Ding Dong.

The Witch is Dead.

Remember how I said that Grandma will not be told what to do? Apparently it was more serious than I thought. I didn't see her all weekend, and since Scooter was there a couple days in a row, I started to wonder what was going on. Apparently she told some one that she had hurt her back, to which Stupid Redneck Sarah, in a rare moment of brilliant wit and comic timing, snorted

"Hurt her back doin' what?"

I nearly peed myself.

Anyway, Grandma has not returned to our little corner of retail hell, and I learned through a visit from Peggy Plants and her boss today that Grandma will not be returning. Ever. Which is about the best thing I could have hoped for. Apparently Barb went into a meeting with them and gave them her opinion of the situation, singing my and E's praises and basically just telling them the unfortunate truth about Grandma. I told L that I owe her a beer and a hand job (from the person of her choice, as I assume she has no desire to get a hand job from me). Seriously, this is fantastic news. And I can't wait to run into Creepy Christy now. I decided that rather than chewing her out, which was my first instinct, I am going to thank her earnestly for the warning and apologize for offending her with my trash talk. She loves drama, you see, and a good shouting match will only fuel her fire. If I make her believe that she has in some way helped me, it will totally ruin her day, which is exactly what I want. It will also lead her to believe I am naive, and I always say that being underestimated is the best way to have the upper hand.

In other news, I busted my ass all weekend, and my garden now looks more like an actual garden than a big fenced-in weed patch. We have about ten kinds of tomatoes planted, as well as four kinds of basil, four peppers, and green beans. My big dirt delivery won't come before next weekend, so I am at a bit of a standstill until then, but I think I need the rest anyway.

I've also put in another lantana, and my blackberries are in a bigger pot because I couldn't decide where they should go in the yard. The raspberries ( I had to check that spelling twice. It never looks right to me. I blame the advertising and marketing geniuses who decided that "razz" was snappier) haven't bloomed, but both of my gardenias are surviving. Gotta get my butterfly bush in ASAP. It is already starting to bloom. Wish that digging in our yard wasn't so difficult. But like, my mom always says: "Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up faster." Not sure what the hell that means, but I get the idea that it has something to do with not saying "I wish" followed by something stupid all the time.

Photos to follow, but right now I've got some broccoli to eat.

First it Poured; Then It Rained.

Got up earlier than I thought I might today. I was very tired yesterday, and I got a free adjustment at the chiropractor (I re-potted all the plants in his office and gifted him a few of my own) which left me a bit sore. Got going to the B.S. Squared earlier than usual, but about halfway to work we had to stop because the car was shuddering rather violently. We stopped at a gas station, saw that we had a flat(ish) tire, and filled it with air, at which point it exploded right in my face. Loud, it was, but I was unharmed.
Called triple A, got the tire changed, drove by our mechanic to order another, and set off to work riding on three regular tires and one donut, now an hour late rather than half an hour early. When I arrived, I was pleased to find that Grandma was absent. Barb was in a bit of a tizzy due to the impending arrival of some B.S. Corporate Cheeses, so I set to work as quickly as possible putting out the racks of plants. I was there for just a few minutes when out of nowhere came Scooter. Apparently he had been sent to help me because Grandma "hurt her back." I believe this is shorthand for "Grandma's panties are in a wad because L asked her to do something that she didn't feel like doing on Tuesday, and Grandma will not be told what to do." Crunt.
So Scooter ran willy-nilly, which kept Barb happy because as long as somebody is doing something, preferably very quickly, it doesn't matter if what they are doing is correct or not. He drove us all insane for a couple of hours and then headed out. It rained for more than half of my shift today, and since it was too warm to wear my rain jacket, I was pretty much soaked through the whole time.
The Big Corporate Cheeses made a very brief appearance, but I have no idea what their impressions were, and I doubt I ever will. Seems like if they have a complaint they'll let you know, but otherwise they just scare the hell out of everybody once a month. Whatever. I'm just glad I don't work for them.
Home now, obviously. Just finished reading Andrew Sullivan and Z, and I aim to get my head in a book as soon as I finish this Facon sandwich. No, i haven't forgotten. I've just been knackered.

