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.