I'm a Barbie girl

I have drastically cut back on the amount of hours I work at Walmart to accommodate my learning to be a librarian. I now only work two or three days a week, but I think somehow every crazy person in Halifax got a copy of my schedule because they all show up when I'm working.

I almost got into a fight yesterday with a man who came into the store to buy an umbrella for his daughter. He refused to even consider the Barbie one because, according to him, she presents a negative body image. I wanted to slap some sense into him but we're not allowed. He tried to trick me into saying bad things about her, but I'll defend Barbie to the death. Barbie is like the hot friend I never had, and I don't think these parents are doing their kids any favors by not letting them have Barbies. Some of these same people have no problem with Barbie's fashionable new competition, Bratz, whose heads are bigger than the entire rest of their bodies. Obviously that's a much better body ideal for young girls to aspire to. At least they're flat-chested. To keep the peace, I told myself that this man was obviously misinformed and had no way of knowing how little girls think. I blame the damn feminists.

I got yet another visit from CrazyPants, an older lady who comes in every day looking for the same pair of pants which we don't carry and never have. I always spend 10 or 15 minutes with her searching for the elusive pants and listening to her chatter. When she's satisfied we don't have them, she bids me farewell and I wave good-bye knowing the search will continue tomorrow. There's always old people coming in looking for things that haven't been produced in decades. One gentlemen came in looking for pajamas made of long underwear-type material because his were wearing out. Hoping to figure out what he was talking about, I asked him where he got his last pair. He told me he got them from the door-to-door peddler and together we estimated that that was around the late 1940's.

I had to postpone my lunch break on Tuesday. I lost my appetite after we caught a couple in their 30's having sex in the men's fitting room. Apparently it's like the mile high club for poor people. I hate thinking about ugly Walmart people having sex! Gross!

Cheeseburger Eddie, who is in charge of store security, recently busted a mother-daughter shoplifting team. The scoundrels stole a suede jacket right out from under my nose. The nerve! I'm always completely oblivious to any illegal activity going on around me. I always mistake the security guard's increased presence in my department as an interest in me, but it's usually all about the thieves. But anyway, just think how much it would suck to have to go to jail with your Mom. This particular duo ended up not getting charged, which is unfortunate, because I especially like when the cops escort them out. It's always interesting and sad to see how they react to the walk of shame down the main aisle, and also the cops are usually hot.

On a questionably more positive note, I finally got an answer to a workplace mystery involving my co-worker Mel. Mel is a nice person, but I wasn't sure if Mel was a nice woman or a nice man. Today I saw Mel come out of the women's washroom. That solved, I don't think there's any potential for me to learn anything new at work.

Not just for nerds anymore

I'm into my third week of library school. So far, so good. I take courses with wild titles like Descriptive Cataloguing and Acquisition and Circulation Procedures. Not everyone's idea of a good time but I'm just enough of a loser to find it interesting. My classmates are not as nerdy as I expected. The majority seem quite normal. We look much like your average university class.

I went to see the program director about transferring credits so that I could skip the Intro to Literature course. When he found out I had an English degree he said that I should probably be teaching the course. We both laughed, but I think he was actually serious.

In all of the classes everything is very fact based and there's a right way to do everything. As an English major, I'm used to just making shit up. But that crap won't fly with this crowd. There's no eccentric intellectuals here. Just sensible, hard-working folks. Thank god I still have all the nut jobs and dope fiends at Walmart to keep me entertained.

On Fridays we go on field trips to different libraries around the city. This week we're going to the medical library at the QEII. Everyone was very disappointed today to learn that we would not be visiting any prison libraries. Our teacher said she didn't know much about them either except that when the special alarm sounds, there's a room that you're supposed to run to and lock yourself in. I think that sounds pretty fun, but I have to admit I'm picturing the hot guy from Prison Break.

Overall, the program does not seem like it will be overly challenging but that's fine by me. It's unfortunate that it's two years but I think I'll definitely stick with it. The shame of me being a community college drop-out would be too great for my family who already speak in hushed tones about my stretches of unemployment and my continued association with Walmart.

Oh the fun I had!

Last night Eastlink joined forces with The Rolling Stones to make sure I had an absolutely miserable night. Eastlink helped by making sure they sucked so that I couldn't get on the internet to get information on the havoc my other nemeses, The Rolling Stones were causing. I left work at 10:30 not knowing exactly how I was going to get home because my regular bus route was closed down for the concert. I got home at midnight having crossed paths with every drunken concert lunatic in the city, each one of them wearing a wet garbage bag that they purchased from Walmart earlier that day after I told them that, yes, I was positive we were sold out of ponchos, rain jackets and splash pants. Who are all these people who live in Halifax and don't own a rain jacket? And just in case I could possibly have been a good sport about all this, it was still pouring rain during my entire trip home. So that was fun.

Road to Novalea

I've successfully moved into my new apartment and I love it. There are still a few minor inconveniences to work out but for the most part I'm all set. I was without internet or tv for a few long days because my parents, my landlord and I are all clueless about all things technical. Thankfully, Dave came and fixed everything in about five minutes. So now I'm happy and connected to the world again. Thanks Dave!

The trek from Bayfield to Barrington Street and eventually to my new home on Novalea Drive was a grueling one. My father decided we needed a bigger vehicle than my uncle's truck so he went into town and drove around til he saw a big van, waited for the driver and said "That's a nice van". The guy said "Do you want to borrow it?" Dad said "Sure." The problem of there not being enough seats was quickly resolved when the same guy lent us an old recliner equipped with its own seatbelt to put in the back of the van. The recliner was in no way attached to the van so if we were to have an accident, you could spend the time you were flying through the air wondering whether the Lay-Z-Boy strapped to your back would cushion your fall or crush you to death on impact.

Walmart continues to slowly whittle away at my life force. I worked on Sunday and then actually volunteered to come in on the holiday Monday. If someone wants to give me $12.20 an hour to put away clothes, I won't argue although I think I may have developed a repetitive strain shoulder injury from folding about a million pairs of jeans. I keep coming back for more though. Mostly I'm drawn to the drama. With Back to School, a long weekend and recently having been open for business 64 hours straight, everyone is at their breaking point and there's bound to be an explosive fight in the next couple days. I don't want to miss it; I might even be in it. On Saturday a customer shopping for pajamas for his wife got fed up and handed me his cell phone so I could find what she was looking for. We had a long talk about pajamas, her recent surgery and how useless her husband was. One of the newly appointed managers walked by as I was chatting away to this woman as if we were old friends. To avoid her wrath, I gestured to the owner of the cell phone but he had wandered off to the electronics department. She glared at me and then hurried off with a look of purpose, probably to report me to someone more important. This was the same day I showed up 45 minutes late and wearing jeans on a day that wasn't Friday. I've now alienated most of the managers. Hopefully I'll be fired any day now.