Chapter 46
Teen Spirit

Another weird dream to chalk up on the board. Why do I keep having weird dreams, what is my subconscious trying to tell me? Last night’s dream I felt like I was waking up from a dream and finding myself amongst a lot of extended family. I think it was a funeral for someone. I saw my mom’s cousin and a bunch of people I didn’t recognize but they looked like my mom’s side of the family. Then there was Burrito, and some people who I felt like were my friends and one kid in particular who came up to me when I walked in and hugged me and then continued to hold me like we were dating. I was weirded out because I didn’t really know who this guy was. After the funeral my band of friends went back to a house and there was an old lady there waiting for her nurse, my “boyfriend” was telling me how much he really liked my family and someone who I think was suppose to be my mom was there. The nurse finally came and put granny to bed and then my boyfriend came up to me and I held out my arms to hug him (weird since I still didn’t feel like I knew him) and he hugged me and told me he had to do his homework (I never said this would make sense) and the nurse and her assistant grab a hold of me and take me into the bathroom at my parents house, which is a pretty small bathroom, but when we went in it got bigger! On the way in Burrito was sitting on the arm of the love seat holding two gallon jugs of water and then he fell backwards onto the ground landing on his back with the water still in his arms. I told him to be careful or he’ll crush himself. I went into the bathroom and the nurse and her assistant had me sit on the sink, which was small when I sat on it, but when they told me to lay down it lengthened to fit my whole body on it. They began to examine me and I am wondering why I voluntarily went in with them. I tell them that my boyfriend is probably waiting and they tell me that he has homework that will keep him busy for a while. Then they tell me that what they are about to do is really going to hurt but try not to cry. I think my mind wouldn’t let me figure out what they were doing because suddenly I wasn’t in the room anymore but in the room with my “boyfriend” doing his homework. I came up from behind him and put my arms around his neck and asked him how much more he had to do. He told me he was almost done and then he needed to talk to Jared for an hour (Jared is his roommate…it is strange how in your dreams you just know certain stuff like this) and then he’d be ready to go to bed. I was a little upset because we hadn’t spent any time together all day long, but I didn’t say anything because who wants to be a nagger? So I go lay down in my bed and I don’t feel like I am there long when “boyfriend” walks in with his cell phone and he is closing it, so I figure it’s been an hour and then he comes and sits on my bed and then I woke up. I told you, I have weird dreams.
So on to life I suppose. I just wanted to get that out of the way. So last night I was pretty harsh towards my teenage coworkers. Well, they didn’t know I was being so harsh to them because luckily they can’t read minds, luckily those customers can’t read minds either. I think every cuss word I know ran through my mind at least once last night, mostly when I was thinking badly about my coworkers. I only had one pain in the ass customer who I thought to myself was a very bad word and I wondered that if she was in such a hurry why bother coming at all? All she did was increase the stress level of all those around her. The real problems began as we neared the time for me to go home. Our numbers dwindle every hour we get closer to closing so it’s kind of common sense that if we have any amount of customers that equals out to more than one, baggers cannot double up on a register, there’s just not enough of them to do that. So last night, we were pretty busy, with three registers open and two baggers. One register was express, and while when I am on that register I like when I can have a bagger, I know that when that bagger is needed somewhere else I can handle bagging the orders that come through there. I was on the last register; I had been at work for at least 7 hours, working straight through except for two breaks. But there were barely any pauses between customers, that’s how busy we had been. So when I finished ringing up an order and I start to bag it as well, but there are still things I need to do at the register and I looked up to see that both baggers are barely doing anything because they have tag teamed the next register I begin to get a little pissed. It gets harder for me not to have some sort of biochemical change where I am probably giving off a stress hormone or something, people can usually pick up when my mood changes like that. But I’m a damn martyr when it comes to this type of stuff and can’t just ask one to come bag for me, oh no, I justify getting mad at them, and then when justification is through I blow up at one of them. I didn’t blow up last night, but I do remember yelling very dominantly across the store for one of them to come and take this order out. I hadn’t realize how mad I may have sounded but the cashier in front of me turned around and seemed pretty concerned with whatever tone of voice I was actually using. It didn’t help that I didn’t like either of the baggers working last night. Or that even though I had a huge order building up I would see one or both of them just walk right by me, or that I made eye contact with one of them while they were standing at express doing nothing and I thought he was finally coming over to help, but instead he walked right past me (he was the one I yelled for to take out the order). I was just mad, these kids don’t do squat! One of them even had the nerve to ask me later if everything was ok, apparently it seemed like something was wrong! I told him I was fine and then he was like, “Are you sure? I don’t think it is.” If there hadn’t been customers there I would have probably grabbed his puny neck in my hands and just squeezed, or finally tell him that I think he was doing a terrible job working and why bother continuing to receive paychecks for work he was obviously not doing? He should just quit and let someone who wants to work take his place. I don’t think his fragile little ego could have handled that, but I do think I should use some leverage, this kid always wants a hug from me and I won’t give him one, maybe next time he asks I should say something like, “well, maybe if you actually worked and earned one I would give it to you.” I’ve gotten pretty good at getting the ones with potential to actualize it. There is this one girl who told me that I was a really fast cashier and I told her that I meant to tell her that she did pretty well at bagging for me (which I honestly had been meaning to tell her). Then the other day she said that she just wasn’t fast enough at bagging and I told her that she was one of the better baggers there. She seemed to like that, and the best part is, it’s not a lie. Needless to say she likes to come bag for me. I have noticed however that maybe the reason that so many baggers are slow is because so many of the cashiers are. Why bag quickly if the cashier can’t provide quickly enough? It’s interesting, and now that I just realized what I am typing about and how weird it is of me to be doing so I am going to step away from the computer and stop dwelling on this job like it’s really that important to me.