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| tuesday . june . one . nineteen ninety nine
at first i thought this job was like the titanic...sinking sinking sinking. but then i realized that it's more like the poseidon adventure. i boarded the ship full of hope and promise and then it turned upside-down and now i'm left to escape with my life. however, i don't think i'm going to quit as soon as the impulse strikes. i have this perverted desire to see this store to it's inevitable conclusion. i want to see the thing unravel like a big sweater caught on a nail. i'm sort of rubber necking a car crash but i'm just not going to be satisfied until it rolls three times, hits a tree and bursts into flames with a dozen copies of "you've got mail" popping and exploding in the air and all of the orson welles movies miraculously safe from harms way. so to speak. -- wednesday . june . two . nineteen ninety nine paul was talking to his parents on the phone the other night. (they live in maryland.) they were discussing the y2k stuff. paul's theory is that it's not going to be as bad as everyone wants to believe, but it's not going to pass without incident, so be prepared well like you would prepare for any kind of storm or earthquake. the thing that gets me is, you know how when you go to the grocery store late on a holiday or after the weekend and the place is pretty much ransacked? well, the food system is set up so that the stores need to be replenished every three days. i believe THAT is gonna be the trouble spot. anyway, paul and his dad were discussing all of this and his dad said that he had gone to talk with the neighbors to get a little community spirit going. you know, we should know our neighbors anyway, but in a potential crisis, wouldn't it be nice to be able to count on the people around you? but when my father-in-law went to one neighbor, the response was: "oh, don't worry, i'll be fine. i have guns." (author's note: the spell check on my computer was not familiar with "y2k"... hmm.) -- thursday . june . three . nineteen ninety nine i got a frantic call at work from sunshine last sunday afternoon from my mother's cell phone. my mother told her that father's day was monday and that we forgot. my sister was in a panic because mom was yelling at her to "get off the phone, this is costing me money." and i was surrounded by customers and returns pilling up (i.e.: chaos) so we formed a quick purchase plan and hung up. about a half an hour passed before i was able to stop and realize that mom is on CRACK because father's day isn't 'till the 20th and that we could revert to our original plan for gift buying but only if i could stop them before the panic stricken shopping spree was completed. i couldn't find my calling card because i needed it and when i need it, it disappears so i took a deep breath and made a long distance call to my folk's house on the store dime (weeeeee!) and left a message with my dad for the girls saying "tell sunshine she's wrong and to check a god damned calendar." of course, the message wasn't received until an errant gift, having nothing to do with what sunshine and i had discussed had been purchased. apparently mom talked my sister into buying something completely random and too expensive by kicking in part of the purchase price herself. the dilema is that with the craptacular gift they bought we can't afford to get dad what he had asked us for, which is a big deal because he NEVER asks for ANYTHING so when he does, thy will be done, if you know what i mean. so i told sunshine to ask mom to buy the wrong gift back from us so we can buy the appropriate item, seeing as it was mom's bad that caused the problem in the first place. sunshine doesn't want to ask because mom already bought dad a present while she and ethel were visiting here a few weeks ago. my father has some kind of childlike fascination with the seattle pike street fish market, so mom bought him a painting of said market and gave it to him as soon as she returned to california. a thoroughly thoughtful gift until you factor in the fact that she promptly hung the painting in the guest room of their home where my father never goes, in what sunshine and i assume is a retaliatory maneuver because for mother's day, dad bought mom one of those george forman grills they sell on the t.v. -- friday . june . four . nineteen ninety nine excerpt of a conversation held with my husband where he attempts to explain to me the cartoon he is watching.
