Chapter 58
Shout!

There are very few times in my life that I would actually do a plug for a product but I have to say that Shout is amazing! I am doing laundry tonight (story to come) and I just checked my pants for stains (contained within story to come) and there were none! I couldn’t help but feel the need to share the gospel of Shout. Now that I can tuck my soap box back under my bed I will move on to the adventures of my day, for it has been a long and eventful day.
To begin I take you back to yesterday. I was bagging some groceries at work when I picked up a package of tomato juice. Suddenly one of the cans popped and I was sprayed in the face and all over the front of my shirt, some even got on my pants. What an unexpected freak accident. So then today by a mere sliver of chance I was put on a register. I had been on that register but since it was slow I was bagging, but it began to pick up again and the manager asked another girl to go on register but I was still signed on. When I went up to sign off she asked if I wanted to stay on register. Thinking nothing of it I decided to continue on register and took the next order. As I worked on this order I noticed something red leaking from the cart but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I saw a glass jar of spaghetti and for a split second thought that maybe it was the sauce, but why and more so how would the sauce be leaking? As I went to pick up the jar I changed my mind but it was too late. I picked up the jar but the bottom stayed right where it was set. There was a strange sucking sound as all of the spaghetti sauce came out of the jar in a rush, all over the cart, the floor, my feet, and my pants. Two days with tomato substance instances and I don’t even like tomatoes. Unsure of what to do I closed my register and finished the lady’s order. I helped my friend clean up the floor and then went to clean myself up. I smelled of pasta and one friend said that I was making her hungry. When I returned from the bathroom after trying but failing to clean the red stains off my pants, I was put back on the same register and a couple of orders later I was ringing up some groceries and the bagger kept saying something but I couldn’t understand and it turns out that he was telling me that the bag of salad I was holding was open. As lettuce sprinkled my register I had the overwhelming feeling that today was not my day. However, I was surprisingly upbeat. I just felt like I had a whole meal going today. So that is why I am doing laundry and why I believe in the cleaning power of Shout.
In other events, work related but minus food spillage. Puppy Love worked tonight. Turns out that his internet has crashed anyway and he can’t get on it. So he hadn’t known that I had read the e-mail and he hadn’t gotten my message asking if he was working. So he was asking me today if I checked my messages. I said I got his and he smiled and I smiled back (probably a bad idea, I didn’t smile like my hopes and dreams had been fulfilled, it was a nervous smile…or so I think, because I also didn’t think I was seducing this kid). I tried to avoid it after that which was pretty easy.
I got Baby Face pretty good today though. I was helping this kid bag at one register and Baby Face walks up to the next one and looks at me and asks me to come help him bag. I look at the order I am working on and tell him I am helping there, he tells me the kid doesn’t need help but he does. So I come over to his register and my friend who I should probably think of a name for, went up to the register that I had just left. Baby Face tells me that now everything will be okay because he is there and I told Baby Face that my friend wasn’t there to help and Baby Face said that it was because he was retarded. I told him I would tell my friend so he calls out to my friend and when my friend turned around to hear what he had to say Baby Face suddenly says that I was the one who said that he was retarded. Well it was maybe a half hour later when I went to help my friend bag and he comes up to me and says, “So I’m retarded huh?” I told him in all seriousness that it wasn’t me but Baby Face. So then I see Baby Face and I tell him that I got it all worked out with my friend and now he knew who really called him retarded. He asked me if I was serious and as I told him I was we had walked up to my friend’s register and Baby Face was afraid to bag for him! I told him it was okay, so he finally started to bag. Then later my friend tells me that Baby Face has down syndrome and well, since down syndrome involves noticeable facial features I tell my friend that maybe he has Autism. Meaning that if you are going to say someone has something that they don’t, then don’t pick something that has distinctive physical characteristics. All that ended up happening was that my friend said he was going to tell Baby Face that I said he was Autistic. I begged him not to because that is not what I meant when I said it. I think it worked because as far as I know it wasn’t told to him.
Then Baby Face was bagging for me later and I laughed about something and he kind of mocked my laugh and said something about me laughing and I told him he was mean to me and I wasn’t going to talk to him anymore. He didn’t really know how to respond and he finished the order and took it out and didn’t come over to my register for a while. Of course, I wasn’t about to give in and talk to him though because I’m a brat like that, and it did hurt my feelings a little bit. When he finally came back over the first thing he did was compliment my bagging. Then he gave me a sly look coupled with a smirk. I had to wonder what he was up to. Never did find out though.
Earlier today I was working with The Inspector and he is going to be becoming a cashier soon. So he walks up to my register while no one is there and says, “are you getting scared?” I was at a loss, what was I suppose to be scared of? Finally he says, “because the world’s best cashier is about to get trained.” He is so funny like that. So then later he comes up to bag for me and I really start checking the groceries fast and I was doing it on purpose. So I finish the order and start to help him bag and he says, “I know what you’re doing.” And I asked all innocently, “what?” he starts by saying, “You’re an A+ cashier, I’ll give you that,” and he calls me on what I was doing. I tell him that I just felt the need to put him in his place and let him know who’s boss. He is so funny and I really do hope that he does well as a cashier.
After work I ran into a friend who works there with me but in a different department. We were talking and for some strange reason I told him about this little book and I told him about Puppy Love. He asked me what his nickname was and I told him that I didn’t have one for him yet. I guess I should come up with one pretty quickly for him. He decided that we needed to hang out again since we haven’t done that yet since I got home. I said, “yeah” and kind of turned away for a second and he asked what was up and I told him that people always say, “We should hang out” but people never really do it. When you have to say it to someone the chance that you ever actually will is slim to none. He then says that he hates when people do that, therefore, since he said he hates people like that he excluded himself from that group of people. I agreed with his philosophy but then told him that I have also learned that people are hypocrites, they say one thing and do another. I know because I am one of them too. But he said that he would call me later tonight when he got off of work and we would hang out. I agreed to this but didn’t put all my eggs in one basket.
