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.

Chapter 82
Upgrades

My parents found out that I got the position at work. The lady called and left my schedule on the phone at my parent’s house and congratulated me on getting promoted. I didn’t realize this because why would I listen to my parents voicemail? I don’t know why the lady didn’t just call my cell phone. When my mom asked me about it I felt a little bad about not telling them, actually it was more so the fact that I thought about the reasons my mom thought I wouldn’t tell her. I didn’t want to just come out and say that I didn’t think she would be happy for me because even though it is the truth that might hurt my mom’s feelings more than whatever she was thinking my reasons were. It’s just how I feel though; no matter what I do at the store I don’t think it will be good enough for who I am and for what I have done so far. I have a college degree and I’m not using it. It’s why I’m working much harder on getting ready for Grad school. That and because conversations about stalkers are not few and far between at a grocery store, and one conversation about it today got me thinking about if I had a stalker. That’s when it hit me, they’d only have to go one place to find me and that’s the dang grocery store. I was Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense”. I was realizing that I had died after walking around for so long just thinking I was actually interacting with the people in my life, thinking I was actually doing stuff that meant something that other people even noticed. Socially I am dead. This is probably why I have started to hang out with the teenagers again. Hey it’s a step in the right direction. This isn’t what my parent’s saw for me; this isn’t what I saw for myself. That’s why I don’t tell them.
Speaking of more responsibility, Jaq mentioned to me today that he was going to talk to Bull Dog about making me a fill-in manager. It’s pretty much Gus-Gus’s job, and I’ve always felt like I could do that job easy. Of course this is just one more thing that I will probably fail to mention to my parents, and for the same reasons I didn’t mention getting the trainer position. The scariest thing is, the thought excites me. I could try to convince you and to convince myself that I am excited because how great would that look on a résumé? All these promotions, all this responsibility, I must be a good employee; some people would want me to work for their company. But really, it’s because I’m a geek and doomed to die in grocery store but as long as I get to wear a different colored shirt then most of the employees, I will die happy. Maybe it’s because it’s more money, but money has never really been something I have thought about, I mean, yes, I remember that I have bills to pay, but it’s never been a driving force for my actions. Maybe it’s because I would be more of an equal instead of a subordinate to Gus-Gus and Jaq. Well, not so much Gus-Gus if I get it because this is his job we’re talking about. I have no problem taking it from him. Maybe inside I really am a feminist and I should just start burning my bras now. But I suppose for now we’ll just wait and see if any of this even happens.

Chapter 81
Juvenile Weekend

So The Warrior and I went out on our date last night. You know, the date that I said would never happen because I was just joking when I asked him when we were going to go. So he kept brining it up and we decided to go see a movie. Then we tried to plan the cheapest date ever (which didn’t happen, not with the price of movies!) Then we threw in Cold Stone ice-cream because he’s never had any. So for the first time in…well, ever, I was excited for a date. Possibly because to me this wasn’t a date. So last night I picked him up at work and stopped by his house first because he wanted to check on his sister who was home alone and the power had gone out. Oh by the way, we got our first hurricane of the season and there was quite a bit of damage. So we pull up and there are candles lit and he seemed pretty surprised that his sister thought to light the candles. I ask if I should come in or just wait in the car, he said I could come in if I wanted to. As we were walking up he sees that his mom is home and he told me that his mom has been wanting to meet me. Almost instantly I get nervous, and then I remind myself that parents just like to meet their children’s friends. We go in and The Warrior introduces us and I get closer so I can shake her hand, she says she’s got something all over them but she can give me a hug, which she did. She says something about me being the imaginary person, so I guess they didn’t believe him about me. We talked to his mom for a bit, and then we drove to the mall which held Cold Stone within it’s walls. When we walked in and they asked us if we had been there before I told them that the Warrior had not been and they gave him a “tutorial”. I learned something new about Cold Stone, if you don’t like one of their mixes they make you another one. I can see why that rule doesn’t apply to the make your own deals because you could come up with nasty combinations and make the people keep making you new ones just because you’re a jerk. So I was stalwart about paying for the ice-cream since it was my suggestion to go there. He tried to put up a fight saying that I couldn’t pay because I was the girl and then finally he relented but said that he was paying for the movies, I may have said “okay” too quickly. Good news, he loved the ice-cream. He said that he needed to bring his family there, and he also said that he hadn't thought anything was better then Ben and Jerry’s, until now.
The Warrior didn’t talk all that much though, and if you know me then you know when there is silence I always try to fill it. So I was talking a lot and I’m pretty sure he knows just a little too much. But I also know that “My Girl” got him misty eyed the first time he saw it. So we are both sworn to secrecy. Except that I just wrote it and am probably going to post it on the internet for Sweet Pea and Oreo to read. After the movie I took him back to his house and we sat outside talking for about an hour, then finally I kicked him out of my car.
Then today at work Baby Face came up to me and out of no where asked if I wanted to come with him and a kid that I will call Steel Eyes (because seriously if you saw this kid’s eyes you would understand) to fork someone’s yard. Sometimes I feel like I need to do something once a year that helps to remind me how stupid I am. Last year I went out with some friends and the evening ended with me taking a breathalyzer and getting my picture taken by the police. So I said “yes”. I should have gone to the movie with my friends who had asked me if I wanted to go. Well, no cops this year, or breathalyzers thank goodness, but I have finally forked a yard. It just took me a couple of years after adolescence to do stupid stuff like this. I made it very clear to Baby Face and Steel Eyes that if the cops came I didn’t know who they were and I was out of there. No more run-ins with cops. I still can’t believe that I just forked someone’s yard tonight. Of course should this person ever confront me about it I am in complete denial. I did do something tonight that I used to do all the time in high school and that is to change in my car while driving to another destination. It’s quite the adrenaline rush; I never had enough time in high school, driving around from work to a friend’s house, or vice versa. I only ever changed at night because in the day time people can tell what you are doing. So I was following Baby Face and Steel Eyes and I completely changed my outfit. Shirt and pants and I even contemplated shoes, but decided my work shoes would be easier to run away in. And you know…boys aren’t very observant. I don’t think they even realized I was no longer in my work uniform. I think Baby Face did a double take but may have not said anything.
After forking the yard we drove around looking for food. You know, there’s a lot of false advertising here. We went to Wendy’s, where they were suppose to be open until midnight but they were closed and no one responded at the drive through. Then we went to Burger King, drive through open until 2am. We only saw this sign after walking up to the doors and they were already locked. So we all pile into my car and went through the drive through. The car in front of us had driven through and then was behind us and that’s when we realized that no one was going to take our order. By this point I had gotten all excited about a slushy because Steel Eyes had offered to pay for all of us. So we drive next door to McDonald’s, who by the way does not sell slushies, and by this point Baby Face and I feel so dejected that we no longer take Steel Eyes up on his offer. We were going to go into McDonald’s but Baby Face said that we should go through the drive through instead of go inside because there were a bunch of rednecks in there. So I said, “What? You don’t want to hang out with your family?” Steel Eyes thought it was funny; Baby Face was a little A.D.D. tonight and didn’t hear me the first time. So Steel Eyes repeated it for me and then I think I got a jokingly “F-You.” Except he said the word…I think there is a language barrier between us.
At one point tonight I told both of them that I had no idea who they were. And that’s the honest truth. First off, I have always been scared to death of Steel Eyes…could be his piercing to your soul just by looking at you, but I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I never really talk to him and I don’t know how to act around him because of it. And while I knew Baby Face had a dirty mouth I didn’t realize how bad it was, and I suppose I had assumed his personality fit his face. I would have never thought Steel Eyes would fork a yard, but he was the most experienced one of us all. But I finally got to hang out with Baby Face, and you know what? Even though I got quite the adrenaline rush tonight hanging with Baby Face and Steel Eyes when I got home I was more satisfied with my night spent out with The Warrior.

