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 |  My American Notebooks |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** When Nathaniel Hawthorne was writing, he kept a series of journals, The American Notebooks. They were part daily journal, part diary, but mostly a place for him to jot down and try out bits of writing he hadn't a full venue for yet. He kept character sketches, odd bits of conversation, and observances he wanted to remember for future writings in his notebooks. This, then, is my place for odd bits I want to remember. When you read this, keep in mind, you are rummaging through my mental storehouse. Check out:
And don't forget to vote for your favorite blogger each month. 
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| I handle the receiving at my work. We get products from across the US shipped to us every day. Our receiving manager checks the items against our PO and then the paperwork gets sent upstairs and I receive it into the computer so that our inventory is updated. Today, we got a shipment from a very well known paint company. On the shipping paperwork, in big red letters, was rubberstamped the following message: FOR TRANSPORTATION EMERGENCY: Spill, Leek, Fire or Exposure Call 1-800-***-**** Really? For an onion emergency I should call that number? They are going to be able to help me with that?  I would think the Food Network would be a better call, but, hey, that's just me.Spell check can't help with everything. The English language is a tricky one. But in the business world you should double check before you send something off to be made into a giant red rubber stamp that is going to be seen by people across the United States every single day. A typo in a blog is different than a typo in the business world. |
| Every so often, Hubby and I get adventuresome at the grocery store. We are notorious for it in the produce section. Sometimes it's good, sometimes...not so much.  Take for instance our experiment into pomegranates. Yum! My daughter and I love them! They are messy as hell to eat, but very tasty. Every February, when they come out, we make a point to get a couple. Hubby likes them, too, but thinks they are too messy and too much work to eat. He'd rather just eat pomegranate flavored things. Asian pear? Hmm. We are divided. I could take it or leave it. Hubby and daughter like them. This last week, we tried mangos. Not a new favorite. We were really disappointed. It was something we felt sure we were going to like. We all like what my daughter calls "mango by-products". By that I mean, mango juices, mango flavored candies, etc. But as far as the actual fruit? Monilad summed it up best: "It tastes like pine trees smell."  Hubby and I concurred.Maybe I'm just not a good mango picker. Maybe we stored it wrong. Maybe I peeled it and sliced it wrong. ~shrug~ Whatever the problem, we will not be repeating the mango adventure without better clues. Or maybe they are just supposed to taste like pine trees smell.  |
| I don't normally do this in my blog, but my brother passed this forward along to me and it was too good to not share. I don't know who authored this, but I applaud them. WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON THE TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH? My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has been completed. Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete. This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now time to begin the reckoning. Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short. The United Kingdom, Spain, Bulgaria, Australia, and Poland are some of the countries listed there. The other list contains every one not on the first list. Most of the world's nations are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both lists later this evening. Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases immediately and indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs of the Iraqi war. THEN EVERY YEAR THERE AFTER IT WILL GO TO OUR SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM SO IT WON'T GO BROKE IN 20 YEARS. The American people are no longer going to pour money into third world Hellholes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption. Need help with a famine ? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France. In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect this money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at home . On that note, a word to terrorist organizations. Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all your friends from the face of the earth. Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try France or maybe China . I am ordering the immediate severing of diplomatic relations with France, Germany, and Russia. Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from NATO as well. Bonne chance, mezamies. I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded and crushed. I don't care about whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. I love New York. A special note to our neighbors. Canada is on List 2. Since we are likely to be seeing a lot more of each other, you folks might want to try not pissing us off for a change. Mexico is also on List 2 its president and his entire corrupt government really need an attitude adjustment. I will have a couple extra thousand tanks and infantry divisions sitting around. Guess where I am going to put 'em? Yep, border security. Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty - starting now. We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we'll be drilling for oil in Alaska - which will take care of this country's oil needs for decades to come. If you're an environmentalist who opposes this decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there. It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens. Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, "darn tootin." Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America. It is time to eliminate homelessness in America. To the nations on List 1, a final thought. Thank you guys. We owe you and we won't forget. To the nations on List 2, a final thought: You might want to learn to speak Arabic. God bless America . Thank you and good night. |
| Springtime comes slowly to the Rockies. We've been having warmer temps the last couple of weeks, but it's been interspersed with several storms where we've gotten two to three inches of snow. That's fine, though, because come August, we'll need the snowpack to hold off the fire season. The snow in my back yard is slowly receeding like a glacier during the Ice Age. I still have about a two and a half foot drift out front where the sun can't get to it, though, where we shovel snow off the driveway and the front walk. (It's the north side of the house and always in the shade.) But besides the snowmelt and the warmer temps, my aspen are budding out. We also saw a robin this morning in one of my apple trees. That's the first one I've seen this year. Yesterday I saw the Golden Eagle pair that lives near my house. They were flying a mating flight. It was incredible to watch. Work was slow, so I wrote two Haiku about the flight I saw. Winging higher now, Wheeling toward the mountain slopes, Outstriping her mate. Golden spotlight on. Black silhouettes, turquoise stage. Silent sky dancers. I can't wait to watch the Golden Eagles nest this year. The Bald Eagles have been building nests near my out house, too. I hope to watch them as well. It's just so incredible to watch them in flight. I've been planning my garden in my head, too. I'm almost out of frozen, grated zucchini, so I'll be planting at least a couple of those. Can't wait! |
Because it looks like I'm going to have to eat some words.  Some time back, I did an entry about not having a college degree. I started college back in 1989 and attended for a couple of years, but never finished. I've always gotten by just fine being an autodidact. (Self taught person) I have flirted with finishing college over the years, but never seriously. My parents always wanted one of us kids to get a degree, but none of us have. We've all gone for a few years and then wandered off into "real" life. You know how it is, you start the family, and you never really have the time or inclination and besides, what you wanted out of life almost twenty years ago somehow doesn't hold anymore. Well, last fall, I started thinking more seriously about actually getting a degree. Strangely enough, it was the blog entry against getting a degree that really got my brain going on it. Hubby has been really supportive. So, I raked my poop up into a pile, filled out the necessary paperwork, sent off for transcripts from the college I attended all those years ago in Texas, and even applied for student aid. Today I got my acceptance letter. I will be a Montana State Bobcat in the fall. (I think it's Party's alma mater.)I'll be thirty seven and I'll have a sophmore in high school, but, hey, it's never too late to get a start on a second career. At least that's what I keep telling myself. I can't be a hardware store cashier forever. Can I? |
| Guess what! I wrote a dang story!! No, really!! It's just a silly little flash piece that was inspired by Special Kay  's blog entry "Invalid Entry"  . Thanks, Special Kay ! It's "Invalid Item" .I didn't get it finished in time for her contest, but it was nice to write it at all. My muse has been conspicuously absent for a while. I read the story to my daughter and she said, "Awwwww! How cute!" I don't know if cute was what I was going for, but it is ASR, so I guess it fits. She also told me she sees it as a little animated cartoon set to music. Hmmm. Ooookkaaaay. Also not where I was going, but I guess I can kind of see it. She has started composing the music. Crazy talented kid. |
