April 6, 1999
Opening day is here! Okay, so maybe baseball opened up last Sunday, but today was the day the Cleveland Indians opened up their season with the Anaheim Angels. Actually, the game is still going on right now as I write this, but that's not important. What is important is that baseball is back and I'm very happy that it's back at that. I have to admit, I've missed the sport over the winter and I've missed watching the Indians trudge their way into the postseason and give other teams a wake-up call.
I wouldn't have said that even five years ago when the Indians weren't that great and basketball was the focus of my life. However, times have changed as have I and now baseball is really my favorite sport right now, especially following the NBA lockout debacle. I used to have trouble watching baseball games because I'd get bored and find something else to watch. Now I throw a fit when someone else wants to change the channel.
You don't want to see me throw a fit. It is not a pretty sight. I can get loud too if I want to.
After the last few days where I pretty much felt and acted like there was no reason to be happy, I made a resolution today while I was getting ready for work. For at least today, I wasn't going to worry about anything at all and that I'd let my sarcasm handle anything that came up. There was not going to be any unhappy moments and I was going to learn to just let things go as they were meant to be.
It worked too. I've been a much improved mood all day today and my sarcasm was at its best at several points, especially when someone did something stupid. I once again had a comment for everything today and had a couple people either laughing or telling me to shut up, which is more along the norm for me. For instance, shift supervisor Mike was talking with Becky and Mike S. upfront about something when the he raised the question (jokingly I hope) of whose responsibility it was to decide which one of them was going to do what. I just happened to be walking by when I heard that and immediately said "the shift supervisor," which did the trick. I was just as quickly gone from the scene, leaving Mike to wonder where I went.
That's how I like to operate, with a comment for everything. Hell, I'm not the peanut gallery for nothing at work. Gotta keep the wit sharp.
Later on one of our more irritating customers showed up. As usual, she had a batch of prescriptions, and as usual, there was a problem with them. There's always a problem with her stuff, and then she proposes ridiculous solutions. Tonight she suggested that we call the doctor. At home. We refused so she did for us and the doctor prescriped something that was covered. Part one of the problem solved.
Part two is her immaculate eye on all our prices. She must know our prices better than we do and she watches that display like a hawk. Either that or she waits until the transaction is done before pointing something out, resulting in us having to do a refund. She got us on a couple of things tonight. One was a box of ginger snaps that still had the old ad sign up (Victor!) and the other was an item on price cut that didn't come up right.
What makes her more annoying? She waits until 9:30 to show up, which is around the time that one of the register drawers is counted down leaving us with one register for her to hold up, which she does so well. She held up the line three times tonight, and it this was one of her better nights. She is so irritating. Like I said, this was one of her better nights.
Usually she'll come in and have several prescriptions/refills. We'll do them and she'll come up and suddenly say she doesn't want one of them. We'll cancel them and she'll come back up saying she's changed her mind and she actually does want that medication. That's how she usually operates. It eventually does get to the point where you just want to scream at her to just go home and stop messing with us. I'm still not sure if she does it on purpose or not, be she pisses me off sometimes. Out of all the customers, she is by far the worst.
Did I mention she aggravates me?
My family traded rooms tonight. Okay, so maybe it was my two sisters and mom who switched rooms. They had planned this for a while and I just found out about it when I got home from work and found stuff all over the place. Upon asking if anything was in my room, I was told I'd be lucky if I could find my room at that point in time. I don't like hearing that my room may be under an avalanche of stuff. Especially when it's not my stuff. There's still a wide assortment of objects in my room right now. Hangars, a bulletin board, some box, and some plastic baggy. Makes being the only guy in the house worth it.
I was hungry when I got home though and was going to go get something to eat when I was told I had to help. Okay. No problem. My mom was putting together another waterbed so the cats were all exploring the wooden framework. I heard a strange thumping noise but thought nothing of it. Then, as we were just beginning to assemble the bed, we heard a muffled meow. Apparently, one of the cats had become trapped underneath the wooden support boards. We found that it was Poob, but he was okay and he immediately forgave us by cleaning himself. On the very boards that had him trapped just minutes earlier.
