Checkers & Baggers

When the last of her kids was in high school, Mom decided she was going to get a job.  For years she was a faithful shopper at Walt’s Food Center.  You can’t beat Walt’s meat!  She knew everyone who worked there including the manager of customer service, and so she filled out an application after a thirty year plus absence from the work force and Phyllis hired her to be a bagger.

She worked a few days a week and always had a good story to tell about her day. One time, the employees were asked to remind customers not to leave their purses in their cart unattended as there had been some thefts in the store.  Some woman told Mom not to worry because the Blessed Mother would watch over it and Mom said, “I’ll be darned.  I thought she was too busy for that sort of thing.”  She was often chastised by the old ladies to not pack their bags too heavy and she said, “I always wanted to tell those old bats that I was lifting those bags into carts all day long and I’d have to be an idiot to pack them heavy.”

Despite that, she loved working there and these many years since she still sees her Walt’s friends once in awhile.

Because of that experience, she has always told me that I should work in a grocery store.  You’ll never be bored, she says.  I know, Mom, but I don’t think it’s for me.  You should try it.  That’s o.k. Mom.   When I was looking for a job she’d tell me to check out the grocery store.  Just until something else comes along, but you’ll probably like it so much you’ll never leave.  O.k., Mom, I’ll think about it.   Then she’d call and ask if I decided to apply at the grocery store.  Not yet, Mom.

This fall, Will was in need of employment at school and applied at the grocery store.  He was hired and works one shift a week as a bagger and on the weekends demonstrating food.  I know.  It cracks me up.  

He loves it.  He loves his fellow employees.  He loves the customers.  He loves cooking up some tilapia in an electric fryer and serving it to shoppers.  He loves when they pile some in their cart.  He loves helping himself to the veggies in the produce department and making some concoction that will move those mushrooms out the door.

I have kept Mom up-to-date on her grocery store employed grandson and she couldn’t be happier.  I thought it would be enough, but is it ever when it’s your mom?

“Kath, get yourself an application the next time you go to the store.  Fill it out.  Tell them your mother worked at a grocery store.”

So I’ve heard, Mom.  So I’ve heard.

 

$aving$

We live within walking distance of a small shopping center here in Mayberry.  It is a handy thing to have close by with a grocery store, bakery, hardware store and other mostly small, independent businesses.  It is anchored by Macy’s.  As Macy’s goes this isn’t one of their flagship stores, but rather the red-haired stepchild.   While the prime age of their most devoted customer is 105, on occasion they throw something out for the rest of us.

I’ve been lusting over the cashmere sweaters – carefully folded and on display when the temperature here was still over a hundred.  I would go and visit them and pretend that the $120.00 price wasn’t a factor.  What color?  What style?  Would I wear it to the opening of a new art gallery?  Do you have to get an invitation to one of those things or can you just show up?  They serve wine, right?

In an ad for The Biggest Sales Event of the Year, they were reduced to $59.99 during a morning special.  In addition, there was a coupon for $10.00 off, good for the morning only.  $49.99   Hello!!!!!!  I was there by 9:30.  I wandered around and got a couple of things then went to the register, goods and coupon in hand.

That’s when I found out that the morning only coupon wasn’t good on the morning only specials.   Careful reading of the fine print qualified the savings for about three items in the store.  I had other coupons in my purse and started placing them on the counter.  Something was bound to work and I’ll give the associate credit, she tried.  Multiple times.  20% off your entire purchase any day you choose.  I choose today!  $20.00 off any purchase over $50.00.  Yep.

By the time all were scanned, my savings were $2.45, and the cashmere sweater I wanted for months lost its charm without the additional ten bucks knocked off.  

With The Biggest Sales Event of the Year, the holiday shopping season has begun.  Giddyup shoppers.  The deals may be everywhere but saving is just an illusion.

Source: macys.com via Felicia on Pinterest

The Perks of Being a Late Bloomer

When our kids went through high school, my goal was to get them graduated without becoming full-blown partyers or sexually active.  I figured that if I could buy that much time, they’d be o.k. going forward in college.  While I am sure they did plenty of things that I am not aware of, they came out level-headed with their morals and brain cells intact.

It was helpful that they were late bloomers.  Boy-girl parties in middle school that some parents encouraged was something I wouldn’t agree to and that they weren’t comfortable being a part of.   Getting drunk on the weekend is not what the group of friends they hung around with did.

I thank my lucky stars that they were successful.  Many of the kids they know were not, and on the occasion that they would relate stories of teenage escapades that they had heard about, my jaw would drop.

Right on the floor.

Now that Mallie Bee is in college, there are new freshman stories like the girl on her floor that went door-to-door offering tampons to anyone who wanted them as her mother is able to get them for free.  Mal turned them down.   

