Sorry to my readers for that unscheduled blog break. I never intend to go a week without posting, but sometimes I can't help it. No energy, no time.
We had an inventory at work this past week.
The fresh departments (produce, meat, and bakery/deli) have these every month, and they have to count every last item and input it all into the computer besides. They look at me with envy because the grocery department only has semiannual inventories and I don't even have to count the stock out on the sales floor, only the stuff in my cooler and freezer.
Only that. No problem, eh?
I usually work afternoons the day before the inventory. The dairy cooler only takes an hour or so to count, but the freezer's another story. That freezer has been the bane of my existence for more than seven years. Try as I might, I just can't get it organized, let alone keep it that way. Product migrates in there and has a hell of a time migrating back out. Despite repeated exhortations, somehow quarter- and half-cases of this and that end up scattered hither and yon. And despite my constant bitching about its tiny size, my freezer's actually pretty big.
Adding to the mayhem, I used to have most of the prices in my department memorized. No longer, especially since they seem to change almost weekly.
AND...working afternoons was out of the question this time. The store has been so slow we've had to cut labour back to almost a skeleton crew. There would have been nobody to man the department in the morning...and I had orders to write. Not only that, they'd only been able to spare a man for three hours or so to get the freezer organized ahead of time. He'd done a wonderful job, as far as he'd gotten...which wasn't very far.
So I went in Tuesday morning, worked until noon, and then came back in at eight that night and worked clear through until 6:30 in the morning. Eva bought me a couple of energy drinks. One of them (Rockstar) tasted like carbonated cough syrup; the other (Sobe, I think) tasted like orange-grapefruit-vomit...so bad I was forced to chug it. But they did the job.
It shouldn't have taken that long. But in the midst of counting, I find boatloads of product that can go out to the shelf, and when else am I going to get the time to work it? I'd pile everything from a shelf onto a U-boat, drag it out, work it, and then get the prices of whatever's left, mark the boxes and return to the freezer. Times thirteen. Well, not quite. After six of these excursions, I realized I was going to be here until Last Trump if I didn't cease and desist with all this stocking bullshit and simply GET THE FREEZER COUNTED. Scribble scribble scribble goat's anus tartare 1 kg size run run run ah yes, that was $6.99 a box run run run 12 x $6.99 moving on...
I finished up with the freezer at quarter of six and wrote my warehouse order for the next day's delivery. By this time the grocery manager was back in. He'd worked from eight a.m. to ten p.m. the day before...by no means was I the only animal functioning on no sleep.
Although I'm riding a bike to and from work now, I bussed it tonight. It's a good thing, too, because the thought of getting up that goddamn hill on Lexington is making my legs quiver and I don't even have to do it. I've got my iPod 'Energy Shuffle' playlist blasting--somewhere between Kid Rock's Bawitdaba and Rob Zombie's Dragula, I manage to find the strength to get to the bus stop.
The bus ain't comin'.
For half an hour I sit twiddling my thumbs, exhausted, trying desperately not to fall asleep. Mirage-busses come and go. Swear to God, the destination sign on one of them said ZZZZZZZZZ.
I flash back to grade seven, waiting for a school bus that likewise never came. That time I had a book--iPods weren't even a gleam in Jobs' eye yet--but...well, ask anyone, I can get pretty engrossed in a book. I was engrossed in this one. Engrossed enough that I eventually looked up and noticed there was nobody waiting at the stop with me anymore.
To this day I maintain that aliens silently abducted everyone around me. It's the only explanation that makes any sense. Surely the bus couldn't have come and gone without me? Wouldn't somebody have tapped--hell, punched--me on the shoulder? Wouldn't the bus driver have honked or something? But no, here I am all alone, just me and my book. My parents were some pissed that day, let me tell you. And they never miss a chance to jokingly remind me of just how absentminded I can get.
Heart's midway through Barracuda as a Grand River Transit bus finally lurches into view. I stumble on and sit down, musing about how I could have been home by now, Lexington hill or no. The bus travels about a hundred feet, and then a hellacious grinding noise startles me awake and we shudder to a stop. The lights go out.
Home's looking further and further away.
The driver curses a blue streak under her breath, concludes with something like shitfire and save matches and starts the bus up again. A noise like a chainsaw ripping through a wood-knot, then the engine mumbles contentedly until the operator hits the gas pedal.
grind grind grind zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrpppp darkness silence
Maybe I'll just sleep here.
A longer interval, punctuated by the driver querying her radio for instructions, and then that awful chainsaw noise again (do they always sound like that when they start? Is this bus going to 'splode? Will I go to sleep forever and ever and ever?) and then the engine's all contented again and everything's fine and off we go.
We reach Conestoga Mall without incident and I transfer to an iXpress bus. The iXpress service is relatively new to our city and I love it to pieces. There's a stop about five minutes from my front door, and the bus will reach that stop in six minutes after it leaves this mall.
Unless the engine quits.
Which it does, without any warning or fanfare.
You're kidding, right? Please tell me you're kidding.
This time, the driver's able to get things going again without difficulty. I finally make it home a little after eight, having endured a trip that took three times longer than normal. I could have walked home by now. And wouldn't you know it? I'm too tired to sleep.
Inventories bite.
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