tell him I’ve already decoded this one but then it is date stamped and I see that it is after the date that he had given me the first one, but it was well before the date that we were at. There were options on the page and I can’t remember now if I had to decode all of them or if they were choices to answer the question I was trying to figure out. While I was looking at the cipher I heard my cousin’s voices. They were calling out to me and I got up to look out a window and I see they have brought their posse, including my mom’s dog George. So George is sniffing me out. I jump up and run into a storage closet to hide; explaining to my new little “friend” that they will find me and Burrito is really persistent. So one of the doors starts to rattle as Burrito attacks it trying to get in. Finally he gives up and for some reason I feel guilty and go outside to talk to them. I call over Spam and Burrito who in turn call their whole posse over. They tell me that they have been looking for me and I tell them that I don’t live at mom and dad’s anymore, I live here. (What the? I hadn’t realized I had moved in until I said it to the kids). So then they wanted to come in but for some reason all the kids have been in a water fight and they start to go into the house but I tell them they can’t come in until they are dry and I close the door on them but one of them got inside, it’s actually a girl I grew up with and I ask her how she always does that! (So apparently she’s done this strange trick before). I was so worried that anyone would be walking around on the hard wood floors with wet feet and that my “friend” would be angry with me. We were at the delicate beginnings of a relationship and I was worried my extended family would ruin it. The apartment/townhouse (whatever it was) was really nice! Three stories, hard wood floors, nice sized kitchen with an island and little bar stools. Nice carpets. It was mine, it was nice…but it was just a dream, and my alarm clock went off.
I didn’t want to get up, but I couldn’t get myself to go back to the dream, so I got up and did some work e-mails that I should have done yesterday.
Speaking of work e-mails, one had to do with the girl not showing up to training. This is the training class that I was scheduled for the day before and had to change my schedule at my store. Not only did she not show up but when I called her to check on it she said that they had told her she would be training on Friday. The store I was training her at was half an hour away from my house and I had driven out there, giving up hours at my store to get barely any training hours. I am getting some hours because I will be putting down my travel time and the time I spent at that store waiting and I will be reporting my mileage for this trip, especially because on the way home I got stuck in traffic that was moving at a snail’s pace. I will be compensated for that!
So on the way home I stopped back by my store to see if they were busy and needed help. Stupid me, the slowest night in grocery store history across the board is Tuesday night, it was a Tuesday night. However I ended up staying there for two hours talking to my friends!! I’ll admit I may just be a tinge lonely; at least I’m acting like it. And I really want a boyfriend which means I must be lonely right now. I complained to my friend about my current frustrations with work and I talked to her about how I’m going to single handedly revamp the entire program! I also let it slipped that there is no training for managers, they don’t know what the hell they are doing, the only training they get is possibly some from other managers when they start working, but there is no program to make sure they understand all their responsibilities. I have the same amount of knowledge about the front end procedures as the front end managers do, except they know how to look up customer cards. Also the front end managers are paid as any other department manager but the front end managers have to put up with more technical as well as customer service things, and all other departments (including their managers) answer to front end managers…so I think that maybe front end managers should get paid more since they do more. Anyway, so my other friend was listening to us and she told me that if I ever become a manager, to which I interrupted and said that being a manager would be my personal hell…so no, I never would be. She said if I became one, I had to give breaks on time. If I become a manager then I know I’m never leaving and I think I’ll just slit my wrist with the paper bags at work.
My question is…why did I spend so much freaking time there and why don’t I realize it’s weird and stop doing it? Probably because all my friends that I like to talk to are my coworkers and I never get to see them anymore.
When I finally got home (later because I stopped by my parent’s house as well) I had to park in my usual outcast spot. It was ten o’clock at night when I finally got home…don’t my roommates have to work in the morning? I come into the house and close the door to my room. I’ve decided that I don’t have to be friends with my roommates, I don’t not like them (well with the exception of Motor Mouth), but I don’t have to always hang out with them. Maybe I’ll regret thinking this later, but I really just want friends that they have nothing to do with. Does that make sense? I guess in a way it’s a form of independence. I’m tired of hanging out with their friends and feeling uncomfortable as well as unable to hang out with them without my roommates. So why bother? These people are not my friends.
Dreamland
Okay, it’s dreamtime again. I know you’re excited because I apparently smoke pot before I go to bed and that leads to interesting dreams. So this dream last night which I had the hardest time waking up from had a lot of familiar faces in it. I don’t remember how the dream started so I’ll just pick up where I remember. I was at a birthday party for my cousin (Spam) and we were letting her cut the cake and she sucked at it. So I started to take over for her. I cut the cake eerily well, I was almost hostile towards it but always cut it perfectly. I started to serve it up to people and my sister added the ice cream to each plate. For some reason I had to move tables so this guy that goes to church with me but I barely know him in real life decides to switch tables with me. I ended up sitting right next to him and we expected everyone else from our original table to move over as well but they didn’t. Our new table was darker and I was trying to turn on a stove range light (why we were sitting under the stove range I have no idea). I remembered turning on the light the day before or even early that day but I couldn’t find the button. I was pulled into finding this button, it was my main mission in life and I was frustrated that I couldn’t see it. The boy I was sitting next to kept looking at me because he didn’t know what I was looking for and I suppose the angle we were at it made it look like I was looking at him the whole time. So for some reason, either finding the button or giving up, I was suddenly serving drinks instead. It was root beer and someone had one and said it tasted funny. I was pouring drinks and then setting up people’s plates. I poured the last of the root beer into a cup and went to put pretzel sticks on the plate and had a brain fart and put them in the drink. It was for my friend so I called out to her and said, “You wanted pretzels in your soda right?” trying to find humor in my big blunder. So I go to the dining room of my parent’s house to grab another drink because there were a lot of people there and I knew that we didn’t just have one 2-liter bottle to quench all these thirsts. I found an empty bottle of lemonade and half a pitcher of kool-aid…some party. So I poured her some kool-aid and gave the drink to her. Then the guy that I was sitting next to had to leave for a long trip but he hoped he’d see me soon.
So then I’m skiing down a mountain…skiing…me…never going to happen. But I was pretty good and I was watching myself (you know, I wasn’t viewing it as myself but as though I weren’t in my body). But then I messed up and went flipping down the slope. A guy on a snow mobile saw it happens and comes over to check on me. He asks me if I’m okay and I recognize his voice as the guy from the party. I get up but then he rides off. So I start to follow, which is quite the feat, going uphill in skis…at least I suppose it is. He turns into a cave or something and some other guy comes riding out on a snow mobile…some very unattractive guy with a beer gut and no shame in showing it. I don’t fall for the trick though, I know they aren’t the same rider.
Suddenly I’m in this room with party boy and he is talking to me about how he missed me and blah blah, and that he brought me some gifts from his travels. So over by the bed (I suppose we are in his room either that or he decorates with beds…I should be scared) there are some books. I pick up the first one which is a very nice copy of W.B. Yeats poetry. I recognize it because I already own this book, but this is a hardback and the cover is prettier. I was pretty excited and thought it was sweet that he knew I liked W.B. Yeats and got me a nicer copy of the book. I started to flip through it though and there were little pieces of paper stuffed throughout it. One of them was a cipher leading to a message that I had to decode on the bottom. I recognized it because apparently earlier in the dream he had given me one (a cipher) to find him (at the location we were currently at), but I don’t remember dreaming it, I remember remembering it…if that makes sense. So at first I tell him I’ve already decoded this one but then it is date stamped and I see that it is after the date that he had given me the first one, but it was well before the date that we were at. There were options on the page and I can’t remember now if I had to decode all of them or if they were choices to answer the question I was trying to figure out. While I was looking at the cipher I heard my cousin’s voices. They were calling out to me and I got up to look out a window and I see they have brought their posse, including my mom’s dog George. So George is sniffing me out. I jump up and run into a storage closet to hide; explaining to my new little “friend” that they will find me and Burrito is really persistent. So one of the doors starts to rattle as Burrito attacks it trying to get in. Finally he gives up and for some reason I feel guilty and go outside to talk to them. I call over Spam and Burrito who in turn call their whole posse over. They tell me that they have been looking for me and I tell them that I don’t live at mom and dad’s anymore, I live here. (What the? I hadn’t realized I had moved in until I said it to the kids). So then they wanted to come in but for some reason all the kids have been in a water fight and they start to go into the house but I tell them they can’t come in until they are dry and I close the door on them but one of them got inside, it’s actually a girl I grew up with and I ask her how she always does that! (So apparently she’s done this strange trick before). I was so worried that anyone would be walking around on the hard wood floors with wet feet and that my “friend” would be angry with me. We were at the delicate beginnings of a relationship and I was worried my extended family would ruin it. The apartment/townhouse (whatever it was) was really nice! Three stories, hard wood floors, nice sized kitchen with an island and little bar stools. Nice carpets. It was mine, it was nice…but it was just a dream, and my alarm clock went off.
I didn’t want to get up, but I couldn’t get myself to go back to the dream, so I got up and did some work e-mails that I should have done yesterday.
Speaking of work e-mails, one had to do with the girl not showing up to training. This is the training class that I was scheduled for the day before and had to change my schedule at my store. Not only did she not show up but when I called her to check on it she said that they had told her she would be training on Friday. The store I was training her at was half an hour away from my house and I had driven out there, giving up hours at my store to get barely any training hours. I am getting some hours because I will be putting down my travel time and the time I spent at that store waiting and I will be reporting my mileage for this trip, especially because on the way home I got stuck in traffic that was moving at a snail’s pace. I will be compensated for that!
So on the way home I stopped back by my store to see if they were busy and needed help. Stupid me, the slowest night in grocery store history across the board is Tuesday night, it was a Tuesday night. However I ended up staying there for two hours talking to my friends!! I’ll admit I may just be a tinge lonely; at least I’m acting like it. And I really want a boyfriend which means I must be lonely right now. I complained to my friend about my current frustrations with work and I talked to her about how I’m going to single handedly revamp the entire program! I also let it slipped that there is no training for managers, they don’t know what the hell they are doing, the only training they get is possibly some from other managers when they start working, but there is no program to make sure they understand all their responsibilities. I have the same amount of knowledge about the front end procedures as the front end managers do, except they know how to look up customer cards. Also the front end managers are paid as any other department manager but the front end managers have to put up with more technical as well as customer service things, and all other departments (including their managers) answer to front end managers…so I think that maybe front end managers should get paid more since they do more. Anyway, so my other friend was listening to us and she told me that if I ever become a manager, to which I interrupted and said that being a manager would be my personal hell…so no, I never would be. She said if I became one, I had to give breaks on time. If I become a manager then I know I’m never leaving and I think I’ll just slit my wrist with the paper bags at work.
My question is…why did I spend so much freaking time there and why don’t I realize it’s weird and stop doing it? Probably because all my friends that I like to talk to are my coworkers and I never get to see them anymore.
When I finally got home (later because I stopped by my parent’s house as well) I had to park in my usual outcast spot. It was ten o’clock at night when I finally got home…don’t my roommates have to work in the morning? I come into the house and close the door to my room. I’ve decided that I don’t have to be friends with my roommates, I don’t not like them (well with the exception of Motor Mouth), but I don’t have to always hang out with them. Maybe I’ll regret thinking this later, but I really just want friends that they have nothing to do with. Does that make sense? I guess in a way it’s a form of independence. I’m tired of hanging out with their friends and feeling uncomfortable as well as unable to hang out with them without my roommates. So why bother? These people are not my friends.
