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.

Chapter 86
Puppies??

So tonight I went into my old store and Baby Face came up to me right away and asked when I had left this note on his car. I couldn’t remember what day I left it on so I wasn’t sure. I had just left a note that said, “Try not to get arrested this weekend; I know that’s asking a lot but…” He asked if I had put it on his car that night while he was working or if I had gone to his house. I told him I didn’t know where he lived and I wasn’t that kind of stalker. He just said that he hadn’t seen it that night and he found it the next morning so he wasn’t sure. Then he invited me to come and watch Steel Eyes run himself into a tree or a sidewalk with a cart. Unfortunately I missed it. They went and did it while I was buying a few things so I didn’t get to see him jump ship before the cart ran into a tree. I’m kind of disappointed, yet, not really. I won’t lose any sleep over it. Though it does remind me of high school when my friends and I would hang out in the parking lot after work and one time I drove my friend around in a Kroger cart but took a turn too fast. Luckily she heals fast and there were no scars.
I saw The Warrior and told him how I had seen him walking to work earlier that day and almost hit him with my car. Which I didn’t really almost hit him so I told him that. But I had seen him and thought about honking or calling out but decided not to. Then I picked on him because he was jaywalking…which is illegal. I also told him that when you are jaywalking drivers have a right to hit you with their car, at least that’s what I’ve been told, so I told him to be careful. He tried to tell me how it wasn't illegal because he was looking out for cars or something like that. I just shook my head the whole time to show my disagreement with the whole thing.
I ended up walking out to my car with Baby Face and he asked me when I was coming back, or if I was ever coming back. I told him I was, but I wasn’t sure when, at least I thought I was coming back, yeah, pretty sure that someday I would return. He told me how Steel Eyes and he had decided that they should quit and then reapply and shave their heads (so I wouldn’t recognize them) and come through for training again. That’s sweet. But I would have recognized them and they were planning on acting like they didn’t understand what I would be trying to show them. I don’t know if they realized this, but it would be easier for them to just get promoted to cashier, I’d be more likely to train them as promos then as new hires, TDH deals with new hires. Oh speaking of TDH, I saw him on Tuesday, still looking every bit handsome, and I got the sideways glance from him when we were talking to one of the other trainers and he made a joke. By the way the sideways glance is a surefire way to get my knees to go weak. Even if I had no interest in you, if you can do the sideways glance right you’ve got me for a brief moment in time. Oh, back to my story.
I also showed Baby Face how my car lost its lock on the driver’s side (sad, but true, it’s gone I can’t use a key on my driver’s side anymore). He checked to see if it was unlocked and I realized how much stuff I have in my car. I have my pretend groceries for work, I had my outfit in the back of the car (because I changed for work at my parents and went to my store right after work), and I also had a small toolbox and a bunch of other random stuff. I also had chocolate in the very back of the car and I asked him if he wanted any chocolate because I had some in my car…then I realized I sounded a little creepy, like a kidnapper, so I said, “You want some chocolate little boy? I have some in my car; I promise I won’t close the door on you once you climb in.” I don’t know if he got the humor or if I scared him even more, or if I made him mad by calling him little boy. Then he asked if I left anything on his car tonight and I said, “Not yet, if you hang around I could write a little note and leave it on there.” He said that was ‘ok’ which is good because I really didn’t have anything to leave on his car. Can’t believe he thought I took the time to find out where he lives and leave a note on his car there. Do I really give out that vibe?
I miss my boys at work, but when I was thinking about it, I don’t know if I could go back and do the same work I had been. I like being a trainer, even if it sucks sometimes. I have a chance to work Friday morning if I want, my friend has a few hours he’ll give me, but 7am? I think maybe I’ll say ‘no’. I don’t really need the hours; I’ll probably get them later this week. Besides, I was going to work in the morning to work with him because he keeps telling me to, so if he’s not working…what’s the point?

