Carrots Always Beat Little Eggs

For those of you who see the message in my title... good job.  For the even fewer of you who understand it... you know to run away now.  This one ain't gonna be fun...

Today at work there was a tension so high we were all starting to crack.  Didn't help that today was truck day.  Didn't help that the weather was finally leaning a little more towards a typical Iowa winter.  I show up and the first thing that happens is Brandee and Todd getting into a big fight over Todd glazing donuts instead of the other kinds of frosting.  He states that he needed the extra time to get so many made, and Brandee kept yelling.  Todd pointed out that she did it too, and then made the good for the goose comment.  When I told Jess about it, she seemed to almost be congratulating Todd for standing up to her.  This leads me to a conclusion... Brandee currently ranks at the lowest of our circle.  At work we have a kind of rank system that is outside the actual store chain of command.  It's very... high school... but the 2 regular overnight people (Todd and Brandee) usually make up the bottom rung of that ladder.  Then again, the fact they work overnights might be either a symptom or a cause of that...  I am sure my standing went down a few rungs last week after getting sick for half the week... but I like to think that no one looks at the schedule, sees they're working with me, and immediately hates that day.

So it's already tense, meanwhile, Brandee is still of the opinion she's not coming in tonight because of the inclement weather.  Now I've lived in Iowa 20 of the last 24 years of my life.  As Iowa winters go, this has been bizarre.  Today would be our first REAL snowfall... and it's Jan 20...  Usually we get some flurries as early as October, by the end of november, we're covered in white, then it comes and goes in spots until January when we're covered again until lat Feb-mid March... then a freak snow storm in the middle of April just to take away any hope.  Had she worked my shift, or even 2nd shift... we'd understand.  But by 3rd shift (which starts in an hour and a half @ 10pm) she would be fine.  The roads won't be getting any better... heck with people driving, packing down the snow into ice, it's gonna be worse the next few days.  I guess I'm gonna have some overnights the next few days... (although I'm already scheduled for one tomorrow lol)

As if that wasn't enough, we're all tense already, and Cody starts making pizzas wrong.  Now he's already adjusted the dough roller before, which we stopped him on, (I notice Brandee does it too...) but now he sprays his dough balls with our pan spray... BEFORE THEY GO THROUGH THE PRESS!!!  Ironically having the plastic roller means less dough sticks to the pins than a metal one... but that property is reversed when you add freaking pan spray to the equation!  It's like multiplying an inequality by -1! (yes a nerdy math comment but just deal with it!)  So Jess corrects him, and he still does it, so the Monica corrects him, and he says Brandee showed him how to do that because that's how Forrest City does it... yeah bud Forrest City also lost their cigs for 2 months because they got stung too many times in a certain time period.  Not sure you want to emulate their training.  Then again we'd be rid of you and it'd only cost the company like 750 dollars... might be worth it.  Notice how a lot of our problems stem from her?  Yeah I did too.  Anyhoo so Monica just tells him to stop doing it that way... and he ARGUES with her!!!  Now Monica became our manager after Linda left.  Linda was an absolutely terrible manager.  Normally I wouldn't complain because she gave me a job, but come on!  Don't call corporate and then leave the store with only one employee there... that's against policy 9 different ways.  Anyhoo, Monica has been nothing but fair with us.  The only problems I've had with her stem from the fact that we're a store in such chaos right now I don't know anyone who can handle it better.  Point is... DON'T ARGUE WITH HER!!! DON'T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU!!!

Did I mention it snowed?  Well then the truck shows up, and guess what?  He has a new conveyor, but the grease froze on it, so its wheels won't turn.  So we have to do this with one conveyor.  Now since only one of you reading this actually knows, I'll just say it.  When truck comes, we set it up with two conveyors going from the truck right to our back door.  Well with only one working one... we have to lug the carts outside, drag them in, and get our already slick floor wet.  That means anyone of us can slip and fall while trying to maneuver a heavy load... which is just begging to blow my knee out.  I hatch a brilliant idea to steal the dishwashing rug and put it by our back door.  It's great except since one corner of our back door no longer seals (can you say cold anyone) there is already snow there, and the rug keeps catching our carts and sliding, so we have to put it back... fail... just plain fail.  So while doing truck, I accidentally step off the sidewalk into the grass, which is all covered by snow so how was I to know?  Well I kinda wrench my knee, but I can't miss anymore work, so I pretend I'm fine and nothing's wrong.  It eventually stops hurting but blah!  (and my knee got worse before it got better...)  So now our carts have snowy wheels, which stops them from turning, which means truck is now twice as hard as it should be.  Well while putting some boxes in our cooler, they tip.  I don't see it cuz I'm on my way back from putting them there, and they fall and catch me in the back of my other knee... which means I hit the floor on my already hurt knee... Holy hell that hurt!  I got up off the floor, no one saw, so I moved on.

