Making Yourself At Home

            My husband bowls in a league and very occasionally we will drop in and say hi to him. We had been bowling as a family earlier that week and had sat at one of the tables for some snacks afterward. As I’m standing talking to my husband Drew takes off through the crowd. Naturally we give chase and we find him. He had taken a seat at the same table we had sat at a few days before. He was happy as could be and the group of men he joined were very kind to him, not to mention a little perplexed at the new addition. Drew has done this before. We had gone to dinner once with my parents to a new Mexican restaurant and when we returned to it a few weeks later, Drew vanished into the crowd. I was in a total panic and guarded the front door while my family scoured the restaurant for my child. When I saw my mom waving to me through the window, and laughing, I was relieved and more than a little curious. My little boy had gone back to the same table we had originally sat at and made himself comfortable. Thankfully there were no other people sitting in the booth, I really have no idea what he would’ve done. Joined them? Been confused about the people sitting at his table? I’ll never know but I do know he has a great memory and excellent sense of direction.

Hang On to Your Panties

     I’ve had some interesting co-workers. Some have been really fun and I’ve learned a lot from them. Some I wish I could unlearn a great deal of what I’ve learned about them. Take for example Don and his wife Tracy. Don wanted to buy my underwear, the ones I was wearing at that very moment, Tracy was fine with this. Yes, they were one of those ‘friendly’ couples, always looking for other ‘friendly’ couples to hang out with. I was startled, I was young and in the workplace you really aren’t prepared for that. Hell, at a bar you aren’t ready for that. He kept asking and I kept refusing. Eventually after some time of him bugging me about it I told him it’d cost him $50. To my horror he agreed. I told him he’d have to pay the money to my very tall and formidable-looking boyfriend and that’s what ended this bidding war for my panties. A few weeks passed and a manager from another department came to me and said he wanted to ask me a question but didn’t want to offend me. I gave him the o.k. to ask. His question was “were you really offered $50 for a pair of your panties?” I told him that it was a true story and that Don was a disgusting idiot. To this the manager shook his head and said, “Wow, he could’ve had all my underwear for $50 if he’d only have asked me.” Such are the missed opportunities in life.

 

            Don and Tracy were eventually let go from employment but between ‘panty-gate’ and the actual terminating there were other bizarre encounters. Tracy worked in my department and I was absolutely professional to the point it was painful with her. I mentioned nothing personal for fear it would seem like an opening or as encouragement. That didn’t stop her. She would ask about my boyfriend, who later became my husband and then even later became my ex-husband. I would tell her nothing but in the most polite way I could manage. I think she grew tired of the evasions on my part because eventually she made a very blunt comment about how she’d have to sleep with Shane sometime and I’d have to sleep with Don and how cute Shane was. To this I only replied that ‘yes, Shane was very cute’ (Don was a troll but that’s beside the point) and walked away. At least she didn’t tell me how cute I was but maybe that was to be brought up later. Ick.

 

            I remember the day I found out that they were sexual harassing other people behind my back. It was a black day. It was hard on me. I felt a little betrayed when I heard of the other ‘friendly’ offers made to people in our facility. Offers to buy underwear off the behinds of other girls were made. I was shocked that I never saw this coming. I was a fool. I was hurt. I ran through all of the emotions. I thought that what we had was special and just for me. Ah, how fickle people can be. Or, perhaps I was simply relieved that they were equal-opportunity harassers and I was in an elite group.

Trick-or-Treating Rule Breakers

            Trick-or-treating is interesting. Alex was always very shy and would have to be coaxed to walk to the door with me. Adam and Drew were quite a different story. I could hardly keep up with them. It wasn’t so much about the candy, okay, it was about it a little bit, but for the most part it was about the people and the costumes and the people who had their dogs in costumes. That was a big hit. We saw dogs dressed as ladybugs, pigs, other breeds of dog. Then there was the stop we made at my former elementary gym teacher’s home. He had a dog inside the house and when the little boys rang the doorbell and the door was opened, they walked right into the house and down the hall as though they were at Grandma’s. I was standing there trying to call them back but they weren’t listening, they were standing in the kitchen petting the dog. I apologized and rushed down the hall to the kitchen to retrieve my enthusiastic celebrators of Halloween and the canine species.

Sea-sickness Is Ugly

    My family and I traveled to Nevada once. One day we were lucky enough to go boating on Lake

Tahoe and my sons were very excited about our upcoming excursion. Once we got out on the water it

was beautiful and amazing and suddenly very windy. We were caught up in swells that were coming

over the front of our boat. All of us were a little nervous, except for my son Drew. We were being

tossed about as if we were the S.S. Minnow but Drew had his hands in the air as if he were on an

exciting roller coaster ride. His twin brother on the other hand was holding on for dear life with both

hands telling me he feels sick. I tell him it’s okay because I feel like vomiting, too. Adam also tells

me that I need to make Drew hold on a little better because he is worried about him. Ah, love. When

we are able to make it back to the dock and get our feet on dry, unmoving land I started to feel a little

better. Adam does not feel any better, not until he does vomit over the side of the dock. He and I take

our sea-sickness pills, the ones I forgot in our van as we embarked on our thrill ride of the lake, and I

hope this will help us even though it is after the fact. Drew wants to get a boat now; Adam has no

desire to ever boat again in his entire life. It’s our differences that make us interesting.

