April 23, 1999
More and more details continue to come out of the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Three dozen bombs have been discovered and taken care of. 12 students are dead, 1 teacher, and the two shooters. 23 more were injured during this tragic event, which lasted several hours and has left many shaken. Even the sports world has felt the shock of this. On the day of the shooting, no matter what event you were at, there was a moment of silence before the start. The Colorado Rockies canceled two baseball games and the Colorado Avalanche changed how their hockey series would be setup.
There was a nationwide repercussion because of this event, an event that should never have happened. The media, aside from one Chicago Newspaper, has grasped this and begun the usual task of over-analyzing this to death. I find this disturbing. This is a terrible, terrible occurence, but it should be blasted at us in every way possible. As usual the media is grasping a big headline event and just continuing to blast it at us. In a couple of days, I'm sure I'll find it on the cover of my Newsweek and on several other publications. It's one thing to discuss it for a few days. It's a totally different thing to just continually shove it in our face.
I feel just as badly as anyone else about this. This is something that never should have happened. None of the school shootings should have happened. These families, this community, everyone else should just be left to mourn this. They shouldn't be answering questions everyday about their children. They should be allowed to mourn in peace. Instead, reporters are all over the place. MTV had reporters there. Yes, this site will be displaying ribbons for this, but aside from a commentary on it two entries in My Life, there will be no other mention of this event.
One other thing to mention that I find deeply respectful of this tragic event was finding patches on the uniforms of the Colorado Rockies that read "CHS." I found that to be a respectful thing to do. Also, players on the Colorado Avalanche were split into groups who went and visited the injured kids in the hospital.
It seems to me the sports world and the general population has a deep respect for the lives damaged by this event. Let's hope the media slows down.
I woke up miserable today. My head hurt so bad, I could not move for several hours and I was just a shithead at work for a few hours. When I finally snapped out of my funk, it was just in time to start listening to the usual banter from Jenny. I was summoned by Victor, my assistant, to help him with the counting of a couple of areas in the store as we prepared for the inventory tomorrow. While doing this, we began to see Jenny come over, which only presented us with opportunities.
Earlier, Steve and I had our usual little game with Jenny in which she had a hell of a time figuring out what we were talking about. When she came around Victor and me later, we cut straight to the chase. Victor started things off by making a few comments to Jenny that were just straight up funny. We were in the Vitamin section when this happened. I immediately jumped in and paid the price by getting hit several times on the arm by Jenny, who happened to be holding a large bottle of vitamins. I'm now bruised, which would come up later.
After more comments, some involving her hiding a pregnancy (it would take a very long time to explain how that one came about) and a hit on the arm by a price gun, she finally left. After a while, we finished up what we were doing and went up to the office to watch the melay going on in Boston between the Indians and Red Sox, Jenny showed up. This time she wanted to ask me a favor, which quickly became a discussion between the three of us on words versus bruises.
It seems that she wanted to switch with me Friday so that she could go and see Mr. Mustang, which was for her high school. She then said that she would like to have a slow day, which only made me even more apprehensive about doing it. It seems that she wanted to take the day off for a social event, but didn't want a day where it might be busy. Hmm, this presented a good opportunity for some more games.
I began by asking her why I should do this when I'd be getting nothing out of it. I'd be losing my Friday off, the first I'd be getting in a long time. Secondly, she wanted to get a day when it was slow, which was another insult to me since Friday is actually busier than the rest of the week after Tuesday. Thirdly, she had already gone overboard with a bottle of vitamins and a price gun, not to mention her hand when she had hit me earlier. And she wanted Friday off.
We somehow got into a discussion along the way about which was more damaging, words or actions. Jenny tried to compare being made fun of to being hit, which is silly in my case since words don't do anything to me. Making fun of me will get you nowhere, since I'll either come back at you with comments myself, laugh at you, or just make fun of myself anyway. You just can't make fun of me effectively, which she couldn't believe.
