These are the Days of My Lives – er, Life

I wasn’t too sure of things back then.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  This having of a baby, this Major Life Step.  It knocked me off my game for a while.

So anyway, I didn’t cry at the dermatologist today, and they kindly rescheduled me for first thing tomorrow.  I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home.  We are W@l M@rt shoppers for our groceries, and any other need that we can possibly get there.  *Lots of people love to dis W@l M@rt, and make a point of never going to That Awful Retail Giant That Killed The Heart of America.  Those people are usually not poor.*  But for this particular trip, I had to buy two things, and I did a cost benefit analysis of driving out of my way to That Awful Retail Giant, Etc. versus hitting up the H@rris Teeter right on the way.  It beckoned to me from the roadside.  I followed its siren song, squashing the constant nagging economist in my head squawking at me to turn myself around and march right back into the car, little missy, and drive yourself on down to the low price leader, pronto.

I stumbled into the doors nearest the produce section, and was momentarily blinded by the shining beauty of freshly washed crisp fruits and veg.  I grabbed a cart, gave a second thought to enabling my temptation, and retired the cart in exchange for a hand basket.  Restraint by physical restriction.  I stumbled past the most delicious looking salad bar, past the boutique cheese, and averted my eyes from the fresh seafood station.  I found myself in the beer and wine, and drooled for a moment over the microbrews.  I walked past row after row, seeing Indian curry sauces . . . pita chips . . . hummus in dozens of flavors . . . loose granola . . . strange and exotic choices that don’t appear on the W@l M@rt shelves.

So, I’m being a little facetious with the above, but from now on, I’m not kidding.  I saw a row of olives, like literally hundreds of choices of olives.  My throat closed up a bit and I felt like I might have a panic attack in the middle of the HT.  I had a major urge to sit down, right in the middle of the aisle, and bury my head in my hands and cry my eyes out.  There was too much choice, too many prices-per-ounce to figure up, too many ingredients to mentally calculate a costs-per-meal.  I picked up my pace and walked fast towards the frozen foods instead.  I walked laps around all of the choices, the exotic and interesting, the earth friendly cleaning product choices, and it all became more than it was.  It became a representation of all the stuff I don’t get to have, not now, not ever it sometimes feels like.  I had a little Victim of Life moment.

My job is challenging my moral code – daily I have to make choices that further reveal me to be a coward who will do any little ol’ illegal thing, if you just keep paying me.  I have started to fish around for jobs and apply here and there and there’s just none, there’s nothing.  I looked up some statistics on a couple of sites I applied to – 150,000 applicants for 385 jobs, said one.  7,000 applicants for 1, said another.  I am competing with 6,999 other people to make slightly less money in a slightly lower level job that is just as far away from my house as this one, on the hope that the management there won’t be as crooked.  It is getting to the point where I’d have better odds playing the Lottery than submitting my resume.

Somebody at work reminded me today that technically, by the law, I am responsible for our site safety.  A major safety law is not being followed.  If we get caught, I may go to jail.  You’d hope that they’d take into account the fact that the CEO threatened to fire me if I complied with this "stupid American law," but still.  He can probably afford better lawyers.  I am now in the process of legally notifying everyone that it’s his decision and not mine and blah blah blah, but what the hell kind of job is this?  Where I have to send myself certified letters detailing the laws that my executive management demanded I break?  Where I am tempted to purchase a little voice recorder to carry on my person, like some Mafia mole?

AND ALSO!!!  A crazy man at my work told his crazy ex-wife that I am in love with him (he is my dad’s age, was a janitor, and is now in prison.  I don’t want to be a snob, but – PLEASE.) (Also, they were married for THREE MONTHS before legally separating.) (Also, she was his FIFTH WIFE.) (This story lends itself to a lot of caps, because it is so completly out of this world insane.)  She is crazy, and she has guns.  She has been cited and arrested for waving guns around in the past.  SHE HAS FOLLOWED ME HOME.  Not all the way I presume, but she has lain in wait for me in the parking lot after work to be sure I wasn’t taking up with her husband, who she has since had jailed – he’s serving the first month of a 4 year sentence.  Several different coworkers have confirmed this, and told me they hung around that day and watched from the windows to make sure I wasn’t hassled, fingers at the ready on their cell phones to dial 911.  Now people in the community are calling me, saying my long lost jailed love would like my personal cell number so he can contact me, I presume so we can continue our illicit love affair via censored mail and collect phone calls.  Tomorrow in my first free moment at work, I am taking myself down to the county sheriff’s office and reporting all of this nonsense.  I may have to start carrying a taser or something.  Which  makes me laugh, because – guns?  versus taser?  Maybe I should think about a bullet proof vest. 

This is The Crazy that has taken over my life.  Absolutely nutsoid, gun-waving, long criminal history-having ex-wives of ex-employees are following me out of my job where I break several laws on a daily basis for less pay than most of the men, even the ones who have GEDs and never went to a lick of college.  I can’t escape because neither I nor my husband can find another job.  I can’t sleep anymore, both because of stress and a child who literally cut FOUR teeth overnight last week (2 canines and 2 molars.  Not there the night before, there the next morning.  And I got the bags under the eyes to prove it.)  Moneywise we’re doing just fine but not fine enough for me to give my couple months’ notice right now, which is what I need to do for my freaking safety and peace of mind.

Do you see now why fifty choices of olives had me hyperventilating today?  Variety is too much for my overburdened mind to handle.  I need my W@l M@rt, where your olive choices are the black kind or the green kind.  Or, if you’re feeling crazy, you could get the black kind – sliced.  Oooh, shiver.

So, yeah, my kid is totally healthy and at least one of us has a job and we have a fine house and roof over our head and shoes on our feet and blah blah blah, Perspective and etc.  Still.  Sigh.  It is hard to be creative here on my favorite place for writing stories and such, when all that is running through my mind is "I wonder if I’ll be shot or arrested at work tomorrow?  And will I get one o
r two hours of sleep tonight?"

I’m not really sure how I got here.  I’m knocked off my game.  Totally without a rudder.  I’m
crying in the goddam grocery store.  Everything is so . . . weird and .
. . up in the air.  Not how it was supposed to be.

This is the rant that had no end, so.  Here it is.  The End.