Why would you do that?   Free, Mal.  Free is good.

This girl had roommate issues early on and before long was trolling the floor looking for a new place to call home.  She was very frank about her quirks and living habits, including that she had a boyfriend and they were sexually active.  One of Mal’s friends didn’t see that as a stumbling block and took her in.  She has found out that sexually active also means often and indiscreet.

Mal figured that if she took her freebies she’d be indebted to her and that was a road she didn’t want to travel.

Late bloomer + astute = smart girl.   Very smart girl.

Squeezing It Out

The Big Daddy and I went to a dinner party for his department.  These are usually pretty fun as he works with some great people.

As things were winding down, we wandered into a discussion about toothpaste.  There are a lot of people who put some serious effort into getting every drop of toothpaste out.  Squeezing, buying special tools, cutting open the tube.   They had all kinds of advice and tips to offer.

Who knew?

That’s not so much of a problem in our house, I said.  We have this toothpaste now that oozes out on its own.  The cap is all gunked up and won’t close all the way so if you just lay it back in the drawer a glob will form so I take my brush and wipe some of it up to brush.  I don’t even have to pick up the tube.  It’s quite the time saver especially when you’re running late.

And The Big Daddy said, “You do that?  Me too.  High-five me for being a slob!”

I did.  We had a moment.  Tears.

Crickets.

There’s the line and then there’s us.

Scandal in Mayberry

When I went to the City Council meetings last year which you can read about here, I saw my representatives in action.

One council member chowed down on a plate of spaghetti while listening to the citizens of Mayberry complain and it was a wee bit distracting.   At one point, he got up and went behind a door which I thought meant he was done.  Instead, he came out with another heaping plate.

When I asked somebody about it, they told me that because the council members usually come straight from work to the meetings, the city provides a dinner for them that most eat before the start of the meeting or during breaks.

Said councilman did not adhere to the manners of most.  Now he has gotten himself into some hot water that makes jumping into a pot of the boiling pasta kind look inviting.

He had a friend who was a little down on his luck.  Homeless.  A history of drug use.  A criminal record.  When he inquired of the police department as to what resources were available to help out this friend, they directed him to a shelter in Kansas City.   While that was an option, Spaghettiman instead gave him his access code, and for the better part of a weekend this guy was camping in the comfort of city hall and its municipal buildings.  Why he even invited one of his buddies over to enjoy the facilities.

Why in the world didn’t Spaghettiman bring his friend to his own house to spend the weekend instead of housing him in City Hall?

That was never an option.

No.  He could never do something like that.

He lives in his parents basement. 

There……..I Said It

The other day I was talking to my sister about our efforts to lose weight.  I don’t get it, I said.  Since I started working I am moving all day long – usually eight hour shifts 3-4 times a week and only sitting long enough to eat and then I’m back up again.  And by eat I mean a salad.  Granola bars or fruit for a snack.  Healthy dinner.  No wine.  Oh wine, I miss thee so.   For three days I was looking at a bowl full of Dove chocolates at the register and I never had a single one.

And nothing.  The same two pound fluctuation.  If only it was three pounds then maybe I’d feel encouraged and keep eating those salads.

While I was at it, what about this blog?  I’ve been stuck at 42 followers forever and how do I crack that nut?  Will it ever inch up?

Two days later, I weighed myself.  There was a THREE pound weight loss and #43 started following me.  Yesterday in the mail came a pair of antlers from my brother and his wife who went over the river and through the woods to find it for me.

The whole month of November is double discount for employees at the store.  I need money. 

A lot more money.

Chicks Rule

When I was a kid growing up, my mom used to go to the Women’s Club meetings at church.  Sometimes to a bunco party.  With six kids, she didn’t have much opportunity to get out of the house, run the school board or get involved in much more than Scouts and Little League.

You don’t manage a house with that many people in it and not be more than capable, but she was never asked.

When I was in high school, there were no sports for girls.  Cheerleading or the dance team?  Take your pick.

Last night the field we were never invited onto looked a lot different as the women pushed the boys out of the way.

Tammy Duckworth.

Elizabeth Warren.

Tammy Baldwin.

New Hampshire.

Claire.

Claire.

Claire.

The female body has been a target in the crosshairs of misinformation and just plain bat-shit crazy statements.

Our ovaries capable of shutting down when attacked?  Not a chance, but they are well on their way to changing things in ways my mom never imagined.