end of conversation. -- monday . june . seven . nineteen ninety nine nice manager chick is on vacation this week. i've been doing her weekly reports and such. i have enjoyed the added responsibility...i'm crossing my fingers that someone will notice and i might get a bit of recognition, but i'm not gonna hold my breath. -- tuesday . june . eight . nineteen ninety nine the Man fucked up today's schedule. he told nice manager chick that he'd make sure the shifts got covered but he let it drop. he was going to have to work the evening shift tonight until, at the last minute, mr. eye contact said he'd come in. mr. eye contact is a guy they hired a month ago for shift coverage. most of us have wondered at one time or another if he might be a spy for the big boys, but that's speculation. he's nice enough, he likes film and such. he's kind of creepy because when talking to him, you finish what you're saying and he just keeps looking at you until the awkward pause between you grows into serious mortuary-style silence. so mr. eye contact came in last night and i told him it was nice of him to cover the Man's ass like that. and he said: "well...the Man made me a deal." me: (intrigued) "what's THAT supposed to mean?" mr. eye contact: "he gave me a raise." h-o-l-y-c-r-a-p. when i started this job, i was promised a handful of peanuts an hour. but the guy who offered it to me was demoted the day before i began working. when my first pay check came, it was a few peanuts shy of what i was told. i hounded assorted people for the next few weeks and was told that the handful of peanuts i was offered was actually a mistake and that they could only afford to give me what they were giving me. mr. eye contact, who i trained, who does half of the work i do, who has been working there two months less than i have, is now getting several more peanuts than i am. i am so angry that i can not find the appropriate words to express myself. -- wednesday . june . nine . nineteen ninety nine nice manager chick is encouraging me to quit, which i think is the pathetic victim's way to handle the situation. i understand what she's saying but how can i just leave? what gets accomplished by that? something's got to be done. she spoke to the Grand Pubah about mr. eye contact's raise. he said that he hadn't known about it, but that he has heard "raves" about mr. eye contact's customer service and that he'd look into it. the more i talk to other employees, the more i realize that there is some serious penis-superiority going on. the only ones getting dumped on seem to be the women, which makes me that much more reluctant to just walk out the door. -- monday . june . fourteen . nineteen ninety nine a little shake up in the management this weekend. they decided to hire an old employee (male) to manage one of the other stores, transfer the current manager (male) to our store and demote nice manager chick. they gave her some lame offer of assistant manager but turns out she was going to give notice this week anyway, so she's gone. she says she's ok with it all, but i don't believe her. i did some norma rae like chatting with people over the weekend. i think if we decided to do something, there might actually be enough people in agreement to go forward, but with the shift in management, i think we should hold off and see what happens in the next few weeks. -- tuesday . june . fifteen . nineteen ninety nine it looks like we have a sick hamster on our hands. paul noticed on saturday that pestilence looked all puffed up from her neck to her leg, so we took her to the pet emergency room. when we came in with the cage and spoke to the receptionist, we heard all of the other folks in the waiting room giggle amongst themselves...i'm not sure why, but it was kind of disturbing. as if their pets were really sick but that a pet in a cage isn't serious or something. we then spent 3 hours waiting to see someone, surrounded by various pets with various illnesses, including the cutest little basset hound who, while momentarily unattended, had eaten an entire bag of bird seed. when we finally saw the doctor, she gave us the good news/bad news routine. the good news is that, aside from the current weirdness, pestilence is a super-healthy hamster for her age. we have always taken extremely good care of her but it was nice to hear a real live vet. tell us so. as for the swelling, she said it felt hard, which means that it's probably cancer. she said that sometimes little hamster surgery is successful but the anesthetic can sometimes be fatal. she also said that some hamsters get swollen like this but continue to live normal lives. we decided to wait a few days and see how she does before we make a decision one way or another. -- wednesday . june . sixteen . nineteen ninety nine rumors at the store are that the Man is soon to be history. i choose not to believe it so i won't be disappointed. and if it's true, i can be