| Do you ever see someone and be embarrassed on their behalf? I was cashiering today and a guy came in and I was forced to stare in abject horror as if at a train wreck in progress. It was facinating. I just stared open mouthed as he walked by. He was about 6' 4" and fairly good looking. Maybe 48 or 50 years old. It was his attire that was killing me. He had on a brand new pair of blue jeans. I mean, he had to have pulled the tag off of these suckers while he was out in the parking lot, they were that new. And he had about a three or four inch cuff turned up on them. Not that they were long, the cuff was turned up so high I was looking at what had to be white tube socks. The cuff made it that much easier to see his -no shit- black patent leather loafers with tassels. These items were set off nicely with a natural woven, baggy cardigan sweater. The sweater was over a white, thin, holey Freeport, Bahamas T-Shirt. Around his neck was a thick gold chain that hung about halfway down his chest. As if all that wasn't bad enough, he was sporting a cheesy 70s porn-stache and his hair was slicked back with pomade into a genuine 60s Elvis pompadour. He had some real height on it, too. A forty knot wind couldn't have moved it. It was pretty shellacked into place. I was a teenage girl in the eighties and I didn't use that much hair product. Yikes. I wanted to stop him and ask him, "Really? You are going to wear that getup into a hardware store in Bozeman, Montana?! Dude, you are ASKING for somebody to beat you up on the way back to your car." I wanted to call those people from that show "What Not To Wear." |
Bald Eagle Perched on a dead limb snowy head on a swivel raptors' eyes see all. Today on my way home for lunch, I saw three bald eagles, a red tailed hawk, and a prairie falcon. It was a beautiful sunny day; the high was a balmy 36 degrees. It was so nice, I wore short sleeves. (It's a Montana thing.) The Bridgers were majestic against a brilliant blue sky. It was a beautiful day in my neighborhood; a beautiful day for neighbors; would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor? Some days are just good days. You know? |
| Hubby and I have been talking quite a bit about what we will do when Monilad leaves home. Up until about a month ago, I had been having almost panic attacks at the sense of empty nest brought about by thinking about my only child out in the world and us being without her. But, as I have noted, I got some therapy. I'm feeling pretty good about it now. After thinking about it so much, I came to realize that it's almost a new chapter in our lives. As humans, ideally, we spend the first twenty years of our lives with our parents. During that time, we learn and grow. We soak up what wisdom we can from our parents (in some cases learning what not to do and how not to act, unfortunately) and then in our second twenty years, we go out into the world and have our own children. During that second score of our years, we give to our children what our parents gave to us, passing on life's lessons. But, that, too, as all things, must end. In time, it is time for that same torch to be passed. Soon it will be time for my daughter to go out in the world and make her own way in it. Then will come the third score of my life. And although I couldn't see it before, now I'm really excited about the coming adventure. Now, for the first time, I will have time alone with my husband. Time I have never had. When he and I met, Monilad was two years old. We've never known life without a child. We've always had to worry about babysitters, daycare, parent/teacher meetings, wondering if we have enough money for a dentist or god forbid, are we going to have to worry about an orthadontist. Now we are talking about taking a celebratory graduation trip. Yeah, that's right. When she graduates, we are going to Hawaii. Just the two of us. I'm still worried, but now about a different thing. My mom and dad put in their twenty (plus) years raising us kids and then they got started on their third score years together. And then, just four years in, my father was killed in a freak accident. That was it, my mom was alone. I know that none of us knows what tomorrow holds, that it could be me that gets my ticket punched by the beer truck on my way to work in the morning. That the next deer I hit comes all the way through my windshield instead of just bouncing off of my fender. You can't predict life at all. But, until that happens, I'm going to keep planning that Hawaii trip in three years. |
| This morning at about 6:45am a school bus hit a power pole and knocked out power in my neighborhood for the morning. It was strange getting up in total silence. Until the power goes out, you don't realize exactly how much sound we are surrounded by. The hum of the air purifiers, the burble of the aquarium, the yammer of Monilad's morning radio programs, the hum of the refrigerator compressor, all of the electronic sound we are surrounded by 24 hours a day. I lay there revelling in the quiet for a few extra minutes. Luckily, I use my cell phone for my alarm, so I was able to get up on time. I realized how dependent we are on electronics and electricity today. Because there was no electricity, the pump down at the water station couldn't get it to my house. So, no water. I brushed my teeth with bottled water and washed my face with handiwipes. I gave the pets bottled water in their dish because I couldn't fill it out of the faucet. Because there was no electricity, the coffeemaker didn't go off and make me coffee. I also couldn't toast my poptarts. So, no breakfast at home. I was also afraid to open the fridge too many times for fear of losing too much of the cold. I got coffee and made my poptarts in the microwave at work. Because there was no electricity, I couldn't back my Expedition out of my garage. I had to take my little Contour on the ice and snow.  So many things out of one morning, simply because for a time I had been returned to Pre Industrial Revolution times. |