Score.

I had a long day at the B.S> Squared yesterday. It turns out that Creepy Christy, the passive/aggressive sociopath with the big head and the bad skin, was listening in on a conversation that E and I had in the break room last week. We were talking about bartending, about drunk customers, and gods only know what else, and she was sitting there the whole time, not making eye contact, typing furiously into her sidekick (I think that's what they call it- one of those stupid phone thingies for people who can't seem to hang up the fucking phone). She was probably transcribing our entire discussion for later use. Thing is, we weren't exactly keeping her out of the conversation, nor were we concerned about whether or not she overheard, because it was all very run-of-the-mill.
Well apparently not in Creepy Christy's opinion. She waited almost an entire week for Grandma to come back, then went out and told Grandma within easy earshot of several other B.S. Squared employees that she "had better tell your girls to be careful what they talk about in the break room."
This is exactly the kind of ammunition that Grandma, no slouch in the passive aggression department herself, needs in order to make me/us look bad. She will tuck it away in a vault and "accidentally" leak it to Patty Plants one day.
This is exactly the kind of ridiculous shit that made me steer clear of the break room for the first two months of my employment at the B.S. Squared.
By the time I found out that Creepy Christy had said this to Grandma, both of them had left for the day. This was on Monday. So I spent Monday night fuming, and I went in on Tuesday morning with the intention of clearing things up immediately. i went to Grandma and asked her

"What did Creepy Christy say to you yesterday?"

"Creepy Christy?" she repeated, wrinkling her brow as if trying to remember. "I haven't even seen her."

Well, any delusions I had about her playing this one cool are now gone. What a fucking crunt.

I looked for Creepy Christy for the rest of the day, but she successfully avoided me. Now I'll have to wait until tomorrow to set her straight. Very frustrating.

In the meantime, I picked up several water plants on clearance. Now all I need is a pair of Wellies and I'll have the coolest pond garden on the block.

Speaking of, the b.h. and I were wondering: Are Wellies shoes, or do they go over your shoes, like galoshes?

Beat.

Today was fuckwit day at the B.S. Squared. I am starting to recognize the pains in the ass before they are able to approach me, though, so I'm saving myself a lot of trouble by simply walking determinedly in the opposite direction. Elizabeth's stalker was in today. He still hasn't figured out that none of us like him, but my retail ninja skills worked just fine.
"Hooks?" I asked, not looking up at him. "Over there on that aisle." I pointed to the nearest aisle (which actually had what he was looking for- I wasn't lying), then waited until he turned around before leaping to my feet and rushing outside.
Just as the automatic doors were closing behind me, I heard him say "Do you know..."
No sir, I do not.

Another guy actually sniffed Elizabeth and told her that she smelled "bad in a good way" today. I wish I had been standing there, because I would have told him he smelled bad in a bad way. Or just punched him in the crotch. What a pig.

Next up, a woman who was standing in the middle of the garden center, saying "I need help" very loudly to no one in particular. No, she had not fallen, nor (unfortunately) was she having a heart attack. She had a question about fencing, and rather than going back to talk to Jon, who was standing next to the fucking fencing, she shouted and waved him over to her. When they both walked back to the fencing area, her husband asked me a question about a plant on the table in front of him. Since I wasn't sure, I stood up, leaving behind what I was working on, and walked over to look at the plant and read the attached tag. Having heard him, his wife swooped back in,and before I could answer, she snapped

"She doesn't know."

I ignored her and addressed his question calmly, adding an offhand remark comparing the plant to one that was perennial in some parts of the country, Georgia included.

"That kind isn't perennial," she snapped. "Only the blah blah blah kind are perennial."

I answered, very calmly, "Actually, that's not true."

She looked at me incredulously. "I've done it. I've had them." She was drawing a line in the invisible retail sand, daring me to cross it, like George H.W. Bush.

Cucumber like, I stepped over the line, squinting at her through my cheap sunglasses. "I have too. In my yard. They're perennial." I was Clint Eastwood.