Chapter 80
Deep Sundays

So, I got the position at work. The other day I was on register and The Motivator sent over someone to let me off and he asked me if I needed to make a phone call. I thought that was a weird question to ask someone out of the blue. He told me that The Motivator told him that I needed to make a call so I told him if she said that I did, then I did. I went over to her, thinking that she had actually lied to this kid just so I wouldn’t have to be on register, but as it turned out I really had an important phone call to make. The lady who had interviewed me had been talking to my head manager and he had told the Motivator that I should call the woman as soon as possible. She offered me the position and the funny, immature thing was that I assumed that since she offered it, I automatically took it, but when I asked her when I start she asked me if that was a ‘yes’. In the real world you are given job offers and you have the opportunity to turn them down. Weird I know, but that’s the way it works out here!
My head manager came and talked to me about it, he was really excited for me and he told me that the interviewer told him that I did a great job in my interview and that they really wanted me. I had assumed that since they didn’t call in the week that they said they would call that someone’s interview must have just gone better than mine. So it was nice to hear that I wasn’t a second choice, but that they really wanted me. Makes you want the job more that’s for sure.
So a couple of people at work know about it, not many though. I don’t know, I guess I’m just one of those people who just doesn’t feel the need to tell everyone what is going on in my life. My roommates know, and if anyone beyond the motivator and my head manager know it’s because those two told them. I didn’t tell Gus-Gus, but he knows because my head manager was talking to me about it, sometimes I think he is more excited about this then I am. I haven’t told my parents, I don’t think that they would be genuinely excited for me, I mean, to see it from their perspective, they paid for four and half years of college for me and I am just going to be a trainer at my high school job. Whoop-de-do. So why tell them right? They can just continue to think that I am a cashier. The good part about getting this though, is that it has made me want to go to grad school even more. I had a manager last summer who was in nursing school, as soon as he graduated he got a job in his field. When I’m done with Grad school I can leave and get a job in my field. So I am going back to school in January, it will just be some core classes, just stuff to keep me in the habit, and then hopefully in September begin my Master’s program. Meanwhile, I can continue to work up the ladder if it’s what I choose, each rung just means more money, more to go towards getting my Master’s.
Maybe this is how life was supposed to turn out for me. I wasn’t supposed to be a wife or a mother; those just aren’t roles that I have great potential for. Maybe I am supposed to be the day planner, on the run, working woman. I mean, I feel best when I am always busy, always with something to do. I feel I have accomplished more if my planner is completely covered in things to do each and every day, each week filled with important events. The job I have now could be done by monkeys; at least that’s what The Motivator has told me. I need a job with a lot of little projects, a lot of events, a lot of planning and coordinating. That’s what keeps me happy and motivated. Maybe I just don’t have enough to do and that’s why I have so many days where I feel like I will burst into tears if someone looks at me wrong, in fact, I actually do break out crying. I never thought I would be a girl like that, of course I never though I would be the opposite either. I suppose I never really thought about what I would be.
So many people around me are getting into relationships, getting engaged and getting married and I am still here, the same as I was when I was 18, same job, no boyfriend, and no direction anywhere. I see some of these people who are beginning serious relationships and getting engaged and I think to myself, “Well if that person can do it, then surely I can. I’m not nearly as messed as they are.” Of course shame, shame on me for thinking that. But I can’t help those thoughts running through my mind. I feel like I’ve been looking at life all wrong, I have been thinking that I have to be a certain way to be ready for certain stages in my life, but these girls that I know, they certainly weren’t ready. We have Crazy McGee, who…really is crazy. She’s an emotional rollercoaster, she has no idea who she is and she has a lot of trouble holding on to friends. But here she is, starting a relationship with some guy. Then my old roommate is engaged, I am happy for her. But she was all anti-guy, afraid to love…and here she is, in love, engaged. I’m not sad that I am not, but I just wonder, how can they do it? What are they doing that is so different from me? How are they opening up to people like that? I don’t know, maybe something’s wrong with me…oh wait, there is something wrong with me, I just haven’t figure it all out yet. I don’t even know why I’m talking about it, right now I don’t want to get married, I still have my commitment issues, but sometimes you just have to step back and put things into perspective. And right now, things are kind of dim, but I hope they are going to turn out for the best. I hope that I can work through my problems…once I find them and come face to face with them. I hope that I can move on from the disappointments of life and just remember the things that turned out well. I hope I win the battle with myself about how to react to life and it’s complicated situations. I really hope that one day I learn to control my emotions, to get some self-discipline, and who knows, maybe one day I will believe in myself enough to do something interesting with my life. I have to admit that I have done a lot of interesting things with my life so far, so I need to stop dwelling on the slum I am in and move on with life. I have to regain my mentality that people come and go, no matter what; they begin to forget you and you to forget them. There’s nothing you can do about it, it’s just the way life is. Just enjoy the time you had with them and move on. They were there when you needed them and that’s all that mattered.
Wow, not what I meant to talk about. Well, that’s Sunday’s for you, deep thoughts and endless ramblings.