Chapter 96
On The Molecular Level
Some days I love my job, some days I hate it. Today I hate it. I didn’t even work today, that’s how bad it was. My day off and I had such a horrible time that I hate work. Makes you wonder. The reason that work had anything to do with me was the fact that the dam internet was invented and e-mail, a marvelous form of quick, written, communication is incorporated to my job. So even on my day off I’m expected to check the darn thing. So I did; Five new messages. One tells me that I made a boo-boo on timekeeping and should fix it as soon as possible. One was a forward about idiotic cashiers who never really listen to a dam word I say so therefore were screwing up on basic things, like where to put 50 and 100 dollar bills, or checks. How do you not know where to put a check? The thing is called a check box! It’s locked! The other thing, that box like apparatus with three slits, that’s not locked, is the coupon box. It probably has other coupons in it to kind of give you a little hint. Not my fault you’re too stupid or hung-over to realize this. And yet I take it so personal when my trainees can’t show their managers that they know what to do. They certainly didn’t have a problem showing me they knew what they were doing.
The third e-mail, a message from my manager stating that I didn’t give her enough information on a trainee that I should have never even seen because he got a freaking 60% on his part 1 test! Last I checked 60% was failing; failing in the school system and failing in our company, but who decided to send him along? My manager. Not because she was taking a chance on some unknown kid but because she’s an idiot, and what does it matter to her? She doesn’t have to train him. So I wrote her what I thought was a really good write up about the class I had with him, and I get a three sentence e-mail from her today saying that I didn’t give enough detail, why weren’t we able to do certain things in that session of training?
I went to one of the stores and while waiting to be able to sign on to fix my time keeping errors (which I was unable to do because the woman who had e-mailed me about it was still in the system and only one person can be in there at the same time) I decided to write my manager that e-mail. But what do you say? So I started to write it and wanted to say something about the girl who had to reschedule who was suppose to be part of that group and I couldn’t remember her name. So I checked the schedule from last week to see if it was up there, but apparently they waste their time updating old schedules as well, so her name was omitted because she had cancelled. I decided since I was looking at the schedules that I would go ahead and check this week to see if an error that I saw had been fixed…since the outdated schedules had been updated. Good thing I checked because they added two classes to my schedule. One for tomorrow (I’m already working at my store tomorrow from 10-6 and this class is 4:30-8:30) and then one for Friday afternoon. I had been excited about Friday because I was going to be getting out at 2 and then I have Saturday off. But they added a class, wouldn’t be so bad if it were at 3 but it’s not until 5…3 hours later. Good Grief. So concerning the class for tomorrow I went and talked to my manager about getting off earlier because they scheduled me for this class the day before. So now I am working at my store from 9-2 and then training 4:30 to 8:30. But I’d rather just work at my store until 3:30 because there is no point driving the 20 minutes to my house and then have to leave there to travel further out to the other store which is a good 30 minutes from my house. So I might as well work all day. So I’m already sick of the job by the time that I print off my new schedule and work it out with my managers at the store and I didn’t even get a chance to change the errors in time keeping because the woman was still in there and I had to leave because I told Spam and Burrito that I would go watch them at Karate. If that girl doesn’t show up to training tomorrow I will personally hunt her down and show her what happens to those who waste my time, because she is the only trainee and she is obviously a reschedule because Tuesday night is the normal time for the group class. If she’s not in it this week she must be from a previous week, and that means she didn’t go to her first time training in the store.
I went to a movie tonight with my sister and my parents (very good movie, it was my second time seeing it). Then when I finally got home I figured that I’d better e-mail my manager. So it takes me a while to find what to say. I hinted at my annoyance but disguised it with ignorance at the possibility that we couldn’t cover everything in time because the kid got a 60. I just said, “Well, since he had gotten a 60 on his part 1 test I felt that I should review most of the material with him and make sure that he understood it before I even moved on.” So in a way, if she reads it that way, she’ll see that I was annoyed with her and partially blaming her. Then I wrote and rewrote the “timed scheduled” of every moment I spent that Wednesday morning. But I couldn’t decide how to best explain the time. I ended up saying something about how I must have lost track of the time while reviewing the register because I can’t figure out how we didn’t get it all done. But I wrote it with more words and threw in a few things to look like I was adding more detail for her. I went to spell check the e-mail when I had finally finished writing it and the whole e-mail went bye-bye. I worked really hard at not cussing. I may have blacked out, but I don’t remember giving in to using the cuss words. I just gave up. Because of their scheduling mayhem I have to wake up an hour earlier for work tomorrow so I figure she can wait for her stupid, pointless e-mail. I don’t like the feeling of being micro managed.
On The Molecular Level
Some days I love my job, some days I hate it. Today I hate it. I didn’t even work today, that’s how bad it was. My day off and I had such a horrible time that I hate work. Makes you wonder. The reason that work had anything to do with me was the fact that the dam internet was invented and e-mail, a marvelous form of quick, written, communication is incorporated to my job. So even on my day off I’m expected to check the darn thing. So I did; Five new messages. One tells me that I made a boo-boo on timekeeping and should fix it as soon as possible. One was a forward about idiotic cashiers who never really listen to a dam word I say so therefore were screwing up on basic things, like where to put 50 and 100 dollar bills, or checks. How do you not know where to put a check? The thing is called a check box! It’s locked! The other thing, that box like apparatus with three slits, that’s not locked, is the coupon box. It probably has other coupons in it to kind of give you a little hint. Not my fault you’re too stupid or hung-over to realize this. And yet I take it so personal when my trainees can’t show their managers that they know what to do. They certainly didn’t have a problem showing me they knew what they were doing.
The third e-mail, a message from my manager stating that I didn’t give her enough information on a trainee that I should have never even seen because he got a freaking 60% on his part 1 test! Last I checked 60% was failing; failing in the school system and failing in our company, but who decided to send him along? My manager. Not because she was taking a chance on some unknown kid but because she’s an idiot, and what does it matter to her? She doesn’t have to train him. So I wrote her what I thought was a really good write up about the class I had with him, and I get a three sentence e-mail from her today saying that I didn’t give enough detail, why weren’t we able to do certain things in that session of training?
I went to one of the stores and while waiting to be able to sign on to fix my time keeping errors (which I was unable to do because the woman who had e-mailed me about it was still in the system and only one person can be in there at the same time) I decided to write my manager that e-mail. But what do you say? So I started to write it and wanted to say something about the girl who had to reschedule who was suppose to be part of that group and I couldn’t remember her name. So I checked the schedule from last week to see if it was up there, but apparently they waste their time updating old schedules as well, so her name was omitted because she had cancelled. I decided since I was looking at the schedules that I would go ahead and check this week to see if an error that I saw had been fixed…since the outdated schedules had been updated. Good thing I checked because they added two classes to my schedule. One for tomorrow (I’m already working at my store tomorrow from 10-6 and this class is 4:30-8:30) and then one for Friday afternoon. I had been excited about Friday because I was going to be getting out at 2 and then I have Saturday off. But they added a class, wouldn’t be so bad if it were at 3 but it’s not until 5…3 hours later. Good Grief. So concerning the class for tomorrow I went and talked to my manager about getting off earlier because they scheduled me for this class the day before. So now I am working at my store from 9-2 and then training 4:30 to 8:30. But I’d rather just work at my store until 3:30 because there is no point driving the 20 minutes to my house and then have to leave there to travel further out to the other store which is a good 30 minutes from my house. So I might as well work all day. So I’m already sick of the job by the time that I print off my new schedule and work it out with my managers at the store and I didn’t even get a chance to change the errors in time keeping because the woman was still in there and I had to leave because I told Spam and Burrito that I would go watch them at Karate. If that girl doesn’t show up to training tomorrow I will personally hunt her down and show her what happens to those who waste my time, because she is the only trainee and she is obviously a reschedule because Tuesday night is the normal time for the group class. If she’s not in it this week she must be from a previous week, and that means she didn’t go to her first time training in the store.
I went to a movie tonight with my sister and my parents (very good movie, it was my second time seeing it). Then when I finally got home I figured that I’d better e-mail my manager. So it takes me a while to find what to say. I hinted at my annoyance but disguised it with ignorance at the possibility that we couldn’t cover everything in time because the kid got a 60. I just said, “Well, since he had gotten a 60 on his part 1 test I felt that I should review most of the material with him and make sure that he understood it before I even moved on.” So in a way, if she reads it that way, she’ll see that I was annoyed with her and partially blaming her. Then I wrote and rewrote the “timed scheduled” of every moment I spent that Wednesday morning. But I couldn’t decide how to best explain the time. I ended up saying something about how I must have lost track of the time while reviewing the register because I can’t figure out how we didn’t get it all done. But I wrote it with more words and threw in a few things to look like I was adding more detail for her. I went to spell check the e-mail when I had finally finished writing it and the whole e-mail went bye-bye. I worked really hard at not cussing. I may have blacked out, but I don’t remember giving in to using the cuss words. I just gave up. Because of their scheduling mayhem I have to wake up an hour earlier for work tomorrow so I figure she can wait for her stupid, pointless e-mail. I don’t like the feeling of being micro managed.
Chapter 95
No Parking Between Signs
So I drive home from my parent’s house today and I seemed to be okay. However when I pulled up to my house I was pissed. I hate when I come home and have no where to park. I just want to park and get in the house and take off my shoes. Instead I have to pass the house, make a u-turn and drive by looking for a spot, and end up parking in front of the neighbors house. Then since no one in this little neighborhood seems to have ever thought street lights were a good idea, I walk up to the house in the dark.
Since I wasn’t able to find a spot anywhere near my house I knew that people were over. So when I walk up to the door I try turning the handle instead of inserting my key, which was good since if I had put the key into the bottom lock I would have locked it since it was already unlocked. What was locked was the deadbolt, why lock the deadbolt and not the bottom lock? So when I finally get the door unlocked and open I’m already mad, of course I was mad before I even got to the door.
So I walked in and the first thing I hear from the couch is Motor Mouth telling me that my mouse stinks. Uh, pardon me for a second but, no shit Sherlock. Mice stink. Since I’m in a bad mood and haven’t even gotten to my bedroom (which is right by the door) I don’t have time to try to mask my annoyance. I end up just not bothering to try and sound nice. She tells me that the mouse stinks really badly and I need to get rid of him. So I say, “Ok”. She doesn’t drop it…why? Probably because she likes the sounds of her own voice almost as much as she likes to stare at her own reflection. I have moved the mouse to the sun room because one, he smells and so does the room, secondly, that’s the only room we really don’t go in and thirdly, he has fur so even though it’s cold who cares? So I start to walk towards the room and she says something about needing a gas mask to go in there, I guess that’s her try at a sense of humor. So I walked into the room, yeah…it smells bad. I pick up the cage and start unlocking the back door. She gets a little worried then and starts to ask me what I’m doing. She asks if I am letting him out. I set his little cage on the back step and close the door. I try to make a joke but it’s just not in me right now. She tries to make a joke but she’s just not good at it. I walk into my room and close the door behind me. That’s it, that’s my evening
No Parking Between Signs
So I drive home from my parent’s house today and I seemed to be okay. However when I pulled up to my house I was pissed. I hate when I come home and have no where to park. I just want to park and get in the house and take off my shoes. Instead I have to pass the house, make a u-turn and drive by looking for a spot, and end up parking in front of the neighbors house. Then since no one in this little neighborhood seems to have ever thought street lights were a good idea, I walk up to the house in the dark.
Since I wasn’t able to find a spot anywhere near my house I knew that people were over. So when I walk up to the door I try turning the handle instead of inserting my key, which was good since if I had put the key into the bottom lock I would have locked it since it was already unlocked. What was locked was the deadbolt, why lock the deadbolt and not the bottom lock? So when I finally get the door unlocked and open I’m already mad, of course I was mad before I even got to the door.
So I walked in and the first thing I hear from the couch is Motor Mouth telling me that my mouse stinks. Uh, pardon me for a second but, no shit Sherlock. Mice stink. Since I’m in a bad mood and haven’t even gotten to my bedroom (which is right by the door) I don’t have time to try to mask my annoyance. I end up just not bothering to try and sound nice. She tells me that the mouse stinks really badly and I need to get rid of him. So I say, “Ok”. She doesn’t drop it…why? Probably because she likes the sounds of her own voice almost as much as she likes to stare at her own reflection. I have moved the mouse to the sun room because one, he smells and so does the room, secondly, that’s the only room we really don’t go in and thirdly, he has fur so even though it’s cold who cares? So I start to walk towards the room and she says something about needing a gas mask to go in there, I guess that’s her try at a sense of humor. So I walked into the room, yeah…it smells bad. I pick up the cage and start unlocking the back door. She gets a little worried then and starts to ask me what I’m doing. She asks if I am letting him out. I set his little cage on the back step and close the door. I try to make a joke but it’s just not in me right now. She tries to make a joke but she’s just not good at it. I walk into my room and close the door behind me. That’s it, that’s my evening
Chapter 94
Where Do They All Belong?
