What not to do...

Note for all my readers...

When people are walking down a dark deserted street, a flash of bright light WILL draw their attention... This is an unavoidable fact...

So if you are in a ground floor bedroom turning on the lights with the blinds open before you put on any sort of clothing...

I mean, I don't want to sound like a prude, but I was just as surprised as they were...

The truth

Have you ever told someone how you really truely felt?

Sometimes it takes a lot of courage, but it usually ends up paying off... right?

I told my boss how I felt...

I don't appreciate being told, on one hand, that if I treat the druggies the crackheads and thw whores any different than any of the rest of the customers I'll be fired, but, on the other hand, being told that I'm being too nice to the widower who's son has left her to California to live happily with his wife...

And then not being told the work schedual more than 48 hours in advance (that's right folks I was schedualed to work sunday morning... but I wouldn't have found that out until I went into work at 11pm on friday night... giving me all of 34hours between when i got off and when I started...)

needless to say i said no to that idea...

Actually... I didnt say no... I said never... I also said something along the lines of "if I'm expected to do my job then why the hell aren't you doing your job"...

So keeping up with that tradition...

You're a crazy bitch... and living in the same house with you has been the bane of my existence for the last two months... No, I dont think your behaviors are normal or justified; in fact I think childish and deviant are much more accurate.

I swallow my toungue every time you ask me for advice because telling the truth would make our living situation that much more unbearable.

And no, I didn't want this FUCKING bed in my goddamn room...

That's why it's never been set-up...

In fact I'll return it soon...

Enjoy...

God that felt good

On the plus side... only a few more months til I move out...

=D

Been Tagged...

First a note..

I truely hate my job... I hate the customers, who are the emitomy of slime and make me think twice of the social programs I would normally support without question... I dislike my boss who's only form of discipline is writing a note in a book for everyone to see detailing what stupid thing you've done wrong with no advice on how to recitify the situation or how to follow proper protocol... I hate a lot of my cowokers... well... I dont hate the ones that are still here, but 4 have quit/been fired/given notice since I started a month ago... not too shabby considering we started with 11 employees...

yes..

so...

Being tagged appears to imply that I have to share 6 random things about me... I shall try my best to be completely random...

1) The first thing I do whenever I turn on my computer is disable quicktime... I know there are ways to permanently disable, or simply stopping it from automatically starting up on login, and I've done both... but for so long I've been logging in and turning it off that it doesn't feel like my computer if I don't do it (so I set it back)

2) When I feel sad or lonely I stare at my desktop picture... the bird looks as sad and lonely as I feel some days... it makes me feel better...

3) I like my sneakers to be exceptionally grubby... My last pair of converse looked awsome, but I had to stop wearing them most of the time cuz I wore holes in the leather... dirt and stains are cool by me, but holes make you look poor...

4) Wolf blass is (and has been for a while) my favourite winery... I would drink it by the barrelful if I had the money

5) The smell of stale coffee is almost as effective as the smell of oranges at making me feel queezy... who would have thought something I <3 so much could have something in common with something I
6) I've prayed the rosary more times in the last month than I've "normal" prayed... Despite what I may not like of the Catholic church, the rosary is a very helpful prayer tool... today I will be covering the sorrowful mysteries...

And since it appears I get to tag people myself... I will choose randomly... Morg-o, Lauren, Vince, Chelsea... i don't know how many I'm supposed to randomly choose... 4 seems like a nice low random number...

Life Story (and then some)

We have a regular customer whom I know to live nearby our house...

Ove the last weeks she has come in every day and chatted about nothing..

Today she offered me a ride home... Against my better judgement, I accepted (mostly cuz I know where she lives and shes a frail old lady who can barely see over the counter at the store)...

I kinda wish i hadn't..

She ambushed me with pictures and photo albulms and talked to me about Dieppe and her daughters wedding and her first ex husband and her best friends daughters husbands brother (literally... he's a police officer in St Paul)...

I should have walked..

Time it takes to walk, 8 minutes..

Time it takes to drive and be bored by stories, 48 minutes...

I was contemplating saying something like "LET ME OUT OF THE CAR PLEASE!!! I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FROM HERE!!!" but I suppose I'm too polite...

Not for lack of things to say

I have plenty of stories... Believe me... I've probibly forgotten more entertaining stories in the last week than I've writeen about over the last 3.5 years..

But then we come to the reason why, if I have so many stories, my pages have been static the last few weeks..