"Well, excuse me" she replied, in a not-unlike Steve Martin circa 1978 tone, stomping off. Her husband, about whom I had completely forgotten, looked deflated. He put the plant down and followed her.


L and I were cracking up at the stupidest things today. We got a very large order of houseplants in, which included a number of Majesty Palms, and she took great pleasure in bowing slightly and saying "Your Majesty" in her lovely British accent as she put each one on the shelf. AT one point we were both bent over the same plant, obviously preparing to lift it (it was quite large and required all of our hands) when a woman who was, as L put it "wider than she was tall" came barreling past us with her five children in tow, completely blocking the aisle we were set to put it in. This was pretty much how the rest of the day went, and I was thankful that I had L and E there to joke with or I think I'd have wanted to shoot up the store.

Anyway, I finally got out of there, went to get the b.h., and we ate some pizza (white with broccoli and garlic- hells yeah) and then went shopping for work stuff. We are neither of us clothes horses, so a trip to the store is usually not very pleasant for either of us, but he managed to find some good work shoes, and I a few pairs of shorts (the first I have owned in several years), and we got back here before ten. Alas, I have no energy left to go either to Jenn's house for a beer on the deck or the Modern Skirts show at the Forty W@tt tonight. Actually, I think I'm about to turn in.

The Squid is Actually a Whale.

The other day I was trying to hurry up and water before I had to leave the B.S. Squared. We had put up a ton of plants, and they were all pretty dry, and since everything else was already done I told Barb I would handle it. I was standing in a giant row of Boston Ferns, having dragged the hose from several rows away, and I saw Middle Management Jim come outside. He stopped to talk to a customer for a minute. Apparently, he did not realize that I had seen him, because he "snuck" over to the next row and pinched the hose so that the water stopped running. It would have been funny, if I hadn't seen him and didn't know why the hose was pinched, and I could see what he was trying to do. It wasn't that I was mad at all, just that the joke failed because I knew he was there, so I leaned down, looking at him from under the hanging baskets. He was hunched down, grinning like a schoolboy, obviously hoping to "get me."

Now pause for a moment while paint you a picture:

Imagine, if you will, an underwater scene. There are small plants and sea creatures in mostly shades of blue and green, happily going about their business. Imagine a school of maybe fifty sea horses. Now imagine a whale, crouching behind these sea horses, attempting to hide from whatever a whale might attempt to hide from. Imagine that whale is wearing a brightly colored vest.

Normally I would have started laughing. In an "at" way, rather than a "with" way. But because it was MMJ, and because I have no desire to encourage him to be any less competent or any more friendly toward me, I looked at him instead and asked, very calmly

"What are you doing?"

At which point, he stood up and said awkwardly

"Uh- sorry"

and walked away.

The B.S. Has now Been Cubed.

Dear Incredibly Stupid Salesman:

Should you choose to visit my store again under the guise of "helping" me, I would appreciate it if you call first so I can swallow a bottle of sleeping pills and bang my head continually on some paving stones just prior to your arrival. It would be so much easier to communicate if we were on the same level.

I understand that you are higher up in the corporate family tree than I am, but you are not my superior in any sense of the word, a fact which you may wish to consider before you try any more of your hilariously misguided management techniques out on me. Also you stupid twunt, telling me that I am the "best employee they've ever had" sounds ridiculous and false enough on its own (especially after you have just read off a laundry list of things that I am doing incorrectly), and in the future should not be followed up with an insult to the last person who held my position, especially since we are good friends and she got me the job you fucking jackass.

Next, when you are confronted by a person whom you have insulted, rather than backpedaling awkwardly and trying to shift the focus to what an idiot I am, you may want to ask yourself how often this person and I might talk to each other, considering the fact that we work together every day for several hours you little bitch.

Also, before you tell a person that their co-workers don't respect them and will not help them, you may want to spend some time in the store and see just how much those jobs are interrelated, how much they do help each other, and again, how much these people talk to each other you feckless twit.

In conclusion, RTFM motherfucker. I have read it, and I read you the minute I saw you, and I have no patience for stupidity. I am here to do my job (which, despite your occasional presence in my life, I very much enjoy) and you are getting in my way.

