Wow. I just read my comments on that last blog and I must say thank you for everybody’s kind words! I was just excited to see that there were 4 comments to read! However, I was afraid to open them for fear that someone would scold me on my spelling mistakes. I must have written that segment after searching for inner peace by finishing unfinished projects… I couldn’t even use the spell check??
Whatever. It’s my blog.
Well, thanks to the mighty wind last night I now have a new project waiting for me. It’s called “clean up all the trash that blew all over my yard”. I live in a city and on a busy road, so it’s not uncommon to find paper cups and plastic bags stuck in my bushes. But last night, we had a huge mess of a wind that brought all sorts of things for me to clean up. Sometimes I get lucky and other peoples stuff, as opposed to other people’s garbage, blows on over. I get to see my how well my neighbor’s kid is doing in school because his homework is stuck to my fence. And sometimes I’ll find love notes written by the high school kids. That’s always interesting. I don’t remember saying those types of things when I was their age. If you could see the way they dress, you’d wonder if they were on their way to school or the local street corner.
Although it was just a wind storm, the Lehigh Valley seems to be prone to tornados. We’ve had a few in our 7 years living there. Must be a “valley” thing. A couple of these have spun right down our street while we slept all warm and comfy in bed. Once, we had the finger of a tornado reach into our porch and picked up all of our beach chairs and throw them into the driveway, like it was angry with them
(Curse you, you vile beach chairs. Nobody will sit on the beach as long I can stop it)… All while leaving the plastic pots sitting quietly next to the door
(Awe, pretty little pots. You can stay.) Stuff like that amazes me.
Today I have a really bad cold. I feel like I can not function properly because my head has the sloppys. I can’t stop sneezing and my nose may soon glow in the dark. Still, I come to work – which is where I am now (yes, I am blogging at work. Do you hear me? I am BLOGGING at WORK. First timer. I saw in blogger.com how you can get away with things like that. Not that I’ll follow their suggestions, but at least I know there are others out there blogging instead of working… Ok, ok. I’m not that rebellious. It’s my lunch hour.) I would have stayed home but I took the day off on Friday already and felt compelled to be here today, Monday.
Why is it we take days off of work when we just don’t feel like going and go to work on days we are actually sick? I’m pretty sure I am contagious too, being that I only just got this cold yesterday. Somehow I would rather expose my coworkers to germs than take a sick day that is given to me for exactly these reasons. Why would I want to waste my sick day being sick? Maybe it’s a subconscious attempt to get back at my boss. Not only to expose him to lethal cold germs but to spitefully not use his allotted sick days.
I don’t know, sometimes I think I think too much.
Of course every time I take off I feel guilty. I’m not sure why, I mean it’s allowed. That’s why you have days given to you. Right?
On top of feeling guilty for not being here Friday, I have to leave early today as I have a doctor’s appointment at the end of the day (ironic how I have a cold at this time.) Even though I scheduled this appointment weeks ago, I still think it just looks bad to have to leave early after taking a day off. And of course I forgot to tell anyone about this appointment, so nobody even knew about it until about 2 hours ago. But my company is pretty laid back and no one even blinked an eye when I finally confessed.
I said “confessed”, like I had a horrible secret or something.
To top it off, I know my doctor is going to yell at me too for waiting so long for my check up. It’s always nice expecting to be yelled at. I look forward to it. Funny how people in certain professions are so intimidating, at least to me they are.
And it doesn’t even have to be a doctor, or a police officer, or anything like that. The girl at the grocery store checkout line is threatening to me. I am 33 years old and I still get carded for buying Earl’s cigarettes, and this girl has to interrogate me on my age and ask to see proof that I am old enough to buy them. Yes, it’s a compliment that I don’t look old enough to buy cigarettes, but at the same time, this girl is 15 years younger than me asking me to prove something to her. I get the same way when I get carded for beer. I have to reassure myself I am old enough, in fact, I’m probably older than the person selling it. Crazy stuff.
Speaking of grocery store check out girls, I had a really irritating one ringing me up yesterday. She was about 18 years old and she absolutely would NOT take my bonus card from my hand. She just kept ignoring my hand as I continued to hold it out like an idiot. And all of a sudden we engaged in a battle of who can hold out the longest.
I kept my hand out and she kept ignoring me. She even shot a look at me, and all I could think was “bring it on snotty nose”.
My card started to shake and I knew I was losing. Finally I set the card down right by her scanny thing, nice and loud though, so she could hear my keys hit the metal counter. Of course, the way I am, I make an excuse to myself immediately as to why someone would treat me like that.
“Its not that she’s mean, it’s just that she wants to wait until she’s done scanning everything first, then she’ll swipe my bonus card. She will, just wait, you’ll see.”
So then I remember that I still need to get Earl’s cigarettes. I think, here’s the perfect opportunity. She can scan my card while waiting for the lady to come back with the cigarettes.
I tell her the brand, she yells to the lady to get them… and still no card scanning is taking place.
I think, what’s wrong with her. She knows the card is there. She sees it! What’s her problem?? She doesn’t want me to get my bonus prices! What a bitch! Does she not understand the importance of getting the bonus card price? She’s too young, how could she? I bought certain items just because of the bonus price!
Just scan the card, scan the cardddd, doo ittttt…
The lady returns with the wrong brand and is sent back again. Now this girl has even more time… finally, I can’t take it anymore and it just comes out,
“Are you going to scan my card?”
I said it. I had to. Nicely, of course, but I said it. There, I won! She wasn’t going to do it, but I stood my ground and MADE her do it.
What does she do? She looks right into my eyes, takes her two fingers and slaps them down on my keys, drags the card across the glass, and as she’s flips them over her hand to give back to me she says in the snottiest voice she could, “Got I.D.?”
Ahh haaa. I haven’t won yet. She has the heart of a cold reptile.
I knew she needed my I.D. for the check I was going to write, and she could have waited until I wrote the check out. Yet she asked for it now because of the cigarettes. She knows I’m old enough, how could she not? Any other person would have made that move look innocent, but she did it out of spite because when I handed it to her, she gave it BACK to me, knowing that I would have to hand it to her AGAIN when I give her the check.
Oh she’s good. She’s all about control.
I had no choice. I had go along with her plan.
She’s a lucky girl, you know. If I were anybody else, I would have either said something straight to her face or have gone to the customer service booth thingy and complained that cashier #4 has an attitude problem. But instead, I thought I’ll be the bigger person and just drop it. Maybe she’s having a bad day, who knows. I don’t know why she is taking it out on me, but whatever. I’ll win this war by not letting her get to me. I took my license back and started to push my cart.
Suddenly, I lost my senses and felt the rush of having to at least get the last word in. I turned to her with a big smile and said, “Thank you so much and have a nice day”.
Yeahhh, that’ll get her.
I was so proud of myself. I strolled out of there all cocky, pushing my cart like it was some sort of chariot, knowing I had just beat her at her own game. All the way home I went over each of my strategic moves, playing with alternative endings and slipping in witty come-backs as I came up with them. Finally I was home and so excited to tell Earl about my victory against the register girl.
That’s when it happened… That’s when I realized the little sneak had beat me…
I opened the first bag and found she had put the cold cuts in with the raw chicken, and the second bag she put the can goods in with the bread.
That succubus! That’s the oldest trick in the book.
If I didn’t have such a cold, I would have noticed her sabotage. I will be wiser to her ways next time around. It’s just that my head is all stuffy and I can’t breathe…Hey, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Who knows, maybe this will be an ongoing blog, a blog mini series, blog part I & II. I need to take some Tylenol and eat a banana.