So today at church I was sitting in the chapel and I was looking around because heaven knows that my roommates don’t really talk to me anyway. I spotted several people just sitting by themselves. I mean, I felt awkward and I was at least sitting with people I knew but for the first time today I realized that there are people who don’t have anyone to sit with. I felt bad for them and at the same time decided that maybe instead of sitting by my roommates who I may know but don’t talk to I could move around and sit next to people that I don’t know but actually talk to them. I think that maybe I should start doing that. I also began to notice that in a way my roommates are part of the popular crowd. The popular crowd where pretty much all you have to do is be a guy that they don’t have a chance with and you’re in. But I know from experience that it’s hard to break into the crowd at the single’s ward. In fact I think the only reason that some people really even talk to me is because of where I live and who my roommates are. I don’t do well with popularity.
One of those lonely people today is another topic that I wanted to talk about. I haven’t met him yet, but I plan to. He reminds me of Jim from “The Office” so from this point on I will call him Jim. I noticed Jim before today, it was just today that I realized that he was sitting in the back, by himself, kind of twiddling his thumbs. I don’t know what it is, but the fact that girls are not tripping over themselves to sit by him makes him more appealing to me. Unbeknownst to me, he is probably a complete weirdo and there are reasons nobody was sitting by him. But for now, I’ll pretend that he’s 100% normal. I kept debating whether or not to get up and go sit by him, but standing up and walking away from roommates means that they will watch where you are going and what you are doing and the way my roommates are…once I show interest then they will wonder what it is about him and either I start to get picked on about my “crush” or they try to become friends with him…actually, both would probably happen because then they would become friends with him to set me up with him thus leading him into the “popular” crowd and I would lose interest because so many girls would probably gain interest. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I wouldn’t put it past my roommates.
Where Do They All Belong?
So today at church I was sitting in the chapel and I was looking around because heaven knows that my roommates don’t really talk to me anyway. I spotted several people just sitting by themselves. I mean, I felt awkward and I was at least sitting with people I knew but for the first time today I realized that there are people who don’t have anyone to sit with. I felt bad for them and at the same time decided that maybe instead of sitting by my roommates who I may know but don’t talk to I could move around and sit next to people that I don’t know but actually talk to them. I think that maybe I should start doing that. I also began to notice that in a way my roommates are part of the popular crowd. The popular crowd where pretty much all you have to do is be a guy that they don’t have a chance with and you’re in. But I know from experience that it’s hard to break into the crowd at the single’s ward. In fact I think the only reason that some people really even talk to me is because of where I live and who my roommates are. I don’t do well with popularity.
One of those lonely people today is another topic that I wanted to talk about. I haven’t met him yet, but I plan to. He reminds me of Jim from “The Office” so from this point on I will call him Jim. I noticed Jim before today, it was just today that I realized that he was sitting in the back, by himself, kind of twiddling his thumbs. I don’t know what it is, but the fact that girls are not tripping over themselves to sit by him makes him more appealing to me. Unbeknownst to me, he is probably a complete weirdo and there are reasons nobody was sitting by him. But for now, I’ll pretend that he’s 100% normal. I kept debating whether or not to get up and go sit by him, but standing up and walking away from roommates means that they will watch where you are going and what you are doing and the way my roommates are…once I show interest then they will wonder what it is about him and either I start to get picked on about my “crush” or they try to become friends with him…actually, both would probably happen because then they would become friends with him to set me up with him thus leading him into the “popular” crowd and I would lose interest because so many girls would probably gain interest. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I wouldn’t put it past my roommates.
Chapter 93
Don’t Mess With Jess
Well, Crunchy’s engagement was a prank. A prank that he didn’t tell me was over until the next day…with a text message that I didn’t get until that night. In the text he had the audacity to tell me that I fell for it. I called him on it for a good portion of the conversation but he wouldn’t let it go! So I just finally believed him. I sent him a text message saying so. But then the wheels began to turn. How could I repay him for such a great prank? I knew that saying that I was engaged wouldn’t work, at least not anytime soon. I was at work when it hit me. I could tell him that I was coming out to Utah/Idaho, possibly even for “the wedding”. I had my itinerary from buying the plane ticket to go to California so I used my HTML skills from way back in high school and changed the coding on it to look like I was going to be flying into Salt Lake International airport in April for a visit that is going to be lasting about two weeks. I sent Sweet Pea a copy too to see what she thought. She said that she was impressed with my HTML skill and that she’s glad I haven’t lost my dark touch. That’s pretty much the sweetest thing that anyone has ever said to me.
Speaking of sweet things…to say. The training class that I did the other day was probably my most favorite so far, of course I also had a shameless under aged flirt in my class. Also in the class was Ada Gigglesworth of Laughsalot Valley and one of Baby Face’s friends. I suppose the good thing is that Baby Face’s friend liked me right away which must mean that Baby Face had good things to say about me. I think naming the girl in the group Gigglesworth says everything you need to know. What an ego boost for me. She thought I was so funny. As for the shameless flirt, I don’t know how it started but he was good at what he does. Maybe it’s my fault it began because sometimes I get replies too quickly for my own good. Our little group was talking about mulch because in their practice order I purchase some. I told them that I used to get 30 bags until TDH told me to take it down a notch. Baby Face’s friend said that if you are going to get that many bags you might as well go to the place on Pump Road. I asked if it was the place that smelled really bad and he said yeah. Then shameless flirt says, “my dad likes that smell.” And I stopped myself from replying about that but I started to smile so he made me tell him and I said, “Must be why he likes you.” He got me back later though because I was laughing about something and said, “Okay, I’m going to act more professional now” and Shameless said, “Is that possible?” Then I tried to get a straight face, but me, trying to get a straight face when someone has challenged me is an impossible feat. It’s like in high school there was this guy who always challenged me to say, “I’ll kick you, I’ll kick you hard” without smiling, and I could never do it. When I was giving the group their store tour we went into the mop room and there was a bucket with water in it so I got ready to empty it and Shameless said, “Oh here come the guns.” And I looked up and said, “Did ya’ll get your tickets to the gun show?” and I held my arms out like a weightlifter.
Later I was talking about my age for some reason and I told everyone not to mention it because I was sensitive about it and Shameless told me that I wasn’t old, he knew because he saw my license (I have to use it to buy my fake cigarettes). So Shameless keeps saying things throughout the whole day, but he’s really respectful. Always saying “Yes, Ma’m” and “No, Ma’m”. But he would say something and I would ask him what and he would respond “nothing”. Once he mentioned that he shouldn’t repeat what he said since I was the one who decided whether or not he passed training. Therefore, that threat didn’t work to get the information out of him.
When we were all on break I mentioned how the lady from the kitchen gave me extra popcorn chicken because she likes me, I’m always nice to her. So he starts to tell me about the ladies at the kitchen in his store and how they all like him. Some of them tell him that if he were just a few years older they would date him. I asked how old the kitchen ladies were and he said that they were in their 40s. That got Gigglesworth and me talking about when older men have hit on us. Baby Face’s friend didn’t have much experience in this department either that or he was holding out on us.
After all the training was done I took everyone back upstairs so that I could fill out their forms and they could fill out the evaluations on their training. Slowly, one by one they began to leave as I had them sign their form saying they passed. Who should be last? Shameless Flirt! He had the evaluation that he filled out still in his hand while I explained my comments on the evaluation I was filling it. He didn’t do so hot on his check test but he was the best trainee I had so I mentioned something to that effect on his evaluation, and I just made sure to mention it because he was nervous about that. After that he began to open up the evaluation that he filled out about his training and said that he wanted to make sure that I saw it. On the bottom line where it said “additional comments” he wrote, “I think that Jessica is an amazing trainer.” Then he told me that he had wanted to write “better than TDH” (because TDH had trained him for courtesy clerk) but thought maybe that wasn’t appropriate. I told him that telling me meant a lot and my boss might not like it so it was a good idea, she might have thought I paid him to write it.
Before he left I told him my stock “good luck” and also said that maybe I would see him when I went to see his manager who was my manager in high school. He told me to look for him in the other department that he works in. Oh…I almost forgot, I told Baby Face’s friend to tell him (Baby Face) that I had to fail him. I told him I would tell Baby Face the same thing when I saw him. So as he was leaving he said that he would and I told him to try and add a few tears like I was really mean.
Don’t Mess With Jess
Well, Crunchy’s engagement was a prank. A prank that he didn’t tell me was over until the next day…with a text message that I didn’t get until that night. In the text he had the audacity to tell me that I fell for it. I called him on it for a good portion of the conversation but he wouldn’t let it go! So I just finally believed him. I sent him a text message saying so. But then the wheels began to turn. How could I repay him for such a great prank? I knew that saying that I was engaged wouldn’t work, at least not anytime soon. I was at work when it hit me. I could tell him that I was coming out to Utah/Idaho, possibly even for “the wedding”. I had my itinerary from buying the plane ticket to go to California so I used my HTML skills from way back in high school and changed the coding on it to look like I was going to be flying into Salt Lake International airport in April for a visit that is going to be lasting about two weeks. I sent Sweet Pea a copy too to see what she thought. She said that she was impressed with my HTML skill and that she’s glad I haven’t lost my dark touch. That’s pretty much the sweetest thing that anyone has ever said to me.
Speaking of sweet things…to say. The training class that I did the other day was probably my most favorite so far, of course I also had a shameless under aged flirt in my class. Also in the class was Ada Gigglesworth of Laughsalot Valley and one of Baby Face’s friends. I suppose the good thing is that Baby Face’s friend liked me right away which must mean that Baby Face had good things to say about me. I think naming the girl in the group Gigglesworth says everything you need to know. What an ego boost for me. She thought I was so funny. As for the shameless flirt, I don’t know how it started but he was good at what he does. Maybe it’s my fault it began because sometimes I get replies too quickly for my own good. Our little group was talking about mulch because in their practice order I purchase some. I told them that I used to get 30 bags until TDH told me to take it down a notch. Baby Face’s friend said that if you are going to get that many bags you might as well go to the place on Pump Road. I asked if it was the place that smelled really bad and he said yeah. Then shameless flirt says, “my dad likes that smell.” And I stopped myself from replying about that but I started to smile so he made me tell him and I said, “Must be why he likes you.” He got me back later though because I was laughing about something and said, “Okay, I’m going to act more professional now” and Shameless said, “Is that possible?” Then I tried to get a straight face, but me, trying to get a straight face when someone has challenged me is an impossible feat. It’s like in high school there was this guy who always challenged me to say, “I’ll kick you, I’ll kick you hard” without smiling, and I could never do it. When I was giving the group their store tour we went into the mop room and there was a bucket with water in it so I got ready to empty it and Shameless said, “Oh here come the guns.” And I looked up and said, “Did ya’ll get your tickets to the gun show?” and I held my arms out like a weightlifter.
Later I was talking about my age for some reason and I told everyone not to mention it because I was sensitive about it and Shameless told me that I wasn’t old, he knew because he saw my license (I have to use it to buy my fake cigarettes). So Shameless keeps saying things throughout the whole day, but he’s really respectful. Always saying “Yes, Ma’m” and “No, Ma’m”. But he would say something and I would ask him what and he would respond “nothing”. Once he mentioned that he shouldn’t repeat what he said since I was the one who decided whether or not he passed training. Therefore, that threat didn’t work to get the information out of him.