Chapter 79
Mondays and Rainy Days Always Get Me Down

Today I shut off my alarms (both of them) and ended up sleeping in until 6:54 am. When I checked the clock I congratulated myself for having an hour to get ready for work. I jumped in the shower to wake myself up and that’s when it hit me, it’s Saturday! I don’t go to the school today but to the store and I’m supposed to be there at 7 am! I jump out of the shower, call to tell them I’m on my way. I skip make-up but thankfully remembered deodorant and body spray. I rush out to my car and speed away. I got to work at 7:15 cranky and crampy. Yes, crampy. I got my period this morning too.
Then I had to blow up balloons when I got there. I don’t like blowing up balloons, mostly because I don’t like it when they pop and secondly because I’m not a great master of tying the little suckers. The good thing is I didn’t have to blow them up with my breath; I had to blow them up with helium (and darn myself I didn’t suck any of it and go around talking to people…I’m so slow on the uptake sometimes). I had to get using the helium…thingy and in the process one didn’t go on all the way and made a very loud squeaking noise which deafened me for a couple of minutes and may have been the cause of my hearing impairment the whole day. I couldn’t tell if people were mumbling or if my hearing was going. It’s hard to tell sometimes. I finally got tying the balloons down, except that it involved temporarily cutting off the blood supply to my fingers. So after blowing up about 40 balloons my fingers hurt and to add to my day I had to work with Gus-Gus and Jaq (ahh the village idiots). I’m hoping I can call today “Monday” and it will cover me for next week.
I also found someone who is just as uncomfortable around Gus-Gus as I am. She found me actually. He had just walked away from us and she turned to me and said that she found him a little creepy. I’ll call her Squared because she and I have the same name; actually I guess that blows keeping her anonymity, oh well. So we talked about it for a little bit. How we hate when he comes up to our registers and just stands there beside us or sometimes behind us. How he spaces out while staring at you. Just writing about it kind of makes me want to vomit. I hate when I have to call him over to my register because once he’s there it’s hard to get him away from it. It’s not like he’s doing any work, he’s just standing there, breathing my air. Sometimes he’ll grab the receipt for the customer and seemingly take over the order, and sometimes he turns off my register belt, talk about pet peeves. Today when I went to my register and the belt was off I looked right at him and told him to stop doing that. I’ll have to wait until next week to see if simply telling the guy to stop it will do the trick.
Speaking of simply telling the guy to stop doing something, telling Puppy Love that I hate hugs didn’t work. He still tries and so now every time I have to seem like a horrible, mean person and keep telling him that I don’t want a hug. I swear, squash has a larger memory capacity then this kid does. And now he has his mom coming through my line when she goes grocery shopping. I have had to ring her up maybe two or three times so far and she’s already acting like we are best friends. She came up to me the other night to show me her new bling, which looked like Wal-mart jewelry but I’m not going to say anything about it. I just told her it was pretty and let her walk on to do her grocery shopping. I can’t believe that their older son comes from the same family, he is so different from them all…and I don’t mind hugs from him.
And you know it may be the hormones making me so moody but I have felt like the store is too small, there isn’t enough room between the registers and people just keep getting in my way! But in all actually it isn’t too bad, just every so often my heart races and my fist clench. But time is flying by which is the best part of today! Because today was an 8 ½ hour shift and I only have two more hours. This morning I thought the day would drag. I almost knocked out a customer with a can and physically threatened my manager. Not bad for a Saturday morning. Of course, knocking out the customer with a can would have been an accident. Well, I just wrote that in the time it took me to eat a small bag of skittles. Not a bad day, not a bad day at all.