Cuz I'm le tired and looking at words just doesnt do it for me when I'm tired...

But Morga requested and I shall oblige (more or less because I feel guilty about not dropping my rings off in person)...

But they shall be in point form..

- A middle aged man parked himself by the sandwich station and threw relish packets at me whenever my back was slightly turned to him..

- A meth addict snapped and went into a rage because I didn't have matches yet (apparently he should have known that I wouldnt have matches since they hadnt been invented yet)

- A lady of the night refused to pay for the sandwich she originally picked out because I had contaminated it (how did I contaminate it, you ask? by using the upc scanner)

- A guy came in begging us to give him change for the phonebooth.. the catch... he just wanted the money... he didnt want to exchange currency into a phonebooth friendly form... After begging and pleading and getting nowhere, he goes outside... comes back in 5 minutes later to rifle through our sandwich selection... We question him about his lack of money... "oh yeah"... he leaves... Comes back in, 5 minutes later... "Could I use your microwave? I forgot I had this sandwhich in my car"... Check... yup, it looks like one of our sandwiches... check... yup... one of our sandwhiches is missing from the rack (we had just recieved our nightly sandwhich order... so noticing out of place sandwhiches is pretty easy)... "no... please leave the sandwhich and leave..."

- A lady came in, purchased a few items, and then started to leave... paused... "didnt you say it was $13.74?" "yes ma'am..." "you only gave me 6.26..." *shakes head* "WELL?!?!" "well what?"
"aren't you gonna give me the rest of my change?" and it continued on from there...

Such is my life...

Love and Hate

You know what I hate?

when all the raisins in your raisin bran are at the bottom of the box...



You know what I love?

when you reach the bottom of a box of rasin bran...


Today I reached the bottom...

I Laughed at a Customer Today...

I hope I don't get trouble, cuz she seemed quite offended... But this is what happened...

She stormed into the store, grumpy as could be... walked right up to the counter and in a demanding way said,

"DO YOU GUYS SELL POP HERE?!"

as polite as I could I directed her to the display she had walked past to get to the counter, as well as the 40' floor to ceiling refrigeration unit at the back of the store (which, to my knowledge, is pretty standard to every convenience store of the last 50 years)...

She walked down the isle to the cooler, grabbed a few 2L of coke and then walked back...

"WHERE ARE YOUR FUCKING CHIPS?!"

And this is where I laughed... She was so angry... and she had just walked down the chip isle... 30' of chest height chips in an assortment of flavours lining both sides of her walk... But she couldn't be bothered...

and so I laughed...

I pointed at the chips, and I laughed...
(I was tired afterall)...

Good Intentions and Bad Conversations

So I have a story to tell... Picture this:

I am on my way to work... Due to forgetting several items, and remembering them individually as I was exiting (or trying to exit), I was running a tad bit late...

I walked quickly to pick up the time I was short, which seemed to be working... for the most part...

Shuffle shuffle shuffle... "snow in my shoes... damn..." I think to myself "keep going... there will be plenty of time to fight off frostbite once I get to work"

"wait a second?" I pause briefly... "did I hear something"

"hwwwwwlp"

"Couldn't have been... need to get to work"

"hwwwwwlp... psssssssss... hwwwwwlp"

"Where is that comming from?"

I search the snowbanks around where I'm standing, and sure enough behind one of the parking lot piles is an elderly woman who had seemingly slipped on the ice and was unable to right herself...

The weather out tonight was breezy and cold (-27c/-10f... -40C/-40f when you factored in the wind) and as such she was visibly chilled. She was shaking slightly and wasn't able to talk without a slur...

First things first, make sure she doesn't have anything broken... I ask her if she hurt anything when she fell... Nope... I ask her if she thinks she will be able to walk... yup...

I offer to walk her to the store for some complimentary coffee so that she can warm up (it was, afterall the parkinglot for the store that she unrighted herself)... She refused...

So she spouted off an address... Took a few tries to understand it, but eventually we were on our way... She wasn't able to stand under her own power, but she seemed concious enough... So I kept her engaged in conversation as half carried her home...

A block away from the address she gave me, I asked her if anyone was home where we were going... "Yeeeees... buh dey asleeeee" she tells me... This I have a slight problem with...

Fair enough for them sleeping, it is late... But when she told me, she faced towards me while she spoke... Which I guess was the first time since our encounter had began...

