This Old House

Clanging sounds woke me up this morning. Someone finally came to replace our leaking oil tank. Several weeks ago, my roommate (the cook/rodent removal specialist) discovered that my bedroom smelled like oil. I didn't notice or perhaps I'd just gotten used to it, but the tank was right outside my room and was seriously old and rusty. So in sleeping across the hall to avoid mice, I was also avoiding sleeping in a room full of noxious fumes. Every day is a new adventure in this house.

The sound of laughter also woke me up this morning. It sounded like there was a fun party going on in the kitchen. But it was only noon and I wasn't willing to get up that early just to make friends. When they laughed, I imagined the cook was telling the others she had found me in the kitchen last night at 3am ironing the tablecloth. Well, it was wrinkly and I needed something to do while my chicken fingers cooked. I was also making a salad. I didn't notice until later, but a piece of my celery had fallen off the counter and landed directly in the center of the blob of peanut butter on the mouse trap on the floor. The mouse trap is in plain sight. It's very likely she saw it. So they could have been laughing about that too. Now she's going to think I don't trust her trapping methods and that I'm the kind of person who thinks they can lure mice with celery. Along with the embarrassment, I also suffered the trauma of having to remove the celery from the trap without setting it off.

The roommates are all sick. Lucky for me, my immune system which failed me constantly in university is functioning well these days and has kept me healthy so far this season. Hopefully, whatever they have is not contagious or I hope they all have the mumps, to which I am immune. That's really a terrible thing to say. Mumps would be horrible to have. I would really feel bad for anyone who got the mumps. But seriously though, for my sake, I hope they have the mumps.

Because I was not happy with the quality of the recycling going on in the house, I came up with a plan. I didn't actually want to say anything so I printed off the recycling guidelines from the HRM website. I folded it, and after the mailman came, I put it with the flyers in the front porch. Later, someone brought the flyers in and put them on the table. The next day someone else discovered the recycling "flyer" and posted it on the fridge. Together, we run this household like a well-oiled machine, whether they know it or not.

The Perfect Fit

I know there are people who decide they need a little extra cash so they look around their house for something to return to Wal-Mart. It doesn't matter if they have a receipt. It doesn't matter if it's new. It doesn't matter if it's from Wal-Mart. They bring it all...

Just so everyone knows, there is nothing you can say that would make it ok to return a thong. Thongs are a gamble. "It rides up in the back" or "It snapped" are not reasons to return a thong. Whenever we do come across a thong among our returns, we're supposed to fill out a damage form saying why it was returned and then take it out back to the claims department. Instead, we take the longest coat hanger we can find and use it to flick the thong into the garbage. That's as much contact as I'm willing to have with used underwear. I wish I could do that with all the clothes that get returned. I know what torture they go through just in our fitting rooms: frenzied arms and legs stretching and ripping the poor quality fabric, garish make-up rubbing off on the unattractive prints and finally being tossed inside-out on the filthy floor. I can't imagine what they go through in people's homes. I've never worked on a farm, but I think working at the fitting room is probably a lot like herding cattle to and from their stalls. My chances of training the customers to pick up their clothes are about the same as teaching the cows to shovel their own manure. I'm not really supposed to say things like, "Unless you're going to lose 30lbs between here and the fitting room door, let me save us both some time" or "The old lady section is over there" so I just have to watch helplessly as bargain-hungry behemoths try to squeeze into whatever is on sale and sassy seniors shake their ancient moneymakers in the latest booty shorts and tube tops. Mercifully, we have finally sold the last of our summer clothes. The old girls can only show me so much in sweaters and cords.


Despite the signs in the bathrooms claiming that Wal-Mart prosecutes shoplifters, it very rarely happens. Usually the security guys rough you up a bit and then a policeman comes and tells you you've been very, very bad; not an entirely unpleasant experience overall. And so people continue to steal with enthusiasm and creativity. Our store has the honour of having the highest incidence of internal theft in the province. I recently ran into an old work chum at the mall. I wasn’t sure what to say ("So... stolen any good stuff lately?"). The last time I saw her she was being escorted from the store after she stole $2,500 worth of merchandise in the course of two months. She had been studying the security system for months, she had a decoy locker in the staff room and an entourage of family and friends to smuggle things out. We remain Facebook friends only.

Her story was quite the scandal at the time. I remember working at the fitting rooms shortly after it happened. I was standing there relating all the details to my fellow gossipy co-workers when one of the security guys ran up and asked me which fitting room the blonde girl with the pink shirt was in. As usual I hadn't been paying any attention and had no idea what was going on or who he was talking about. I tried to appear helpful by going with him into the fitting rooms to investigate. Because much of the store's theft takes place in the fitting rooms, all the doors are supposed to be locked at all times. All 7 doors were wide open. The floor of one room was littered with empty make-up packages. I helped by saying "I think she was in here". He took off running toward the front door. My incompetence allows yet another teenager to have the lipstick and eye shadow she so desperately needed. My cooperation with theft prevention improves when the cute security guy (who is also a firefighter) is working, but only marginally.