| Today is my Hubby's birthday. Yesterday we went out to a nice dinner and then out to the movies. We went and saw a movie that he was a little reluctant to see, but I wanted to see from the time I saw the first advertisement for it. It was The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. I love both actors and was intrigued with the movie concept. For anyone not familiar, both men have been diagnosed with cancer and decide to travel the world together checking items off a "Bucket List", things to do before they kick the bucket. It's a very touching story of friendship and the journey of the soul. I think one of the most profound moments in the movie, however, comes when the two men are sitting in Egypt atop a pyramid. Morgan Freeman's character turns to Jack Nicholson's and tells him about Egyptian heaven. It seems that when you get to the Egyptian equivalent of the Pearly Gates, they only ask you two questions. The first question is: Did you find joy in life? What a profound question. Are you finding joy in life? Perhaps you find joy in your spouse. Perhaps you find a deep happiness being married to your soulmate. Perhaps you find joy in your children or grandchildren. Playing and laughing and watching them grow and mature into incredible people and knowing that you had a part in that. Perhaps you find joy in your work. The knowledge and satisfaction at the end of a long hard day that having completed it, your work will live on. Your dedication made a difference in this world. Perhaps you find joy in a hobby. Music, writing, sewing, a million other creative outlets for your talent and inate abilities. Ways in which to share your unique gifts with the world. The second question they ask you at the gates to Egyptian heaven is this: Did others find joy in you? Hmmmm. That one is harder. I, for one, am going to look harder at the joy in my life. Both at the joy I receive and at the joy I give. It might be very important for me someday. |
| Today at work I had one of the most embarrassing moments. At my work the female cashiers take turns cleaning the bathrooms every day. They are open to the public, but they usually aren't too bad. They aren't huge, so it only takes us about twenty minutes for each one. No big deal, it makes a nice break in the afternoon once a week. Today was my day to clean. When we clean the men's room, we set the cleaning supplies just outside the door and then prop the door open with a little wooden wedge - to signal to the world at large that, Hey, don't come in, cleaner at work here. (In my experience those are the UNIVERSAL signs of bathroom cleaning in process, stay the hell out. But what do I know. ) I had finished cleaning and had kicked the prop out of the door on my way out when I realized that I'd forgotten to change out the trash. The wedge is a pain in the ass. Being wooden, it slips on the linoleum flooring and you have to kick it really hard while you hold the door to jam it up in there so that it stays. If you do it wrong, it creeps shut on you. So once I'd kicked it out, I didn't want to have to jack with putting the dang thing back in. So, I cleverly (maybe not) propped the door open with the waist high trash can and ran around the corner to our breakroom where the trash bags are kept. I was gone between 45 seconds and a minute, no more. Remember, my cleaning supplies are all sitting right outside the door and the door is propped open about a foot and half or two feet by the trash can. Cleaning still happening. Right? When I got back, I leaned against the door, opening it even further, with my back sort of to the room and started wrestling the lid off the can to change the bag. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of color (it's an all white bathroom) something orange and green, as I'm about to turn my head to look, I heard the flush of one of the urinals. Oh, my God. I've just walked in on some guy taking a leak. Without looking, I jumped out the room and started kicking the trash can back in so the door will close, as fast as I can. The whole time I'm saying, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. I didn't realize. I'm so sorry. Pardon me." I'm standing out in the hallway waiting for this guy to come out, praying the floor will open up and swallow me, when out he comes grinning from ear to ear LAUGHING. The bastard. HE thought it was funny!!! I'm dying of embarrassment and he's laughing his ass off! I realized the color I saw was the back of his plaid shirt as he was belly up to the urinal. What I couldn't figure out is what the hell he was doing in there peeing with the damn DOOR OPEN?!? I'd have knocked if he'd have moved the trash can when he went in! What kind of exhibitionist pees in a public place with the door standing open?! Men. |
Only two more shopping days left until I close my contest. Twenty thousand gps and a merit badge up for grabs.