Chapter 85
Under and Over Achievers
It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Just to update a little bit, I am done training for my job and am actually doing it! It’s crazy. Some days I hate it and never want to go back and luckily the next day I have a good day where I decide that I love this job and think it’s the greatest. So it alternates, maybe, if I’m lucky there will be two or three days in a row where I love it. Last Friday I took a chance on an unknown kid, she came about 40 minutes late for training and I know what TDH would have done, he would have told her to go home and he would have someone call her to reschedule. I went ahead and asked first if she could stay an extra 40 minutes after her scheduled time, she said ‘yes’ so I told her I could train her. Then the hard part started. Not only did I have a girl there that I was training past the 15 minute cut off but I had to deal with the bitchiest manager in the company. I was talking to Wheezy about it on Saturday and he said that he’s gone out (not on a date but with a group of people) with that manager because she’s best friends with one of our old managers and she is pretty much the same way in social settings too. So I had to deal with her and she was pretty much complaining about this girl, “She’s not coming here is she?” “Oh, no,” I assure her, “you get the one who is ready to kiss some ass.” Then later she comes up and says, “Do you know she has a tongue ring?” and I had noticed, but since she was late to training I hadn’t gone over the uniform check, so I made a mental note to go over all of that. I told the manager that yes, I knew and that I was going to be talking to her about it. So when that day of training was all done, completely done, the other trainee had left and I went over the first part of training with the girl, I talked to her. I got serious and told her that ‘yes’ I had given her a chance on training, I understood that traffic could be tough to work around however she’d better have her store’s number in her cell phone and give them a call if she is stuck in traffic. I told her that I had taken a chance on her and asked her not to prove that decision to be a bad one. Then I told her that I noticed that she had a tongue ring and asked if she was able to take it out yet. She said she could and I said that she needed to and that she should never have it in her mouth at work. I also got on her about her belt and told her that she needed to try and get a solid one; she had too much decorative stuff on it. I passed her in training because aside from being slow to help bag she didn’t seem to not get it. It’s so much easier with cashiers to figure out if they don’t understand or just don’t care. Sometimes I just want to tell these kids that if they don’t want the job they didn’t have to take it, there are plenty of people looking for work. I personally think she was late on Friday because she was hanging out with her boyfriend (she had mentioned her boyfriend so I’m not just guessing that she had one) and she smelled like minty cigarettes…my least favorite smell in the world. From now on if someone is 15 minutes late I don’t take them.
Oh and then last Thursday (the day right before tongue ring Friday) I trained this woman who really understood the register, she was really impressive but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a cashier anymore. I talked her into staying for the entire training session and I even helped her get out early so she could go pick up her daughter. I told her how impressed I was with her customer service and her register skills and she was going to be working Saturday morning at the store I was going to be training at so I told her I would see her then. I didn’t see her then and I think that she may have called in or just not bothered showing up. I was bummed to say the least because she was good and I thought she had changed her mind. But I suppose she is more stubborn than I thought and had decided four hours into training that she wouldn’t be doing that. She knew before she left Thursday that she wasn’t going to see me Saturday.
Saturday however made up for Friday. I had four cashiers but they were what we call “Promos”. Meaning that they were Courtesy Clerks at work and their managers had decided that they were “worthy” of becoming cashiers. So I had them to train and they were all bright, they all wanted to be cashiers, and even though one in particular didn’t think he was ready to “go live” with real customers they all did exceptionally well with real customers. One of them looked like this guy that I had a huge crush on in high school and it was beginning to creep me out.
When I finished there I went to my store to pick up my paycheck, and I ran into Jaq. He asked me where I had trained today and I told him my usual store and he asked me if it was for Short Pump. At first I thought that the disdain of the bitchy manager traveled fast and Jaq had news of my number one hater. So wearily I said ‘yes’ and then he asked me if I had a particular person in my class. I said ‘yes; and he said that he was his son. Weird! I wish I had known before hand, because then I would have given him a hard time. But he was a nice kid so I shouldn’t punish him just because Jaq and I don’t always get along. But when I thought about it I could see a resemblance, in more ways then one.
In other news, my mom is still on my case about my job. She wants me to go for a full time trainer job at Ukrop’s, but it’s in the food service department and I don’t know anything about Ukrop’s food service, yes, I worked in the deli in Idaho, but that doesn’t mean anything. This is a completely different company. Then she e-mails me jobs at VCU which I should apply for, and I think I will, but I like my job most of the time. She kind of gave me an ultimatum the other day; she said it was the VCU job or the Food trainer. I asked her if it was an ultimatum and she said ‘no’ but I couldn’t help but not believe her. I love my mom, but she needs to back off and let me make my own decisions. My mom also bought a dog…which has been in the family for about a week and I believe she is already getting rid of him. My sister made a good point that my mom is lonely. It’s hard to think about someone being lonely when they have a house with a husband and two kids filling it. But when I thought about it I understood what she meant, it is possible to have people around you but still be lonely. I should know, I’ve felt that way before, and it explains why my mom has been continually trying to get me to move back home. It always starts off with trying to get me to spend the night and then it gets to, “why don’t you just move back in?” I feel bad and sorry, but I can’t move back in. When I was younger my mom would do stuff like this to me, I was in a way her crutch, I’ve always been her crutch and while she’s had the dog she hasn’t mentioned me moving back in. But the dog doesn’t work out because my dad never wanted it in the first place. He said he didn’t want the dog and my mom still went and got him. My parents are lonely, they have each other but they are still lonely. How can that be? If that is what life is going to be like…I don’t want it. How do people keep “the flame” alive? How do they nourish the relationship instead of letting it slide into this dreadful existence from day to day? I want to know what my parents were like when they were young and newly married. I want to know when they became the couple that they are, unable of true communication. They are talking but they aren’t listening to each other.