Her mouth reeked of rum... It was far far too overpowering, and really unexpected...

And I'm sad to say my view changed.

All of a sudden, I'm not saving a sweet old lady from near death... I'm helping carry a drunk home from the bar...

I suppose it wouldn't have changed anything... She almost certainly needed my help regardless of her state... But a part of me felt used (like it was all in her plan... "I don't want to pay for a cab to go four blocks... I'll just sit in the snow near a busy store and get someone to carry me home")

I suppose it's a little wrong to change my view of the situation... I mean we all have our vices, and she was just as deserving of love and compassion as anyone... But a thank you would have been nice...

Instead of a thank you I got a "don't follow me to the door... you're not getting anything from me" (spoken in a thick drunken english)... As if the only reason I would do something nice to an old lady would be to steal stuff from her or take advantage of her afterwards...

I arrived to work late... and slightly bitter...


Work was good though... and my entertaining story of the night...

A "couple" comes into the store, and buys some cigarettes...

He says "Oh, crap... I should get condoms"...
She says "don;t worry about that... I have lots... But I want the cash up front!!!"
"what was that?" I ask.
"oh... nothing" he says.

They pay, then he goes to the bank machine... and then they leave...

...

20 minutes later...

...

She comes back in, uses the washroom, buys some more condoms, and leaves... In a different vehicle... With a different guy...

Eww??

Forgetfulness

So I have officially "adjusted" to my new sleeping schedule... Which really isn't much different than my old schedule...

Old:

Stay awake... crash...

New:

Stay awake, go to work, crash...


but I am finding it hard to sleep past 11pm... after only 4 days, I cannot sleep in past my start time...

But I suppose I should get to the title of my post (because every once ina while I have a reason for the titles I choose)...

Last night I woke up, checked everyones blogs ('cept sharons... cuz she appears to haev broken her's again)... I then made myself breakfast and played a few videogames... Then I got bored... and checked to see if anyone had updated their blogs yet... which is silly, cuz I don;t know too many people assides from myself who would be updating their blogs between the hours of 2am and 6am...

But I did check... and I did check again...

I mean, there are some 30 blogs on my sidebar, so someone should be updating today right?

Yeah... it was when I checked all the blogs about an hour ago that it occured to me: "what the hell am I doing?"

And I thought I should share my lack of intelligence from the morning... Especially since I know most of you like to laugh at me (esp morgan and regan... they never stop laughing at me... so at least I'm considerate enough to give them good reasons)

Say what?

I think a leprechaun came into the store...

A little old man (maybe 5'2" or so... but with the raised area behind the counter, he looked a lot shorter) curley orange hair that was turned mostly gray, a green jacket, and the thickest irish accent I have heard on this side of the atlantic...

No pot of gold though...

perhaps next time...

Random Conversations...

I haven't quite got into the swing of things to start stories about outlandish things customers do...

Or perhaps there haven't been as many really stupid people...
(although I really do doubt that)

We had a severly creepy guy come into work today... He was drunk and old, and was hitting on the female employees...

Asking them out for dinner, talking about the girls he has had relaitions with that are a generation or two younger than him... You know... creepy stuff....

But as long as he keeps his distance, we try to ignore what he's saying... and it works... Until you get magical one liners... These are AWSOME pick-up lines btw... I don't know how my co-workers managed to keep their hands off of him...

"I've got a room rented at the Drake" (unfortunately, in cotext, this was not a proposition... which would have made it more creepy, and thus more entertaining)

"you only need to put in a few hundred hours work before you can get 'laid off' and start claiming EI" (hey ladies, He's single!)

"Just pretend I'm like your grandpa... it worked for my last girlfriend" (paraphrased of course, but this is general concensus of what he intended to say... his speech was slightly inhibited by his drinking)...

The girls eventually tired of him, and found jobs to do which removed them from the sales floor... He eventually grew tired of us ignoring him, and left...

Some peoples grandparents...

Oh...

and did I mention the weather forcast for edmonton?

Monday
A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 28. High minus 24.
(for the more accurate weather site...)

MON NOV 27 -25°C -32°C
(for the less accurate weather site)

Brace yourself children!

The ABC's of Retail

A is for Alcohol... and lots of it... man were there ever a lot of stupid people today...
"each pack of cigarettes is $10"
"yes?"
"well, then you cant count, you gave me $30.30 back"
"i can assure you, I can count, but when yuo apply a discount [for purchasing two packs] it usually ends up being less then normal..."