In the meantime, here's a funny story from my family's skelton closet to keep you giggling. We used to live in Estes Park, CO. Estes Park is the eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park and its economy is completely tourist driven. So, every holiday they can make into a money making opportunity, they do. Fourth of July is a huge town wide...well, not to put too fine a point on it...cluster fuck. Town literally shuts down. Travel is impossible. It's just wall to wall fools cluttering up the place waiting for sundown and the several hundred thousand dollars worth of fireworks that the local Jaycees shoot off over the lake. There are always drunken fights and stabbings and occasionally even bigger problems. So, when we lived there, we always left town for the Fourth. One year when Monilad was five or six, we went camping up in Rocky Mountain National Park. We put in a couple of months early for a camping spot in one of the good campgrounds and lucked out. It was beautiful. We did all the camping cliches. Including smores. We even let Monilad toast her own marshmallows. Picture it. An incredible summer evening around a campfire. The sun has just gone down. All around us are the soft sounds of other campers toasting marshmallows at their campsites and the gentle sounds of an evening breeze through the lodgepole pines above us. Owls hoot in the forest around us. Suddenly, my daughter's marshmallow catches fire. She emits a little, "Eep!" and jerks it quickly out of the fire, still flaming, towards her. Here's a funny thing about flaming marshmallow. It's sort of liquified like lava. Part of the marshmallow, still flaming, flies off of the stick and smacks her on the outside corner of her right eyebrow. It shocks her so badly, she opens her eyes really big and the right eyelid sticks open, stuck to the flaming marshmallow. It happens so quickly, Hubby and I just stare in shock for a second or two. Then we all three jump up at the same time. Monilad starts running around the campsite waving her toasting stick with bits of flaming marshmallow still attached screeching at the top of her lungs like a teakettle on full boil with her right eyebrow on fire and her right eye glued wide open. (The eyebrow went out after the first lap.) Hubby starts chasing her shouting, "Hold still, honey! Hold still!" I'm screaming, "Put her out! Put her out!!" Needless to say, we gathered a crowd pretty quickly. Hubby finally caught her, somehow managing not to get stabbed with flaming, molten marshmallow. We also managed to NOT set the surrounding forest on fire. Although several onlookers had to stomp out bits of flung flaming marshmallow to prevent it. We doused her face in icy cooler water and followed it with aloe vera I happened to have along for sunburn. Aside from the loss of a layer of skin when I peeled off the cooled marshmallow and most of her right eyebrow and eyelashes to singeing, she was fine. It just looked like she sunburned her eyelid. Yeah, nobody does extreme camping like we do. |
| Or learning how to keep my big mouth shut. I have a bad habit I'm trying to break myself of. I can't seem to know when to JUST SHUT UP. It trips me up all the time. And it's not just in one area it's in a couple of areas. First (and worst) is the jokester in me. When I'm hot, it's like listening to the zingers out of Mad Magazine. I'm horrible. The bad part is that once I get a laugh out of my audience, it's like I can't quit. I try to keep them harmless, because I have made people cry before. (I was trying to hurt them...it wasn't out of carelessness.  ) I decided that a few are ok, but too many, and I'm just being a laugh whore. If I want to do stand up comedy, I can go down to a comedy club. Besides, I would say that about 1/3 of my truly spontaneous zings go over my audiences' heads. Alot of my co-workers aren't exactly Rhodes scholars. So, I was proud of myself today for swallowing about five really good zings instead of voicing them. My next problem is learning when a problem isn't MY problem. I'm not Underdog. I don't have to swoop in and save someone from screwing something up. I'm not a manager. I'm not a supervisor. I'm not anyone. Unless I'm asked for help from now on, I'm just going to sit back and keep my big mouth closed. It's NOT MY PROBLEM. (That's one of my new mottos.) My problem is that I'm a bit of a perfectionist. If I see someone screwing up, I feel compelled to stop them and tell them about it. (Annoying, huh?) Today I didn't help three times. I just ducked my head and did my own work. My smallest problem, but one that will be the hardest for me to stop doing, is trying to smooth things over in an uncomfortable situation. Last weekend two coworkers had a misunderstanding and were airing their differences at work. Normally I would have tried to wade in and smooth things out. Today I decided that they are both big girls and it's NOT MY PROBLEM. I stopped both of them explaining it to me (at different times) and told them that very thing. "Y'all need to work this out. I'm not taking sides. This isn't my problem." I figure I've got enough of my own crap to deal with. I don't need to be adding to it by opening my mouth. Discretion. My new watch word. |
