This happened on Wednesday Night

I was working at my second job on Wednesday night, the night before Thanksgiving, at a gas station that's adjoined to a big supermarket. I was towards the back of the store doing some of the cleaning duties when I heard something kind of weird going on up at the registers where two of the guys I was working with were ringing up customers. I quit paying attention for a few moments and I heard the Manager on duty ask for me to come up and help.

When I got up there, I hopped onto my register and began ringing people through. All the while noticing that the strange noises that I had heard from the back was actually coming from a small, middle aged, black lady who was madly gestering to my manager who was trying to understand her problem. It wasn't too hard to figure out that she was a deaf mute lady.

The customers died down and I was able to go over and assist and try to figure out what the issue was. My manager had a confused look on his face, as did my other co-worker as they were trying to converse with this woman by writing their questions out on paper. She would read the question, "What can we help you with, are you having trouble?" She would only write one word responses, some of them being "yesterday today", "poultry", "pharmacy", "BIG", "mean", "take". She was also gestering as though she was pushing a cart and then all of a sudden the cart was gone. She then wrote "Police". Obviously we had thought that she had got her cart stolen.

While desperately trying to convey something, she was not really articulating anything at all and acted really clueless through out the whole ordeal. She kept trying to convey something else before we could figure out what she was trying to convey just seconds ago. It was basically just going around in a circle after a while. We called over to the store to see if anyone could shed some light on the situation, and everyone was pretty much clueless, that and being the day before Thanksgiving they were completely swamped.

We ended up calling the police to see if an officer could be sent over for assistance and thought maybee they would have an interpretor available to better understand what the issue was. I wrote to the woman that the police were on their way to help and drew a little smiley face on the paper to help assure her that we would get things straightened out. She was not mad or frusterated, she was visibly distraught and very confused. I tried to ease her a little by looking her in the eyes (which I do with no one, way out of my comfort zone) smiling kindly, and acknowledging her.

The police showed up and she went through her motions, written words, and squeeky sorrowfull noises. I felt very empathetic for her, something a rarely reserve for anyone who I do not know. I felt bad that she didn't have anyone with to help her, I felt bad that I thought she was probably a little bit mentally disabled as well, I felt bad that everyone else was getting frusterated with her, etc. etc.

The phone ended up ringing while the police were with her, getting ready to tell her that there was nothing that they could do for her. It was a manager from the store. He had stated that she was in the day before with a cart of food, Thanksgiving items, and was using her EBT assistance card to purchase her food. It turns out that the card was declined, that she had no assistance left until the first of next month. Apparently, he had explained this to her after calling the agency to check on the card and ended up taking her cart away. Obviously she didn't understand what was happening, and I am under the honest assumption that she thought she had paid for her items, and they were taken from her.

It took me quite a while after the situation was over, and both the woman and the cops had left the store, to assess what happened to this woman. I think that she tried for 2 days (yesterday today) to figure out what had happened and got bounced around from person to person in the main store, that she came over to the gas station as a last resort to have someone help her figure out what the fuck happened. All this woman was trying to do was to have a Thanksgiving meal, and not only could no one give her the time of day to make sure she knew why they were taking her cart away, they could not find it within themselves to help find an option to where this woman could have her items. It's a big fucking grocery store, a quarter from each employee could have served a feast.

I asked for my co-worker to ring my up a 10 cent piece of candy and paid for it using my debit card, making sure to hit the cash back option on the card swiper. He asked me, "Are you doing what I think you're doing?" I just said, "yeah" embarassed that I had water in my eyes and didn't want him to hear my voice crack. This situation just made me so sad that it would ever happen and that so many people let it happen before she walked into our store. Why the police had to be called over something so simple. It was just ridiculous and very stupid to me, I was totally angry underneath the true sadness I felt for her. I placed my bills in front of her, not a lot, but enough for a small Thanksgiving meal with hopefully most of the fixings she was wanting. I slid it towards her, looking her in the eyes again while I said "Please take this so you can buy yourself some food." Everyone stood there gawking at me like I was some freak show, even the cops. She signed me "thank you", I winked at her real quick to let her know all was cool turned around and headed toward the bathroom and bawled for a quick minute.

Not trying to be a big baby or to get all mushy or shit, cause I think most of you know that's not how I roll. But I needed to put it out there so I can remember not to be such a douchebag to people when i think I'm too fucking busy or that something's not my job or responsibility. We are all responsible for each other.

It's begining to look a lot like bitchness...

Email Exchange between me and a couple of work hos this morning. Enjoy.

Hi guys,
I have ran this passed a few of you and wanted to know what you think of this. I am on a really big give back kick this holiday season. What would you think of taking a collection and making a donation in (boss)'s name to Boxer Rescue in Nebraska. He has a boxer.

Let me know. Like I said, I am on this big give back kick this year so just let me know.

Thanks,
XX


First response.....

How about a raise first????? Then I’ll worry about spending money on someone else’s dog in my boss’s name just because he has one of the same breed……then again, maybe not.

2nd

THANK YOU! We are in a recession…Why does she keep asking for money?

Just cuz she doesn’t have ppl to buy for doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t. I have a life outside this JOB.

3rd

i think i am going to have my own team meeting and have a general discussion regarding this issue. it is not fair for people to keep coming up with these ideas and expecting people to participate. I don’t feel obligated to do this shit and nobody else should either. (Boss) should say something as well because he doesn’t need all this stuff and enough is enough. Donating gifts instead of doing a gift exchange between ourselves is a good idea. But that’s about as far as I can go with this team spirit.

4th

My whole thing is…he gets paid more than all of us…why are we doing stuff on the sly for him…why don’t he buy us something hell.