Thanks!

Sincerely,
Hey Bartender

Small People.

I'm not talking stature here, people. I'm talking about stunning idiocy and the kind of behavior that people practice when they have no power and no self-esteem, and they find somebody else that they think is somehow beneath them. Stupid Redneck Sarah (Now with more breast!) and I were putting out some plants today when Not Very Bright Neil (a New Guy who has already fallen out of the pine straw trailer twice- and no, this is not a common occurrence, bless his heart) asked her to come over to where he was working for a minute. It was twenty five feet away, but obviously the question he had was about something that he couldn't bring with him, so he needed her to come and look at it.

"I'm busy," she growled. Then she looked at me and snorted. "Did yew heeyar that? I tole' him I wuz busy!" she said, grinning at me proudly. I looked at her blankly for a moment, waiting for her to go see what he wanted, and then went over myself. He just wanted to know where to hang up a sign.

Grandma is making an ever bigger nuisance of herself. Today she came to work before I did and immediately started telling Elizabeth that I was basically an idiot and didn't know how to do my job. Then she proceeded to do very little all day while she looked over Elizabeth's shoulder and while I was outside busting my ass. I swear to the gods I like the job, but the woman is so fucking insufferable I don't know if I can take it.
I celebrated eight more hours of not killing Grandma by buying some three hundred or so gladioli bulbs that were on super clearance. I will likely put a few in my yard, give a few to my boss, and donate the rest to Community Connection, where I hope they will find their way to a community garden, nursing home, or the battered women's shelter. I have a call in to them already.
In other news, I got to meet two of L's six kids - of the four legged variety, like mine - today. Phil is the calmest, coolest Great Dane I have ever met. I can't remember the other guy's name, but he was much smaller and still managed to hold his own in the attention-getting department. I fed them peanuts through the car window while they waited very patiently for their mom to come out of the store. I wish my kids were that well behaved. They bark like mad when anybody gets near the car, and should anyone be silly enough to stick their hand in the window, I am quite certain that they would lose it. Ah well. You can't have everything.
My not blue roses are blooming. I was going to post a picture of them, but I waited too long and now it's dark outside, so maybe tomorrow. Despite the false advertising, they really are very beautiful, and they smell fantastic. They're even giving my Meyer Lemon tree a run for it's money. I put a few more things in the ground today and spent some time turning the soil in the veg beds. Still need to get more mulch from Harold the Tree Guy, and this year I intend to actually put some boards around the beds to prevent erosion, so no veg in the ground yet. But my seeds have almost all sprouted, so things are moving along.

Vent.

So Stupid Redneck Sarah, my racist co-worker, was watering the plants when I got to work. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, except that I had stayed late the night before watering the exact same plants. So not only was she drowning the fucking things, but there's that whole drought problem that we've spoken about. It turns out that she had been told by both L and Elizabeth not to water that section that day, but she decided to do it anyway. I was furious. I told L and E that I was going to bitch her out. E seemed unhappy at that prospect, saying that she hadn't really put her foot down, etc. So I dropped it, seethed for half an hour, returned and apologized to both of them for getting so pissy first thing in the morning, and went on about my day.
Later I saw Barb, who had been there the night before when I stayed late to water. We had a quick discussion about it. She threw her hands in the air, gesticulating wildly. She went to speak to Stupid Redneck Sarah.
Stupid Redneck Sarah, in front of Elizabeth, claimed that she had watered the plants because "no one marked the watering chart" and she didn't know that they had already been watered. By "no one", she meant Elizabeth and me. E didn't say a word. Barb came back to me and told me what was aid. I freaked out. Audibly. About ten feet from Stupid Redneck Sarah.
The good thing is that Barb knows damned well that the rest of us wouldn't bullshit her, so she knew Stupid Redneck Sarah was lying to cover her own ass. I was still pissed.
And just so you all know, I am fully aware that this is all kind of silly, but I take the drought very seriously, especially since I am an avid gardener and I have had to sacrifice a lot of time and money and energy (and plants) because of the shortage, and when people like Stupid Redneck Sarah are that wasteful, it really pushes my buttons. I'm over it now. Can't you tell?