Chapter 78
Eyes May Reject Donor Juice

Today my mom went to get her eyes fixed. You know, that new laser surgery they do to correct people’s vision. They say to allow for a two hour appointment so when we showed up at 2:30 we expected her to go under the beam by 3:30 or 4 so that we would be done with our two hour appointment by the two hour mark. Instead we sat in the lobby until about 4:15 sitting mostly in silence while I read People magazine cover to cover and she read Better Homes and Gardens. I am very up to date on everything that has occurred in Malibu, Hollywood, and in the movies. I even read through the lamest book reviews that I have ever encountered in that magazine. Who knows, maybe the books were just that lame and there was no hope that the reviewer could make it any better. Meanwhile my mom found some recipes for fish that seemed to be exciting for her.
Finally we get called into a room where they “prep” her. Basically they gave her a silly looking cap to put over her hair and they put some sort of absorber over her ears so that when the drops were put into her eyes (the ones that were going to quickly slid unto her face and down towards her ears while she lay there) wouldn’t get her ears wet. In the prep room the lady tells my mom, and I suppose me as well, everything that she is going to need to do post-op. Then we are escorted into the more comfortable room which had a little fountain in it which actually tensed me up more than calmed me. Oddly enough it made my wrist hurt and my bladder feel full, I wanted to rip the cord out of the wall to make it quit. Especially since we were left there alone and my mom was nervous and I kept saying all the wrong things; things like “Hope the laser doesn’t slip” which I actually never said but the things coming out of my mouth might as well have been because each time I said something like that I realized that my mom was already nervous and I was making it worse. So we sat in silence mostly listening to the gurgling of that little fountain. Then a doctor came in and started to go over my mom’s record, or something like it, and kept asking her questions and I am sitting there wondering why these questions weren’t asked before they said it was okay for her to get the operation. If she answered incorrectly were they going to tell her that couldn’t get it done? And if so were they going to pay for our time and inconvenience, because my life was slowly sucked out into the pages of People Magazine. The doctor tells us how the procedure will unfold and I am trying not to gag because as usual I am picturing things worse then they really will be. He tells her the she will feel some pressure around her eyes because he is going to be putting a device around it to keep it open and then everything is going to go black…why is it going to go black? My only thought is that it’s because they are going to remove her eye from her head to do the operation and by doing so it’s going to disconnect the wiring that gives her sight and then I get this mental image of my mom’s eye hanging from the socket. I almost threw up. Then he was talking about the end of the procedure (the entire thing is only suppose to take about ten minutes) and he said that she might smell something and I almost said, “Because it will be the smell of you eye matter being seared by the laser” but I caught myself for two reasons, mom was really nervous by now and the doctor was in the room. Mostly it was because the doctor was in the room, what kind of daughter would I look like?
Then they finally take her into the room which is set up more like a fishbowl than an operating room. From the lobby I, as well as everyone else, could witness my mother’s operation and could look at her eyes on a television screen as they cut and paste them. I however did not look up. I stared at the carpet and contemplated what “beauty” really is. Odd, I know, but you know, it’s either that or how much my life sucks right now because all the college kids are going back to school in the next couple of weeks and I have to stay here, eating my feelings and working at a grocery store with a B.S. in Sociology.
I don’t think I got the position of trainer at work. I had an interview last week and they were suppose to call me this week to let me know and here it is Friday and I never got a phone call. It’s for the best really. All week I was hoping I wouldn’t get it so the fact that I haven’t received a phone call actually relieves me a bit. I would have been sucked in more to a job that I don’t really enjoy. Of course now that I have just said all of this watch them call me on Monday to tell me I got it. What will I do? I would hope turn it down but if it were actually offered I just might take it, I need the money. So hopefully they don’t call me, hopefully someone will call from the place I applied to last week. Unfortunately for me the only people who seem to want me are the ones who want me to join the world of earning a commission. Screw that! I will not work a job that has commission. I have a college degree, please someone help me use it!
Wow, this is why I contemplated what beauty really is instead of my life. But now it’s exactly what I did, dang-it. Well, since I’m on that track I might as well continue. Back to my roommates I suppose. They are nice enough but I think I’m just enough anti-social to drive them away. I didn’t mean to do it, I promise. I went to see their skit in a little talent show with an audience of maybe 20 or 30 people. It (their skit) was pretty cute. I only caught the end of the whole show which from what I hear I’m lucky I missed. I hate activities like that, people, especially young adults between the ages of 18-29 are not interested in sharing their talents or watching the few that do embarrass themselves. Besides there is only good turnouts for those types of things in a college ward, where there aren’t many other options of things to do, and they are usually held on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, I mean, what else is there to do on those days?

Chapter 77
Forecast for Today: Sunny with a Slight Chance of a Tornado

Sometimes I feel like if you look up the word “annoying” in the dictionary then you will find my roommate’s name as the definition. She’s a nice enough girl, and she hasn’t really done anything to me, I guess our personalities just don’t mesh. The really irritating part is that guys always want to hang out with her. All she does is talk, last I checked heterosexual, manly men did not like to hang out with a girl who just talks (mostly about herself and her drama filled life). So I’m a bit confused when I come home and there is some new guy here sitting in the kitchen or the living room with her listening to her stories about all the drama in her life. I could understand if she was some bleach blonde that has a hot body and all the guys want to get with her, but they don’t. They don’t ask her out, they just come to listen to her. Personally, I’m grateful, because if she is talking to them then she’s not talking to me. I find myself closing my door when I realize she is home, and sometimes even locking it, I turn down my music and hunch down as though I am trying to convince her that I am not home, even though my car is in the drive. Because I’m tired of hearing the same stuff over and over again, especially since most of it is drama that is at least five years old. Maybe she would have new stories if she stopped telling the olds ones every time she had contact with people.
I guess it doesn’t help that I don’t feel sorry for people, although, I am beginning to think that maybe I feel sorry for people that I care about. Baby Face worked tonight and he seemed a little down and it actually bothered me! But it got me thinking, what if this was someone else? Would I be worried? Would I feel sorry for them and want to do anything to help? And I realized that I would; there were several people, most family members, and most of my friends. It’s probably because my friends don’t pity themselves to death, if they did, I probably wouldn’t be friends with them, and they would be dead. Autopsy says, died of an overdose of self pity.
I’ve also realized that I embellish things. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I think it makes life more interesting. I exaggerate when I get hurt, such as, I got cut the other day at work and when I tell the story I say that I got stabbed by the cart and it hit an artery and crimson blood came squirting out all over the place and it was all I could do to keep from bleeding to death. I exaggerate when I like a guy, I act stalkerish when talking to friends or I talk about how we are going to get married, but I don’t stalk them and I certainly don’t think we will ever get married. And to be honest, I lay it on thick when talking bad about people. Of course, the facts are still there, but I make it seem like it means more to me then it does. I don’t sit here and lose sleep over my roommate, or over a boy, I just embellish and make it seem like I do. Understand? So, I say that my roommate really bugs me, but to be honest, I barely have interactions with her and I would just like to keep it that way, and maybe at the moment that I say something or decide to write something is just one small moment where she is penetrating through the walls that I have put up and so I feel I must write my grievances down somewhere. Tonight I got off of work early and went to my parent’s house to hang out with my sister who is in town. We were talking and she asked me what my roommates do. I sat there for a moment trying to remember if I even knew to begin with. I told her she should come over sometime, I meant to check out my room but she says, “I don’t want to hang out with your roommates.” I laughed and told her that I don’t even hang out with my roommates so why would I expect her to?