excited. really excited. i mean: wet-yourself-in public-and-you-just-don't-give-a-damn excited. meanwhile, the stores are falling apart. the guy who works near one of the other video stores called today to tell us that no one ever bothered to open today. which means the Man screwed the schedule again and i laughed. a lot. also, there was a guy dancing in the store today. i was playing some louis primma and i noticed this half-shaved head kept popping out from around the sides of the various video sections. i couldn't tell exactly what he was doing until he moved back where one of those big rounded mirrors are, so i could see him completely. he was thoroughly rocking out in the noir section. i think he must have taken a class or something because his movements were really precise and his face looked like he was thinking real hard. he was excellent so i was sad that another customer came in because he got self conscious and stopped. -- thursday . june . seventeen . nineteen ninety nine the Man sent the mascot to the post office to mail about a half dozen packages. upon the mascot's return: me: "did everything go all right?" mascot: "yep. i tossed the boxes in a dumpster and stole a receipt...i figured in ten years, who's gonna care?" -- friday . june . eighteen . nineteen ninety nine
-- monday . june . twenty one . nineteen ninety nine winner of melysa & paul's "all time best request to sleep on our couch" award: Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 08:41:40 -0700 ¡Hola! I am Ruffio, you're Chihuahua exterminator. I specialize in getting pea hounds and other rat like animals out of your home. I can eliminate nearly all species with a simple quarantine tent over your house for 50 days and about 2,000 cubic feet of pressurized PetSafe Chihuahuacide GasÆ that will be injected into your home. This gas is so potent, it will even kill talking, burrito eating Chihuahuas promoting sci-fi movies. However, it is so safe, you can use the powdery residue to make a batch of cookies or a loaf of bread (mice extermination is extra). If you have a Chihuahua problem and are fed up those little tramps mating under your bed and running around inside youR walls eating their stinky "Mexican" fast food products, then give me a call and we'll set up an appointment. I'll be up in Olympia/Seattle for a friend's wedding from about August 12 to about the 18th or 19th and would love to look at your house for a day or two to see if you have a Chihuahua problem. Included in this service, you'll provide room and board for a night or two, allow me rummage through your fridge and underwear drawer, and let me draw the critters out by watching long hours of TV while I sit on your couch in my underwear (maybe yours) eating cake frosting out of the tub. THESE METHODS ARE PROVEN TO WORK; DO NOT QUESTION THEM!! In the case that these methods do not draw the little pests out, I will leave all my trash on the coffee table after I leave in hopes of them rummaging through it at night. What the critters don't expect is a hidden, super sensitive bear trap that can easily lop an entire Swede in half. This powerful machine has razor sharp jaws made of safety plastic, so it's safe for the entire family and pets. The trap should be left on the table for at least a month, and then dismantled by hand as not to endanger you. If it doesn't go off, then you're probably only imagining that you have Chihuahua's since they really aren't indigenous to the Washington state area. But won't you be glad YOU checked? I thought so. Sincerely, Ruffio Robdus -- friday . june . twenty five . nineteen ninety nine last week i mailed nine query letters to literary agents to see if i could tempt any of them to take a look at the novelty book i wrote. i didn't expect to hear from anyone for at least a month, but i got an email from one of them today. he wants to read my book. zoinks! it may not lead to anything but at least now i have a confirmation that i wrote an adequate letter and that the book idea is interesting to someone other than the members of my immediate family. as for publication, we shall see. -- saturday . june . twenty six . nineteen ninety nine paul and i went down to seattle center last night to watch the cirque de flambe which is exactly what it sounds like. it was a circus based solely around firefirefire.there were a bunch of folks, most of whom were there to partake in something called a beer garden, but nothing draws a crowd like people on fire. one act had some sticks with eyes, a nose and a mouth on them that they arranged and rearranged as a kind of fire puppet face. another painted a wall with what i can only assume was some kind of napalm. there was something called the cyclone of fire that had a big circle of flammable powder with a cup of flame in the center. three guys in fire proof outfits and leaf blowers ran around the circle blowing the powder into the flame. i saw no cyclone...it