Costumes by Kathleen

Halloween cannot be over soon enough. Working at Wal-Mart tends to suck the fun out of most holidays and Halloween is no exception. I'm not even the one trying on costumes so why, by the end of the day, am I the one covered in strands of synthetic blue hair, feathers, and glitter? And then there's all the people who are too creative for a store-bought costume and must design their own but they still all come to Wal-Mart for supplies. A person could make a small fortune selling only green tights in the weeks leading up to Halloween. This past weekend alone I helped outfit a pirate hooker, a boxer, the Honey Nut Cheerios bee, a zombie, Dick Cheney, that guy Dick Cheney shot, a pimp and three Amy Winehouses. I have used up every modicum of creativity in my body. I have nothing left for myself. Should I need a costume, I will have to go as a Wal-Mart employee or a librarian.

Meanwhile at home, the battle rages on with my rodent roommates. I was watching tv the other night when one scampered out from behind the coach. I hurled a shoe at it and said "Where do you think you're going, bitch?"...at exactly the same time my poor human roommate was passing quietly by my open door with her laundry. She was startled but thankfully she gave me a chance to explain. We got to talking about how none of us in the house really knew each other very well. We decided we should plan some activities we could all do together and to convert the spare bedroom upstairs into a common room. The first activity was going to the market Saturday morning which of course I couldn't do because my presence was desperately required at Wal-Mart.

We also had a mouse killin' party. It wasn't so much a party as a brief meeting in my room to set mouse traps and chat and sample the cheese/bait. Only one death occurred but it has ignited our bloodlust. Now I know how my cat feels after a kill. It was a great bonding experience but not as much fun as mouse hunting on Robie Street. I have fond memories of our adventures with those unkillable mice, one person banging on the radiator to scare the little vermin out, another person poised and ready with a broom or other murder weapon and someone else standing by with a bucket to be used as needed. Good times.

Here, our newest roommate (the cook) checks the traps in my room every morning, removes the bodies, and resets the traps while I sleep soundly in my makeshift emergency bedroom across the hall. She spent today out in the backyard planting crocuses and arranging rocks in the garden. How did we survive our first month in the house without this woman?

The House

I stole some pictures of my new digs from my roommate's Facebook album.

Roomies

We have a new roommate in our house. She seems like a perfectly nice girl but she'll take some getting used to by the original three of us who had already gotten into a comfortable routine. The first thing she did was rearrange the kitchen to be more efficient, wash all our dirty dishes and stock up on much-needed supplies. The nerve! She may prove to be a bit high maintenance for us. It will come as no great shock to most people that when I'm completely out of legitimate chocolate food sources, I go to my emergency double chocolate cupcake mix and stir up a small bowl of batter and eat it straight. I was having just such an emergency the other day when our fancy new roommate asked me what I was eating. Because she works as a cook at a classy downtown eatery, I was embarrassed and told her it was pudding. But she's not stupid. She knew. Girl needs to learn not to ask so many personal questions.

Rumours are flying that we may soon have another new roommate. But who would be crazy enough to move into this madhouse? Stay tuned for all the juicy gossip about roommate #5.

We also have several other new roommates of the furry, four-legged variety. I called the landlord and told him we had mice in the house. He told me we weren't allowed to have pets. I could tell he used that line on all his tenants who called with pest problems so I didn't laugh. This was not a joking matter. The preferred hangout for the mice seems to be my room because of the convenient access through the fireplace. For all the trouble that fireplace has caused me, it had better provide a warm cheery glow during the cold days of winter. A VERY, merry warm cheery glow. After today's mouse sighting, which was a bit too close to my bed for comfort, I have moved across the hall to one of the spare bedrooms. I'd like to see that wise-cracking landlord try and rent that room with me living in it. Although he would probably prefer it to my previous methods for a mouse-free sleep. I had been setting up several lamps around my bed on the floor because light deters mice (I have no idea if this is true) and I also set up my fan hoping the noise and breeze would keep them away. The fan made me cold so I had to turn the heat up extra high during the night. I'm sure it looked like I was performing some kind of weird ritual. Maybe I should stop being such a girl and just get some mouse traps.

Guess who won't be getting the mumps this year? Me. I got my shot at school on Thursday. I think the vaccine may have made me temporarily insane because I have no memory of the class I had right after the shot and the notes I took during that class look like they were written by someone else. Stupid re-emerging childhood illnesses.

Friday is the only day of the week that I don't have classes or work so the last thing I want to do is go to a boring library conference. This Friday I will be attending the Nova Scotia School Library Conference. This conference already has two strikes against it. First of all, it's in Truro, the second worst place in Nova Scotia after New Glasgow. Secondly, it's about school libraries and I never want to work in a school library because I hate schoolchildren. But now I have to go because all the overachievers in my class are going. Who overachieves at community college? What are these people trying to prove? Unfortunately when all twenty of us graduate in May, we'll all be applying for the same jobs and we'll all be using the same two teachers as references so I can't allow anyone to be too much better than me. Now I just have to keep my mouth shut about having a valid driver's license and being over 25 or I'll get roped into renting a van and driving us all there and that would not turn out well. Possible headlines include "Bespectacled book-enthusiast endangers lives of conference-bound classmates" or "Van full of nerds careens into guardrail. Highway closed for hours to clean up books, glasses and retainers".