Chapter 76
Cabin Fever

It’s not really cabin fever, but how do you write in short terms a withdrawal from work and how it affects your life? We are on day two of only working one job…I don’t know how I can survive. Sure I have been filling up the daytime, yesterday I took my mom to the eye doctor and I hung out at my parent’s house and got free dinner. Today I went to the pool with my sister and my cousins and this little kid that my sister takes care off and we celebrated Burrito’s birthday a day early (I am also trying to tan my legs so that should I ever wear shorts somewhere beyond the pool I won’t blind people with my leg paleness). But the question is, “what do I do with my evenings”…hmm. That presents a problem. I scrapbooked a few pages today, but in all honestly I am going through a period of time where I am not the least bit interested in scrapbooking. The creative juices are not flowing and my pages, since lacking my caring, frankly look like crap. I watched a movie, I downsized a bit of my room, which will probably only continue when the school job ends and I have even more of my time open to do odd, stupid, meaningless things with my time.
The thing is I’ve felt like this before. Seems like life is cyclical, you have your highs and lows and no matter if you think you are over a low it will return. Someone says the wrong thing, something doesn’t go as planned, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Anything really. That’s when I usually do something to my hair, rearrange my room, or bake. Baking’s out, I shouldn’t be eating sugar (I had some today to celebrate the birth of Burrito) and I don’t have enough of anything to really make anything.
Good news is I took vitamins today. I’m hoping that they offset my steady diet of peanut butter (peanut butter crackers, peanut butter sandwiches, etc, etc, etc.) and maybe the cause of all my problems is simply my overdose of peanut butter. Malnourishment leads to depression you know, well, not eating, but I figure not eating is a form of malnourishment so therefore malnourishment and anorexia are pretty much the same…in this case scenario. Also I haven’t been feeling well the past couple of days so I am trying to mix up my diet a bit, you know, not so much peanut butter. I threw in some yogurt and some breakfast bars that provide 20% of my daily fiber needs, oh and more Cheerios because that’s heart healthy. Maybe I can soon put the Ibuprofen tablets away and start feeling better on my own.
Well, I think I’ll go rearrange my room.

Chapter 75
The Attempt to Turn Any Metal to Gold

My friend once wrote that he felt like he was in a Radiohead song. I don’t know if he came up with that on his own or if someone else did and he liked it just as much as I did and decided to use it. But here I am, repeating it because I liked the comparison.
My search for a purpose remains. Who knows, maybe I will find my purpose in retrospect, which is actually what I anticipate will happen despite the fact that I hope it doesn’t. Every day though I feel like I am trying to figure out what to do with my life and people say that you will probably never figure it out but I can’t go through life like this. I can’t continue to live in the present. I need something more, something to work towards. I want to do something great but I have no idea what to do, and maybe it’s just that I watch too many movies or read too many books where the characters are given some huge opportunity for greatness, they rise to the challenge and they conquer. The realist in me knows that if these people were real and if that really did happen to them then it’s over. Once that greatness has past what are they still living for? They would have to top what they had just done and how can you top it? Should someone have actually gotten the first opportunity for greatness how in the world would they chance to get a second one?
Back to my search though. In high school I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had a few options I was interested in; becoming a veterinarian, but I didn’t want to deal with all that math and science. I wanted to be a teacher, until I was actually in the program at school and decided it wanted too much from me. I can’t really think of anything else I was looking into in high school. I also knew though that I did not want to be working at the grocery store and where am I? And what am I doing? I have an interview on Wednesday that will decide whether or not I begin to move up the ladder. The ladder, ha, each rung actually taken me further down instead of leading me up to something greater.
I’m reading The Alchemist and it keeps talking about how you have to recognize your dream and then get to it. Too many people just bury their dreams because they are comfortable where they are, or because they are afraid that once they reach their dreams they won’t have anything to work towards. So people become their own worst enemies, setting up traps and stumbling blocks for themselves, or just failing to get up and move. I’m a mixture of both I suppose. I have realized that I am an underachiever and refuse to better my life. Everyone keeps telling me that I have potential, that I can do great things, that I’m smart, etc. etc. etc. But apparently it’s just not sinking in. What am I so afraid of? Or am I just lazy? I could be a mixture of those two as well.
I guess maybe I need to write down some goals, or think some up at least. My friend told me the other day that my main goal for the month was to come up with some goals. Now I suppose I have at least one. And you know what? No matter how “rough” life is for me there is always someone who is more screwed up then me. People who make all the wrong decisions for all the wrong reasons. At least while I wait here in “limbo” I am not screwing anything up by regressing and heading in a different, completely wrong direction. I don’t mind being stagnant for a while because when I finally do start moving again at least I will have a good base and I won’t be coming from further behind where I stopped.