| My husband's employer holds their annual holiday party in January. It's nice if the spouse's holiday party is in December and also happens at the same restaurant. This place is sort of an institution around here. If you are looking for great prime rib, it's where you go. It's not a super ritzy fancy place to eat. There is a bar attached, but it's still a family restaurant. You can wear jeans and the waitresses don't wear uniforms or anything. Every year, we have at least one employee or spouse get plowed and act like an ass. This year's spouse in question was completely pissed before dinner even started. Happily she wasn't a loud and obnoxious drunk. She was one of those drunks who sits and stares off into the distance. Just before dinner, she got up and went into the bathroom. One of the women at my table was in there as she went in. When my table mate came back, she reported that the spouse had come into the bathroom, thrown up, pulled the bathroom stall door half off and then promptly passed out in the floor. I told my husband that if I ever acted like that at one of his company functions, embarrassing him in front of his boss(es) and co-workers, I would hope that he would kick my ass. Good Gawd. What possesess people? It's times likes last night that I realize how glad I am I don't drink any more. |
I'm bored and need a laugh. Come play with me.
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| Just thought I'd drop by and oil the hinges on my blog. I'm pretty sure it's rusty from disuse. Hi guys! ~waves to the folks kind enough to drop in~ Long time no see. (My fault entirely. )When last we left our intrepid heroine, she seemed to be losing her mind....... Well, I got tired of whining about my shit in my blog and went out and did something about it. I KNOW. Wild notion, huh? I've been using my light box for the winter blues and it is helping immensely. I also went out and enrolled in weekly therapy. (For a while when things were really bleak, I went twice a week. Hey...nobody does crazy like I do crazy. ) I'm feeling really great now. I highly recommend it.I really like my therapist. She is helping me work through crap and fix the handle back on my life. Writing unfortunately has been on hold. I've been working through lots of ideas in my head, but I can honestly say that these are the first words I've put down on paper (so to speak) since November. I guess I needed to work on other stuff more. I've missed all of you, but I needed the vacation to work on myself more. I'll take some time over the next week or so to visit each of your blogs as I can. I hope you are all in good health and spirits. I don't know about any of you, but I'm damned glad 2007 is over, 'cause frankly it sucked. And I'm really looking forward to a wonderful 2008.  to all of you and see you soon. T |
| I'm on the Crazy Train. Literally. It has made a big stop at my house in the last few days. Ok, I'll admit it. For the last few weeks. My problem is the season change coupled with the time change. The time change is always hard on me. The abrupt shift from what seems like light to darkness is just too hard for me. I hate Daylight Savings Time anyway. The shift back just always kills me. And having it happen later this year was the pits. I also suffer from mild to severe seasonal depression. Depending on how I am managing my bipolar, that's proportionally how the season change affects me. Which kills me because I LOVE the fall and winter. I love snowy and rainy days. But last week we had a dark and stormy day and the next day I was unable to leave the house. It upset my chemical balance too much, threw me into a tailspin. I spent the whole next day in bed crying for no reason. We thought about sending me to a tanning salon this winter, but the packages were all expensive and besides that, I'm a redhead. Not really tanning material. Instead, I talked to my psychiatrist about getting one of those light boxes. My insurance won't pay for it, but she was all for it. So we sucked up and ordered one. They are kinda spendy, but the whole family can use it this winter. It won't go to waste in a family of depressives. I got a model I can set on a table top and use when I'm on the computer or when I'm at home having lunch. You just set it so that the light reaches your eyes, but not so you are staring into it. It should come in a few days. I'll let you know if it works. Until then, I'm gonna hang out on the Crazy Train. It's snowing here tonight and off and on for the rest of the week. Yea, snow! Boo, clouds. I'm also behind on NaNo. I'm writing every day, but I'm getting behind. I guess I'll just keep slogging away and hope to catch up tomorrow. I'm hoping my characters start doing something soon. They are kind of boring me.  |