B is for bootleg... Because buying a pair of brand new Diesel jeans for $20 from a person who would not buy diesel jeans in the first place, cannot supply a purchase receipt (or even a gift receipt), and tries to steal a case of water from our display isn't suspicious at all... nope, not a bit...

C is for crack pipe... which we found in a bag left by a customer... We also found several brands of condoms, some gay porno DVD's, and an issue of American Hunter magazine... Must've been quite the night... The cops thought so too (we were searching through to look for identification... which ceased as soon as we found Señor Tubo)...

As i write this...

As I write this, the weather conditions outside are... sickening...

I think it's -20 (-30 or so with the wind)... Theres snow on the ground... it's blowing...

Which leads me to a couple of questions...

1) How can you wear so little clothing?

I mean, I know it's a part of your profession, and you need to dress accordingly... But if I was strutting along 118th in that, theres no way in hell a single coffee is gonna warm me up...

2) Being seasonally appropriate means wearing seasonably appropriate shoes...

Just remember, I don't think your profession has good dedical and mental coverage... If you slip on some ice in (what had to be 8") heels, you are gonna break something...

3) Why, oh why, god, why do you feel it necessary to wink at me?

*Shudder* I don't mean to be judgemental, but I know your profession... and it's dirty... and not like "I scrape up dead turkeys at the turkey farm" dirty... I'm talking "I radiate ghonoherpasyplilaids in a 5 ft aura" dirty... Winking at me makes it worse...

Praise Jesus for Stupid People

So yesterday was my first day at my new retail job (yay)...

There is a training computer program that is anticipated to take up to a week to complete, which I started on yesterday...

Thankfully the person who I am to replace (he gave notice last week) was caught stealing from the til... So instead of a week long training session, I get to jump right in...

So tonight is my first till shift...

My manager was so concerned that i was going to get stressed out and quit...

I reassured her by reminding her that at my previous gas station job I had to do everything she is expecting me to do, plus baking, plus hand counting all the stealables, by myself...

yes, thats right... I have a co-worker...

Anyways... back to the training video...

I managed to complete 6.5 hours of training on the program yesterday...

6.5 hours of him droning on and on and on and on... in a monotone voice...

It simulates a till, and has click-and-drag aperati so that you can pretend your actually using the hardware...

"a customer aproaches the till, after greeting them, attempt to scan the products"

(drag scanner overtop vitual prouct)

*beep*

(drag scanner overtop second virtual product)

*beep*

(drag scanner over third virtual product)

"this product appears to not scan properly, please manually enter the upc code"

*tickyticky ticky*

*beep*

"the customer has a coupon for product two"

*clicky clicky beep*

"the customer has decided not to get product one, please remove it from the list"

...

...

...

For six and a half hours...

news

So my stories will most likly return to their former glory...

I am working in retain again for the next little while...

should be... interesting...

It's Not You, It's Me

I swear...


I know I'm irritable, I know I'm moody... Anti-social? me? not in the least... And from the sounds of it, many of you know as well...


I wish to be left alone.


Please let me be the one to initiate conversation and interaction, because your attempts are not succeeding (in part due to my attitude and in part due to your timing)...


I really do just wish to be left alone...


Quiet is especially appreciated...


I'll see you in December...

I suppose I shall concede...

You win this time, morgan... but just you wait and see if next time I don't swear off of blogging all together...


Yes... So the lack of blog posts has been the result of a lot of things...

As a friend recently pointed out, November appears to have come early...

November is my least favourite month of the year because, for whatever reason I tend to reflect on how meaningless and inconsequential I, as an individual, perceive myself some days.


You know those days when you have absolutely no responsability. The days where everything that should be done, or can be done, do not necessarily need to be done. I mean, it would be great if they did get done, but you're life isn't going to end if you don't do them...

Well... this may come as a surprise to everyone. But I am inclined to have more than a few of those days. And, to make a problem where there shouldn't be one, I often take the opertunity to sit on my ass and not do a thing...

All day...

I'll close my room door, set my phone to silent and sleep/read/play video games all day...

And then I hate myself. So many things I could have accomplished, and I didn't do a single one.


Not to mention the friends who I ignore (who usually make a note of my lack of socialization with our next encounter)... I swear it's a miracle people still know I exist when i go on weeks long non-socialization spree's...


but yes...

My life hasn't been entirely self loathing since my last post...