Chapter 74
Work-a-holic

So yesterday I was wondering to myself what I would do with three days off, since I have Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off next week. I have filled up Wednesday with a job interview and going to another place with my mom to turn in an application, and Monday I am taking my mom to the doctor’s. But Tuesday, I just don’t know. I hate having that many days off because sometimes I feel like all I have is my job. This past week I worked everyday. Sure I didn’t work at the store on Monday but I worked at the school, what am I going to do with my time when that ends? Today was the day however that I decided that I am a work-a-holic. I thought that I was working 8-5, a daunting shift for me since that is 9 hours. So I slept in, not past eight but I did have to get ready for work in 10 minutes, I show up to work and find out that I wasn’t really suppose to be at work until 8:30, and you know what? It made perfect sense too because that is eight and half hours, you take off the half hour non-paid lunch and there’s you’re typical eight hour shift. So Jaq says, “I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to send you home,” here’s where I interrupted with an, “of course not I’m suppose to be here at 8:30 anyway so I wouldn’t go home.” So he had be dust the foyer, above the doors, along the wall, boring, boring, boring. I got to stretch and take time to wake-up which was nice.
While I was dusting the Firemen came in, now, I used to like the firemen. Fireman, police, E.M.T.s, we like those people because they provide services that we don’t always need but we’re glad they are there if we need them. Besides sometimes they are really cute. So, I guess I should say what happened last Wednesday first so that you know why I used to like the fireman. I had to work café and since this isn’t my favorite place to be I’m a little short in the patience department and if you cross me while I’m on the café register I remember you and may even talk smack about you behind your back. So the firemen came through my line that day and I took care of one order and then redneck Joe is next, he’s got these nasty sideburns and gives off vibe “creepy” and he is buying some peaches. I ask if they are Ukrop’s peaches and he says, “Are we in Ukrop’s?” and I say, “yeah” and he says, “Then yes.” But it doesn’t end there, he then says, “It just seemed like a stupid question to me.” I rang up his damn peaches and put them in a bag and said bon voyage to his sorry sideburn ass. Just so you know, there are several different kinds of peaches, you’ve got white peaches, California peaches, the Ukrop’s peaches, you also have about three types of nectarines and if you haven’t been a cashier for as long as I have you may mistaken them for peaches. Stupid question my ass, sure as hell beats stupid people. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off like that, but I guess as you can tell I’m not over it. So they came in today while I was dusting and then I went back up front and Jaq has me open up a register, not that we needed one open. The firemen were in one of the lines and I wanted nothing more than to avoid having them come through my line, especially since McCreepy was with them. So I walked up to sign in very slowly, which is hard for me since I seem to do everything a little quicker then most people. I lucked out though and got a customer right away before I had to call ass-wipe and his friends over. I really need to work on my language, it’s not very lady like.
Later Gus-Gus came up to ask me to go on register two, well, actually he said that he needed someone to open up 2 and I told him that if he put me on that register I would quit right then and there…and I seriously meant it. Gus-Gus walks off and later I realize that he went on it. I have power again! I didn’t feel bad, in fact, I felt more justified in the fact that I don’t see Gus-Gus as a real manager, he’s going to let some chick boss him around? Goodness. Oh, the whole reason that I absolutely refused to go on Register 2 today was because I was on there yesterday for a good three hours. My manager (he needs a name…Bull Dog because he has a bull dog on a bike tattoo on his leg) had me close a big register to go on two and I told him that going to 2 wasn’t much incentive for me to hurry up my current order. He thought I liked 2…first common misconception of managers, they think that people like solitary confinement, second common misconception they think I like situations where I get paid to do absolutely nothing. Just because a bunch of teenagers would prefer to stand around doing nothing while earning money does not mean that I want to do that too. If they jumped off a bridge I’d rather take a picture then join them. I tell him I hate register 2 which he disputes that I am good for it because I’m so fast (that doing things a little quicker then most people thing again). I tell him I felt like I was a waste on it because I was fast. He said he didn’t think so, therefore I ended up on register two twiddling my thumbs. I think I even was able to say aloud without a single soul hearing me, “You don’t call this a waste?” During some of my slower periods of the day I was able to color in a good sized piece of register tape in with my black pen. But it didn’t end there, it never ends there. There are these coupons that some customers got some how, it certainly wasn’t because they are friendly, for $10 off when they fill a prescription at our new pharmacy. So this lady comes in and gets a $2-something prescription and a few other things. I’m reading it to make sure that the $10 is off on everything or not and she says that it is but I had read it wrong so I punch in the Plu code, (mind you this lady was already bugging me for other various reasons). Now, I’ve done one of these coupons before where I punch in the code and it didn’t seem to register but it took it off in the total so it didn’t really matter if it turned up on the screen…right? You get the $10 off so who cares if you can see where it took it from? So the lady with her little I’m a rich snob who drives an S.U.V. and plays tennis on Tuesday, go to my personal trainer on Wednesdays and really just like to bitch to Ukrop’s employees on Fridays voice starts to get an attitude with me about the damn coupon and telling me that if it isn’t taking it off of the whole order then she didn’t want to use it (mind you I am on express and she is holding up my freaking line, I just want to get back to coloring my piece of register tape). Not only is she complaining, but she is repeating herself. I can’t take it, I snap as much as possible without having to go to some review and I interrupt her banshee rant with something verbal like an, “Okay,” or “hold on” I don’t really remember what I said but I remember that my tone changed and I have never let my tone of voice change with a customer! That’s how under my skin she got. I call over a manager because I have to displace this annoying lady somehow. Another cashier has come up by this point and the manager finally comes over. The cashier says something to me which I didn’t catch, I just felt my face get hot and my eyes water up, my throat was tight and I turned to the other cashier and ask if she will go on for me for a little bit. She says “sure” and the moment that she does I run off to the bathroom trying to hide the fact that I have just lost it. My face was all contorted I’m sure so I threw my hand up over it and walked quickly to the restroom. I locked myself in a stall and just let myself cry. My friend who was eating lunch in the café had apparently seen me and came in to check up on me. It helped to have someone to talk about it to, but at the same time, I don’t like if people see me cry, it’s not really something I like happening. I pull myself together and go back out to reclaim the register that I never even wanted. So this is why I refused to go on register 2 today. However, it didn’t save me from annoying, bitchy customers. I have to wonder if the whole state of Virginia had PMS because this week has been one of the hardest weeks for me to deal with customers, so