Three Strange Days.

They were only strange for me, because I spent the better part of each in a fever dream state, sleeping and sweating and snortling on the couch (Yes it's a fucking word. Because I said so). The show on Thursday night was fabulous as usual. One of the guys was a bit under the weather, so I took him back to the house to dope him up with Ther@-flu while the b.h. finished closing the bar and the rest of the band loaded out. We stayed up late, ate pizza and snack food and talked a bunch of crap. It was fun. I didn't even feel that bad when I woke up after only five and a half hours of sleep and had to go to work at the Big Stupid Box Store. I figured it wouldn't be so bad because I had put in extra hours on Thursday and only had to work four and a half on Friday. No sweat.

Except that isn't how it went at all. I got there and we already had a truck waiting. We had no sooner unloaded it than another truck pulled up, this one with a giant order of indoor plants, which all come wrapped in paper or in boxes and are much more difficult and time-consuming to deal with. Elizabeth and I were the only ones working. Luckily the weather was so crappy that the outside cash registers weren't open, so we were able to pile up the stuff that was waiting in the aisle while we rushed to get the shrubs out before the next order came. While we were doing that, another truck pulled up. I finished putting out the shrubs while she signed that order in, and just as I was finishing, a Slightly Senior Manager (there are many, many managers in a Big Stupid Box Store. They like it that way because it makes it easier to find somebody to point a finger at.) came bumbling through the garden center, barking orders at everyone in sight.

"This needs to be moved right now," he said, mustering as much authority as a man with barely any authority can when there are other people with nearly as much authority present.

"Yeah. We'll get right on it." That was the approximate answer that Barb gave him. Barb is more senior in management than Middle Manager Jim, but less so than the Slightly Senior Manager who doesn't even warrant a name here, since I never see him. Barb is a very hard worker, and though she isn't always on top of everything, she is at least aware of her limitations and leaves decisions to the people who are most qualified to make them whenever the BSBS rules allow. I like Barb. We all do. Unfortunately, Barb doesn't have the power to fire MMJ or he would already be gone. Barb has a sense of humor, too. More on that later.

Anyway, into the middle of all this mayhem walks a Big(ish) Cheese from my Parent Plant Company. I am absolutely calm because I knew he would possibly be coming by, and therefore I had stayed late on Thursday taking care of the minutiae that the Corporate Guys like to focus on: The pots were all facing the same way, tags out, colors striped, dead plants culled, etc. etc etc. I won't bore you with details, but you can imagine how mind-numbing the memos are. Guys in suits in air-conditioned offices making decisions about things they have little or no experience with is How Corporate America Works! (I should make a documentary with that title). We spoke to him for a few minutes, telling him how all the orders (from his company, mind you) had run late and how there were just two of us unloading four trucks, and how it was going to freeze this weekend so we couldn't even put much of the product out or it would die, etc. He seemed to understand. He did look alarmed at a half-full rack of cacti, complete with three dead plants on it, until we told him that we had moved the rest inside because of the weather. He took some pictures, walked around a bit, and left. We were still up to our asses (literally) in paper and house plants.
I was unloading some orchids and a customer came by. She was an older woman who had just moved into a new house, and she was looking to brighten the place up a bit. We talked for a few minutes, marveling at the beauty of the orchids. She chose one that I had had my eye on for a week. I told her so and congratulated her on her good choice.
"Are you sure?" she asked. "I don't want to take the one you want."

Very kind of you, I explained, but I am here to make money not spend it, etc etc., and I can't afford to take home everything I like or I would never get paid. I told her I was just happy that some one was taking it home to enjoy so it wouldn't sit in the store and wilt. She thanked me profusely and left to go find moss. A minute or two later I discovered another box of orchids. These were different than the others, with much more color, so I went after her to let her know. She was very surprised and pleased that I would bother to come and find her, and she did wind up choosing an additional plant from the new box.