5th

Ya’ll kno when we have this meeting were gonna look like the bad guy for not wantin to participate.

6th

Well, that may be true. But I come here for a paycheck so I can buy my kids gifts-not a grown ass man. I will not feel bad expressing that at all. If I look like a bad guy than oh well. What are they gonna do? Ban me from the “salad eating committee”?! (note: fat ladies that eat salad every day with the same amount of calories as a Whopper) Not make that jello cake (again, fat lady birthday treats)? Big whoop.

7th

Oh well……if you don’t love me, you better hate me.

Ahhh......I can feel the Christmas Spirt creeping right on up. Gobble gobble gurls.

The Family Portrait

OK, so, back towards the end of October I receive the following email from my Mom that was sent to both me and my older sister who live here in Omaha:

Hey Kids,

Since this year is our 40th wedding anniversary, Dad and I would like to have a family picture taken. As it stands, we are scheduled with Michael's at 2:oo PM on November 21. It will be a casual picture, maybe even out here with a couple of the horses if the weather will cooperate. Jon, I sure hope you can arrange your work schedule for this. Please let me know as soon as possible, because if you cannot arrange it, we won't be doing the picture.

Please let me know as soon as you can if this will work for all of you.

Love you much,

Mom

I hate family pictures....with a passion. No, I don't hate pictures of my family, dear reader, I hate family pictures. The kind where some asshole tells you where to position your hands, how to stand, and who to stand by and affectionately position your hands on. I'ts all just retarded.



I think the last time we had a family picture taken, I was young enough that I was starting to grow some grass on the feild, but the hose hadn't been turned on yet. I know that neither of my 2 sisters had been married (or divorced) yet, and I only had one nephew (of which I have 6 neices and nephews now). I know that Mom had the barnyard fantasy of having pictures taken with the farm animals back then as well, but for one reason or another she was either veto'd (I highly doubt) or the weather wasn't good enough. But needless to say, the picture that was taken in the studio had the barn elements of hay bales and wooden fence posts.

My oldest sister Jody was the only one of us who rejected the whole idea of "country western" dress and showed up looking snazzy in a simple sweater ensamble. My other sister Heather looked good wearing something a sensible dark blouse and black jean combo that looked like it could be worn to "The Sugar Shack Saloon" and then to church the next morning, and her 2 year old son looked adorable in overalls. My folks look nice when they get dressed up in their garb of western shirts, jeans and boots, probably because they really enjoy all of that and the comfort they have with it really comes through.......But then there was me.

I looked like the aborted fetus of Garth Brooks. This was the unfortunate time in the 90's when Brooks and Dunn were shaking up the country music industry with their Wild and Crazy Western Shirts!

"Holy shit man! Lookit that shirt! It's got flames on it! That wild and crazy shirt has flames on it!"

"WOAH! A western shirt that looks like the Texas Flag?!?! No Fuggin' way, man!"



Besides that, and the fact that the fricking photographer made me button every button on the shirt all the way up the collar, I was a fat ass little 13 year old that could barely fit into the new (and never worn before or since) western shirt. Well, I had the fat squeezed into your clothes look that Garth Brooks used to rock, so I guess I had that down. It was just horrible, is all I can say, which is why I'm all paranoid about this picture now.

I take a decent enough picture, but when it counts and you're paying someone to take it for you, they never turn out for me. No, I'm not being too critical. Also with the fact that "casual" to me means freeballing in a pair of pajama pants and an undershirt is totally different than what my Mom's version of casual is, it's got me wracking my brain as to what I should wear for this thing. I don't think I'd show up underdressed, but run the risk of trying to look too sharp (i.e. gay as Little Richard at a picnic). I guess we'll just have to wait and see.




Plus I love the whole "If you can't make it, we won't be doing the picture" pressure. Believe me, I asked for that day off as soon as I recieved this email to relieve that pressure. Well......guess who got scheduled to work all day long that day, lol!!! I kid you not. So with the day 4 days away and me arguing back and forth with my boss for this, it is turning into a little fiasco. Oh, and my car took a complete shit and our "photoshoot" is 2 1/2 hrs away from here. So :-) wish me luck dear reader!


P.S.

This was SO me as a teenager, looks and all.

F13

In honor of one of my favorite movies/holidays......just stay out of the woods, or smoke grass, or say “I’ll be right back”, or listen to hair metal from the 80’s, or wear pastels, or tease your hair, or tease your partner, or try to scare your stupid girlfriend by wearing a mask of a serial killer that used to hack up people in this area 20 years ago, or skinny dip, or sit around a camp fire, or forget your sharp instrument somewhere and go back to look for it, or play drinking games, or have dance-a-thons in the living room of the cabin that you’re renting for the weekend in the deserted country, or cheat on your girlfriend, or cheat on your boyfriend, or hook up with your girlfriend’s boyfriend, or be a nerd, or make fun of the nerd, or look on the forest floor for your lost wal-mart ear ring, or say “who’s there?”, or try to shake anyone awake, or take a short cut, or wear a white t-shirt while it’s thunder storming and you want to take a walk.



Ok, I’m done…..If you don’t make it, not my fault.



Alice: The boy... is he dead, too?
Tierney: Who?
Alice: The boy. Jason.
Tierney: Jason?
Alice: In the lake, the one... the one who attacked me... the one who pulled me underneath the water.
Tierney: Ma'am, we didn't find any boy.
Alice: But... then he's still out there.



Crazy Ralph: Doomed! You're all doomed!


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Pamela Voorhees: You see, Jason was my son, and today is his birthday...