Hello, dear reader. I apologize for my absence. I have been picking up more hours at work (to quote my coworker, "I have a pile of bills 1/16th of an inch thick!"), and this last weekend I was dog sitting a dog I've known since puppy-hood. He's not one for sharing attention, especially with computers or other living things, and he definitely doesn't understand that sleeping people don't give attention to dogs unless they howl and flop around like an attention-starved starlet with the back of her hand on her forehead.So today I was going to stay and work longer, make some money. I had the best intentions, and I seem to have a TON of energy on Tuesdays (a phenomenon which I am willing to investigate and extort) when, 15 minutes into my shift I had a comical but devastating incident. Thinking about it now, it is funny, and I hope you find it funny too. In my head it reads like that insurance claim about the guy with the bricks. I've told my manager that I will set up the paint machines every morning (I may as well tell you I work in a home-improvement store; the secret is out. Everyone from my old work knows, and seem to be coming in to check on me. Fabulous), so that she doesn't have to come in a half hour early just to set it all up. It's fairly simple. Purge the machines, check the color levels, etc. Today I was filling the white colorant when I decided it would go faster if I punched a hole in the bottom. Before the can was empty I could see that the color was getting full, so I moved the can to the next machine to fill up that white container. Clearly I had forgotten that I had punched a hole in the bottom, and a trail of white paint was following me to the next machine. In my haste, I dumped the remainder in the next container, only to see that it was the wrong color. My manager hath oft told me this would be grounds for a royal hissy fit. I caught it after only a couple of drops, so no harm was done. I bent down to clean up the paint I had trailed on the floor, and hit my forehead on the counter, getting white paint on my face. I quickly cleaned up the floor and disposed of the offending canister, spraying all the surfaces with a powerful degreaser. I got the paint cleared up and decided to clean the counter. I safely sprayed a paper towel with this wonder-solvent, but it was on stream, rather than spray, and it sprayed back into my eye. I cannot tell you the amount of burning that is involved in this venture. I do not recommend it to anyone. I went to the drinking fountain and rinsed my eye, then, wet, bangs dripping, with white paint on my face, went to ask where the eyewash station was. What was that? Was that embarrassing, you ask? Ohhhh, not compared to what came next. I went to the eyewash station and bent over the fountain of saline solution, when the dock worker told me I had to stay there 15 minutes. 15 minutes, in a busy receiving area, bent over a fountain with my butt hanging out in the world. Everyone walking by wanted to know what happened, and I couldn't tell them, because of the odd sensation I was drowning. It was a high tech Neti Pot, I tell you. So there I am, snot pouring out, eye still burning, hanging my backside out to the world, trying to breathe, alienating those around me who want to know what happened (Minnesota Nice: Asking for the details while one is still in the process of dealing with it...Minnesota Nosy, more like) because I can't speak. Good times. I did NOT go home, however. But I did leave when my shift was over, rather than staying for more hours. I just want to shut my eye!
The good news is I can see. I have a minimal amount of blurriness, which is slowly subsiding, and all I can feel is a bit of a burn. Could have been worse. The ironic thing is that when they showed me that degreaser in the first place, they said, "this right here is your best friend." Ummmmm, no. Not so much.
The morning did not improve. My mineral water and juice concoction exploded on me, going all the way down my shirt and into my pants, my shirt buttons kept coming undone, making me the Mae West of the general area. I dropped a 6 pack of Catfood on my foot. If it could go wrong today, it did. I thought it would be best to just get home, close my eye and hide from the world. The only thing that went well was that I didn't cut myself with the box cutter, as per usual. What am I doing here? The HR guys keep asking me that too, but that's more because I seem so smart and overqualified. Maybe if I do well enough soon enough I will not have to be a grunt for long, but on the upside, I'm a size smaller and I'm getting some upper body strength. Ha!
This job cracks me up. I can't help but find things funny about it all the time. For the first 2 weeks I thought I was socially awkward, having been out of the world for the better part of a year, then I realized a lot of my coworkers are a bit on the awkward side, leaving odd pauses or rambling about seriously trivial things, like their granola bar preferences. The small talk gets really funny. I was thrilled to find out that one of my coworkers watched Family Guy last week, so when I asked him about it this week he had not seen it. He watches SpongeBob Squarepants. What? What is the best response to that?
There are a million more stories like this, and just as many that come from the customers. I will share them with you as I can remember and see. I better hide from the world, before I ruin another remote or laptop keyboard with spilled something or other. Oh yeah, it's all happened.
Today's song of the Day is
Joe Purdy, Just Can't Seem to Get it Right Today
It's snowing again, for the third day in a row. Here are a few implications of the snow:
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