 The store I work at closes at six o'clock, but every day we have someone come in at 5:59 or even (like tonight) 6:02 and want to stand around shopping while we are trying to go home. Tonight's guy is usually a nice enough guy. I know him by name. We visit about the weather and the price of gas when he comes in. Small town stuff. Tonight, I guess I was just in a bad place or something because when Joe came in it just pissed me off. He came to my line, cause, like I said, we chat. So I ring him up. I run his credit card. I'm finished and he says, "That's not the price it said on the shelf." "What?" I'm thinking, You couldn't tell me that 15 seconds ago, BEFORE I ran your freaking credit card? "No, let me run back and check it." So off he goes to the BACK of the dang store trailing two sales people wondering what the heck is going on. See, Joe was holding us hostage. The salespeople can't leave until the doors are locked and the customers are all out of the store. I've got 6 sales people, three other cashiers and a manager watching me try to ring this fool out and he's off galavanting in the store. The trio comes back, joined by the manager. Sure enough, my computer price is over by a dollar. One dollar. We are fifteen minutes late closing and this jagoff wants to argue Auger Bit prices with me. What happened is that late in the afternoon we recieve shipments. Then the paperwork goes upstairs, gets finalized in our system and first thing the next morning our computer spits out price changes. The salespeople's first job every morning is to change any price labels on shelves. It's not a perfect system because for about thirty minutes at night and about an hour in the morning we have some mispriced items. And Joe grabbed one of those items. At 6:10. And now he wants to argue with me about it. He wants me to void his credit card slip and return the item and resell it to him at the shelf price, recharging his credit card. The manager with me tonight is our youngest manager. I think he's about 26. Sometimes he's a little waffly, especially in crunch situations. All I can think by this time is, Hell no, that ain't happening. Returning stuff means paperwork. I grabbed the bit rang it up, hit the return key, resold it at the lower price put a note in the computer that I'd sold it at the lower price per the manager then pulled a dollar out of the till and slapped it on the counter and said, "Have a good night." The manger looked at me and said, "You know they are gonna yell at you and me tomorrow, don't you?" "Nope. I just kept us from having ten or fifteen more minutes of overtime for eleven people. Go lock the damn door." Here's my deal. Was I wrong to be pissy with this guy in the first place? You know, the whole customer is always right thing. But, I just don't think you go into a store AT closing time and then haggle prices with the cashier. Who needed the attitude adjustment, me or him? |
| I had a day of mistaken impressions and I realized that as a public service, I needed to get the word out to people shopping in hardware stores. This is for your own protection, folks. When shopping, try to put yourself in the cashier's shoes. Can someone easily look your purchases over and conclude your end purpose? Here's what I mean. Try not to come in and buy any of the following lists of items in conjunction with one another (I've had all of these in these in the last month): -400 ft of plastic sheeting and extra chainsaw blades (it looks to the cashier like you are about to recreate horror movie scenes) -an axe and a box of 55 gallon plastic garbage bags (that smacks of body disposal) -a box of disposable gloves, a gallon of bleach, carpet cleaner, shop rags and the large box of garbage bags (crime scene cleanup) Maybe I just have too vivid an imagination and watch too much crime TV and read too many mystery novels. I'm sure my customers are all upstanding citizens, not the felonius ne'r-do-wells I keep making them out to be. I swear every time I get one of these folks, I take a mental picture and note their name if I can because I just have this funny feeling I'm going to be saying to the cops later, "He seemed like a nice enough fellow, Officer. Are you sure he was on a three state killing spree?" Speaking of my vivid imagination, I think NaNo is already getting to me. Everything is reminding me of writing. I read someone's name on a credit card and find myself jotting it down so that I can put it in my book. Today I saw the name Irritrol Systems on a guy's shirt. I didn't ask him what the company did, because I didn't care. In my mind, they are some sort of troll removal company in the fairy realm. And I'm not even writing fantasy! |
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