To make an excruciatingly long story as short as possible, she bought the damned white one for me. I was totally floored, and I tried to refuse it, but she wouldn't hear of it. I thanked her several times and then sort of ran away in embarrassment. Remember when I said I was socially awkward? Yeah.

When I told Elizabeth about it she smiled and said "Well hold onto that feeling, because in like two weeks you're going to lose all faith in humanity."
I laughed, but I know she's right. And it didn't even take two weeks for the wind to abruptly leave my sails.

The rest of the day was more of the same. We were busting our asses. Then we heard a rumor that it might snow. Elizabeth and I were both halfway out the door when the call came in, and we looked around, crestfallen, at all of the plants that would certainly have to come in if it snowed. Calls were made. Managers were summoned. Plants were racked. Then the SSM (Bob- I'll go ahead and name him now that he's been here twice) told Elizabeth that she had to go. No overtime allowed, no matter what. Somebody else would have to do it. Sweet. I was actually over on my alloted hours too, so I started wrapping up to go.
"Who's going to bring this stuff in?" I asked, disbelieving. You can't imagine the number of trees, shrubs, hanging baskets, and, worst of all, rose bushes we had out there.
"(Middle Management) Jim," replied Barb, smiling as she punched out. "Somebody'll have to tell him when he gets back from lunch."

I went home and crashed on the couch. My sinuses started acting up around nine that night, and by twelve-thirty I had what felt like a full blown cold. Slept all day Saturday, worked Saturday night (oh- remind me to tell you about the dumb-ass hippy what went to jail Saturday night), slept almost all day Sunday, and again all day Monday.
Monday evening I got an e-mail from Peggy Plants, my boss who I really like. There were several photos attached. The photos were taken in our store. On Friday. You know, Friday, the day the Big(ish) Cheese from the Parent Plant Company came in? He actually had the balls to point out that there were a few pots that were not facing the direction they should have been facing. He took photo documentation. And mailed them out to EVERYONE IN THE COMPANY. Another guy did the same thing on Wednesday when I wasn't there. Apparently he had waited until L and Elizabeth had removed some of the plants from outside so that they wouldn't freeze, then took pictures of the holes in the shelves where those plants had been, then spread out the rest of the plants for an "after" shot. What a fucking prick.
So yeah- there goes that whole "faith in humanity" thing.

Eeew.

Middle Management Jim texted a message to several of my co-workers at the Big Stupid Box Store recently, telling them that he was in bed with one of the cashiers. The integrity of my sleep is forever compromised.
On a better note, I am fairly certain that this is illegal, and I know for sure it's at least Bloody Fucking Stupid, so maybe he'll get fired.

In other news, Stupid Redneck Sarah is buying herself some new tits. Wow. Now if only they could surgically implant a brain while she was under...

My New Co-Workers.

Sarah is stupid. And I don't know if I would feel comfortable saying that if she weren't also bitchy, negative, and openly racist. But she is all of those things, so I am. The other day at work a customer needed something loaded into her car. This is Sarah's job, although she really, really doesn't want it to be- so when she was paged to the loading area she did not respond. The cashier asked me to please go find somebody, because the cashier cannot leave her station. I finally found Sarah in the very back of the outdoor area, with her back turned to me, hiding behind a stack of cardboard. She was texting somebody on her cell phone. And when I walked up and told her she was needed, she didn't bother to stop, or even to look up at me. Man am I glad I am not an employee of the Big Stupid Box Store. If I were, I would be bitter about having to do her job because she doesn't seem to do much of anything. But I'm not, so I just walked away.

Elizabeth is fantastic. She knows everything there is to know about plants. I am doing my best to soak up as much of her knowledge as possible. She is also very pretty. She has hair that is a natural red shade that those of us with dishwater blonde hair would kill for. She also has a lot of stalkers. Weird old men come in looking for her all the time. They ask her a thousand questions and never buy a thing. Needless to say she doesn't like it. I came up with a stalker-avoidance plan for her yesterday: When I spot one, I will wait for them to ask for her, then page her over the store's system. When she responds, I will pretend it is somebody else.
"Hey Dana. Do you know where Emily is?" I will say to her, ever so slyly. She will then know that there is a scary old man seeking her attention out in the garden section, and hide in the break room.

