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2006-10-06 @ 9:05 p.m.
clean up on aisle 11


Well, my boss from my old job never called back, so I am still employed at the yuppie grocery store, but in a different capacity. Ever hear �Clean up on Aisle 11�? Well, that�s my new job. Maintenance goddess. Impressive, aye? I seem to be regressing rather than progressing in my choice of careers. My very first job back in 1976 was Music Director for a professional theatre company, and now I�m sweeping stray onion skins off the floor in a produce department. Yay me! Next career move????? Drive-through window at McDonald�s. Woot!!!!!

And to think, all I really want to be is a lazy-ass Trophy Wife living in a mansion with a private masseuse. But thus far, karma just hasn�t quite got it right yet.

Today was my first day on Broom Patrol. And I have to say, the new people I�m working with are about 3000% nicer than the bakery crew. Huge difference. The main woman I worked with was very nice and talkative and introduced me to managers and workers throughout the store. She went way out of her way to make me feel welcome and comfortable. She said the department was thrilled to have me and they wanted to make me happy so I�d stay. So we chatted with customers. There was no snarly �those fuckheads� as soon as they turned away, like in the bakery. I let my sense of humor out a little tiny bit. I wasn�t made to feel stupid, like the other department.

Granted this isn�t my life�s work. And I do feel a modicum of shame being a cleaning person, especially since I have lots of skills as a writer, musician and artist and there I am wiping up sinks in the women�s room. And I am feeling anxiety about the day I see Married Guy or his snooty bitch wife walking down an aisle I�m sweeping and feeling like a total loser....

So I�m trying to look at the positive side of the job.

  • Once I learn the job, I�m my own boss and can work at my own pace. No demon bitch spawns from hell lording over me telling me to �speed up� and making me feel like dirt.

  • I no longer have to work in a tiny, confined dirty, slippery area with a bunch of harpy bitches.

  • I can check out guys! (me wiggling eyebrows!!)

  • I can talk to customers, because to tell you the truth, they are a confused bunch. Just today I had someone ask me where Mexican Corn was....what lemon extract was used for....did we stock oreo crumbs for pie crusts...do mums come in orange. Gah! How should I know?? I just started...which incidently, customers don�t care about. They just want answers.

  • I can daydream and write movie screenplays in my head while doing mindless things like sweep and mop.

  • I can listen in on private conversation because people don�t realize maintenance people are real and can hear them. Its kinda like wearing the Cloak of Invisibility.

  • And yet you can also stand and talk to people and not get yelled at.

  • Television in the break room during the day shift is way better than the night shift which was usually football. Today�s show? A Jerry Springer show entitled, �Toothless hillbillies and a pink dress� about fugly women fooled by their secretly gay husbands. We were all yelling back at the TV, like we were at a Springer taping.

  • And oh the action today! Today we had a massive �Sugar Event�. It looked like a giant cocaine bust from �Scarface�. Somebody had dragged a bag of sugar all over the frookin� store and then the customers had driven their carts through it and made a huge mess. It took two hours to clean up. And my boss kept saying, �Oh this doesn�t usually happen�, so evidently it was the Hurricane Katrina of the grocery store world.

    So at least it was better than Frostingland. I did see the one girl I liked from there today. She was working in a different department, so I said hi and thanked her for being nice to me.

    I also wasn�t so worn out physically from the job. Of course I did go get a massage yesterday. I still had $45 left on a gift certificate I had won in a contest last winter, so I got a half hour massage. I had the girl concentrate mainly on my legs and feet since that�s where most of my pain is. It really made a big difference.

    So since I was feeling pretty good yesterday, I took a 2 mile walk along the canal. Saw my buddy the Blue Heron. Also saw this big prehistoric looking turtle climbing out of the water. We both stopped and looked at each other. I took a quick picture of it, but it was so covered with green slime, it�ll probably just look like a big lump of gunk.

    When I got home I decided to work on a painting for this one night art show on Saturday. Its called Halloween Carnival and the theme is art in bad taste. Its a gathering of all our best local artists who display their most outrageous artwork at a local bar. I�ve been wanting to submit something for the last 2 years but I usually hear about it after it happens. This year I�m ready though! I was finishing up a painting of a B. Springsteen-type person as an angry clown with the words, �Nuns arouse me� painted across the bottom. Heh! Ok, its weird, but it is also a key ingredient for the show. The less-tasteful...the better.

    Suddenly I hear...knock, knock, knock. Can you guess who it is? Go ahead, guess! Yup...Harold the Geek. And guess why he was there? Yup! He had to thank me....one.more.time. for going out with him. Oy! Harold, why don�t you just buy a billboard on the thruway, so we can finish this up once and for all. Honestly. And then he managed to slip in...so maybe we can go out for coffee sometime? Fucking hell, I think I said yes by accident, because I wasn�t expecting it. I was standing there in shorts and my tightest tank top, sans bra, with a paintbrush in my hand, painting �Nuns arouse me�. I guess I was distracted. Maybe I should have just shown him the painting, like look Harold...look at what this woman you have the hots for is painting. Clown porn(!!!!!)

    Of course there's no guarantees that that would not have excited him more. Right?


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