Chapter 84
Over Zealous Guys and Drama Queens

So, work is going well. I am still training for the job and we are beginning to travel to other stores to cover training as well. In official, important news, I have been peed on yet once again. How does this keep happening to me? So we are at this one store on…I think it was Thursday, and this guy (who you can tell is a little mentally handicapped) keeps saying ‘hello’ to us when he walks by as we are training a cashier. I figure he is saying hello to tall, dark, and handsome (TDH), the guy training me. So we go to a real register and the guy comes over to help bag. He tells me he likes my earrings and I tell him that I like them to, it’s why I bought them. I said it in a nice way, don’t worry I haven’t gone completely mean. So then TDH comes over and this guy tells him that I am pretty. I say thank you and try to keep bagging and the guy starts bagging again and says, “You’re really pretty. You’re probably married. I said ‘no’. Then he says, “But you have a boyfriend?” and I said ‘no’ because I’m an idiot and haven’t yet learned that sometimes you should just lie…but as I’ve already said, I can’t lie when it counts. So then he asks me if I would like him to set me up with someone. I tell him that’s okay, but I’m not looking right now. Then he asks if I would like him to set me up with him. How do you respond to that? I tell him that I am really not looking for anything right now. He tells me that he’ll take me out to dinner and that he’ll pay. I keep saying that it’s okay, I’m not looking for anything right now. He finally gets out of me an “I’ll think about it.” Which to me is ‘hell no’ and to him is a “Lloyd 1 in a million, so you’re saying there’s a chance”. He asks what I am doing that night and I tell him that I am going out with a friend. Really all I had to do was my grocery shopping but to me that feels like I am telling the guy I need to wash my hair, or rewind my DVDs. He asks if he can come along and I tell him it’s just an old friend from high school, so that would be weird. So the lie was better then the truth in this situation. TDH tells him that he needs to go bag at another register to which he complies but this does not stop this zealot he comes over and hands me a piece of paper. I thank him and put it in my pocket without looking at it because I already know that it’s his number. Then later when TDH had gone outside with an order he comes back over with another piece of paper and tells me that it’s his e-mail address and the other paper was his phone number. Later he comes over and hands me yet another slip of paper. This time it says, “Pick me up at 8.” What? I ask him what that means and he says, “Just pick me up at 8.” And I say, “Tonight?” and he says, “No because you’re hanging out with your friend, but you know, whenever you get a chance.” I say “ok” and put the paper in my pocket with all the other pieces of paper I collected that day. He comes up to me later on and says, “There’s no hiding it, I’ve got a crush on you and you’re the only girl for me.” Maybe not in that order but all those words were used. I think I said, “Oh, thank you.” I mean, what am I suppose to say? Then right before TDH and our trainee and I went back upstairs he comes over and says that he has a great idea for a music video. I ask him what it is and he says it’s for a song about mermaids and I can be a mermaid in it. He says he’ll get lots of girls in the video and then he says that he’ll also get lots of guys in it. But the girls will all be mermaids and he’ll be a merman singing a song on his guitar about his mermaid friends. I tell him that he should ask the trainee first if she’ll be a mermaid because you can’t just go casting people in your music video without asking them, they might get upset. So we go upstairs and I figure the day with him is done. But while we are sitting there he comes upstairs to the room we are in and he hands me a blow up guitar, it’s already blown up and he tells me that he bought one for a girl the other day but he bought this one for me. I thank him and the moment he is gone I ask TDH what I should do with it, he told me to just take it home. So finally the day is over. However, as it turns out we had to go back to that store to train on Saturday. So he is there again and he comes up and says that he had just been wondering to himself when he was going to see me again….great, I was kind of hoping he would just forget who I was. So then he goes up to TDH and tells him that I am all his. There is a manager at that store who totally loves TDH and so he tells TDH that that manager can have him (TDH) and he can have me. Then he tells TDH that we should all go on a double date and TDH says, “In 2008”. I wish I could think quickly like him. I’m so jealous. So my little boyfriend asks if we could go on the date sooner and TDH insist that he cannot go on the date until 2008. Could be because it’s a nice little rhyme or it could be because that exceeds that average memory expectancy of the typical human being. Either way, it saves me the trouble.