The fun continues

Oh what a happy day for the ladies of Walmart's fashion department! Our 8.3% increase in swimsuit sales this season has earned us a group reward of $350 (one dollar for every white lie we had to tell pasty, bulging bikini-clad customers) to be spent on a night out of dining and camaraderie. If I know my boss Donna (and I do), she will use the money to take her friends out to dinner and then post photos on Facebook. About a month later, she will bring it up and try to convince us we were all there and act surprised when we say we weren't. Then she will tag strangers in the background of her photos with our names. In between her daily bursts of crazy, I've noticed she's been acting friendly towards me, telling me things about her life. I try to discourage these one-sided sharing sessions. Knowing these personal tidbits interferes with my hating her. Without my rage, I may die of boredom.

We have yet another new herd of associates in ladies wear. Our turn-over rate is understandably high. This latest bunch is even dumber and more apathetic than the last. Normally we take bets on how long it will take before their spirit is broken, but these girls started out with dead, empty eyes. The only one with any sense was crying by her second day. She broke down when someone got mad at her when she accidentally opened their dressing room door while they were changing. If I had a dollar for every startled, half-dressed woman I've walked in on, I could retire. One of the other new girls asked me what a blouse was. You see what I have to work with?

The poor quality of the workers doesn't surprise me. Everyone who applies for a job here has to fill in a questionnaire designed to weed out anyone capable of independent thought. I passed with flying colors, although if I remember correctly, they did identify some "red flags" in my answers that I was asked to explain. I just told them the questions confused me and I had trouble understanding them. This pleased them very much and I was asked when I could start.

To deal with the stress of babysitting these junior achievers, I have been taking lots of extra breaks. They're too dumb to notice I'm gone. I take these breaks outside with the smokers who are consistently more fun than the non-smokers. I also prefer the outside now because the staff break room has been compromised. About a month ago, in an effort to improve employee morale, it was announced that our employee lounge would undergo a makeover. We were to vote on the colors we would like to see it painted. The poll failed to generate much enthusiasm and only a couple of people voted. To teach us a lesson about workplace spirit, the higher-ups ignored the vote and painted the room with cans of mistint from the hardware department. There were lots on hand because a new guy was being taught to mix paint and he was not a quick learner. Amid much complaining, no one is claiming responsibility for the room which is now painted four different shades of diarrhea.

Sam from the Trailer Park Boys was in the store last week shopping for some fashionable new threads. As usual, I was left alone covering multiple departments and was in possession of the keys to the men's fitting room when he went over and rang the service bell. When I went over to let him in, there was a pissy woman there complaining that she had been ringing the bell for ten minutes and no one came. I could have been honest and said I wasn't paying attention and didn't really care, but instead I told her that celebrities got better service than everyone else. So in addition to being pissed, she was also now confused. How can you even call yourself a Nova Scotian if you don't know a Trailer Park Boy when you see one? Sam made no comment at the time, but I think he may have taken me seriously because he has been in the store every day since then.

Wal-mart's latest breed of pervert strikes without warning and is especially dangerous because they appear so harmless. I was folding shirts when I came across some misplaced merchandise from the health and beauty department including a handheld massager that lights up and is designed to look like a ladybug. I was going to return it when a man came and asked me where to find cell phone chargers. Since they can be found in both the electronics and the automotive department, my instructions involved a lot of pointing and gesturing during which I inadvertently pushed the On button on the massager. The massager, which had somehow come into contact with the customer's arm during our brief conversation, leapt to life vibrating and glowing at its highest speed. He pulled his arm back quickly. You had to be there to really understand how hilariously awkward it was. I backed away and then laughed to myself like the stranger-massaging pervert that I am.

Moving South

I am finally getting settled into my new house. Had I known what a huge hassle moving would be, I would have stayed put. Now that I have moved though, I'm glad I did. Being near Dal again is a nice change of scenery after a year in the geriatric district of the north end.

I went apartment hunting Randall-style. Four days before I had to be out of my apartment, I started worrying and called my mom, who came into the city to help me because I'm so very incompetent. We spent the day driving around looking at places. She wanted to look at some two bedrooms which baffled me. My thinking was "People aren't just going to see me on the street and want to be my roommate". Her thinking was "Let's stand on the street and people will want to be your roommate". I should have had more faith. The plan worked brilliantly. We stood in front of a house with a For Rent sign and within two minutes a girl and her mother came along and asked if we were looking for apartments. The mothers did most of the talking while the daughters stood by, embarrassed to be university graduates in our mid-20's apartment hunting with our moms, but at the same time resigned to their methods. Once both mothers were satisfied that the other's daughter was a fine upstanding citizen, we exchanged numbers and split up. Although we were looking for two bedrooms, we actually ended up settling on a seven bedroom house on South Street right across from Dal.

The landlord instructed us to ignore the broken glass and toxic sludge, so we did, and decided the place had enough good features to recommend it. Also, with only four days left on my lease, desperation may have played a part. I thought we may have to fight over the bedrooms but we both got our top choice; she, the one with a walk-in closet and Chronicles of Narnia wardrobe, I, the one with a fireplace and a private entrance.

