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.