When we were all on break I mentioned how the lady from the kitchen gave me extra popcorn chicken because she likes me, I’m always nice to her. So he starts to tell me about the ladies at the kitchen in his store and how they all like him. Some of them tell him that if he were just a few years older they would date him. I asked how old the kitchen ladies were and he said that they were in their 40s. That got Gigglesworth and me talking about when older men have hit on us. Baby Face’s friend didn’t have much experience in this department either that or he was holding out on us.
After all the training was done I took everyone back upstairs so that I could fill out their forms and they could fill out the evaluations on their training. Slowly, one by one they began to leave as I had them sign their form saying they passed. Who should be last? Shameless Flirt! He had the evaluation that he filled out still in his hand while I explained my comments on the evaluation I was filling it. He didn’t do so hot on his check test but he was the best trainee I had so I mentioned something to that effect on his evaluation, and I just made sure to mention it because he was nervous about that. After that he began to open up the evaluation that he filled out about his training and said that he wanted to make sure that I saw it. On the bottom line where it said “additional comments” he wrote, “I think that Jessica is an amazing trainer.” Then he told me that he had wanted to write “better than TDH” (because TDH had trained him for courtesy clerk) but thought maybe that wasn’t appropriate. I told him that telling me meant a lot and my boss might not like it so it was a good idea, she might have thought I paid him to write it.
Before he left I told him my stock “good luck” and also said that maybe I would see him when I went to see his manager who was my manager in high school. He told me to look for him in the other department that he works in. Oh…I almost forgot, I told Baby Face’s friend to tell him (Baby Face) that I had to fail him. I told him I would tell Baby Face the same thing when I saw him. So as he was leaving he said that he would and I told him to try and add a few tears like I was really mean.
Chapter 92
Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat?
I have decided that you can’t win a conversation with me. I don’t care who you are, but if the conversation is about me, you’ll never be able to win. Last night I made the mistake of asking my mom what I should wear for my interview today. She told me that she’d been thinking about it and tried to dress me up in her clothes…I’m taller then my mom, so, these clothes wouldn’t fit. I told her I couldn’t wear her skirt because it wouldn’t fit because she is smaller then me. She said, “You don’t think I kept all my clothes from before my weight lose?” to which I said, “You think I’m fat?” Because by smaller, I meant shorter. Anyway, so I tell her I have a long black skirt and plenty of dressy sweaters which it turns out not too many of them still look good on me…they look frumpy to me now. So we are in the kitchen and she says, “and put on some make-up”. I stopped what I was doing and said, “I wear make-up!” Hello! I wear it everyday; I even make sure that my eye shadow compliments my outfit. So I said, “You don’t think I cake it on enough?” and she said, “No, you cake it on. I just mean you should wear some lipstick.” My mom’s big thing with me is that I don’t wear lipstick enough, I feel hookerish when I wear lipstick, I guess that means my mom wants me to be a hooker, I’m putting my foot down on that career change. So I said, “You think I cake on my make-up?” I quickly added that there was no way to get out of this, I caught my mother in the woman’s trap, the two edged questions that only lead you into deeper into shiz. Shove your ankle in because your foot has soaked long enough in your mouth.
So I have to wear lipstick. I told my mom that I will be wearing a dark shade of lipstick since I prefer the dark shades. Gag me with that pink crap she wears, I hate pink lipstick, whoever thought that was a good color should burn.
So this job interview that I have in an hour and half…I don’t even want it. It’s the same old thing, I’m happy with my job, I like the people I work with, but my mom is not happy with my life. So I guess if I don’t have the courage to not be happy with my existence my mom is more than happy to do the job for me. I didn’t even send them my résumé, my mom did, and she wrote the cover letter. She knows more this job then I do. It is with Sign Language Associates of Virginia, so that would be cool, just because I like sign language…but, I don’t know. I just feel like I shouldn’t be looking at other jobs right now because the trainers are already under a lot of stress and they are already losing the other part-time trainer next Friday. They’ll have to cover her store until a replacement is found which means I’ll be covering the other trainer’s stores in that time. Not a good time to leave. Then they’ll have to train her replacement and train my replacement should I leave. I wish that there was some logistical way to get a full time job and still keep this part-time job that is actually full time minus the benefits. But I don’t think the hours will work out that way. We’ll see. Heck, I probably won’t even get this job so I shouldn’t worry about it. If only I could get a full time trainer job maybe my mom would step the back up.
Last night I hung out with the other trainers. We all went to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner and drinks. My drink being water of course. It was fun; I really enjoyed hanging out with the trainers and with the scheduler who put the whole thing together. She’s really helped me to feel more comfortable in my position as a trainer and the new girl. TDH was there, which was nice. He got a hair cut, but to avoid soundly strangely obsessed with him I didn’t mention anything. I just notice hair cuts on guys. The group slowly dwindled into the second hour of our meeting, and pretty soon there were just five of us left. TDH walked me half way to my car, isn’t that nice of him? He waited until I was ready to leave the group and walk to my car and then he walked with me. Sometimes he’s such a gentlemen. I feel bad for him though because he was telling me that because of the meeting that we had today and having Monday’s off and only doing store visits on Tuesday that the next three days would all be ten hour days…poor guy. I on the other hand had only Tuesday off and had worked yesterday morning before our meeting, so I was doing fine on time. I decided that for Christmas I am going to buy him a little red fire truck. Because when we were training people together he would always talk about this one button on the register and to help people figure out which button it was he would say, “What color is a fire engine.” And everyone would always say ‘red’ and then one day the group of trainees said, “Yellow”…which they are, but we had never realized it. I mean, I had never questioned it. Growing up you know fire trucks to be red, they are in London, and in the movies. So I am going to buy him a little Matchbox red fire engine…I’m so funny.
Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat?
I have decided that you can’t win a conversation with me. I don’t care who you are, but if the conversation is about me, you’ll never be able to win. Last night I made the mistake of asking my mom what I should wear for my interview today. She told me that she’d been thinking about it and tried to dress me up in her clothes…I’m taller then my mom, so, these clothes wouldn’t fit. I told her I couldn’t wear her skirt because it wouldn’t fit because she is smaller then me. She said, “You don’t think I kept all my clothes from before my weight lose?” to which I said, “You think I’m fat?” Because by smaller, I meant shorter. Anyway, so I tell her I have a long black skirt and plenty of dressy sweaters which it turns out not too many of them still look good on me…they look frumpy to me now. So we are in the kitchen and she says, “and put on some make-up”. I stopped what I was doing and said, “I wear make-up!” Hello! I wear it everyday; I even make sure that my eye shadow compliments my outfit. So I said, “You don’t think I cake it on enough?” and she said, “No, you cake it on. I just mean you should wear some lipstick.” My mom’s big thing with me is that I don’t wear lipstick enough, I feel hookerish when I wear lipstick, I guess that means my mom wants me to be a hooker, I’m putting my foot down on that career change. So I said, “You think I cake on my make-up?” I quickly added that there was no way to get out of this, I caught my mother in the woman’s trap, the two edged questions that only lead you into deeper into shiz. Shove your ankle in because your foot has soaked long enough in your mouth.
So I have to wear lipstick. I told my mom that I will be wearing a dark shade of lipstick since I prefer the dark shades. Gag me with that pink crap she wears, I hate pink lipstick, whoever thought that was a good color should burn.
So this job interview that I have in an hour and half…I don’t even want it. It’s the same old thing, I’m happy with my job, I like the people I work with, but my mom is not happy with my life. So I guess if I don’t have the courage to not be happy with my existence my mom is more than happy to do the job for me. I didn’t even send them my résumé, my mom did, and she wrote the cover letter. She knows more this job then I do. It is with Sign Language Associates of Virginia, so that would be cool, just because I like sign language…but, I don’t know. I just feel like I shouldn’t be looking at other jobs right now because the trainers are already under a lot of stress and they are already losing the other part-time trainer next Friday. They’ll have to cover her store until a replacement is found which means I’ll be covering the other trainer’s stores in that time. Not a good time to leave. Then they’ll have to train her replacement and train my replacement should I leave. I wish that there was some logistical way to get a full time job and still keep this part-time job that is actually full time minus the benefits. But I don’t think the hours will work out that way. We’ll see. Heck, I probably won’t even get this job so I shouldn’t worry about it. If only I could get a full time trainer job maybe my mom would step the back up.
Last night I hung out with the other trainers. We all went to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner and drinks. My drink being water of course. It was fun; I really enjoyed hanging out with the trainers and with the scheduler who put the whole thing together. She’s really helped me to feel more comfortable in my position as a trainer and the new girl. TDH was there, which was nice. He got a hair cut, but to avoid soundly strangely obsessed with him I didn’t mention anything. I just notice hair cuts on guys. The group slowly dwindled into the second hour of our meeting, and pretty soon there were just five of us left. TDH walked me half way to my car, isn’t that nice of him? He waited until I was ready to leave the group and walk to my car and then he walked with me. Sometimes he’s such a gentlemen. I feel bad for him though because he was telling me that because of the meeting that we had today and having Monday’s off and only doing store visits on Tuesday that the next three days would all be ten hour days…poor guy. I on the other hand had only Tuesday off and had worked yesterday morning before our meeting, so I was doing fine on time. I decided that for Christmas I am going to buy him a little red fire truck. Because when we were training people together he would always talk about this one button on the register and to help people figure out which button it was he would say, “What color is a fire engine.” And everyone would always say ‘red’ and then one day the group of trainees said, “Yellow”…which they are, but we had never realized it. I mean, I had never questioned it. Growing up you know fire trucks to be red, they are in London, and in the movies. So I am going to buy him a little Matchbox red fire engine…I’m so funny.
Chapter 91
Pardon My French
Oh shit. So I just got off of the phone with Crunchy who had some of the strangest and slightly depressing news for me. The call was random, the last time he called me was probably June or so, therefore I was not expecting a call from him and it threw me off a bit. But I went ahead and answered it and we were talking for a little bit and I asked if he still had his dog. He said that he sold her and then said, “I have something to tell you that I don’t think you’ll believe.” I said, “you’re engaged!?” and he said yes but I still didn’t believe him. So the first ten minutes of the conversation was me going on and saying congratulations and getting little tidbits about his fiancé, but the whole time I was waiting for him to say he was just kidding, something else had really happened. “Fiancé”, how crazy is that? Crunchy is getting married. It is official too, not just him and his girlfriend talking about it, but truly and honestly engaged. He told me that when he went to ask her father for permission he was scared to death and his voice kept cracking. I think I must have been in shock. I honestly think I was because when I got off the phone I was freezing and my fingers were ice cold. But that could also be because our house is freezing! Even as I write this I can’t believe he is actually engaged. He could tell I wasn’t sure if to believe him or not, and asked if I ever thought this would happen. I told him honestly that I didn’t. He asked if that was because he was so hard to put up with and I told him it was because he had such problems with commitment. I mean, he sold his dog…he didn’t want to talk about that. I told him that since he was engaged it meant that there was hope for the rest of us. He said that he hopes he’ll get a call from me with similar news someday. I told him that will only happen if I get away from these Richmond guys. He kind of understood because he had called Diva (who he knew out at school also) right before he called me and he kind of got an idea of what Richmond guys are like because there was this one really annoying guy up there and he kept bugging Diva while she was talking to him (Crunchy).