So with Female Roommate and me and one SMU student, the total number of housemates was three, which is how it remains for now. There are still four rooms available that could be rented by crackheads, murderers, or first year students. At this point, I still have my own bathroom. Granted, it's a ridiculous bathroom with a bidet. I didn't even know bidets existed in North America. The previous tenants used it as an ash try. I want to plant flowers in it. The garage is dismal and unfinished but houses a bevy of treasures including a wheelchair and a pitchfork. I have been doing my best to steal useful furniture and fixtures from the spare rooms before anyone else moves in.

In educational news, I have returned to library school at the new NSCC campus on the Dartmouth waterfront. Getting to Dartmouth every day is a huge pain but I am getting my first hint of a tan this season traveling on the ferry every day. The school really is quite spectacular and high-tech with a fantastic view of the harbour.

A Fine Fortnight

I'm into my second week of graveyard shifts and I have no complaints. I'm definitely tired but I expect that's because I'm not used to working 40+ hours a week, not because I'm working in the middle of the night.

The remodeling of the fashion department is now basically done, thankfully. There weren't enough volunteers from our store to get the job done so reinforcements were called in. We got four women from the Bayers Lake store and one guy from the Dartmouth store. Initially there was some rivalry between the factions about which Walmart was the best but after an hour or so we remembered that we all hated all Walmarts equally. Our supervisor is a manager from the Kentville store. He doesn't know much about fashion or about what we're supposed to be doing but he did buy us doughnuts and filled us in on the differences between Dartmouth cops and Halifax cops, both with which he had plenty of personal experience. For those interested, Dartmouth cops are cool, Halifax cops are bastards.

With limited leadership and little ambition, we had quite a bit of down time the first couple of days, during which time incriminating photos of me literally sleeping on the job were taken. Hopefully they won't end up on the internet. Today was spent undoing everything we did in the first two nights and redoing it the right way. My eyes still hurt from looking at tiny numbers and matching up 10-digit codes. In the spirit of the night, I have summed up my evening in a series of numbers.

• Minutes spent in the walk-in freezer just for the sweet relief from the nagging heat: 11
• Minutes spent deciding what toppings to get on our pizza (which we charged to the store): 30.
• Number of hammers I took from the hardware department and subsequently broke trying to beat metal clothing racks into submission: 2.
• Number of times the crazy old lady who works nights in the fashion department told me I was doing things wrong: at least 50.
• Number of times I had to listen to Enrique Iglesias's Ping Pong Song: about 35.

Tomorrow is my last shift on overnights and I will miss it dearly. The noise and chaos of the days may overwhelm me after the peace and freedom of the nights. The absence of customers alone made these two weeks worthwhile. It was nice to be able to do a job and not have my work immediately destroyed. Trying to keep ladies wear organized in a store full of customers is like trying to do a banana flavoured jigsaw puzzle in a cage full of monkeys. I return to the zoo on Saturday.

It's great to stay up late

With the weather being so nice lately, my trips downtown to the gym have been including side trips down to the waterfront. Going down there always makes me feel like I'm on vacation and I'm inevitably drawn to some savoury scented snack stall. Yesterday I couldn't make it past the hot dog stand; today I was seduced by the sweet smell of freshly made waffle cones at the Cows ice cream store. At this rate, I'd be better off avoiding the downtown altogether, gym or no gym.

There were some extra shifts available at work because the menswear department is being completely revamped. I volunteered for these shifts without asking any questions because I'm an idiot. Turns out they're in the middle of the night, 11pm to 7am. The more I think about it though, the better it sounds. I'm always up at that time anyway, I get an extra dollar an hour, I get the weekends off, two of my friends also volunteered, and I won't have to deal with any customers. In fact, it's perfect. I can't wait to meet the night crew. Those guys look like they have crazy stories to tell. I'm still not sure what I'll do during my 3am lunch break. Buy drugs in the parking lot, I guess.

The police are watching me. Last night a police car and van sat outside my house from 2am to 4am. I think they were on a stakeout. I thought maybe they were investigating the disappearance of my landlord who I hadn't seen in two weeks, but he turned up safe and sound today with no fanfare. Just in case anything went down, I made sure I wore cute pajamas to bed that night so as not to have a repeat of the embarrassing 2004 incident on Robie Street when I answered the door to police at 4 in the morning, high on Vicks 44 and wearing my frosh t-shirt, huge bright yellow pajama pants with sheep on them and moccasin slippers I'd had since the early 90's.

For the children!