much that I really did almost quit. I would have called and cancelled my interview for Wednesday and just tried to live off of the small amount of money that I have. Did I mention that this morning I was in café because the girl over there needed a break? While there I had a customer come and tell me that we were almost out of Decaf (which I actually appreciated because it saved me from hearing that the decaf was empty) as I go over to fix it a lady who ranked up as a 7 (the highest score received today for customers and how many annoying things they do) complains about the diet sodas being out of order. This is the first I knew about it because I don’t work in café. I had already told this lady’s friend that, I even went ahead and made an executive decision telling her friend that she could go get a soda from the refrigerator (which is probably a better deal anyway). So the lady, even though the situation is under control, still feels the need to be heard and complains about it to me and says, “Shouldn’t you tell us before we buy the drink?” and I tell her that I didn’t know they weren’t working and she says, “Well you should know,” before I am even able to explain how I don’t even work there, I’m just letting someone on break. I think I said, “uh huh” or something like that as I walked away rolling my eyes to make more decaf before that became a problem too. Over by the coffee I said what I really felt about the lady. I’ll always remember that customer too. Her and sideburns should get together and make sure to sterilize themselves so there are no offspring. Seriously, I may not like people, but I don’t treat them the way that I talk about them. What good is it going to do for you to treat them like that? How can you sleep at night treating other humans like a doormat? Then there are their friends! How can you be friends with someone who treats “service people” like that? Can you imagine these people at restaurants? I would slit my wrist if I were a waitress in the West End. I couldn’t be friends with a jerk, I mean a jerk that says things out of ear shot…that’s fun, but someone who doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with treating people like that to their faces…I can’t stand by someone like that.
So…what I meant to talk about, the part where I am a work-a-holic, 5 o’clock came and went and I was still at work. I helped bag when I first got off register because it seems like they always need more people there. Then I went to clock out and I was back up front to say bye to The Motivator (that’s what I’ll call my favorite manager because she really is a motivator and I can’t think of anything cooler). She told me I couldn’t leave yet because she needed my creative eyes and hands. I don’t think she got the memo that I am creative in the sense that I write things, not creative in any area of artistic, aesthetical ways. I told her if she wanted I could clock back in, I didn’t mind. I didn’t have anything to do…which sadly, is true. So I clocked back in and helped her and Bull Dog clean out Floral (they are redoing the whole store so there’s a lot to be done). It was a lot of fun, but hard work. Before I knew it Motivator was telling me that it was almost seven o’clock. That makes for an 11 hour day at work. This, plus the fact that I don’t enjoy having a full day off, is why I think I may have a work-a-hol problem. I didn’t mind working the 11 hour shift, mostly because I could have pulled the plug at any time past the 9 hour mark, but honestly, I had nothing else to do. My roommates went to the beach, my sister and mom had already done their shopping for the day. I knew exactly where I would be tonight, in my room watching a movie, or playing around on the internet. I simply prolonged it while getting paid more and in a way having a work-out. Cleaning out floral was a lot of work! I finally left, completely exhausted but I had to buy some paper and this weekend was Virginia’s tax-free holiday for school supplies, so what a good time to buy more computer paper right? Well The Warrior told me that my printer paper wouldn’t be tax-free so I told him when I was ready to buy it I would come through his line and prove him wrong. So he asked me, again since he’d asked me a couple of times, if I wanted to stay and work his closing shift. I told him ‘no’ and he said that I should go for the 13 and half hour day. I said ‘no’ again and added that now that I had taken a moment to sit down I was tired. He asked me if I wanted him to buy me lunch, pause, sometime. I guess the pause was because he realized that lunch was over for the day. Then he threw in that it would be a steak. How could I refuse? I asked if that would be when we went on our date. He said it would and then asked when we were going to do that. The last date he went on was a bust because the movie sucked. I told him if he picked the movie then we’ll go. Who knows if we will ever, but I think it would be fun to hang out with the Warrior. At least someone wants to hang out with me.
In other news I told my mom about the trip to California in November. One of my old roommates is getting married in Sacramento….Sacramento? Yes, that’s where Sweet Pea is from, so I’ll admit I’m going out there more to see her again then to go to the wedding. But it would be cool to go to the wedding since I was her fiancé’s favorite roommate (of hers). Well, me and Sweet Pea both, he thought we were funny…tell us something that we don’t know! Elephants are the only mammal that can’t jump.
Baby Face totaled the truck! I told him I loved that truck and couldn’t believe that it was gone. He said, “You sat on that truck for 5 minutes and you’re already in love with it?” I get attached easily. I told him “yeah, I already named him Henry.” Later I was talking to him and I said that I couldn’t believe Henry…or Herbert, or whatever was gone. There’s hope for Henry-Herbert because Baby Face’s dad wants to go ahead and try to get it repaired. I still don’t know if I’ll ever get to see that truck again. Also, as much as I think that Baby Face and I are friends I am beginning to think that we will never hang out. We are supposed to go shooting sometime but our schedules really don’t coordinate. Next Saturday I work in the afternoon and it really might be an all day thing, then the Saturday after he is going out of town to help move his sister. He said that maybe we could go during the week, but I do the school thing in the mornings. I told him we could go Tuesday after I get out of school but it’s his sister’s birthday. Who knows if it is even his sister’s birthday, maybe he decided that I am fun but only at a distance and doesn’t really want to hang out. That’s cool with me, but he should just say it…not in those words though. Because I get the feeling that he thinks I’m a cool person, and he talks to me and all so I know that I’m not one sided in being his friend (which unfortunately I have run into that once or twice in my life which is why I don’t really reach out much anymore), so maybe it’s one of those friendships that you like to have just at work but you don’t want outside of work. I understand those, I have a few friends like that at the school. I think they are cool girls but I just don’t think we have enough in common to hang out outside of the school. Which is sad since that ends in two weeks. Oh well, life goes on.
Oh, also, I received some roses on my toilet this morning. That’s right, roses on the toilet. I took a picture. When I woke up late this morning it was mostly due to having to go to the bathroom so as I rushed in there I found half a dozen roses in a mason jar and a card. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to appreciate them seeing as how it was urgent to use the bathroom, so I removed them to the floor quickly. I wanted to ask my roommates who they were from because the card was not signed but it was definitely girl writing and it said something about being a good influence on the girls that lived in the house with me, so I figure it wasn’t one of them, but I didn’t have time to ask because I was late to work. I do like getting flowers though, toilet seat or not.