I just can’t believe it! The girl is 19 too, not that there is anything wrong with that; I hang out with 17 year olds. Before he told me her age he told me not to make fun of him for it. So I said, “As long as she’s not 16 we’re fine.” Long pause, “She’s not 16 is she?” He said no, of course not, but not much older. It’s cool. When I’m 25 and engaged to a 19 year old I don’t want to hear anything about it from him! So talking to him tonight was kind of bittersweet. I was genuinely excited for him, but at the same time a little sad about it. Not so much because I hoped anything would happen between us, because I never thought we’d be married or anything. But it was more so because he kept asking what was going on with me. Yeah, I work at my high school job, but hey I got a promotion (which is a little depressing at times) and last week I got a raise, I hang out with 17 year olds for kicks and there is no boyfriend in my foreseeable future. The guys in my single’s ward are weird to say the least, I have a chapter left in a novel and I don’t plan on finishing it anytime soon, I’ve lost five or so pounds (should be more but I lack self discipline), but hey, I got a mouse, and a job interview on Thursday, which by the way it sounds is a pretty generic job with a generic job interview and I have a feeling that they will interview everyone who applied. I’m sick of companies saying, “we read your résumé and from what we saw we’d like to interview you” and it turns out that they are just looking for entry level sales people. I don’t sell things, I can’t convince myself that I want or need something how am I suppose to convince someone else enough to purchase some product? Especially if they don’t need it…then I’m screwed because I’m going to be the one saying, “You really don’t need this, but in America it’s all about being a glutton, so maybe you don’t eat more then your fair share, you should purchase more than your fair share.” Screw you. Wow.
Anyway, I promised I would go to the wedding, which will be in April some time. I have got to get a better job so I can afford all of these trips I’ll be making. Idaho in April, Utah in June and in August I’m supposed to go to Seattle with Sweet Pea and Oreo…if they still want to. This is why I don’t want the commitment of a full time job though. They only give you a certain amount of vacation a year and I’ve already got more planned then I would get.
All I really want to do is be 17 again when I didn’t have many people to disappoint and nobody had such life changing news to call me on the phone with. Heck, even if they did at 17 I didn’t know many people out of state so they could just come and see me. I have to get up early tomorrow so I really shouldn’t be sitting here writing this but I knew if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Of course I probably still won’t be able to sleep.
Pardon My French
Oh shit. So I just got off of the phone with Crunchy who had some of the strangest and slightly depressing news for me. The call was random, the last time he called me was probably June or so, therefore I was not expecting a call from him and it threw me off a bit. But I went ahead and answered it and we were talking for a little bit and I asked if he still had his dog. He said that he sold her and then said, “I have something to tell you that I don’t think you’ll believe.” I said, “you’re engaged!?” and he said yes but I still didn’t believe him. So the first ten minutes of the conversation was me going on and saying congratulations and getting little tidbits about his fiancé, but the whole time I was waiting for him to say he was just kidding, something else had really happened. “Fiancé”, how crazy is that? Crunchy is getting married. It is official too, not just him and his girlfriend talking about it, but truly and honestly engaged. He told me that when he went to ask her father for permission he was scared to death and his voice kept cracking. I think I must have been in shock. I honestly think I was because when I got off the phone I was freezing and my fingers were ice cold. But that could also be because our house is freezing! Even as I write this I can’t believe he is actually engaged. He could tell I wasn’t sure if to believe him or not, and asked if I ever thought this would happen. I told him honestly that I didn’t. He asked if that was because he was so hard to put up with and I told him it was because he had such problems with commitment. I mean, he sold his dog…he didn’t want to talk about that. I told him that since he was engaged it meant that there was hope for the rest of us. He said that he hopes he’ll get a call from me with similar news someday. I told him that will only happen if I get away from these Richmond guys. He kind of understood because he had called Diva (who he knew out at school also) right before he called me and he kind of got an idea of what Richmond guys are like because there was this one really annoying guy up there and he kept bugging Diva while she was talking to him (Crunchy).
I just can’t believe it! The girl is 19 too, not that there is anything wrong with that; I hang out with 17 year olds. Before he told me her age he told me not to make fun of him for it. So I said, “As long as she’s not 16 we’re fine.” Long pause, “She’s not 16 is she?” He said no, of course not, but not much older. It’s cool. When I’m 25 and engaged to a 19 year old I don’t want to hear anything about it from him! So talking to him tonight was kind of bittersweet. I was genuinely excited for him, but at the same time a little sad about it. Not so much because I hoped anything would happen between us, because I never thought we’d be married or anything. But it was more so because he kept asking what was going on with me. Yeah, I work at my high school job, but hey I got a promotion (which is a little depressing at times) and last week I got a raise, I hang out with 17 year olds for kicks and there is no boyfriend in my foreseeable future. The guys in my single’s ward are weird to say the least, I have a chapter left in a novel and I don’t plan on finishing it anytime soon, I’ve lost five or so pounds (should be more but I lack self discipline), but hey, I got a mouse, and a job interview on Thursday, which by the way it sounds is a pretty generic job with a generic job interview and I have a feeling that they will interview everyone who applied. I’m sick of companies saying, “we read your résumé and from what we saw we’d like to interview you” and it turns out that they are just looking for entry level sales people. I don’t sell things, I can’t convince myself that I want or need something how am I suppose to convince someone else enough to purchase some product? Especially if they don’t need it…then I’m screwed because I’m going to be the one saying, “You really don’t need this, but in America it’s all about being a glutton, so maybe you don’t eat more then your fair share, you should purchase more than your fair share.” Screw you. Wow.
Anyway, I promised I would go to the wedding, which will be in April some time. I have got to get a better job so I can afford all of these trips I’ll be making. Idaho in April, Utah in June and in August I’m supposed to go to Seattle with Sweet Pea and Oreo…if they still want to. This is why I don’t want the commitment of a full time job though. They only give you a certain amount of vacation a year and I’ve already got more planned then I would get.
All I really want to do is be 17 again when I didn’t have many people to disappoint and nobody had such life changing news to call me on the phone with. Heck, even if they did at 17 I didn’t know many people out of state so they could just come and see me. I have to get up early tomorrow so I really shouldn’t be sitting here writing this but I knew if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Of course I probably still won’t be able to sleep.
Chapter 90
I’ll See Ya When I See Ya
So I was able to work in my store today and I liked it a lot. I had to work with Jaq though, and guess what? He still bugs the crap out of me. First thing he did was put me on express and say something about how I should understand express better because I’m a trainer. Like that makes any kind of sense. But you know what? It had been so long since I’d been on register that I didn’t really mind it. I went fast which felt good, and Jaq was all happy because he wants the store to be ranked higher and actually having some speed kind of helps that.
I got to work with Steel Eyes, who doesn’t scare me as much as he used to, though I still didn’t really know what to say to him. But at one point I think I startled him because I pulled the cart through really fast and I think he thought I was going to hit him with it. I told him not to worry, if he is going to get beat up with a cart I knew he’d do it himself, so why jump the gun? He said he needed someone to push the cart in order to do that. I told him he could always take it to the top of the hill in the parking lot and do it that way. After that things were fine and he kept coming over to bag for me, so maybe we can be friends, I mean, we have already hung out a couple of times, so maybe we already were friends, or maybe we were both just friends with Baby Face.
Tonight I hung out with Wheezy. Things between Wiggum and his Ex turned into a screaming match hours before we were suppose to go to dinner. So Wheezy called me up to tell me that Wiggum’s Ex had called him up in tears and that dinner was definitely off but he asked if I wanted to go out to dinner anyway. So he came to pick me up at my parent’s house and we went out and he told me “the story” behind Wiggum and his Ex. She had called him (Wheezy) saying that Wiggum had hit her and she was going to get a restraining order. Well, if you know these two people you know that the one more likely to be throwing a punch is her, not Wiggum. He doesn’t hit girls, never has, never will. She’s beats the crap out of him. So we joked that the one who should have a restraining order is him against her. Later he called Wheezy while we were at dinner and we could hear his Ex in the background and they were hanging out all night. These two should be sterilized because heaven help the children they would ever have. This is why you should just cut the string sometimes, I’m a strong believer in cutting the strings, if you break up, forget each other, and don’t bother trying to be friends. There is no point in being friends after you’ve dated, one will always think there is a chance while the other foolishly believes that you really can just be friends. Isn’t that just sweet? Gag.
Of course, don’t bring this up with Wheezy, he’s the “I don’t want to be a jerk” kind of guy. He still calls all his ex-girlfriends to make sure that they don’t hate him. I just don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s like playing with fire. If you break up with the girl, go ahead and be hated, it’s easier now and one time instead of in the future or over the course of several years with more than one occasion where the girl is left thinking you are a jerk. Don’t hang out with her, and especially if she has a boyfriend now, a jealous boyfriend. What? Yeah, I’m talking about B.F.F. He wants to hang out with her sometimes because well, he doesn’t want to be a jerk. But B.F.F.’s boyfriend is the jealous type, and B.F.F. is the sentimental type of person. She’ll think there’s a chance, and her current boyfriend will wonder what is up, they’ll get in a fight, three years down the pot and then she is single and in the hopes that her and Wheezy can pick up where they left off right after high school but he was just being nice so there isn’t anything to pick up. Do you follow?
Wow, okay.
So when Wheezy dropped me back off at my parent’s house he asked if he could use their bathroom. So we went inside and I was talking to my mom while he used the bathroom and she says, “He’s cute, I’ve always thought he was.” I said, “that’s great, why don’t you ask him out?” she told me that maybe she will but didn’t think he’d go for her. I told her that he’d probably giggle at first (he giggles…like a little girl when he thinks something is funny but probably shouldn’t). Then when he realized that she was serious would just let an awkward silence blanket the room. Then I told her that he probably doesn’t go for married women. When he was done we went back outside to our cars and decided that eventually we’ll see each other again. I like these friendships that don’t feel the need to know when we will hang out or see each other again, if it happens it happens. If it takes too long, then we’ll get in touch, but we won’t be fake about it and say, “When are we going to hang out? We never hang out?” We’ll just do it. These are my people.
I’ll See Ya When I See Ya
So I was able to work in my store today and I liked it a lot. I had to work with Jaq though, and guess what? He still bugs the crap out of me. First thing he did was put me on express and say something about how I should understand express better because I’m a trainer. Like that makes any kind of sense. But you know what? It had been so long since I’d been on register that I didn’t really mind it. I went fast which felt good, and Jaq was all happy because he wants the store to be ranked higher and actually having some speed kind of helps that.
I got to work with Steel Eyes, who doesn’t scare me as much as he used to, though I still didn’t really know what to say to him. But at one point I think I startled him because I pulled the cart through really fast and I think he thought I was going to hit him with it. I told him not to worry, if he is going to get beat up with a cart I knew he’d do it himself, so why jump the gun? He said he needed someone to push the cart in order to do that. I told him he could always take it to the top of the hill in the parking lot and do it that way. After that things were fine and he kept coming over to bag for me, so maybe we can be friends, I mean, we have already hung out a couple of times, so maybe we already were friends, or maybe we were both just friends with Baby Face.
Tonight I hung out with Wheezy. Things between Wiggum and his Ex turned into a screaming match hours before we were suppose to go to dinner. So Wheezy called me up to tell me that Wiggum’s Ex had called him up in tears and that dinner was definitely off but he asked if I wanted to go out to dinner anyway. So he came to pick me up at my parent’s house and we went out and he told me “the story” behind Wiggum and his Ex. She had called him (Wheezy) saying that Wiggum had hit her and she was going to get a restraining order. Well, if you know these two people you know that the one more likely to be throwing a punch is her, not Wiggum. He doesn’t hit girls, never has, never will. She’s beats the crap out of him. So we joked that the one who should have a restraining order is him against her. Later he called Wheezy while we were at dinner and we could hear his Ex in the background and they were hanging out all night. These two should be sterilized because heaven help the children they would ever have. This is why you should just cut the string sometimes, I’m a strong believer in cutting the strings, if you break up, forget each other, and don’t bother trying to be friends. There is no point in being friends after you’ve dated, one will always think there is a chance while the other foolishly believes that you really can just be friends. Isn’t that just sweet? Gag.
Of course, don’t bring this up with Wheezy, he’s the “I don’t want to be a jerk” kind of guy. He still calls all his ex-girlfriends to make sure that they don’t hate him. I just don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s like playing with fire. If you break up with the girl, go ahead and be hated, it’s easier now and one time instead of in the future or over the course of several years with more than one occasion where the girl is left thinking you are a jerk. Don’t hang out with her, and especially if she has a boyfriend now, a jealous boyfriend. What? Yeah, I’m talking about B.F.F. He wants to hang out with her sometimes because well, he doesn’t want to be a jerk. But B.F.F.’s boyfriend is the jealous type, and B.F.F. is the sentimental type of person. She’ll think there’s a chance, and her current boyfriend will wonder what is up, they’ll get in a fight, three years down the pot and then she is single and in the hopes that her and Wheezy can pick up where they left off right after high school but he was just being nice so there isn’t anything to pick up. Do you follow?