It is performance review time at Wal-Mart, for me at least, since I am one year into a sentence of indeterminate length. I was given the opportunity to fill out an evaluation for myself, but I just didn't care enough to put any heart into it. I handed it into my boss at the last minute. I gave myself the highest score in every category, under Achievements and Goals I wrote "not applicable" and that was that. I didn't think she'd actually look at it. She values her own opinion far too much. Once you've lost respect for your superiors and don't care if you get fired, you can pretty much do whatever you want so when she surprised me and asked about my lack of goals I said, "There's not really anything I want to improve on. I think I pretty much reached a plateau after my second week." She stared at me a while, either because she was shocked by my insolence or because she didn't know what plateau meant. It's hard to say; her emotions are not like our human emotions. She finished off the evaluation and approved my raise (now I can buy that beach house). Her assessment of my job performance was not nearly as generous as mine. She suggested I work on my punctuality. It's true I'm often 5, 10, 30 minutes late. But she didn't mention how I always sneak out early so I intend to continue doing that. She also reminded me of Wal-Mart's 3 meter rule: Smile and greet every customer who comes within 3 meters. This, unfortunately, is in direct conflict with my number 1 rule: Never engage the enemy. And I enjoy the challenge of always trying to stay at least 3 meters away from everyone. So I just moved my head noncommittally in response.

I volunteered for the Wal-Mart Walk for Miracles in support of children's charities this past Sunday. I was designated part of the tear-down crew, which sounds like fun but is, of course, just Wal-Mart speak for picking up garbage and stacking folding chairs. Sort of like how "party" is Wal-Mart speak for someone bringing in a box of Timbits but by the time you get there all the good ones are gone and there's just those plain ones left. Those plain Timbits are worse than no Timbits at all especially when you see someone else with their mouth so full of the delicious chocolate Timbits they can't talk. Anyway, I volunteered for the same reason everyone volunteers for these things: to meet attractive singles with kind hearts and good morals. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man at a charity event, must be in want of a date. I guess I didn't really think about the fact that all the other volunteers would be people from work, all with whom I was already more than sufficiently acquainted. When I left home it was sunny, as I traveled downtown the sky was darkening, and by the time I arrived at the Walk it was raining. With all that ominous meteorological foreshadowing, I was not surprised at all when I signed in at the volunteer tent and met up with the rest of my crew. One of the organizers introduced me, "Kathleen, your team leader will be your mortal enemy, Her Majesty, the Queen of Wal-Mart, your boss Donna!" AHHHHH! She actually said "Kathleen, you know Donna." I try to do something nice for the sick kids, or abandoned puppies or whatever the hell charity this was and this is what I get in return? Why could I not have been partnered with that pervert from Automotive who yells "Nice ass!" every time I walk by or that weird new girl from the pet department who spent her entire lunch break one day sketching me in her notebook? What these people lack in tact and sanity, they make up for in their dedication to me. And so we have at least that in common. The only thing Donna and I have in common is that we both like it when I'm not at work. She did behave herself for the most part though and the Walk was a success. My sneakers are still drying out from the water damage they sustained and my arms ache from loading five million gallons of beverages into a van. I hope those kids are happy.

Virtual Work

Facebook is ruined. My boss is on it. Under 'Activities' she has listed "being a bitch" and "ruining Kathleen's life". It actually says "Curling" and "going to the spa", but I can read between the lines. Of the top five fakest conversations I've ever had, at least three have been with her. I ask about her geriatric cat, she inquires about my college classes. We exchange nearly identical pleasantries each time we meet to mask our hostility towards one another. She's the closest thing I've ever had to an enemy. She has an eerie sixth sense when it comes to my job performance and magically shows up when I'm slacking off or negatively representing the store. Exchanges I've had with customers I wish she hadn't heard:

- "What kind of strapless bras do you carry?"
- "The ones here suck. You should go to Sears."

- "I can only take 4 items into the fitting room? But I have 15."
- "Whatever. Just go in."

- "You don't know how the gift registry works? You work here, don't you?"
- "Barely".

Whenever I turn around, there she is. Since I fancy myself an optimist, I like to think her being on Facebook could be an advantage. I hope that by studying her profile, I can determine her weaknesses. So far though it's just been an annoyance having to delete all the incriminating wall posts I've written.

The other day she informed me that I had neglected to do a portion of the required on-line training and that the particular lessons I had to do were supposed to have been done over a year ago when I first started working. I feigned ignorance and said I had no idea, which was a lie; I just didn't feel like doing it. The computer training modules are 20 minute animated pieces of crap designed to inform and entertain. You are subjected to some lecture on a topic like "Being nice to customers" and then you have to do an activity to prove you fully grasp the concept. Your guide through these lessons is a talking cartoon shopping cart who says "Good try!" after everything you do. The activity is usually a game so simple a child of three could master it. Sometimes it's a word search with words like basket and shelf. Or it could be paper doll style game where you dress an employee in the proper safety gear to clean up a chemical spill. If you're lucky, it might be a game similar to Pac-Man where you are a virtual janitor who has to clean up spills and move hazards out of the path of a virtual customer.

The sexual harassment game was by far the most hilarious. To "win" you have to participate in a virtual interaction with your imaginary co-worker Gene (picture Tom Selleck if he worked at Wal-mart and was a greasy cartoon character) who makes increasingly inappropriate sexual advances. After each move by Gene you have to click "Sexual Harassment" or "Not Sexual Harassment". I wanted to see just how far Gene would go and ended up having to repeat the lesson due to my poor score. I was apparently not the only one to have enjoyed getting to know Gene. Someone had written on the wall behind the computer "Gene is hot". Below that someone else had responded "I'd do him".