I eventually got away long enough to go to Taco Bell, which wasn't my first option, and when I got home I watched the Indians game (they did lose after all, 6-5). By this time my mom was filling up the bed with water from the hose outside, which was quite cold from being near the cold ground. It was also a bit chilly outside as well as windy, so I began to become quite peturbed over time as I was getting rather cold. She eventually finished that part up and finally shut the front door, much to my relief. Right now, everybody's pretty much flopped into bed, except for my older sister who's still sleeping on the couch. That annoys the hell out of me. She has a room to herself now and she won't take the time to get a bed made for herself so that she can sleep in her room. Nope, she has to sleep on the couch.
I'm fine with the whole room switching thing aside from one thing. No one told me anything about it or even asked me if I wanted a part of it. I wouldn't have switched rooms anyway, but I still would have liked it if someone would have at least asked me for a little input. Instead, I found it out as it was going on, which left me absolutely no time to prepare for it or even offer any of my own insight. That just bothers me when I'm not told of something that affects me. So now I have a room full of junk that's not mine and I have to deal with it because everyone else is too tired. I hate that.
I hope next time they inform me ahead of time of any major moving around going on. I'd like to be a little prepared, and not shocked when I come home from work.
I have tomorrow off of work, so I'd like to get a few things done. One is to actually go in and write the April/Easter Editorial that should have been up a week ago. I'd also like to get some more work done on other areas of this site too, but I have to get up this time. Last day off I didn't get up until 8pm. I don't see a repeat of that happening, although you never know with me.
I'd also like to get outside and play a little basketball. I've been itching to play all week, but I haven't had a chance and when I have, the courts in the area were all in use. It probably wouldn't hurt to get my membership renewed at the Rec Center, but I don't feel like spending $50-60 on that when I know I really won't use my pass. I'll try and be up tomorrow so that I can play a little bit because it is supposed to be near 70° tomorrow with plenty of sunshine. If it's windy you can forget it though. It'll be bad enough trying to regain my shot on a calm day, much less a windy day.
I would like to spend more time outside this summer, even with the hours I'll be working. I've got to cut this getting up at 12pm and going straight to work shit that I've had when I haven't had school during the week. I need to actually go to bed before 1 or 2am and get up before 11am. I just feel like so much is passing me by when I do that.
It won't happen, of course, but it's a nice thought.
I've been entertaining various ideas of what I'm going to do with my vacation time this year. I have 33.7 hours of vacation time, which I want to use in either late June or early July. Right now, I'm leaning towards going to the Great Lakes Science Center on day one, then, rather than going home, going to my grandfather's tree farm in Ashtabula County for the week. I don't think there'd be much of a problem with me doing that at all, and it would be the least expensive thing to do. There's no way in hell that I'd be able to save up any money to go on a real vacation, at least not this year. Maybe next summer I'll be able to, but that's not certain.
GLSC and the tree farm sounds good though. You're probably wondering what makes a tree farm so great. You have to remember, I'm a tad old-fashioned at times which means I enjoy things that many kids my age would find "stupid." I like the country a whole lot and it goes perfectly with my personality. I'm in no way a "people person," which means that the solitude of the country fits me perfectly. There's no noise out there aside from natural noises, there are hardly any people out there, and it's very peaceful. I used to go out there all the time with my dad and grandparents and would just be in heaven. It's even nicer now that they've got a house out there, and not just that old run-down trailer. This house is nice too. They have DirectTV which means they have a lot of movie choices.
I don't go there for the tv though, I go there for the quietness. I love walking in the vast expanse of woods that are out there, especially in the afternoon when the whole forest is lit up. Then at night there'd be a fire where you could sit around and just be at ease with everything, all while roasting marshmallows, the most important part of a fire. The house is very cozy and has plenty of room for being such a small house at that. Several beds and a very comfortable couch. I really can't wait to get back out there again. Maybe I'll take my vacation the week of Independence Day. I don't know. I do know that when I do take it, I want to go out there for my time.
Whenever I do go, I hope to have a lot of fun there, whether I'm there by myself or with my relatives. Knowing how things tend to go, by then I'll probably be needing the time off anyway.
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