Wow, okay.
So when Wheezy dropped me back off at my parent’s house he asked if he could use their bathroom. So we went inside and I was talking to my mom while he used the bathroom and she says, “He’s cute, I’ve always thought he was.” I said, “that’s great, why don’t you ask him out?” she told me that maybe she will but didn’t think he’d go for her. I told her that he’d probably giggle at first (he giggles…like a little girl when he thinks something is funny but probably shouldn’t). Then when he realized that she was serious would just let an awkward silence blanket the room. Then I told her that he probably doesn’t go for married women. When he was done we went back outside to our cars and decided that eventually we’ll see each other again. I like these friendships that don’t feel the need to know when we will hang out or see each other again, if it happens it happens. If it takes too long, then we’ll get in touch, but we won’t be fake about it and say, “When are we going to hang out? We never hang out?” We’ll just do it. These are my people.
Chapter 89
Are We Really Supposed to Connect?
Today I learned that just because you are from California does not mean you are cool, and just because you’re from Utah doesn’t mean that you’re a shank. I know what you are thinking, “uh, yeah if you are from California then you are cool.” Granted, many people I have met from California do meet the Californian criteria. But the girl today that I met from California seemed to proclaim it proudly so that people would think she was cooler then she actually was. It doesn’t work though; you can’t fool people that way. On the other hand the girl from Utah didn’t shrink in fear of being labeled, she proudly said where she was from and everyone could tell that even though she grew up there not everything that comes out of Utah is damaged. As for the Californian chick, she must have been from Southern California, I’ve heard about them.
Life with the mouse is good. Still don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl and I’m okay with that. Especially since it still seems to be a problem with Motor Mouth, she’s “stuffed up” but can still tell how badly he/she smells. Yeah, he smells, and I still prefer him over you. I suppose some people walk a thin line with me. If this house were survivor I would totally be rallying to get the others to vote her off the island. A little secret that I will only write in here and never tell anyone, I flipped Motor Mouth the bird today while her back was turned. She just aggravates me so much. I’m trying to do better, but I suppose I’m not trying hard enough. I wish I was one of those people who felt bad about not getting along with their roommates, but I’m not. I figure getting along with 2 out of 3 of them is probably the best I’m going to get accomplished.
B.F.F. (remember her? Yeah I barely do either) came over to my parent’s house tonight for dinner. I invited her over because she has been trying to hang out with me for the last week but our schedules are complete opposites. I’m at work when she’s home, she’s at work when I’m home. So I told her she could just come to my parent’s house for Sunday dinner. She called me yesterday while I was at work and I half expected a voicemail saying that she wasn’t going to be able to make it. But she did come and we took good old George on a quick mile walk to try to wear him out. While we were walking she complained that I look like I’ve lost a lot of weight. Well, first she asked me if I lost any and I told her maybe a little and then she said, “Maybe a lot”. Any other friend I would have been flattered, but with B.F.F. it’s almost a death sentence. If you make her feel insecure about her weight then she may not hang out with you anymore. Heaven forbid I lose another five pounds or something; that might end our friendship. I’m not losing weight to make her feel bad, heck, I didn’t even realize I was losing weight, I mean, I want to, but if I am losing weight it’s something for me.
So Wiggum’s ex-girlfriend called me tonight, and while I have no problems with the girl I don’t really want to talk to her. So I hit ignore and listened to the message later, which by the time I had gotten around to listening to my voicemail I had gotten one from Wiggum. She was planning a surprise birthday dinner at Applebee’s for Wiggum. The next voicemail was Wiggum saying that his ex was planning something, but he wasn’t sure what and he doesn’t like surprises, so I should call him and tell him what was going on. Since I don’t really want to talk to either of them on the phone I called Wheezy to find out the details of tomorrow night. He said that he didn’t think anything was going to happen because Wiggum seemed pretty adamant that no matter what his Ex planned he wasn’t going to go. We talked for a bit longer and then decided that we would just talk at work tomorrow since I’ll actually be there. Not more then 15 minutes later Wheezy calls me and tells me that it sounds like maybe dinner was on for tomorrow, but who knows with those two if it will still happen. So he asked if I’d like to go with him to dinner if it does in fact happen. I told him yeah, going in pairs was safer anyway. That way if dinner turns into a yelling match between Wiggum and his Ex we can awkwardly slip out together instead of awkwardly slipping out by ourselves. Sometimes it’s good to have a friend who can help you bear your other friends.
Are We Really Supposed to Connect?
Today I learned that just because you are from California does not mean you are cool, and just because you’re from Utah doesn’t mean that you’re a shank. I know what you are thinking, “uh, yeah if you are from California then you are cool.” Granted, many people I have met from California do meet the Californian criteria. But the girl today that I met from California seemed to proclaim it proudly so that people would think she was cooler then she actually was. It doesn’t work though; you can’t fool people that way. On the other hand the girl from Utah didn’t shrink in fear of being labeled, she proudly said where she was from and everyone could tell that even though she grew up there not everything that comes out of Utah is damaged. As for the Californian chick, she must have been from Southern California, I’ve heard about them.
Life with the mouse is good. Still don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl and I’m okay with that. Especially since it still seems to be a problem with Motor Mouth, she’s “stuffed up” but can still tell how badly he/she smells. Yeah, he smells, and I still prefer him over you. I suppose some people walk a thin line with me. If this house were survivor I would totally be rallying to get the others to vote her off the island. A little secret that I will only write in here and never tell anyone, I flipped Motor Mouth the bird today while her back was turned. She just aggravates me so much. I’m trying to do better, but I suppose I’m not trying hard enough. I wish I was one of those people who felt bad about not getting along with their roommates, but I’m not. I figure getting along with 2 out of 3 of them is probably the best I’m going to get accomplished.
B.F.F. (remember her? Yeah I barely do either) came over to my parent’s house tonight for dinner. I invited her over because she has been trying to hang out with me for the last week but our schedules are complete opposites. I’m at work when she’s home, she’s at work when I’m home. So I told her she could just come to my parent’s house for Sunday dinner. She called me yesterday while I was at work and I half expected a voicemail saying that she wasn’t going to be able to make it. But she did come and we took good old George on a quick mile walk to try to wear him out. While we were walking she complained that I look like I’ve lost a lot of weight. Well, first she asked me if I lost any and I told her maybe a little and then she said, “Maybe a lot”. Any other friend I would have been flattered, but with B.F.F. it’s almost a death sentence. If you make her feel insecure about her weight then she may not hang out with you anymore. Heaven forbid I lose another five pounds or something; that might end our friendship. I’m not losing weight to make her feel bad, heck, I didn’t even realize I was losing weight, I mean, I want to, but if I am losing weight it’s something for me.
So Wiggum’s ex-girlfriend called me tonight, and while I have no problems with the girl I don’t really want to talk to her. So I hit ignore and listened to the message later, which by the time I had gotten around to listening to my voicemail I had gotten one from Wiggum. She was planning a surprise birthday dinner at Applebee’s for Wiggum. The next voicemail was Wiggum saying that his ex was planning something, but he wasn’t sure what and he doesn’t like surprises, so I should call him and tell him what was going on. Since I don’t really want to talk to either of them on the phone I called Wheezy to find out the details of tomorrow night. He said that he didn’t think anything was going to happen because Wiggum seemed pretty adamant that no matter what his Ex planned he wasn’t going to go. We talked for a bit longer and then decided that we would just talk at work tomorrow since I’ll actually be there. Not more then 15 minutes later Wheezy calls me and tells me that it sounds like maybe dinner was on for tomorrow, but who knows with those two if it will still happen. So he asked if I’d like to go with him to dinner if it does in fact happen. I told him yeah, going in pairs was safer anyway. That way if dinner turns into a yelling match between Wiggum and his Ex we can awkwardly slip out together instead of awkwardly slipping out by ourselves. Sometimes it’s good to have a friend who can help you bear your other friends.
Chapter 88
Pissers
So, I don’t know if I said this but Puppy Love got a girlfriend; I knew that Puppy Love and the girl he ended up dating would end up dating. You can just watch two people interact and kind of tell something is going to happen there. So the hugs stopped coming and I figured something was up. My friend finally told me that Puppy Love had a girlfriend, so for about maybe two blissful weeks I could run into him without the threat of a hug.
I’m pretty sure now however that they are no longer dating. When I went in the other night he wanted a hug and gave me more attention then he had while he had his girlfriend. I ran into him tonight too when I went into the store and he happened to come to the store at the same time as me. I accused him of stalking me, and he said something about how we keep running into each other, we haven’t really. I’ve seen him about twice this week which isn’t unusual since I’ve gone into the store twice this week. Luckily for me Baby Face also came in so I wasn’t left to have to spend some “alone” time with Puppy Love. For some reason all three of us for walked to my car, apparently I need the protection of two teenage boys on my long walk to the parking lot. While we stood outside of my car Puppy Love kept giving me hugs! At one point he came really close to me while I was reading something and I said, “Why are you touching me?” Then for some reason Puppy Love gives me a hug and Baby Face (who knows that I don’t like with Puppy Love gives me hugs) kind of made fun of it. He attacked Puppy Love saying he wanted a hug too. I think maybe it worked, but I can’t remember if that is when the hugs stopped or not. We hung out by my car for a while and Steel Eyes came over to join us and talk for a bit. Baby face and I told him that he should go ride a cart into a tree again since I missed that. He said there were too many people and too much day light. Then he said maybe he would do it Monday, and I work there Monday! Well, not Monday night, so even if Steel Eyes were to ride a cart into a tree I would sadly miss it again…oh dang it.
I can’t believe that I am actually going to be working at my store! I didn’t get all that many hours next week so I called the store last night to see if they could give me some hours. I had to talk to Jaq and he gave me 8 hours on Monday. He said something about me raising the store’s items per minute; someone at work had told me how the store had slowed down since I left. The funny thing is, I always thought I would find a faster cashier somewhere while I was training, but the more I get to look at the items per minute for other stores and cashiers the more I realize that I was pretty quick. Wow, if that’s exciting I need a new job. I don’t really know how I feel about working in my store though. I don’t know who I will be working with but hopefully there will be some fun people, I‘m nervous because what if I have gotten used to being a trainer? Then suddenly one day I’ll go back to just working in the store and what if I no longer like it? I mean, I guess it would be the most opportune time to change careers.
Hmm, change. Did I mention I have a mouse now? His name is Firecracker, but I call him Fatty so that he’ll run on his wheel more. I guess it doesn’t help that I feed him pizza crust, but the guy likes it. Well, I think he’s a guy, I haven’t checked. I don’t really touch him…he’s a mouse! I need to ask the guy who bought him whether it’s a girl or a boy so I know whether or not to make it a bachelor’s pad or a diva pad. It would be weird if it turns out that Fatty was a girl. Not only would I feel bad for calling him a fatty while feeding him pizza crust and marshmallows (along with a healthy diet of mouse food) but it would be like having a friend who went through a sex change. You knew them one way for so long and then suddenly Dwayne is Diane. That’s got to be a difficult transition, especially if you didn’t know that Dwayne wanted to be Diane, so if your mouse never actually wanted a sex change, but you had just assumed they were one thing and you called them, “him” for so long, and you made plans to buy him the Matthew McConaughey work out video for men, and to put pictures of Hillary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, and the Olsen Twins up on his wall and then suddenly find out that “he” is a “she” and as far as you know she isn’t interested in having all those chicks on her wall, though she won’t mind the McConaughey work out video so it’s not a complete bust. It just throws your mind out of whack for a while. But I told Diva that Fatty had to be a boy because he smells bad.