It's pretty much the most pointless thing I've ever done... which is why I don't know why I've been putting it off. I get to sit out back in the computer room with my snacks, put my feet up and "learn". I learned important lessons like NEVER climb inside the trash compactor and DON'T put heavy merchandise on top of eggs when you are packing shopping bags, neither of which I would even have opportunity to do in my capacity as a slave to "fashion". And I was disappointed to find out that according to company policy, employees are not allowed to date other employees, which is the tragedy of the century. This important learning comes too late for the two (possibly three) staff couples who are expecting babies. And I hope it doesn't negatively affect attendance at the upcoming nuptials of Ken from electronics and Christy from jewelry.

Reading

You would think someone who majored in English and is studying to work in a library would have tons of books but I don't. I have a decent stash at home, but it never occurred to me to bring any with me here. It's never really been a problem, but on Sunday night I was really desperate for something, anything to read.

Besides my textbooks, the most interesting of which is called Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, I have only two books. There's the Everything Bridesmaid Book (thanks Janet!) and an atlas I bought when I was in England because I didn't know where anything was. I really wanted to get all those European countries straight in my head. Monday night I resorted to reading the atlas. It seems I'm just as geographically stupid as ever. As a child, I used to play with a globe. I thought the names of some of the foreign places would be beautiful names for my children one day. Kenya and Australia were two of my favorites. Unfortunately I don't remember anything useful.

I finally made it to the library yesterday where I got Heave and a Sue Grafton mystery novel. Every once and a while I crave a good mystery, but I'm not really a mystery fan. So I always think back to my Women and Detective Fiction course to identify good authors. As a result, I've only ever read mysteries by women.

I started with the Sue Grafton book. On page 3 there was a greasy thumbprint halfway down the page near the spine. I tried to read the page but my eyes kept traveling down to the thumbprint. It was driving me crazy! I tried putting a piece of paper over it, but I still knew it was there. I finally gave up after I had read the first sentence seven times. I've read books in much worse condition, so I don't know why this bothered me so much. I guess I started thinking that if the last person who had this book was the kind of person to leave a disgusting thumbprint, what else might they have done with this book? It made me think of the episode of Seinfeld when George goes to a bookstore and takes one of the books with him into the bathroom. The bookstore makes him buy the book because he had it in the bathroom. Later he tries to return it, but is told the book has been flagged as having been in the bathroom. He tries to donate it to charity but they won't take it either. I can't wait to deal with crazy book shenanigans like that when I work in a library.

Checked Out

"To see or dream that you are a cashier, indicates that you are re-evaluating your life and what you have accomplished. Alternatively, it suggests that you have taken yourself out of some situation. You have "checked out".
-Dream Moods A-Z Dream Dictionary

Well that sounds about right. I had a dream recently which I originally assumed represented my squandered potential. In it, I was working as a cashier when I suddenly realized I had the ability to fly. I immediately informed my superiors and prepared myself for a promotion. I'm not sure what kind of a promotion I expected, (ceiling cleaner?) but my boss told me never to fly on company time and insisted I continue working cash. I was disappointed but went back to my cash register. I'm not sure what it all means but I dislike working cash so much that in real life, when one of the managers at work asked me if I wanted to be trained as a cashier, I told him I had a learning disability and was not supposed to handle money. Maybe the dream isn't about me though; around that same time I found out that the guy who works in the furniture department is a doctor, an actual medical doctor. And I though I was over-qualified!

We're horribly understaffed again in the fashion department after another mass exodus. Last week, the staff profit-sharing cheques got handed out, quite a nice chunk of change for anyone who worked full-time. I guess some people were just waiting for that day, because three of them quit immediately upon receiving their cheques. One woman went on lunch and never came back. Walmart instills such loyalty in its people. Due to the loss of staff, 5 new people have been hired for the fashion department. As is our custom, we took bets on how long each one would last. Anything less than 3 weeks is usually a pretty safe bet. I put my money on a perky blonde teenager as the first to go. The joyful ones never last long. Having worked at Walmart 15 months, I have been training others for 14 months and 3 1/2 weeks. I am still trying to perfect my technique so the new recruits are good workers, allowing me to slack off a bit, but not such good workers that people notice how little I do by comparison. It's a fine line, complicated by the fact that some of them are utterly hopeless and some, despite Walmart's rigorous screening process, are potheads or lunatics.