Idiot Filled Day

            So, here we are, November 2, 2012, and I am just home from a day of dealing with morons.

            One of my sons takes a prescription that I have to call in and go pick up every single month. It is not something that can be refilled because it is regulated. I usually have issues with people screwing it up but today was stellar.

            When I go to the front desk at our doctor's office, the girls working there usually recognize me and know what I am there for. Today was no exception but they could not find the script. Anywhere. After at least forty minutes one of the girls brought me the signature sheet showing that this script had already been signed for and picked up. The kicker is that it was not by me or anyone in my family and they at the office had no clue who picked it up either because no one could read the signature. My kid’s name and personal information is all contained on that slip of paper and was out there for whoever wanted to see it. Violation? Wholly.

            After I finally got a new copy of the script I left and ran it to our pharmacy only to find out that the wrong dosage had been entered into the script. That meant that I had to drive back across town and back to the office where I had just spent so much time already. I called on my way there to bawl people out and to tell them that I wanted that replacement script there waiting for me. It was not there waiting for me.

            Once I got there I told one of the girls that I wanted to talk to whoever was in charge. She said that the woman I needed to talk to, the office manager, was on the phone and it would be a while. I told her that the office manager was going to get off that phone and talk to me now because I had spent more time than I cared to in their office already that day. She had no idea what to say to me so I walked around her and let myself into the office manager’s office and told her I would be talking to her immediately. She agreed, asked me to wait just one minute, and said we would have a long talk.

            She knew nothing of what had happened and I’m not surprised. Had I made such a major blunder I would probably be a chicken and try to cover my tracks too. No, scratch that, I’m no coward, I’d admit what I did and expect that there would be someone coming for the script that I had fouled up and therefore I’d never get away with it anyway. She called me later to tell me that the person who had picked up the prescription brought it back (hours before I even got there) when they realized that it was not theirs and that they picked up the correct one. She had shredded the script and my son’s information was not out and about. Why, I asked, did mine not get put back or fixed? I was told that she had found out what had happened. The girl who handed out the script that morning had admitted that she didn’t read the name on the script or on the envelope it was put in and just handed it to the first person who came in asking for one. Really? I think that reading and perhaps actually taking identification from people might be a fairly important part of her job and I relayed that to the office manager who agreed whole-heartedly.

Where my script was eventually found wasn’t made clear to me but I assume it was hidden somewhere since no one could find it and no one knew a thing about it. My guess is that it was put in someone’s pocket or hidden in a drawer until they could dispose of it and not get caught. Too bad, they were caught and I hope dealt very harshly.

I’m not totally intolerant of stupid people but some days it is harder to not flip out on them and kill them than other days. That’s three hours of my life that I’ll never get back and all thanks to the stupid girl handing out prescriptions at random.

Sports As Made Up By Children

            Ah, sports. We love them, we play them, we make up the rules as we go along. Alex has played baseball since he was small enough to call it T-ball. The twins are very excited as they are finally old enough to play T-ball with their classmates this year. We decided a little practice was in order so the five of us hit the backyard for a little family time mixed with a smidgen of real life practice. On this day we, the three older members of the family; Alex, Roger and me, got the crap kicked out of us. This might be due to the fact that the little boys were the only ones that were batting and while we, the older three, called this ‘practice’ the little boys called it “all out, in your face, base running, home run hitting game of skill and endurance.” Well, they didn’t actually say that but as we played on it became apparent that this was the mindset of the five year-olds making the rules and they were out for blood. Roger pitched, Alex and I were the infield and the outfield. The young men became quite adept at hitting the ball over our privacy fence so we, the fielders, would have to go through the gate, cross the alley and look through bushes and trees for the ball. Since this was ‘practice’ we didn’t run and hustle as we might’ve were this a real game, or if we had realized that this was a real game. As the hitter hit the ball he would take off on the run and lap the swing set several times declaring that he had hit a home run. Not just a home run but a high scoring home run. They would count as they ran and that’s how the scoring works. Counting and lapping the swing set as they were doing did racked up some points and when they finally decided to head toward home plate, they were still counting.  This was a lot of fun and was really funny. I have no doubt that the final score was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,278,923 to 0. Glad I didn’t have money on this game, I would’ve lost my shirt, maybe even my house.

Rug-Cutting

    On the same day as the dead bird investigation there was a dance party of sorts at the salon. Adam and Drew had just gotten new haircuts and a few days before, new sunglasses. That is a deadly combination if you’re five years-old and wanting to get down and get funky. I can’t remember what song was playing at the beginning of the funk-fest but it had a good beat and they could surely dance to it. Alex was in the chair getting his trim and the twins were standing in front of a full length mirror mugging for themselves and each other. Kelly and I were admiring the moves on these two masters of swing, of shake, of shimmy when they noticed us watching and stopped the show. I said to them that we wouldn’t watch them dance anymore and that they could feel free to shake their money-makers, to get their grooves on, to bust those moves. She and I both turned, at the same time, put our backs to them, gave them their privacy to shake it but not to break it, and looked in the mirror over her station and watched them in the reflection. The wiggling we saw was the thing of legend, the grooving was of epic proportions, the foot work was fancy. It did continue for some time, until they caught on. That was it. The curtain had fallen, for the time being, on the beauty salon rug-cutting.