Oh, the story behind how we got firecracker. So the other night three of us were home doing various things. My two roommates were upstairs in their pajamas watching Grey’s Anatomy and I was about to make some cookies for Jelly Bean. Suddenly I hear this loud popping like small fireworks going off. Well, when I panic I pretty much have a “hide” reflex rather then a fight or flight. I stood in the kitchen for a while and then I went upstairs to see if anyone else had heard the noise. They were sitting upstairs like nothing had really happened but when I asked they said that they heard it too but since they were in their pajamas they didn’t plan to go and see who had done what. Finally Jelly Bean went downstairs and I followed. I peeked out the window before she opened the door and outside was a can that had held the firecracker. I went to stand by Jelly Bean and then I noticed something moving and it was a mouse! Hanging from the doorway with duck tape and string around its tail! I got a paper bag and held it up and cut the string to let the little guy go because it was freaking him out. We finally found the guys who were playing the prank on us, they were hiding behind one of our cars. I told them I was attached to the mouse and asked if we could keep him. They said that would be all right, and you know what? I don’t know what the guys would have done to the mouse had I not asked to have him…her.
The fact that Motor Mouth really doesn’t want him makes me want him even more. I agree that he smells bad and the idea of having a mouse living here with us is…gross. I mean, he pees and poos on his wheel while he is running and then just keeps going. I won’t touch him. But Motor Mouth comes out saying in her little attitude voice, “We are not having a mouse in this house.” To which I said, “Why yes, we are.” Then she told me something about how our landlady might charge me more because I had one. I told her I would tell the landlady that I found it in the house and decided to keep it. It’s all truth anyway, I don’t have to say that two boys bought it at pet smart and it has all its shots. Tonight Jelly Bean was talking to me about it and how our landlady was at the house today and probably saw Fatty. I told her that if the landlady was going to charge me more then she had to charge Motor Mouth more too. Jelly Bean said, “But she doesn’t have a pet,” and I said, “But she has two rooms.” Jelly Bean laughed, mostly because she knows it’s true. Besides, you can’t charge me for having a little cage with a mouse in it. Now if I had a dog then I could understand, you can have security deposits for those kinds of pets.
Pissers
So, I don’t know if I said this but Puppy Love got a girlfriend; I knew that Puppy Love and the girl he ended up dating would end up dating. You can just watch two people interact and kind of tell something is going to happen there. So the hugs stopped coming and I figured something was up. My friend finally told me that Puppy Love had a girlfriend, so for about maybe two blissful weeks I could run into him without the threat of a hug.
I’m pretty sure now however that they are no longer dating. When I went in the other night he wanted a hug and gave me more attention then he had while he had his girlfriend. I ran into him tonight too when I went into the store and he happened to come to the store at the same time as me. I accused him of stalking me, and he said something about how we keep running into each other, we haven’t really. I’ve seen him about twice this week which isn’t unusual since I’ve gone into the store twice this week. Luckily for me Baby Face also came in so I wasn’t left to have to spend some “alone” time with Puppy Love. For some reason all three of us for walked to my car, apparently I need the protection of two teenage boys on my long walk to the parking lot. While we stood outside of my car Puppy Love kept giving me hugs! At one point he came really close to me while I was reading something and I said, “Why are you touching me?” Then for some reason Puppy Love gives me a hug and Baby Face (who knows that I don’t like with Puppy Love gives me hugs) kind of made fun of it. He attacked Puppy Love saying he wanted a hug too. I think maybe it worked, but I can’t remember if that is when the hugs stopped or not. We hung out by my car for a while and Steel Eyes came over to join us and talk for a bit. Baby face and I told him that he should go ride a cart into a tree again since I missed that. He said there were too many people and too much day light. Then he said maybe he would do it Monday, and I work there Monday! Well, not Monday night, so even if Steel Eyes were to ride a cart into a tree I would sadly miss it again…oh dang it.
I can’t believe that I am actually going to be working at my store! I didn’t get all that many hours next week so I called the store last night to see if they could give me some hours. I had to talk to Jaq and he gave me 8 hours on Monday. He said something about me raising the store’s items per minute; someone at work had told me how the store had slowed down since I left. The funny thing is, I always thought I would find a faster cashier somewhere while I was training, but the more I get to look at the items per minute for other stores and cashiers the more I realize that I was pretty quick. Wow, if that’s exciting I need a new job. I don’t really know how I feel about working in my store though. I don’t know who I will be working with but hopefully there will be some fun people, I‘m nervous because what if I have gotten used to being a trainer? Then suddenly one day I’ll go back to just working in the store and what if I no longer like it? I mean, I guess it would be the most opportune time to change careers.
Hmm, change. Did I mention I have a mouse now? His name is Firecracker, but I call him Fatty so that he’ll run on his wheel more. I guess it doesn’t help that I feed him pizza crust, but the guy likes it. Well, I think he’s a guy, I haven’t checked. I don’t really touch him…he’s a mouse! I need to ask the guy who bought him whether it’s a girl or a boy so I know whether or not to make it a bachelor’s pad or a diva pad. It would be weird if it turns out that Fatty was a girl. Not only would I feel bad for calling him a fatty while feeding him pizza crust and marshmallows (along with a healthy diet of mouse food) but it would be like having a friend who went through a sex change. You knew them one way for so long and then suddenly Dwayne is Diane. That’s got to be a difficult transition, especially if you didn’t know that Dwayne wanted to be Diane, so if your mouse never actually wanted a sex change, but you had just assumed they were one thing and you called them, “him” for so long, and you made plans to buy him the Matthew McConaughey work out video for men, and to put pictures of Hillary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, and the Olsen Twins up on his wall and then suddenly find out that “he” is a “she” and as far as you know she isn’t interested in having all those chicks on her wall, though she won’t mind the McConaughey work out video so it’s not a complete bust. It just throws your mind out of whack for a while. But I told Diva that Fatty had to be a boy because he smells bad.
Oh, the story behind how we got firecracker. So the other night three of us were home doing various things. My two roommates were upstairs in their pajamas watching Grey’s Anatomy and I was about to make some cookies for Jelly Bean. Suddenly I hear this loud popping like small fireworks going off. Well, when I panic I pretty much have a “hide” reflex rather then a fight or flight. I stood in the kitchen for a while and then I went upstairs to see if anyone else had heard the noise. They were sitting upstairs like nothing had really happened but when I asked they said that they heard it too but since they were in their pajamas they didn’t plan to go and see who had done what. Finally Jelly Bean went downstairs and I followed. I peeked out the window before she opened the door and outside was a can that had held the firecracker. I went to stand by Jelly Bean and then I noticed something moving and it was a mouse! Hanging from the doorway with duck tape and string around its tail! I got a paper bag and held it up and cut the string to let the little guy go because it was freaking him out. We finally found the guys who were playing the prank on us, they were hiding behind one of our cars. I told them I was attached to the mouse and asked if we could keep him. They said that would be all right, and you know what? I don’t know what the guys would have done to the mouse had I not asked to have him…her.
The fact that Motor Mouth really doesn’t want him makes me want him even more. I agree that he smells bad and the idea of having a mouse living here with us is…gross. I mean, he pees and poos on his wheel while he is running and then just keeps going. I won’t touch him. But Motor Mouth comes out saying in her little attitude voice, “We are not having a mouse in this house.” To which I said, “Why yes, we are.” Then she told me something about how our landlady might charge me more because I had one. I told her I would tell the landlady that I found it in the house and decided to keep it. It’s all truth anyway, I don’t have to say that two boys bought it at pet smart and it has all its shots. Tonight Jelly Bean was talking to me about it and how our landlady was at the house today and probably saw Fatty. I told her that if the landlady was going to charge me more then she had to charge Motor Mouth more too. Jelly Bean said, “But she doesn’t have a pet,” and I said, “But she has two rooms.” Jelly Bean laughed, mostly because she knows it’s true. Besides, you can’t charge me for having a little cage with a mouse in it. Now if I had a dog then I could understand, you can have security deposits for those kinds of pets.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Chapter 87
Lay Off I’m Starving!
First off, my bathroom door is broken. Have I mentioned this before? Because it is. It doesn’t close properly; luckily, it hasn’t trapped me in the bathroom…except that one time, but the door doesn’t close on the first try anymore. So when I have to go to the bathroom and it usually means now because I don’t go when I first feel the need to, I wait until I have to go to the bathroom I am sitting there for a good 30 seconds fighting with this door. 30 seconds in the “I’ve really gotta go” world is like a lifetime, it’s a burst bladder, an accident waiting to happen (literally). It’s a conundrum (thanks to the little boy from “The Ring” for that last sentence, which of course is a movie quote). This was not what I was going to talk about but since I just came from my little bathroom and was a bit flustered I thought I’d write about it, so that everyone is up to date on my current living situation.
While I’m at updating current living situations, Diva and Jelly Bean are doing fine, they are total BFF again and they like me, so that’s good. I was thinking about it the other day, whether or not to tell them about the Inner Circle. They are in it, but do not know it. I decided against it. Particularly because I am the weak link in the Inner Circle, I am the third point in a pointless shape, yet, the weakest point. Since Diva and Jelly Bean are BFF I am extra. Without me, this would be the inner line, not as cool sounding. I have never been the extra in the Inner Circle. The original Inner Circle was of course the best one, where we all had something in common and came together by some magical force of the Inner Circle gravity. After that though Sweet Pea and I were the true strongest points, neither of us ever had to worry about being “released” from the Inner Circle, because we were the Inner Circle. The third piece was picked up and dropped off as we pleased. If you just look at the history of the Inner Circle you can see how this happens. The Antagonizer was at one point a part of the Inner Circle but was easily replaced by another roommate…several times. Whether or not she knew it, I’m not sure, we don’t send out an official memo or pink slip or anything. So being in the delicate position where the Antagonizer once stood, I have chosen to not allow this monster Sweet Pea and I have created to destroy me. So in secret I have enrolled two of my roommates in my secret cult.
The drama still whirls around Motor Mouth though, how could it not? She’s like a plant that needs light, she needs drama. I don’t think she even realizes it, because she talks constantly of hating drama, yet it makes her thrive and grow. I kind of feel sorry for her because if she is telling the truth about hating drama her life will forever suck because she will always gravitate to it. In the meantime I hear comments from the other roommates like, “I like Motor Mouth, but when she does this or when she does that.” So pretty much about 95.8% of the time they do not like her. I have slowly just begun to kill her with kindness, though it was not my intention. The dishwasher broke and since Motor Mouth likes to leave dishes out to get crusty and almost impossible to clean, her mess from a dinner she made for a large group of people was sitting in the kitchen yesterday when I finally shuffled in around 11am. I was just in the mood to feel like I was in Rexburg again so I started to do the dishes. Guess what? I wasn’t pissed off while I did it. While I was at work though she texted me (because she gets free Text messages I however…do not). She said “thanks!” thinking that I had done it to be nice to her but my motives were totally self therapeutic. I’m really just waiting for her to move, as is my family and also my other two roommates, but I don’t think she will. She has a good deal here, she’s overtaken two bedrooms (because we have the ability to have a fifth roommate but we can’t because first…we don’t want one, secondly we can’t fit them anywhere). She’s got her stuff on the bookshelf in the living room; she’s got the dining room table and stuff all over the living room like the TV stand that is currently TV-less right now but sure does have a lot of pictures of her on there, I feel like I’m walking through the apartment in “While You Were Sleeping” and the guy has only pictures of himself in nice expensive frames all over the place. And you want to know something? Sure I have a lot of crap, but it’s all contained to my room and my bathroom, so I don’t appreciate when my roommates say something about how many books I have (because they have mentioned things about my books…don’t they read?) I like my books, I’ve actually read my books, it’s no Great Gatsby where I have the books but haven’t read them. I keep my crap in my room, I don’t spread out…and I want a couch! My sister is going to sell me one of her couches. She was actually going to give it to me for free…which means that she really has changed since high school, but I wanted to be able to help them out even if it’s just a little, financially. But since I was offering to pay she said that she’d throw in the couch cover (a $100 value) with the couch totaling $60. So pretty much I’m paying $60 for a couch cover and getting the couch for free. But where to put it? Hmm...I live in the house which should have some spot for this couch. I ask my roommates if I can get a couch, “Where are you going to put it?” one asks. “I’ll find a spot,” I said. Then Motor Mouth starts asking questions about the color of the couch and such, like that’s going to help me find a spot for it. But the way she is asking it’s like she expects it to become hers. No, I’m not buying this couch and saying, “Here’s a burnt offering roommates, please, sit on it, make it yours, and take it when you move out.” Hell no, this is my couch; I’m buying it now should I ever be able to afford a place on my own. I personally would be happy if they never sat on it. But since that’s impossible, I sometimes sit on their furniture then I won’t hurt them for sitting on mine. But I just felt like telling them that I pay rent too, and I don’t have anything in this house except for what it’s my room. I can’t fit a couch there so let me put the damn thing in the living room, or I don’t know maybe Motor Mouth could move some of her crap out of the extra bedroom and I could put it there, heaven knows she’s taking up too much space.