"What? Oh- do you know when she works again?" I will then say to no one, because Elizabeth will have hung up and made a run for it. "Okay, thanks."

I will then turn to the stalker and apologize for my lack of information, and then follow him until he leaves. Wish us luck.

SON OF A !!!!!!

So I got to my Incredibly Corporate Plant Nursery Job today at around 10:15. It was forty-five degrees and very, very windy.
My buddy L was already there. She was watering outside, and she did not look happy.

A quick explanation: My job is inside a Big Stupid Box Store, but I do not work for the Big Stupid Box Store. I work for the Incredibly Corporate Nursery that supplies the Big Stupid Box Store. So I don't answer to the folks at the Big Stupid Box Store, per se. But I do try to be helpful. Especially since my buddy L is working for them, and I took over her job, and she is very, very helpful to me (and I am very, very grateful to her. Plus she's super cool.)

Okay, so the deal is, Middle Management Jim, the very lazy guy who works above L at the Big Stupid Box Store, is in a bit of a panic, because apparently there is an impending visit from a Big Corporate Cheese, and he wants everything in his department to look perfect. In his mind, this meant watering. Even though we are in the middle of a drought, and it rained cats and fucking dogs the night before last, and even though I had already watered the plants that don't get rain just yesterday, and even though L had gone to the trouble to check all of the trees and shrubs in the area that had gotten so much rain thirty six hours prior, and found that they were, in fact, quite damp (well no shit), Middle Management Jim wanted the area to look "just watered." I suspect that Middle Management Jim is the kind of guy who got to middle management by timing his cigarette breaks just so, thereby avoiding any heavy lifting but getting back in time to be seen "finishing up" when the Big Guys get there. Ah, Corporate America.

Something that I have yet to mention previously (So little time! So little blogging!) is that despite having every possible tool available to us, not to mention at least one person on staff at the Big Stupid Box Store who can fix virtually anything, virtually every single hose and connector that we use in the nursery leaks. Horribly. Even the big watering can on wheels (affectionately known as "the egg") that we use indoors. The result is that whatever or wherever you are watering, water leaks down your arm, all over your pants, and most definitely onto and into your shoes.

The first day I met Middle Management Jim, I mentioned that I thought it was sending a bad message when we asked customers not to flush their toilets because of the drought and they could plainly see me leaking water all over the floor in the middle of the store. He kind of laughed and moved on to whatever he was doing, which I would assume (having worked there a full six days now) was either taking a smoke break or telling somebody else to do something that he should be doing himself.

So today, as I headed to the back of the outdoor nursery and plugged in the hose nearest the trees and shrubs, I was completely unsurprised to find that the fitting was leaking like mad when I turned it on. I stood there cursing loudly, the water spraying both my face and my shoes, and tightened everything I could find to tighten around the fitting, to no avail. Finally, I stacked several plastic containers of fertilizer on the table in front of the hose, blocking the spray so as to avoid soaking any customers, and went on about watering. After about twenty minutes, another employee of Big Stupid Box Store walked out several paces in front of Middle Management Jim, and remarked

"Wow. look at all that water being wasted!"

I smirked at him and answered, "Welcome to the home improvement store!"

MMJ arrived just then, made an exasperated sound, and immediately shut off the water. He began unscrewing the hose and examining the inside of the fitting. The other guy asked me where it was leaking.
"Is it the brass fitting or the plastic thing?"

"The fitting is fine. The leak is coming from under the plastic thing. And I already tried to tighten all of it, so don't bother." I was saying this for the benefit of MMJ, who ignored me and continued to do exactly what I had already done. He turned the water back on, this time with his face very near the hose. The result was exactly what you would expect, and MMJ cussed under his breath as he shut the water off, removed his glasses, and tried to dry them.

"Do you need this thing now? Or can you do something else while I fix it?" asked MMJ, acknowledging me for the first time.