Victor agreed with me on this and then made a comment that Jenny only seemed to be really nice when she needed something from me (which isn't necessarily true). She agreed saying that she did use people all the time, which only make her look worse for asking me to switch. It then came back to words and bruises and a bunch of other junk before Steve began pitching in his two cents, again against Jenny. He then turned to me and said not to do it since I wouldn't be getting anything out of it. Victor also said not to do it, both comments Jenny heard.
After giving Jenny some labels to put on the shelf, Victor and I talked about the switch some more where he said you just have to mess with her a bit. Steve also said that you have to mess with her a little before agreeing to anything and even suggested waiting a while before telling her my answer, which I still haven't given to this point. It eventually went to the back of my mind since she needed help figuring out a couple of the labels and some other things.
While I'm at it, Jenny did respond when I asked her why I'd do it. She said, truthfully too, that I'd do it because I was nice. Guess what? She's right. I'll switch with her, but I have to mess around with her more tomorrow, which is when I'll tell her I'll switch Friday for another day, probably Thursday.
I never cared from the beginning. I just had to mess with her and make her feel bad for asking me to switch over a social event.
As you may have caught onto by now, tomorrow is the day of our inventory at work. From around 8am to whenever they finish, a crew will be in to do an inventory on our store and to see how much we've lost to theft or any other circumstance. It's like a day of reckoning for my manager since we have to account for a ton of money. I personally think that we'll do it, but you never know. We could come up short, which will mean big trouble for my manager and the rest of us.
Our micro-managing district manager will be there as well, which means we have to be on our best behavior. This guy will hit you up for the smallest little thing, like one missed sign. He will blame you for anything possible, saying that you probably lost a sale for something. He needs to get real. We don't lose sales because of missed signing. We lose sales because the prices are too high, even during sales. We lose sales because something is always being screwed up by the corporate office. We lose sales because computers go down in the pharmacy, because people are unwilling to compromise or believe that they're wrong. We don't lose all the sales.
My manager is certainly not responsible for lost sales, especially to customers who refuse to cooperate. Anyway, we still have to go through with this inventory though. It's kind of silly though. Other stores were given months to prepare. We had two weeks. We're certainly ready in the pharmacy, but we are not ready in the front store, only most ready. It should be an interesting day, one that will definitely be memorable, even if it is for the wrong reasons.
On a side note, new regulations are in place for pharmacy operation. I now have to initial every new prescription that I fill and we may have to put my initials and Debbie's initials into the computer since they are supposed to be on the bottle so that we know exactly who filled a script. This may be done within the next few weeks. Additionally, the pharmacist now has to sign all prescriptions that he/she either fills or checks rather than just initial them. Just thought you wanted to know.
Prom's getting close, and I'm still not sure whether I'm going or not. One person I see a lot has hinted in a quiet way that she wants me to go with her to her prom, which is the week before ours since it's for another school. I'm still not sure if that's what's happening or not, but even if I'm right, I don't think I'd be able to go. Number one, two people at work have already asked for that weekend off, one being my back-up in the pharmacy, Jenny, which automatically nixes asking for those days off myself, which in turn automatically nixes going.
The other reason, which is also tied into why I'm not really sure if I'm going to Brunswick's prom, is money. I just do not have any money to spare on prom. I want to go, I just don't think that financially it's possible, which disappoints me. I know it's also not what a few people wanted to hear me say. At least a few people have already told me I'd better go to prom or else, which is a pretty strong warning to me. I just don't think it's possible.
That's another thing. A lot of people seem to really care if I go to prom and about a couple other things. Crystal at work pretty much said that I'd better go or she'd be mad at me and a couple other people said similar things. Then again, Crystal is almost like a personal aid since she practically feeds me on some days. She's something else, as are a lot of people. Some people get mad when they find out that I haven't been eating much, or haven't been doing a lot lately. Some people will force feed me, which never ceases to amaze me.
I think others sometimes care about me more than I do. It's just weird.
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