Crap, couch drama was not what I was going to write about either. In fact I was going to write about George. Our dog, dogs don’t fall under the “Identity Protection” of this do-dad so I just say his name, George. So yesterday I was over at my parent’s house before work. I took George on an hour long walk so that he wouldn’t whine or chew because that’s what Reader’s Digest told me to do. It didn’t stop the whining. Anyway, so my sister and cousins had been over there but they left first so it was my job to get George put away so he wouldn’t aimlessly wander and destroy. I tried to get him in the kennel but he is deathly afraid of that thing, so I took him upstairs to get him into Spam’s room, he went, but I noticed a bag of stuff animals on the floor and thought better of it and got him out of there. I tried for Burrito’s room, but George has been put in there a lot so he flipped and ran down the stairs. I’ve never seen that dog run down stairs. So I figure I don’t need to lock him up just yet anyway. So I go to the bathroom and when I come out George has gone into my purse and stolen my bag of fig newtons. I flip; Fig Newtons are the final straw. Nobody eats my Fig Newtons. So I yell at him which is completely pointless with a dog, but it made me feel better. But then I tell him that he’s given me a good reason to put him in the kennel. That he does understand and he fights me tooth and nail to avoid lockdown. He gets away from my grip and I am chasing him around the house, in circles at first, his huge tail is waving back and forth like this is a game, but of course I’m laughing too at how ridiculous life has suddenly become. Then I stop myself, realizing that we are going in circles and I turn the other direction. We both stop, face to face, him at the end of the family room, me by the front door. I can hear the music from “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” playing in my head. Who is the quickest draw? But I wait for his next move. He starts to charge me! I figure in his mind he’s thinking, “I don’t think so biotch, I’ll take you down before I go in that kennel!” So I move out of the way and begin pursuit again. I finally catch him in the kitchen and he’s figured out a new tactic, when you are caught by the collar drop down and roll until you can bite your assailant. After having my hand in his mouth one too many times I let go, he jumps up and cowers on the other side of the kitchen. Luckily for me, dogs are stupid and I grabbed a treat and he happily followed me into the family room. There he sits and begins to go through his tricks, he tried to shake my hand but I told him that was not the deal for this little treat. I threw it in the kennel, he looked at me suspiciously and I pretended to be throwing out my Fig Newtons that he desecrated which involved walking into the kitchen. Once I’m in the kitchen George feels safe to go and retrieve his treat. I turn and run as quickly as I can into the family room. He hears me coming and starts to back out of the kennel but by then it’s too late, he’s 70% of the way inside the kennel and I’ve got him by his rear and am shoving him in. I close the kennel, lock it, and change for work. I was so upset about my fig newtons, but life has to go on. I had to be semi-professional for work. However, when I got to work I was flustered and unorganized, so I told my trainees that I had to chase a dog before work and they bore with me a little better. It’s strange, but I think I’m beginning to like the dog.
Lay Off I’m Starving!
First off, my bathroom door is broken. Have I mentioned this before? Because it is. It doesn’t close properly; luckily, it hasn’t trapped me in the bathroom…except that one time, but the door doesn’t close on the first try anymore. So when I have to go to the bathroom and it usually means now because I don’t go when I first feel the need to, I wait until I have to go to the bathroom I am sitting there for a good 30 seconds fighting with this door. 30 seconds in the “I’ve really gotta go” world is like a lifetime, it’s a burst bladder, an accident waiting to happen (literally). It’s a conundrum (thanks to the little boy from “The Ring” for that last sentence, which of course is a movie quote). This was not what I was going to talk about but since I just came from my little bathroom and was a bit flustered I thought I’d write about it, so that everyone is up to date on my current living situation.
While I’m at updating current living situations, Diva and Jelly Bean are doing fine, they are total BFF again and they like me, so that’s good. I was thinking about it the other day, whether or not to tell them about the Inner Circle. They are in it, but do not know it. I decided against it. Particularly because I am the weak link in the Inner Circle, I am the third point in a pointless shape, yet, the weakest point. Since Diva and Jelly Bean are BFF I am extra. Without me, this would be the inner line, not as cool sounding. I have never been the extra in the Inner Circle. The original Inner Circle was of course the best one, where we all had something in common and came together by some magical force of the Inner Circle gravity. After that though Sweet Pea and I were the true strongest points, neither of us ever had to worry about being “released” from the Inner Circle, because we were the Inner Circle. The third piece was picked up and dropped off as we pleased. If you just look at the history of the Inner Circle you can see how this happens. The Antagonizer was at one point a part of the Inner Circle but was easily replaced by another roommate…several times. Whether or not she knew it, I’m not sure, we don’t send out an official memo or pink slip or anything. So being in the delicate position where the Antagonizer once stood, I have chosen to not allow this monster Sweet Pea and I have created to destroy me. So in secret I have enrolled two of my roommates in my secret cult.
The drama still whirls around Motor Mouth though, how could it not? She’s like a plant that needs light, she needs drama. I don’t think she even realizes it, because she talks constantly of hating drama, yet it makes her thrive and grow. I kind of feel sorry for her because if she is telling the truth about hating drama her life will forever suck because she will always gravitate to it. In the meantime I hear comments from the other roommates like, “I like Motor Mouth, but when she does this or when she does that.” So pretty much about 95.8% of the time they do not like her. I have slowly just begun to kill her with kindness, though it was not my intention. The dishwasher broke and since Motor Mouth likes to leave dishes out to get crusty and almost impossible to clean, her mess from a dinner she made for a large group of people was sitting in the kitchen yesterday when I finally shuffled in around 11am. I was just in the mood to feel like I was in Rexburg again so I started to do the dishes. Guess what? I wasn’t pissed off while I did it. While I was at work though she texted me (because she gets free Text messages I however…do not). She said “thanks!” thinking that I had done it to be nice to her but my motives were totally self therapeutic. I’m really just waiting for her to move, as is my family and also my other two roommates, but I don’t think she will. She has a good deal here, she’s overtaken two bedrooms (because we have the ability to have a fifth roommate but we can’t because first…we don’t want one, secondly we can’t fit them anywhere). She’s got her stuff on the bookshelf in the living room; she’s got the dining room table and stuff all over the living room like the TV stand that is currently TV-less right now but sure does have a lot of pictures of her on there, I feel like I’m walking through the apartment in “While You Were Sleeping” and the guy has only pictures of himself in nice expensive frames all over the place. And you want to know something? Sure I have a lot of crap, but it’s all contained to my room and my bathroom, so I don’t appreciate when my roommates say something about how many books I have (because they have mentioned things about my books…don’t they read?) I like my books, I’ve actually read my books, it’s no Great Gatsby where I have the books but haven’t read them. I keep my crap in my room, I don’t spread out…and I want a couch! My sister is going to sell me one of her couches. She was actually going to give it to me for free…which means that she really has changed since high school, but I wanted to be able to help them out even if it’s just a little, financially. But since I was offering to pay she said that she’d throw in the couch cover (a $100 value) with the couch totaling $60. So pretty much I’m paying $60 for a couch cover and getting the couch for free. But where to put it? Hmm...I live in the house which should have some spot for this couch. I ask my roommates if I can get a couch, “Where are you going to put it?” one asks. “I’ll find a spot,” I said. Then Motor Mouth starts asking questions about the color of the couch and such, like that’s going to help me find a spot for it. But the way she is asking it’s like she expects it to become hers. No, I’m not buying this couch and saying, “Here’s a burnt offering roommates, please, sit on it, make it yours, and take it when you move out.” Hell no, this is my couch; I’m buying it now should I ever be able to afford a place on my own. I personally would be happy if they never sat on it. But since that’s impossible, I sometimes sit on their furniture then I won’t hurt them for sitting on mine. But I just felt like telling them that I pay rent too, and I don’t have anything in this house except for what it’s my room. I can’t fit a couch there so let me put the damn thing in the living room, or I don’t know maybe Motor Mouth could move some of her crap out of the extra bedroom and I could put it there, heaven knows she’s taking up too much space.
Crap, couch drama was not what I was going to write about either. In fact I was going to write about George. Our dog, dogs don’t fall under the “Identity Protection” of this do-dad so I just say his name, George. So yesterday I was over at my parent’s house before work. I took George on an hour long walk so that he wouldn’t whine or chew because that’s what Reader’s Digest told me to do. It didn’t stop the whining. Anyway, so my sister and cousins had been over there but they left first so it was my job to get George put away so he wouldn’t aimlessly wander and destroy. I tried to get him in the kennel but he is deathly afraid of that thing, so I took him upstairs to get him into Spam’s room, he went, but I noticed a bag of stuff animals on the floor and thought better of it and got him out of there. I tried for Burrito’s room, but George has been put in there a lot so he flipped and ran down the stairs. I’ve never seen that dog run down stairs. So I figure I don’t need to lock him up just yet anyway. So I go to the bathroom and when I come out George has gone into my purse and stolen my bag of fig newtons. I flip; Fig Newtons are the final straw. Nobody eats my Fig Newtons. So I yell at him which is completely pointless with a dog, but it made me feel better. But then I tell him that he’s given me a good reason to put him in the kennel. That he does understand and he fights me tooth and nail to avoid lockdown. He gets away from my grip and I am chasing him around the house, in circles at first, his huge tail is waving back and forth like this is a game, but of course I’m laughing too at how ridiculous life has suddenly become. Then I stop myself, realizing that we are going in circles and I turn the other direction. We both stop, face to face, him at the end of the family room, me by the front door. I can hear the music from “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” playing in my head. Who is the quickest draw? But I wait for his next move. He starts to charge me! I figure in his mind he’s thinking, “I don’t think so biotch, I’ll take you down before I go in that kennel!” So I move out of the way and begin pursuit again. I finally catch him in the kitchen and he’s figured out a new tactic, when you are caught by the collar drop down and roll until you can bite your assailant. After having my hand in his mouth one too many times I let go, he jumps up and cowers on the other side of the kitchen. Luckily for me, dogs are stupid and I grabbed a treat and he happily followed me into the family room. There he sits and begins to go through his tricks, he tried to shake my hand but I told him that was not the deal for this little treat. I threw it in the kennel, he looked at me suspiciously and I pretended to be throwing out my Fig Newtons that he desecrated which involved walking into the kitchen. Once I’m in the kitchen George feels safe to go and retrieve his treat. I turn and run as quickly as I can into the family room. He hears me coming and starts to back out of the kennel but by then it’s too late, he’s 70% of the way inside the kennel and I’ve got him by his rear and am shoving him in. I close the kennel, lock it, and change for work. I was so upset about my fig newtons, but life has to go on. I had to be semi-professional for work. However, when I got to work I was flustered and unorganized, so I told my trainees that I had to chase a dog before work and they bore with me a little better. It’s strange, but I think I’m beginning to like the dog.
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