Man this one is taking forever to write.  I keep breaking down or going evil and wanting to punt kick babies.  Anyhoo, so now the unpacking of truck begins.  We're completely disorganized, invoices all over the place.  So I'm about to go on break, but as I'm on the way to the kitchen to get some food (I've had nothing but some pain meds for a headache all day... so you can imagine what my stomach is doing), Jess sees me and asks that if I'm not busy if I could come back and help her put stuff in our kitchen freezer.  I open my mouth to say "I'm going to go on break," what comes out is "Yeah sure, let me grab a pen."  WTF!  So I help her with that, and decide I'll be damned if I'm going to help with the cooler crap, so I go to the lobby to unpack those totes.  Well the first 5 totes I unpack are all on seperate invoices that I don't have.  So I get to what I can.  Then Mary needs a break, she's pregnant so I am nice.  Then she goes outside and smokes... which really REALLY pisses me off!  Now with Cody, I already hit the CABLE point... but with that... I went way beyond to a level I did not know before...  So then she gets back, I can't look her in the eye or I know I'm going to lose it, so I go and continue on totes.  Well we get these plastic blue things that no one has no freaking clue what they are, so I can't mark them off.  And then there were the sour skittles...

Time for a lesson, there are things called peg bags that come on truck... they are bags that hang on pegs on our shelves (wow how original).  Well 999 out of 1000 times, the little hole they hang on has to be punched out by us.  Well this bag was sticking.  I couldn't get the hole made... and then... RIP!  Sour skittles everywhere... of course it couldn't be nice easy stuff like hershey bars or something.  No it had to be freaking skittles!  Well obviously Monica is going to have to do a damage item transaction on it, so I put it back and let her know.  She tells me, "Well, Luke, now we know why we don't use knives."  "I did not use a knife to open that." "Yes you did, Luke, and what did we say about arguing with the manager?"  Now I am about ready to explode.  I'm all for not arguing over something stupid like pan spray on dough before the press... but this is my competence on the line and there is NO FUCKING WAY I'm going to back down now.  Finally Mary comes to bat for me and says I didn't use a knife, and Monica is suddenly ok with it.  Now wait just a minute!  You don't believe me?  The guy who keeps everyone's ass out of the fire when Brandee disappears, or makes sure that the kitchen is always ready for the next person, but you will trust Miss Kill-My-Baby-With-Tobacco?  What is wrong this picture?!  Now I know I'm about to go psycho and lose my temper, followed closely by my job; I back off.  Well the rest of the day goes by without much of a hitch until shift change.  I completely mess up my shift drop, put in $250.00 instead of $2.50.  Right when I'm done with lottery tickets, someone buys a bunch of them.  Stuff like that.  So I am ready to go home.  My brain is fried, my body weak, and I'm starving.  Yay for my pizza! ALL MINE!  ...Of course I offer a slice to my best friend, because I'm not heartless ;) (love you Manda!)

So I'm driving home, and my van gets stuck in my parents' driveway.  Great.  So I grab the shovel and dig my van out and then decide to be helpful and dig out the rest of the driveway.  Well when you get near the street, it's all the crap the plows piled up on the side.  Most of you know what I'm talking about.  Well about the 3rd row, I'm trying to dig through, I hit that spot, and while lifting the huge ammount of snow, I slip.  There goes my knee and there goes my back, all in one fell swoop.  So I pull myself together, grab my pizza and pop, go in to the house and sit.  When I stop being sore, I go out to check on my cat, Funny.

Funny is a part of my family.  She's the fattest cat I've ever seen.  She used to have such energy and be normal sized until she got ear mites, and my parents decided to never let her out again.  Then dad rescued Spot, whom Funny didn't get along with... which made them hate Funny.  They tried to give her away without asking me once.  Then while I was at college, the poor thing got neglected to the point of becoming anti social.  The only three living things she cared about getting attention from were myself, Autumn, and her mother-Furball.  Well Autumn obviously hasn't seen her in years, and Furball died last August.  She was left alone in my house in Ames for a while, til I brought her to Garner so I could keep an eye on her.  Now she is allowed only outside, and while my parents were kind enough to purchase 2 doghouses for her, that is where their kindness ends.

I asked if we could let Funny stay in the house, I'd even make sure to clean up after her so no one would know.  My parents declined.  Recognize it has been below 0 every day for three days now.  When I went out to give her the food and water, she sounded horrible, she's weak, she doesn't look like she has any will to live.  I'd be in the same boat if I were in her... paws.  I feel so horrible for her, and it's all my fault.  If I had just dealt with the bullshit EZPawn put me through, we'd still be living in Ames.  I would have gotten to spend Furball's last weeks with her, and Funny would be warm and cozy and have a human to sit by all the time.  Now I'm almost 25, living in my parents' basement, with a house that I can't afford Ames rent on (if we moved it to Garner, the rent is over 100 dollars cheaper), being treated like a 15 year old having to ask permission to go somewhere (what the hell?!), with a cat that's at death's door and I can't do anything about it.

If it weren't for meeting Manda or Ally, I'd dedicate my life to building a time machine and going back to fix just that one thing.  I'd be in Ames with an absolutely horrible job, but at least I'd be getting paid 8.50 an hour, or be able to properly take care of Funny, or not feel like a failure at everything I do.  You two have no idea how much you're worth to me.  You're my best friend, and an up-and-coming friend.  Thank you for everything!

Wow... 2.5 hours to write this... holy crap...