Nightmare on 34th Street

Black Friday is not the best day to go back to work after being gone for three months. Especially when Place of Employment was bought out by the biggest department store chain in the country. New Place of Employment is not nearly as cool. I can't use their coupons because I'm an employee, and HR can't keep me on the payroll when I'm at school, so I'll have to reapply for my job every holiday season and summer. However, they gave me a magnetic name badge. No more screwing up my shirts with clips and pins. That counts for something, right?

Though my shift actually started at five-thirty, the store didn't open until six. But it could have been much, much worse. I still had to deal with my fair share of crazies. Angry women that thought it was my fault, and had no problems letting me know so, that Place of Employment does not accept combined coupons. Or that we do not have coupons at the register to scan for every single person that asks. Hello, it's company policy... do not yell at me at 7:15 in the morning! Later on I had a kid get severely PO'ed at me because I can't speak Spanish (other than "Hola, como estas?". And the sheer numbers of people that wanted to use gift receipts as coupons...

To explain the title of this post: we were giving away copies of Miracle on 34th Street to our big spenders. I could not, for the life of me, remember the name of that movie, so I kept calling it Miracle on Elm Street and Nightmare on 34th Street. At one point I said to a customer "Wouldn't it be hilarious if Santa disguised himself as Krueger?" Luckily, she thought it was as funny as I did.

Gobble?

So I'm home again. Awaiting the arrival of the family. Am actually excited about it. Our version of "Dirty Uncle Sal" might not even show up. Hooray, I will be spared the embarassment of him asking me if "those things" (my boobs) are real after he's had a couple beers. I will also be spared the task of having to knock out his one remaining tooth if he asks. Sound extreme? Well, I'm sick of it, and no one else in the fam ever says or does anything about it, so I'm taking the matter into my own hands. However, I am going to have a good time. My mom cooked enough food to feed an army, and I plan on eating a lot of it. Bring on the turkey! Bring on the cranberry salad! Bring on the deviled eggs! Bring on the ham! Nah, screw the ham. But do bring on the pumpkin pie!

Why? Why, Why, WHY???????????

Getting sick or injured on holidays is something that comes naturally to me. Last Christmas I had the flu. Thanksgiving two years ago I had an upper respiratory tract infection. Spring break when I was seventeen I don't even know what I had, but I know I ran a temperature of 106. My mom physically carried me to the tub, dumped me in and threw ice cubes and cold water on me. Thanks mom.. Last 4th of July my contact broke (while I was wearing it), and I had to miss out on overtime $$ at Macy's so I could go to the ER and have one of their *fine* young doctors scratch my cornea. And then there was that time when all the neighborhood kids got head lice. On fucking New Years Eve! Currently, I have some kind of stomach bug. Am delighted to report that it is not food poisoning, which hey, after eating in the cafeteria, is nothing short of a miracle.

However, my attitude towards my roommate: not so good. When we came to our unspoken agreement that we would share certain things, I was thinking food, laundry money, alcohol. Anything but infectious diseases. And now she's at her house, resting up where mama can take care of her, and I'm here in my dorm room, sad and lonely with a badly drawn biohazard symbol on my door. I want someone to pour Sprite down my throat and bring me crackers. I want not to feel like typhoid Mary. Up until 11 pm last night, I thought that I had food poisoning, so I went about my business. Saw a play, went to intro class, went to my sorority meeting, spread my germs around... I really hope that no one gets sick because of me.

Sheer and Utter Boredom

I have, sitting in front of me, five movies. I intend to watch all of them tonight, or at the very latest before time to go to intro class tomorrow. Gawd, I cannot wait until Tuesday.

An Evening With Maya Angelou

The fact that someone that famous would bother to even come to this part of the state, and then to my craptastic little college is nothing short of a miracle. Never in my life have I seen so many people on campus. The auditorium can hold more people than this town has citizens, and every single seat was full. My first thought when Ms. Angelou took the stage was "Oh, she's so small!" I was expecting her to be almost larger than life. And then she started speaking. She talked about her life, read some poetry, made us laugh, made some of us cry, all in the span of an hour and a half. I only wish that she could have gone on talking all night.

More information about the event here and here

Some things I've realized in the last week

1) I grind my teeth when I sleep. However, my roommate snores so I guess we're even.
2) Diet Ginger Ale is crap.
3) Christmas = completely uninteresting.
4) Oddballs tend to like me. What that says about me, who knows?

5) Three years at college and I'm still a procrastinating dumbass.

6) My attempts to hide my accent are not working as well as I thought.

The Well Meaning Freshman Who Won't Shut Up

This has not been a good morning for me. After giving my alarm clock a thorough pounding (I'll have to reset it, so thorough was the pounding), I managed to get up, throw on some clothes and venture out into the freezing cold. Along the way, I encountered WMFWWSU. My first meeting with her was about two weeks ago. I took the long way this morning after I saw her up ahead, because I just knew that she was gonna want to do that talking thing that I'm not a big fan of that early in the morning. She didn't take the hint, and was waiting for me when I got to the sidewalk. She proceeded to complain about how cold it was, while I grunted my replies. She finally went to the library and I got to enjoy the silence for a few minutes until I got to class.

Now, it's not that I'm mean (well, not entirely). I would have treated my very best friend the same way if she were chattering incessantly in my ear at 7:45 in the frickin' morning.