Although I usually have more in common with my younger co-workers, I also enjoy working with the older ladies in the fashion department because they're absolutely insane. It takes a certain kind of person to work at Wal-mart. I don't mean that as a bad thing, or as a good thing. I'm just saying a skewed sense of reality can really help get you through the day. One nutty woman, Sheril, who I work with occasionally, was disappointed when her co-worker Shauna left the ladieswear department and transferred to the shoe department. In an attempt to bond with me one day, Sheril asked if I wanted to play "Stool". To understand what went through my mind at that moment, you would have to know about a dark period in the store's history known as the Feces Fiasco of Summer '06. During the month of June that year, $10,000 worth of towels and linens were destroyed when a single perpetrator entered the store in the early morning hours and smeared feces on everything in sight in the domestics department, the volume of waste suggesting that the offender had been saving up. They were never caught. It was always supposed that the perp was a disgruntled customer or employee which narrowed the suspect pool down to...everyone. So when asked if I wanted to play Stool, it briefly crossed my mind that I may have discovered the elusive shit disturber. I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to learn that the stool was the regular four-legged variety meant for sitting on and the game of Stool was very simple: Each fitting room has one stool in it. You place the stool in the centre of the small room so the door still closes but the stool is very much in the way if you're trying to try on clothes. Nine times out of ten, people don't think to move the stool, they just work around it. As a game, Stool left much to be desired. If I could take a shot of vodka every time the stool remained unmoved, then we might have something. But Sheril was impressed with my efforts and said, "You're good at Stool. You can be my new Shauna." On a general creepiness scale, I would rate her comment about a 7. On a creepiness scale statistically adjusted for the crazy shit that goes down at Walmart, I would give it a 4. I hope desperately to avoid becoming the new Shauna.

I am currently applying for summer internships in libraries, hoping to avoid Wal-mart's special brand of madness. I have accepted this truth though: there are crazy people everywhere and they will always find me.

p.s. Never buy towels at Wal-mart.
p.p.s. Never buy anything at Wal-mart.

Fool

It's April Fool's Day again. I should be able to avoid getting pranked. I'll expect a call from my mother later on though, complaining about my father. For the last thirty years, every April 1, my father goes upstairs before my mother has woken up and says "Irene, there's a bear in the garden." Depending on the year, he may choose a different animal. It just has to be something worth getting up for, but not too implausible. This is a good trick because every once in a while, some unusual animal really does end up in the garden. In recent years there has been a cow (not unusual but weird since the nearest farm is miles away), a seal (we're close to the ocean but far enough away that to see a seal in our garden is odd), and a great white egret (a large heron-like bird found almost exclusively in tropical climates). And so every year for thirty years, my mother wakes up, goes to the window and looks out in the garden to make sure that April Fool's Day and Weird Animal in the Garden Day haven't somehow magically coincided.

My landlord and lady are going away on vacation for a week. They left a note in my mailbox with a list of contact numbers and also a reminder that they have a security alarm, which will be armed. I'm not sure if this was to make me feel safe or a way of telling me not to try anything. I guess I should have a raucous party while they're gone, but probably the worst I'll do is do my laundry on a Tuesday when my lease clearly states that I'm to use the washer and dryer on Mondays and Fridays only. I'm soooo bad.

Under Pressure

I'm back in the city after spending a portion of my March Break at home. I am not rejuvenated. I am not refreshed. I am wondering how I'm possibly going to finish all my school work in the next three weeks. A chat with one of my overachieving classmates yesterday did nothing to put me at ease. She was telling me how she had lost all her files for a project we have due on Friday. I misheard her say that all 17 pages were gone. I was like, "Wow, 17 pages." And she said, "Not 17. 70." 70 pages!! In order to maintain my sanity during this very stressful time, I like to pretend that she's actually a robot. As usual, I have not started the project yet. But as long as I can write 35 pages a day, I should be alright. This same girl is in my group for a project we have due at the end of term. I can't even imagine all the ways I'm going to disappoint her.

I couldn't possibly have done any less over March Break. My parents did some of my homework, I didn't do any. I was reunited with my least favorite family member, the cat. I accidentally let him OD on cat treats. He threw up twice in my parents room. They blamed it on all the turkey he ate. I said nothing. He'll probably never be allowed to have turkey again.

My parents returned me to the city on Friday. A quick inventory of my fridge reminded me why I was so excited to go home in the first place: All I had was some vodka and sour cream. I'm not proud of what I did next...

I'm just kidding. I went to the grocery store. It was a good trip because Nutella was on sale. It was a bad trip because I started a kiwi avalanche. Unsure of the proper supermarket etiquette for fallen fruit, I put the kiwis that I'd dropped in a bag and took them with me. Onlookers seemed satisfied that I hadn't compromised the integrity of the produce department and went about their shopping. Later on, when I found myself in a desserted aisle, I stashed the damaged goods behind the boxes of crackers. I hate people like me.

Unmentionables

Stop reading right here if you don't want to learn more about women's underwear. As a professional in the fashion industry, it's my job to be in the know about such things and I thought everyone would want to know that Wal-mart now carries panties with heavily padded butt cheeks to make your butt look bigger. I didn't realize such a thing existed. I've never seen them in lingerie stores. Usually by the time fashions reach Wal-Mart, they're pretty mainstream but these bootylicious panties are causing quite a stir. Children giggle at them, old people are confused by them, college kids want their picture taken with them. I can't say for sure if anyone's been buying them. One girl who bought a pair told me she falls a lot when she's drinking and always wakes up with a bruised behind so these foam bums would be perfect. Another woman, a bartender, thought she might wear a pair to work and maybe men would stop pinching her butt if they found it was fake. I think they all feel the need to come up with some practical reason, when really they just want to look like J Lo. The woman I work with in the lingerie department is called Patricia and goes by 'Tish' for short. The day we got those panties in, I accidentally called her 'Tush' twice.