In other news I have seen the more bitchy side of my roommate. My first mistake was to be friendly with my friend who I think she is in love with but just won’t admit it. I have known this kid all of my life, we have history, I pick on him and he takes it and we joke around together. Pretty much, I am to him what she thought she was to him. Which isn’t really all that much. She invited him over for Sunday dinner, which she didn’t even help to make and didn’t bother to tell us that we were going to be making it for five and not four people. Not that I had a problem with him being there, but it would be nice to call up one of the three roommates making the dinner and inform them that you have invited someone else to eat with us. So we are talking about how my friend is going out west and I ask if he is going to see my brother or sister while there, which I know he is not going to, for two reasons, he just doesn’t have that kind of time and they are so much older than him that he probably barely remembers them. I tell him that he can probably see my brother on a billboard though because he works for a bank out there and recently started showing up on billboards around the city that my friend is going to. And I mention that it’s pretty interesting what he is doing career wise and what he majored in, because he is working at a bank and he graduated with honors in Biology. Motor mouth says, well what did you major in? And I said Sociology and she said, “And where are you working.” I hadn’t meant anything by my comment except for that it is interesting that you don’t always go the path you think you want, without sounding so deep of course. So she is sitting here trying to act like she knows more than me and telling me that we don’t always use our degrees and I say that I know this because my mom told me just to get my degree because most people just look for some kind of degree. Then I say that I plan on going to graduate school anyway and my friend ask me where I want to go for that and I say VCU which is about half an hour from here and Motor Mouth says, “Oh, I thought you’d want to go away for that.” What the hell does that mean? Luckily I didn’t have to say that aloud because my friend starts telling me that I should go to U of R because it is the 3rd most expensive college in the country. Thank goodness he was there to change the subject because I honestly don’t know what else I would have done.
Then he left and she followed him out the door. I was getting ready to do the dishes but Jelly Bean told Diva and I to leave them for Motor Mouth because she didn’t help cook and she never does the dishes. So I quickly agree to leave them alone and the three of us go to hang out upstairs…I told you, it’s the Inner Circle.
Then Motor Mouth came upstairs to hang out with us and that is when I received the next rude comment from her. She told the girls that we need to start planning our Halloween party and she says, “I think we should go as Charlie’s Angels.” To which one of my other roommates tells her we can’t because there are four of us. She says, “Well Jessica never comes to anything anyway.” So apparently, I’m just not invited. Jelly Bean said that it is at our house so I would probably be there. There’s just a lot of tension in this house to begin with, and I can’t tell who is friends with whom at what time. Right now they are all secretly mad at each other but not communicating about it and since I know that they are all mad at each other I can tell there half assed attempts to communicate with each other about their grievances. I also know for a fact that Diva knows Jelly Bean is mad at her but really can’t figure out why, so today when Jelly Bean said one little comment that was obviously an accusation towards Diva I kind of cringed because I know the situation and as far as I can tell Jelly Bean is being immature. Or maybe she has just had to hang out with Motor Mouth too much lately and she is easily swayed. Today is just the first time that someone has slapped a big slice of tension in my direction. This is why I was worried about living with a bunch of girls. I’m sick and tired of this drama crap, I don’t want anything to do with it but some girls get this sick satisfaction of dragging as many people down to the bottomless bit of drama queen hell that they possibly can. All I can think is that Motor Mouth doesn’t want to make an enemy out of me. I’m more lovable and I do my share around the house…so the other roommates are more likely to side with me should a battle ensue. Oh yeah, and I can easily kick her ass.
So for chronological order’s sake I have to leave and watch my cousins for a couple of hours and when I come home later I walk in the house and she says, “Oh it’s you.” But she does this in the way that the Antagonizer would make a Sweet Pea Caucasian joke. I can tell how she means it and I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of her. I sit down in the living room anyway because I’ve decided that no one is going to make me feel obligated to go sit in my room being anti-social. So when I sit down Motor Mouth says that she has got to go to bed because “this one (referring to me) will keep you up all night”. Again…what the hell does that mean? I sit and listen to her talk for a while longer, thinking to myself the whole time that she is really the one you’ve got to watch out for if you want to get to bed at a decent time. Then I go to my room because enough is enough. I go into the kitchen and the dishes are still sitting on the counter. Just so you know, we had breakfast for dinner. Breakfast that involved syrup. Figuring that the plates just might stick to each other and may need a chisel or a jack hammer in the morning to divide them, I start to rinse them off and load up the dishwasher. I don’t care that she didn’t do the dishes, to me that’s just something to put in my ammo reserve in case I need it.