Chapter 73
Revolutionize

You know, I was stupid to think that I would be so welcoming to change. As a simple thought that has no chance in hell of actualizing, change sounds fun, adventuresome, exciting. But you know something? When the opportunity comes along to actually do something about this change, it’s scary, and those attachments that you didn’t think existed show up. People you always felt you had no problem leaving suddenly become important to you. Life that seemed dreary and unavoidable, once becoming avoidable, seems like the only place you want to be, the only thing you want to be doing.
Where is all of this coming from? Mostly the part where just a little over a week ago I was ready to completely revamp my life, move to a new place, get a new job, change friends, you know, the usual. Then my ward dissolved, and change happened there. Then this past Sunday my sister tells me that she is pregnant, and has asked if I could move down to North Carolina for a couple of months (Around February), “sure!” I say almost too quickly. I am thinking in the moment, I am thinking impulsively. She tells me to think about it and I say, “No duh”. So I’ve been thinking about it. And “it” is scary. I don’t know where I will be at that time, I actually like living here (in this house) and is there a way I can keep my room, but not live here for four or five months? I would be starting all over, I would be in a place without the guarantee of a job, I’d be in a new ward, in a place I don’t really know that well. I’m finally adjusting to being home and now I plan on leaving? This is why my sister said to think about it. I do want to be down there though. I miss my sister and my nephew and it would really help them out since her husband will be back overseas when she’s due. I should just do it. Really, what do I have to lose?
Oh on Sunday Spam kept asking if my sister was pregnant and we kept saying, “No, she’s just expecting.” It was funny, because Spam is not far along in this life to catch that we were telling that my sister is pregnant. She just sat there wondering what in the world she was expecting.
So today was interesting…very interesting. First off though, the little boy I work with at the school is getting used to me, which is nice, but sad because we only have 2 and half weeks left. Today we made each other dizzy while moving our heads from should to shoulder making little “pop” noises with our mouths. He seemed to think it was funny, and really, I did too.
But moving on to my “other” job and what made my day interesting. The best part about today was expecting it to be bad and it turned out to be descent. I got to work with The Warrior and Baby Face; and Poof Daddy was working in the back so we saw him every once in a while. I was helping to bag groceries on The Warrior’s register and his hand accidentally touched my arm and he just stopped what he was doing and said, “My hand just accidentally slid across your arm and your skin is really smooth.” Then he asked me what lotion I used. I told him I don’t use lotion and he called me “blessed”. It was so funny, but then he called Baby Face over later tonight to touch my arm, so Baby Face used one finger and slid it down my arm and then slid it down his arm, he did that about four times and finally The Warrior told him that his arm wasn’t soft so stop trying.
For my fifteen minute break today Baby Face and I hung out outside. It was actually very nice today, the weather was really hot last week but we had rainstorms and it cooled it down. So Baby Face and I got break at the same time so we went and sat on the tailgate of his truck. It was neat to actually get a chance to talk to him. Earlier we had been talking about shooting and I was talking about how I’ve gone once before and almost shot my foot off, so he tells me how he goes about once a week. Well, now we are going to go shooting sometime. Not this weekend because I am going out of town but I told him I would let him know. I asked him how he would feel if I accidentally shot him…he told me he would be royally pissed, but I suppose that’s understandable. I think I cling to him and the Warrior a lot more because of Puppy Love, who is back on his hugging streak. I checked with Baby Face to see if he knew about the situation but he didn’t so I didn’t want to tell him, but he told me that since I brought it up I had to tell him. So I told him all about it and how Puppy Love peed on me. He seemed to think that was funny, but he asked me if I wanted him to take care of the situation, but by telling Puppy Love that he’s a weirdo and he needs to stop hugging me. I declined; I’m still holding out that this situation can end peaceably. However, I may at any time call in my favor with Baby Face. Speaking of Puppy Love, he saw Baby Face and me sitting on the truck and when we came in he asked us whose truck we were sitting on and Baby Face says, “I don’t know, some stranger’s”. Puppy Love believed it which made us laugh.
I tried to set my foot down today about being “one of the guys”. It all really begins last night when I was talking to Poof and a guy that works night operations at the store. Poof tells me to check out this girl who is a couple of feet away. I look because I am thinking she’s got a weird outfit or something but then Poof says she’s hot. Night Opts tells Poof that she’s out of his league. I complain that I don’t look at girls that way so don’t ask me to do that again. So…today, Warrior suddenly says, “Look at that girl.” And I ask why and he says, “Because she is fine.” So I go off and ask him when I became one of the guys? Because I’m not. I asked him if he had me confused with someone else. I told him that I looked at the guys, not the girls. He asked me why I looked at the guys because they were losers. I really didn’t have any response to that because in a way he dissed himself, being a guy and all. Later I asked him when we were going on our date (because our friend said that he and she were going on a date), he smiled and waited a second and then said next week. Don’t worry; we aren’t really going on a date.
Oh Night Opts (who says that I am beautiful and calls me Miss America) asked if I was still mad at him, I didn’t know I was mad at him. But he reminded me that I got upset with him last night, and it was because when Poof told me about the “hot girl” he started to joke around with me and said that Puppy Love checks me out. I told them that I wasn’t looking to be told that people were checking me out, I’d prefer not to know, “checking out” makes me feel dirty. So then Night Opts asks me if I want to know what turns him on, and Poof and I start walking away quickly, but we come back because you can’t actually just walk away from someone for good unless you want them to think there are hard feelings. So he points at my purse and he says, “I love when girls wear their purses like that.” …creepy. I took my purse off and tried to wear it different ways, one time being around my waist like a belt, and around my neck like a choker…but he liked the choker one so I finally just went back to the way I was wearing it and walked away uncomfortably.