Days & Light

My first adult job was with Peoples Energy Corp. in Chicago.  I don’t even know how I got it, how I knew about it, how any of it came to pass.  I processed health insurance claims for employees and retirees for six years.  It was long before computers and our office was a holding zone for mountains of paper.  Bills would pour in and be alphabetized and stacked each day.  The job of myself and two others was to go through every bill to make sure it was complete, accurate and payable under our plan.  Then we’d forward it to our insurance company for review and payment. 

It was a job that could make people really happy – like the sweet, old meter reader who came in with shoe boxes of bills that he didn’t know he could claim.  I spent an afternoon on the floor of an empty conference room organizing it all and he ended up with several thousand dollars.  He cried when he came to pick up his check and the next day a box of chocolates were delivered to my desk.

It was also a job that could infuriate employees who had their claim denied, and try as we might to make sure that didn’t happen, sometimes there wasn’t a thing we could do about it.  It wasn’t pretty to be on the receiving end of that, but when someone is sick or in a health crisis and denied payment the rage has to land somewhere.

When I got the job, my mom and dad were less than enthusiastic.  You’d have thought that having a kid with full-time employment and benefits would cause them to be elated but that was not the case.  Do you know you’ll have to take public transportation downtown?  Do you know how much that costs?   What about eating out all the time?  Have you thought about that?  Do you know what bad weather does to a bus schedule?

Well, no, no, no, no and no.

I threw their parental advice out the window, and when I landed on Michigan Avenue I found out I was a city girl.   That is not to say it wasn’t without challenges……….like the first time I went to Marshall Fields on my lunch hour.  I had no idea that there were different entrances on different streets and I found myself exiting a door blocks from where I entered with no idea how to get back to work.  Or missing the express train by seconds after an Olympic sprint through underground garages.  Cab drivers that were terrifying and Hare Krishna looking for new recruits.

But helping people when things weren’t going so well in their life is satisfying even on the hard days.  I never grew tired of it or that city, and on the first Monday of daylight savings time I would always gasp when I went outside to head towards the train station.

The early darkness made it seem as though I was walking right into a Christmas tree.

Source: 500px.com via

Rainman

The Big Daddy has some odd habits.  I don’t ask why anymore.  He does strange things that I have to ignore or I’ll go crazy.

For years he has waged a one-man war on squirrels.  Chasing them out of the yard, throwing things at them, cussing at them in the backyard when they were in his garden.  Sometimes he’d jump up in the middle of dinner yelling, “Sonofabitch” and I knew he was about to go Squirrel Chasing. 

A rodent.  Outdoors.

At a party we were at he was telling someone that he doesn’t have to worry about the squirrels anymore which was news to me.  The population has been decimated, he said with a smirk.  Decimated.

He had been talking with a neighbor who was doing yard work when the entrails of a squirrel were falling out of a tree onto his picnic table.

Ermahgawd.

The Mighty Hawk has moved into Mayberry and found a village of food.  

What will The Big Daddy do with his time if he doesn’t have squirrels to chase?

Besides the bags and buckets of tomatoes currently in the dining room, there are buckets of pond water in the basement.

Buckets. Of. Pond. Water.  Indoors.

I am Charlie Babbitt.

He is Rainman.

He’s a good driver.

Holy Spirits

For a couple of years, I was a 4th grade teacher of religious ed.  Classes would meet on Monday afternoons at 4:00 for one hour once a week.

It was Religion 101 for those of us who were raising our kids Catholic but sending them to public school.

The absolute worst time to try to teach a kid anything would have to be on a late Monday afternoon after a full weekend and seven hours of sitting at school.  While I started out with the highest hopes, it soon became my goal that while these kids were in my care nobody got hurt, fell asleep, were bullied or bored out of their mind.

On a lesson about the presence of the Holy Spirit, I went over some of the gifts we receive from him/her, such as wisdom, understanding, knowledge.  My little explanation went over like every other one – blankety blank stares.  When I opened it up for a discussion……….and please kids don’t ask me anything hard because I’m not exactly gifted in this area.………I got more blank stares.

Until one kid equated it to ghosts.  Ghosts that lived in his house and that’s when the whole class perked up and wanted to tell a story about their own encounters with the Spirit……holy or otherwise.  It went on for awhile and ended when the kid with Asperger’s explained the inner workings of your basic lawn mower motor.

You could say that I lost control, but within my own low achiever parameters it was a success and everybody left ready to share the gift of wisdom with their parents.  As off the rails as they happened to be.

In the Spirit of some spirited nine year olds…………

Always look in the closets and under your bed because they like dark places.

They’re scary but their mouths don’t work and they have no arms so they can’t bite you or grab you.

Your parents can’t see them but usually act like they can.

Jesus made the holy ones to send when you’re fighting with your siblings.

And…………..

For optimal engine performance while mulching your fall leaves, it is important to maintain recommended fluid levels at all times.