was more like an interactive bon fire, but it was plenty big and it was the only time i could actually feel the heat on my face. there were some less inspired acts as well. people in leotards with sticks on fire, fire limbo, etc. and then there were the fire clowns. the less said about them the better but in order to describe them accurately i'll simply say that their outfits were 100% flame retardant and, unfortunately, none of them was injured. what i found amazing about myself as well as some of the other people was that we were standing there watching people put themselves in a serious amount of danger, risking their safety to perform inferno-tainment for our benefit and we actually got bored. i overheard some guy behind me say "oh well....time for more beer." at one point i turned to paul and heard myself say "ok, enough with the interpretive dance, make with the kaboom." thank you cable television, dammit! but the final act, the one paul and i really went to see, was wally glenn, a.k.a. "pyro-boy". he is a fairly notorious member of the prankster community in seattle. he has a show on public access, he showed up in the fremont solstice parade naked, wrapped in plastic and his favorite hobby is to set himself on fire. apparently he goes to the desert with some friends from time to time and becomes a human fire cracker, which is essentially what he did last night as the cirque's grand finale. it was kind of a silver moon-man outfit with a helmet and a ton of probably illegal explosives strapped all over him. someone led him to the middle of the stage where he got on all fours in a sort of wrestler's stance, they lit his fuse and ran like hell. in a matter of seconds he was sparking and whizzing and i don't know what. it was SPECTACULAR. he stood up and started kinda dancing and shimmying around. it couldn't have lasted more than three minutes but good god, was it something to see. -- monday . june . 28 . nineteen ninety nine the new manager, whom shall be henceforth known as mr. obsessive-compulsive, is a pretty decent guy. he knows an incredible amount about film and he's very nice. however, he's not a peach to work with...i'm not sure if this is his normal behavior or if it can actually be attributed to what he refers to as "personal problems". aside from some health scares he has mentioned in passing, there must be trouble on the home front. i say this because he never goes there. i've yet to see him stay away from the store(s) for a 24 hour period, his days off included. sometimes he's just anxious and busy but there are moments when i wonder if he might not be happier in a rubber room of some kind. for instance, the other day someone told him that they'd call him in ten minutes. during that time, mr. o/c reached for the phone at least three times, muttered to himself ("i wonder if i should...no, he said he'd call...") and went into slight autistic rocking behavior. and this was a call about every day business, mind you. i can't imagine what he goes through when it has to do with his "personal problems". now, i have all the sympathy in the world for other humans and their issues, but i have two problems with mr. o/c. first, he won't let me be nice to him. of course i understand if he doesn't want to talk about it, but he never stops mentioning these mysterious problems. and when i respond, he just waves me away like i'm pestering him. a few days ago he was talking to me, rather, talking AT me. he had a far away look on his face and said, clutching his tummy, "i just have this bad feeling that something horrible is going to happen." i have learned not to reply to these remarks so i kept working. he continued "but then again, something bad ALWAYS happens." so in a concerned yet unobtrusive tone i said "oh, mr. o/c, i'm sorry." and he said "i'm not looking for sympathy! never mind! everything's GREAT." and he walked away. and second, he keeps putting me off when it comes to job stuff using the "personal problems" line as a way to get me to leave him alone. when he returned to this position, he and nice manager chick discussed me, and my situation with the Man and such. she told him what had happened with my wages and he said he'd look into it. he also told me that his first week back, he had received many unsolicited compliments about me from customers as well as from my coworkers. he thought i deserved my due and that he'd go to the grand pubah to work it out. but he hasn't. and if i dare ask him about the status of his inquiries, he says that he hasn't had a chance to deal with it and uses the "personal problems" as a trump card. i don't pressure him constantly or anything but i know that mr. o/c and the grand pubah talk often, so it's not an issue of time. i think it's more an issue of mr. o/c having problems with any kind of conflict, so he's avoiding it all together, which sucks for me. |
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