MY LIFE - DECEMBER

Wednesday, December 6, 2000

First things first, I didn't write an entry yesterday or Monday because there wasn't anything worth writing about at all. Yesterday was a day where I did absolutely nothing and couldn't have been more excited about it. I just had no ambition yesterday and really didn't care to have any. It was a day to relax and get myself rested.

It was also a day to play video games. I played Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask for a long time yesterday and accomplished a lot. It's taken me a while but I've finally gotten the hang of how the game works. Getting used to having a time limit in a Zelda game was the most difficult part of all, but I think I've figured it out now.

Anyway. That's what yesterday consisted of. I made lasagna late in the day, but that's nothing too notable. It was so that I had something to eat for dinner tonight because someone threw out my mayonnaise. Apparently it was too old, but no one had told me so I didn't have any mayonnaise for my turkey sub and I do NOT eat subs without mayonnaise. I can't stand it.

I told my mom that I had been eating it for a while and that I was fine, but she wouldn't listen. I told her that if I at least were to die from eating spoiled mayonnaise, I would at least die on a full stomach.

That didn't sit very well with her for obvious reasons. So now I have to go and buy some mayonnaise at some point because I just can't keep making lasagna so that I have something to eat at work. Besides, it was lasagna that made me sick last week in the first place. Granted, it was a frozen dinner, but even so, it was lasagna. I didn't react to this stuff though, so I guess that's a step in the right direction.

Speaking of work...Joann's trying to duck out of going to the pharmacy meeting this Saturday at 7am. She's continuing to insist that there's no reason for her to be there (donuts would be a good reason for her, but let's not go there), that she knows everything that you have to know in the pharmacy.

She's so stupid though. She can't seem to figure out that this is not about learning something new in the pharmacy, but ironing out some of the problems that have continued to plague the pharmacy for the last few months, mostly between a couple of the techs and the pharmacists.

She knows this though. She knows that something in the meeting will be about her and her recent behavior with Jim and my manager, Bob. She doesn't want to hear that she won't be able to work 9am-3:30pm anymore and she just doesn't want to face the hard facts. She'd rather skip out on the meeting and she tried to get Bob to tell her what the meeting was about. He told her to be there and she said she just might not go. He told her she'd better show up.

She's definitely overstepped her boundaries and I want to see what she has to say about everyone's opinion on her. I mostly want to hear what Bob has to say though. He's not too happy with her and he's our boss. Quite frankly, if I had to choose, I'd take Jim over Joann anyday. I get along with Jim like I get along with everyone else. Joann's the only one where's there's even a little iciness, and I'm not even sure what I did to get on her bad side either. I think it's kind of stupid if she doesn't like me for any reason. She doesn't know me yet.

In any case, I'll be watching with interest what happens at the meeting.

It's bound to be more exciting than today was. It was fairly slow for the most part today, or so it seemed even though I spent much of the day working drive-thru and trying to either put the order away or scan something up for our inventory. There was some excitement at night, although I'd like to avoid it in the future.

First off, someone messed up and filed a bag that was supposed to be delivered. It never got out the door so it eventually came down to me taking it over to the apartment building where the patient lived. It was cold outside and I had a decent walk from my car to the building itself to make without any gloves. My hands were pretty numb by the time I got in, then I tried calling the patient, but there was a problem and I ended up getting someone completely different.

So then a nice old lady came in, got in, and let me in after her. I thanked her and headed down to the apartment where the patient was very nice despite the mess-up in the delivery. So nice that I couldn't get her to stop talking so that I could get back to work. I didn't help by continuing to talk back and I apologized about five times for the inconvenience. She then gave me a check for the scripts and a prescription she wanted profiled.

I finally got out of there and was back on my way to work. Not long after I got back, the computer at the checking station stopped scanning things. It would beep to indicate it had scanned, but nothing would come up on the screen. Steve and Jim made calls to the help desk to try and figure out the problem, but nothing was resolved. They decided to check at one of the other stations until the other one was fixed.

Regina came in and Jim was showing her how to shut down the computer and boot it back up in case she ever needed to do it and when the computer came back up, he tried scanning again just for the heck of it. He didn't think it would really work.

It did work.

The damn thing was working again and Jim demanded $50 from the store savings for his trouble. Then the help desk called again and he said that it was fixed and that it would be $50 for his services. They asked what he did and he said it would be $100 to find out the secret. He then told him what he had done and said that there weren't anymore problems for the time being.

So it was an interesting night despite being fairly slow. I don't think I want a repeat of what happened though.

---

Last summer, a 3 year old black child, Bria McCall, was struck by 19 year old Anne Hettman while Hettman was driving down her street. It immediately blew up into a race game that the McCall's started, claiming the police weren't investigating it properly because it was black victim and white suspect. The police didn't think charges were warranted and the coroner ruled it death by accident.

So how the fuck did Hettman get charged with vehicular manslaughter despite the fact that it was an unavoidable accident? Race and politics. The city is trying to appease the black family, however, it's trampling on the white girl who was behind the wheel. Drugs and alcohol played no part, she wasn't speeding, and witness give conflicting stories. Yet the Law Director filed charges?

I was watching coverage of this on the news and was appalled by the way some of the teenage witnesses for the prosecution were behaving. They rolled their eyes at questions and consistently gave conflicting testimony that was sometimes sarcastic. I remember one exchange when the defense lawyer asked how one witness could be watching five things at once and the teen just say "what?"

It's a shame that this is happening because Hettman didn't intentionally hit that child. She tried to give it CPR and did everything she could. It's a tragic accident, but that's just the thing. It was an accident that I don't think could've been avoided. Mrs. McCall gets mad every time someone asks her why the child was in the street in the first place. She seems to think that it isn't important.

Well, it is important. What is a three year old doing in the street not being supervised by his or her parent(s)? What's a three year old doing anywhere near the street? These questions are important because if this child wasn't playing in the street, she wouldn't have been hit. Anyone could've been behind the wheel and not avoided that child. We're talking a black child on dark pavement, a small child at that.

I think that the city's just trying to keep the McCall's happy, but it's not going to work. No one is convinced that Hettman could've avoided this accident or that Hettman was doing anything wrong except the McCall's and friends who testify. I just think that this is a waste of time and tax money for a crime that won't win conviction. I don't want it to win conviction either. The McCall's just need to let this go and realize that anyone could have had this happen.

But that won't happen. That would make sense and would take away the race card, which always has to be played in a situation like this.

The accident was sad, but this is even worse. I just don't understand this world sometimes.