"Well, I already watered all the back tables. You're the one on the schedule, so you tell me. How quickly do you need all of this done?"

I went off to do my actual job, which is not pointless and which I actually mostly enjoy. MMJ walked past me about fifteen minutes later.
"Incidentally," I said, as casually as I could, "I need to water inside today, and The Egg leaks very badly. I don't know how much you care, or when the Big Cheese is supposed to land, but if they walk through and I'm standing there in a huge puddle of water it probably won't look good."

"That's leaking too?" MMJ said, as if hearing this news for the first time.
"Well, I'll have to see if I can get this other one fixed first. It might not be today."

I never did get the go ahead to finish the unnecessary watering, but I did manage to water inside (water wasted: about five gallons) and do the rest of my job.

I also went to the accountant today. Doing my taxes used to be right in line behind going to the dentist on my Things I like To Do In My Spare Time list, but my accountant is hilarious. Just hearing him talk is worth the price of admission, but since he also leads me through the seven circles of IRS hell with nary a scratch (mental, anyway- the financial scars never quite heal) I consider it quite a bargain. The short of it is that we owe the State of Georgia several hundred dollars. Fuuuuuck. Luckily we have until April fifteenth to find that money somewhere.

I left the accountant and went back to work for an hour and a half. No sign of MMJ or any Big Cheeses. Sweet. I passed the rest of my day peacefully, then clocked out and went to pick up the b.h. from his New Day Job (not an actual "day job", but rather a service industry job that takes place in the a.m.).

We went downtown. He was going to band practice, and when he tried to call one of his band mates on the cell phone, he realized that the memory had been erased. All. Of our. Collective. Phone numbers. Gone. Fuuuuuck.

We stopped at the cell phone store. They were not terribly helpful. I dropped the b.h. off at a bar to meet his band mates. I rushed home to see if I had a paycheck. I did. Sweet. I ran down the road to the liquor store (never let it be said that my priorities are not in order), got a six pack of Dale's Pale Ale (my new favorite- it's in a can!! Holy good beer in a recyclable container Batman!!) at the Five Points Bottle Shop, ducked over to my bank to deposit said check, and stopped for gas (the second time in two days. Fuuuuuck.)

At the gas station, I got out of the car, donning my very warm hat and bracing myself against the wind. A guy got out of his car and said very loudly and very cheerily
"Hey girl!! I like that hat!! You're rockin! You look like a bunny rabbit!!"

He was large and bemulleted, wearing Rustler Jeans and very puffy, very white gym shoes. His mustache was nothing short of remarkable.
I thanked him and smiled and pulled my hat lower while I jammed my bank card into the gas pump. It wouldn't work. see cashier for assistance.

I looked up at the store. It was busy. The weird guy was in line, talking animatedly with everyone around him. I did not have enough gas to get to the next gas station. I pondered whether I cared.

Eventually I went in. The weird guy leapt over two other customers in order to open the door for me. He greeted me again. He remarked on my hat again, though exactly what he said now escapes me. He went outside while I was paying. As I left the store, he was engaged in yet another very animated conversation with yet another defenseless stranger. I opened the door for myself, and he commenced to cussing the other guy out for getting in the way while he was trying to open it for me. I went to my car. I pumped my gas. The weird guy came up to me and said that we could be twins, on account of our cars were both the same color, even though his had a spoiler. I nodded and smiled weakly at him. The gas continued to pump into my car at a glacial pace. I was silently thankful that I could not afford a full tank today.

"Are you married?"

"Yes sir!" I answered, thanking the gods yet again for the b.h.

"Aw okay, I don't mean any harm Here's my card, in case you know anybody needs a website or anything. I build computer systems, websites, do repair- basically anything you can do with a computer."

"Cool. Thanks!" I reached out and took from him a small, poorly copied, unevenly cut square of copy paper, with an unidentifiable logo in the corner and a list of services that the company provides. And then handwritten (obviously he forgot this part before he set the font, and why ever would that matter?) on the top was the name of the company.
I got in the car and carefully put it in the notebook I keep in my back pocket for just such an occasion. Sometimes weird people really make my day.