In other disturbing underwear news, I learned something new about a regular customer who often calls the store. The caller is a distinguished sounding elderly lady who wants to know what kind of thigh-highs we carry. I know the drill; this same lady has called several times before always with the same question. I suspected she was just lonely or maybe had some kind of age-related memory loss. I always go along with it because it's just a couple of minutes out of my day. Once I had the thigh-highs in hand, a typical conversation with her usually went something like this:

-LADY: Can you take them out of the package? Are they silky?
----ME: OK. Yeah, they're silky.
-LADY: Are you touching them now?
----ME: Yep. They're pretty silky.
-LADY: Is there lace?
----ME: Yes. There's lace around the top.
-LADY: What do you think, would you wear them?
----ME: Sure.
-LADY: What would you wear with them?
----ME: I think they'll stay up by themselves but you could wear a garter belt.

Now read it again, this time with the knowledge that instead of talking to an old lady with memory loss, I'm actually talking to a pervy man trying to sound like a woman. Here I thought I was providing excellent customer service when the whole time I was engaged in dirty talk with a stranger. It seems most of my co-workers had also talked to "her" several times but they had caught on to his game right away. No one bothered to tell me. This scenario was not covered in our sexual harassment training. I plan to use it when I bargain for a raise arguing that I could be getting paid a lot more for those services at other places. For now I guess I'll just suck it up, practice, and include these new talents in the Communication Skills portion of my resume.

Why I get paid minimum wage

There was an episode of The Office this season where Pam (the receptionist) had to write down, hour by hour, everything her boss Michael did to see if he actually did anything at all. I thought about what I did in a typical 5 hour shift and began to understand why my boss hates me. Today was a particularly unproductive day.

5:35pm- arrive at work 5 minutes late
5:45pm- meeting with co-workers to discuss how many people called in sick today and what might be wrong with them/general bitching and complaining: 15 minutes
6:00pm- cheer up co-worker crying in the bathroom: 20 minutes
6:20pm- shop for digital cameras in electronics department: 15 minutes
6:45pm- try to exlain to size 14 woman why size 6 jeans do not fit her (unsuccessful): 8 minutes
7:00pm- stand at fitting room and chat with co-worker about our boss, movies, our hair, Facebook, and shoes : 60 minutes
8:00pm- mandatory 15 minute break: 28 minutes
8:30pm- fold shirts: 20 minutes
8:50pm- hide in fitting room from manager who may try to train me to use cash register. Clean mirrors while I'm in there: 10 minutes
9:00pm- push empty shopping carts to the front of the store: 10 minutes
9:10pm- unofficial break to take tylenol and apply eye drops: 10 minutes
9:20pm- rate male co-workers on scale of "hot" to "not" with fellow ladieswear staff: 25 minutes
9:50pm- run around like crazy trying to make it look like I did some work: 20 minutes
10:15pm- leave 15 minutes early to catch bus

The next level of weird

I don't know about all this "tagging" nonesense, but I decided I better participate since I haven't been a very good blogger lately. If you read this, you are also tagged!

So here are six weird things about me:

1. Instead of sleeping 7 or 8 hours a night, I sleep in two 3 1/2 hour shifts, usually about 3:30am-7am and 1:30pm-5pm. I have to get up at 7:00 to go to school and I haven't been able to shake my night owl tendancies so I've been doing this for 4 months now. Interestingly, the quality of my dreams is at an all-time high.

2. I often imagine what the CSI team investigating my death would think of me based on my apartment, my belongings and my acquaintances, should I happen to die mysteriously or be murdered. And, yes, I realize it's presumptuous of me to think I would get a whole team.

3. I love walking alone at night.

4. I eat an absolutely ridiculous amount of Nutella. If I were a superhero, my power would be eating Nutella because it's the only thing I can do much better than other people. I think I probably eat more of it than anyone else in the world.

5. I hate being near animals. I'm interested in animals and I respect them but being in close proximity to them makes me extremely nervous.

6. I practice writing backwards because I have this strong feeling that it will come in useful someday.

Undercover Librarian

Only a week back at library school and already we have a ridiculous assignment. We're to go "undercover" to a library and assess the quality of their reference desk staff. My partner and I get to go to the King's library. For my disguise, I will take off my King's ring and refrain from using any telling King's acronyms because we're only supposed to be community college students who don't know anything about research or paper writing. We also can't reveal what program we're actually in to avoid biased treatment. My partner and I have decided to pose as either paralegals or medical transcriptionists. I don't know how I'll keep all the lies straight. I hope the librarian is a real bitch and tells us we're not good enough to use King's library. That will put an end to our investigation and make our report easy to write.

I must say I was sadly misinformed as to what librarians do. I thought I would be taking classes in shushing people and having lessons in slowly removing my glasses and seductively shaking my hair loose from a deceptively prudish bun. But so far it's been all research and customer service. I am still enjoying the program and I like my classmates but I'm wondering if I might take next year to do something different. Perhaps another year abroad.


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