Then I bought my milk and Cheerios because I was in desperate need of both. Baby Face bagged my groceries and all he could say was, “That’s a big box of Cheerios.” All I could respond with was, “I like Cheerios.” He seemed to think it was funny.
So I came home (after visiting family all over) and as I was putting my stuff away my friend called me. “Good boy,” I thought. We agreed to meet at work and then go to a friends house and hang out. When I hung up with him I was in the kitchen and this ugly spider came out of no where. The closest thing I had was a pizza box so I threw it on him calling him ugly as I did so. Then I told him he was a dead ugly spider as I stepped on the box and slid it for good measure. Then I left the box there because I didn’t want a barefooted roommate to step on the spider guts. I wrote a note on the box, “I killed an ugly spider and his guts remain under this box. You can thank me later for saving your lives.” And I signed my name. Then I left to meet my friend. I told him about the spider incidence and the note I left. He laughed and said I would be a really cool roommate.
We decided to go out to dinner, my two friends and I. It was pretty interesting. I got a hug for being against the feminist movement and I found soul mate in many of my views on womanhood, I just never thought it would be a guy. P.S. did I mention that this friend is the guy who dated my best friend in high school and I was the substitute girlfriend, so technically we have dated and we took a wedding date predictor test online and the two of us are getting married on the exact same day? Anyway. I just felt the need to give you a little background about that. He’s also the friend who I felt was trying to pawn Ex-boyfriend off on me. Wow, he really does deserve a nickname in here. He shows up more than I realized. I think I will dub him “Wheezy” because we were joking tonight that he wheezes in other words, he has weak lungs. I shall dub the other friend Officer Wiggum, because he wants to be a police officer.
There was one point in time while we were talking that all three of us were having a different conversation, talking to no one in particular, Wheezy was the one to point it out and we all just laughed because no one seemed to be bothered by it. Then I was wigging out because our waiter was creeping me out. I felt like I had my eye on him and I would see who I thought was him going into the back and suddenly he was right there by the table. It happened 2 or 3 times and I was just talking to myself trying to figure it out. Finally Wiggum told me that there were two guys that looked alike.
My favorite part though was when we were talking about differences between guys and girls. Wheezy said that he would hate to be a girl because it would be so hard; I thanked him for that comment. But it’s true. We were talking about how a guy can hit another guy in the face and the other one could hit him back if he wanted to or not and they may stop talking for a couple of minutes, but within the hour they are on there way to hang out somewhere. You do that to a girl and she is working on a plan to ruin your life. I mentioned that this difference is why I always hung out with boys; I also mentioned the unfortunate truth that girls use guys because they are so much more laid back. Somehow though when I said all of this it all came out together and Wheezy said, “You like to hang out with us because you use us?” I hadn’t realized it even came out that way. He was smiling the whole time though when he said it and then he goes, “where is your purse? You did bring it in with you right?” I looked at him and said, “Oh I thought you were buying for all of us.” (I had my purse with me). So then the bill came and Wheezy hadn’t asked for it to be split. None of us had cash so we were trying to figure it out. The best part was, I got a Shirley temple and the waiter put it down as water. So when I was looking at mine I said, “Oh, my drink was free,” and I paused as I still stared down at the receipt and then I said, “It’s because I’m pretty.” Wheezy laughed about that, he laughed at a lot of things I said tonight and just like with my cousins I didn’t know if it was because I am funny or if the one beer he had left him intoxicated. Then Wiggum mentioned splitting the appetizer three ways and Wheezy said two ways because that was theirs and I told them I ate one of them and both said that it didn’t count. So I said, “Oh I love being able to use boys.” I was joking around because of our earlier conversation. So on the tally so far, free drinks and a free cheese stick. As we discussed how to pay Wheezy remembered that Wiggum owed him money anyway, so Wiggum was covering Wheeze’s part. Then I told him I could write him a check but he told me he trusted me to pay him back cash some day. I repeated liking the part about using boys because I went out with my friends and didn’t spend any money. (Oh and Wiggum called me later asking if I could drive his girlfriend to work the next day and we are calling the $8 even). I forgot how much fun it is just to hang out with my boys, I haven’t done it in so long. Sure there are the risks of them talking about other girls like I’m one of the boys and like I actually appreciate it or something. But I quickly remind them that I am a girl too, and I don’t like that talk. Then they quit and we’re having fun again.
After eating we went back to Wiggum’s house and started to watch a movie. Wheezy kept apologizing for if he was being stupid, which I didn’t think he was being, but I like apologies regardless of if they are needed. As we were leaving I was yawning and Wiggum asked if I was tired and I told him that I wasn’t, I just always yawned for no reason (which is true, I yawn all the time whether or not I am tired). Officer Wiggum said that there was no need to be such a smart ass, but they both thought that was funny, leaving me to think that today I am being funny without even trying.
When I came home at 2 AM there were people still over here at the house. I didn’t even think about these people seeing the note that I had left for my roommates, but at least they liked it. As I came up to the door someone was coming out, I don’t know who it was but he let me know that I scared the crap out of him. What a mess, just kidding. That’s pretty much where the night ends.
Oh by the way, I mention cutting more hair off and giving myself semi-bangs right? Well if not, I did. I got a lot of comments on it. I was surprised every time, but people really liked it. They think it’s a cute hair cut (it was down today so it looked decent). One girl even told me that she wants to come to me for her next hair cut. So…I guess I didn’t screw it up!