I love the passing of time

I keep seeking out new venues to tell the crazy story of Allison’s mom’s current bizarre behavior.

I’m rejoining old stepparenting sites, joining new ones, finding ‘I just need to vent’ sites, etc. And, all of the comments that I get are the same. All kinds of variations of “WTF?”.

And, it’s not satisfying the desire to tell it to more people, try to see if anyone can explain it to me, help me understand why she’s doing this, what point she’s trying to make.

I think that’s because there is no answer, no explanation, no logical point.

I also think that they longing to talk about it’s not going to go away because it’s not that I want to talk to *other people* about it, I want to talk to *her* about it. And, I know that I can’t. It’s not my place & the people who are most affected by it (Jim & Allison) wouldn’t want me to ask her about it.

So, I won’t. But, I do think I’m going to keep on putting the story out there, maybe secretly hoping that someone she knows or is vaguely associated with might see what I’m saying (and what other people are saying in reply) & ask her about it, expose her, force her to face reality & get her back into Allison’s life in a more positive way.

Jim started cleaning under the kid’s bunk beds today. It is a mess. There are a lot of toys stored under there in a very messy, haphazard fashion.

Anyway, I was doing a bit of picking up in there just now & Anna crawled under the bed & found a purple norn stuffed animal. (From the computer game, ‘Creatures’)

Annie brought it in to Shelby, who was getting out of the bath. I overheard their conversation from the next room.

Shelby: I want to show that to Dad!
Annie: I already did.
Shelby: Did you know that Creatures was mom’s favorite game when she was little?

Cute. Creatures didn’t come out until I was in my 30’s. But, they have heard Dad & I talking about how we both played it when we were dating. To the kids, anything that happened before they were born must have happened when we were little like them.

Just a quick update, because I’m having so much fun with this. And, yes, I do have lots of time to be on the computer at work, once I’ve finished all of my work orders - and at home after the kids go to sleep (and after I get home from Dollar Store, if I’m working that night).

But, so far, since I joined http://www.sweepstakestoday.com sometime at the end of Septmeber, I’ve won:

Kryptonite (Silly putty/slime kind of stuff)
$100 gift certificate to http://www.noblecollection.com/ (sold it on e-bay for $75!)
A High Sierra backpack
A keychain/luggage tag set
One package of clorox disinfecting wipes

I still haven’t won a daily or one-time sweep (those were all instant wins), but the people who have been doing this longer than me post on the forum that you usually just get those prizes in the mail or in a surprise delivery from UPS or Fedex. And, they usually don’t draw the winners for those until weeks after the sweep ends (so, since I’ve only been doing this for a couple of months, I shouldn’t even really be expecting those deliveries, yet).

If you’ve got some time to kill (or want to find it), I’m finding this to be a great way to spend my time on-line!

Yes, they are.

I’ve been working nights, part-time, seasonal only, at the Dollar Tree. I could go into long stories about the management issues there - it’s insane, but that’s because of some upheaval that happened right before I started, leaving the store without management at all & now it’s being filled in with people from other stores, employees that have only been working there for a month or so and new employees that are training to be managers at other stores.

But, that’s all understandable & unavoidable right now.

What has been really surprising for me, though, is how the customers treat the store. We usually have 2 people working on the floor all night long, just putting away things that customers have taken off of the shelves & put down somewhere else in the store. All night. Without stopping. And, there’s still stuff to be put back away for an hour after we close up for the night.

Last night, there was a cart full of stuff that was just left in the aisle. We left it there for an hour, thinking that, maybe, the person was shopping & forgot their money at home or something. Eventually we had to put it all away again. And that’s not an easy job to do at the Dollar store where we have thousands of items spread across 8 aisles, plus a big display in the front.

Also, last night, I found what looked like an entire shopping basket worth of stuff dumped into a big cardboard barrell full of sponges. Who did that? What were they thinking when they did it?

All over the store, there’s things that were picked up in one place & put on the shelf in another place. Some of them not 2 feet away from the place where they belong. Why? Why not put it where it belongs after you pick it up? The frames are a disaster that would take a couple hours to fix. The toys are always trashed. The rack of greeting cards? Forget it! You’d have to take the whole thing apart & start over to get it straightened out.

C’mon, people! I know it’s ‘just the dollar store’, but, think about it - how much money do you think the employees are making at the dollar store? You’re always telling me how nice & clean our store is - how do you think it gets that way? How do you think they will keep the prices at $1 (or less) if they have to hire an extra employee every day to put away all of that stuff that you just put down wherever you feel like putting it down? Or cleaning up the display that you destroyed?

Sigh… I’m glad it’s just a seasonal job for me. I think that if I had to see people behaving like this every day, all year, it would really get me down.

This is how traffic flows…

You are on a two lane road (or is that a four lane? what do you call the ones that have two lanes going in each direction? ). You see that both lanes ahead of you seem to be slowing & backing up - one more than the other. You look ahead, and about 2 long blocks away, you see one of those flashing arrows in the right lane, telling everyone to go into the left lane. Everyone in the left lane opens up a space in front of them. Everyone in the right lane moves to the left lane as soon as they possibly can. The traffic flows right past the flashing arrow.

This is how traffic backs up…

You are on a two lane road (or is that a four lane? what do you call the ones that have two lanes going in each direction? ). You see that both lanes ahead of you seem to be slowing & backing up - one more than the other. You look ahead, and about 2 long blocks away, you see one of those flashing arrows in the right lane, telling everyone to go into the left lane. A few cars move over to the left lane. You see the right lane opening up before you as they do and see the left lane, therefore, moving slower than the right (not even thinking ahead to the part where the right lane actually stops). You zoom up to the part where the right lane actually stops, then, in order to get into the left lane, the cars there have to go even slower to let you in, along with the 10 other cars who decided to wait until the last minute, too, in order to get ahead of the other drivers travelling on the same road with you.