Chapter 83

Assimilation



The best and surefire way to get rid of your enemy is to make them one of you. Some people call this a “friend” but it’s not always friend, it’s just one of your collection of people. You get them to join your side, and this may sound like it would be tricky or hard, but in all actuality it isn’t that hard. You start off friendly, you joke around with them and kid with them so they feel comfortable. Then you talk them into thinking that they want something that only your collection of people has. They believe it, and once they get it you joke a little more about how they’ll have to assimilate now that they have this. “You’ll have to be a good example now because of what you have.” “You’ll have to get used to this even though we all know you hate it because now it’s part of who you are.” Or my favorite, “a lot of things are going to be changing now.” Bastards. Sly little twerps.

I know what they are up to, and I’ll play along for now because I really did want the training position at work, that was all me. Well, it was more for the black polo which I am waiting on right now…I really want that shirt, and I get a name tag, and a badge, and some notebooks. It’s really exciting actually, and since I love notebooks I about peed my pants when I found out.

I went to the first training meeting yesterday. I was going to just observe but one of the trainers got me a little more involved. Not so bad, but maybe next time I won’t be so timid about it. There were two classes and I decided to stay for the second one, I didn’t have to, but I thought it would be interesting. I lost two pounds yesterday. There was one kid in the second class who was actually called an over-achiever within the first five minutes by the trainer teaching the class. I call him Dwight. If you have ever seen the television show “The Office” then you know very well who Dwight is. He is an over-achiever, he’s constantly trying to be the manager’s assistant, he knows all the rules and holds everyone to them. On television this is very funny, but in real life? Funny to me because I just have a short amount of time that I had to spend with him but I would probably cry myself to sleep if I have to work with him on a daily basis. He even looked like the character from the show! After class they have to take a little test and I got to feel like a teacher as I collected test and when I got his he asked if the trainer needed any help cleaning up the room. I told him that was okay because he had me to do all of that. We joked quickly because he said he was just trying to maintain the appearance of being nice, and I joked that he was trying to “be helpful” which is printed on the sleeve of all the blue polo shirts. By the way “be helpful” is one of our team values, and there are four of them and personally I think they should have all the values on the shirts, but just one on each shirt…make it a “collect all four” thing. Maybe you could buy a shirt and get a sandwich free (Like a reverse happy meal concept since the shirt is more expensive then the sandwich). All in all the classes went well. I really like it, I mean; I think I’ll like it more once I’m into it and doing all the fun paper work (amazingly that last statement was sarcasm free). I’m a geek, I like paper work; I’m a work-a-holic therefore I like the long hours; as we have already established I like folders; and the guy that I am working with for the next couple of weeks has really dark, I dare say black hair, he is a little bit taller then me with incredible eyes and a fantastic smile, oh and did I mention that his sense of humor is great!? I mean today while he was training he told the cashiers how we don’t endorse letting children ride under the carts because that’s liability and then he says, heaven forbid you have the child on the bottom of the cart you are taking the order out and as you step into the parking lot you get hit by a Mac truck. To which I said, “Yeah, because those darn Mac trucks will sneak right up on you.” Then later when we were actually training on register he hands the “cashier” a pharmacy ring and as he is saying, “And I recently came down with a deadly, contagious, airborne virus,” seriously this guy just keeps getting better and better. So really with the guy (oh who is older then me too), the paperwork, the hours, and the folders, and yeah, the badge too, I’m just as happy as can be right now.