We had thanksgiving dinner at our place for the roomies and a few people that didn't make it home for turkey day. Food was provided and prepared by the housemates (with donations from the attendees as well)...

It was a while ago, so I hope I can remember properly... but heres a breakdown...

Salad as prepared by Chelsee (she has a tendancy to burn water... so we tried not to let her near the oven)... basic and fabulous... salads can be terrible (ask anyone who has eaten at CUCA) and happily, these salades were not...

Wine as supplied by Evan (and I think someone else... Steph perhaps?)... Something about dead cats, and funky bottles... I can never remember...

Candied yams... everyone pause in rememberance of the candied yams... *pause*....
:-D' <- that's a drooling face btw
They were prepared by Stephy... I could have eaten them three meals a day for a week...

Turkey as prepared by Amber... It was moist, it was tasty, it was HUGE! Everything a turkey should be! (and it was her first time to boot)

And finally Pommegranate and Starfruit over anglefoodcake with cointreaux whip... as prepared by me... Pretentious much? Who would have thought... I thought it looked a lot prettier than it tasted, but most people seemed to clear their plates. So if it tasted like ass to them, and they ate it anyways, jokes on them cuz my feelings wouldn't have been hurt
=P
Just kidding... I would have been devestated, and everyone knows it.


Good times and good company were had by all...

And the best part was ignoring the giant burn marks in the carpet (because I dont really spend a lot of time in the living room upstairs, so everytime I do I see the little reminder of FF'06)... Well... the food was the best part... but the carpet was a close second...

yes...

So another hugely social event was the progressive supper/postcard competition. We started off with spanikopita at the (former) klein house, followed by ceasar salad at the convent, which was then followed by mexican casserole (or whatever it would be called) at the nudist colony, and then we retreated to the (red light) district (aka my house) for dessert...

Why does everything social have to involve food?

Anyways...

The results to the postcard competition were close, and I must say, Jenn had a deserving win... frick that thing was ugly... Although I must say, my aerial of edmontons west end (including the worlds largest temple to cosumerism) should have done better than second runner up (although the tie is a wicked cool prize)...

Work has been going pretty weekly the last month... a lot of rainy days has lead to really weak paycheques... which is lame... especially since the less money I have, the longer my tattoo will take to finish... *sigh*

The mood at work is really cool though... Lets go through a normal day...

Wake up ten minutes before work, look outside to see frost on the ground. Start getting dressed... Show up to work exactly on time to find everyone sitting around (because we'll kill the grass if we're on it while it's frozen) Sit down, read newspaper... finish reading newspaper... switch to tabloid newspaper... get frustrated with the style of writing (it's reads like the script for a jerry springer episode)... get frustrated at stupid paper... switch to comics... Look outside... still frosty... Play cribbage... look outside... frost looks like it's gone... start heading outside... start driving to task, notice frost still there, just hard to see from inside... go back inside.. play more cribbage... nap... start reading tabloid paper again... notice frost is actually gone... go to task... get frustrated because it's cold and starting to rain... ignore rain for 20 minutes... get called inside due to rain... sit around doing nothing for 45 minutes... get sent home and get paid for 5 hours of "work"...

And my boss told me that here is nothing I could do that would get me yelled at... I on;t want to believe him (and I actually don;t really)... but it's nice to know that he think's he's realy laid back...

The hockey season is up and going again... So I have to pretend at work that I enjoy sports... I have a clever ploy... I flip to the sports section of the paper, and make it look like I'm reading... when in fact I am really just counting to 80...

yeah.. so that's me...

My life really isboring, I swear I'm not making it up... Thanksgiving and the progressive supper were just accidents...

yes...

My Back: Part the First

My back is scabby and gross right now...
and itchy... oh so itchy...
So it's not really the best time to be taking (and posting) photos of it's current state...

But I did say I would post pics, so here goes nothing...


This is me... leaning forward...

Me leaning forward with roommate...

Brent Working hard

Brent Admiring his work

And finally, everything that had been completed when my roomies came to visit...

More was done (about 2 hours) but due to the amount of bleeding I was doing we decided to stop... All the outlines are done, so the next time I post pictures, it will be a complete tattoo in shape... just not in colour..

The plan is to do the colouring over a few short visits (so that we don't risk the heavy bleeding again)...

either way, it's very exciting...

Uh huh..

Pics are comming when I get the motivation to upload them... It's exciting (it looked so much smaller on paper)


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