"...Godspeed, Tardface!" The Funeral weekend pt. 1

I have been putting off doing laundry for such a long time that I can't really give you a semi-accurate timeframe. I know that I have worn most of my pant at least three times longer than they should have been worn and I have resorted to buying new shirts so I don't have to wash any. oh yeah- and i have been going commando for like a week and a half. Which is fine, you know, I mean no one knows. And its not like I'm not wearing underwear to make my habit of being a slut move any faster. WHICH IS A TOTAL DIG AT MY MOTHER WHO APPARENTLY THINKS IM A WHOREBAG SLUTHO. let me explain.

Ahem.

So my great grandmother passed away this past week. She was ninety seven and beating up nurses right up until her time came. She was amazing that way and in all of my memories of her I never remember her being angry or mean to anyone. (except the nurses I just mentioned...I think she bit one...) She was a person who sincerely seemed perfectly content with whatever came her way and I never heard a complaint from her... about anything!

I know funerals are not supposed to be a time for fun and cutting up, but I must say (in the most not-morbid way possible) that I hope that for the people who attend my funeral they will be brought closer to the members in their family as I was during these days. I had a lot of fun during the time I was not in the actual funeral, and I think that is the way it should be.

Well, I will put it out there that I don't wish that people bond the way I accidentally let myself turn into a drunk, obnoxious monster, but yeah.

Truth be told, I was very embarrassed at myself for how out of control I let myself become and I am writing this blog as an outlet in a way so I can let go and forget about that terrible tuesday. Its my stupid aunt's fault anyway. She's stupid. We will call her Tardface.

annnyway,,,,

We started off the day at Julie Darling donuts, a cute little place with donuts that will kill you if you give them some time. We met Tardface's friend Lynda there and we all conversated and jokeinated and ate strange donuts. Lynda's son came to have some donuts. (we will call him JewBaby) At this point in my trip, I did not realize that we were kindred spirits, but alas. I tried a bacon donut with him and at this point in my trip, I did not realize what a huge mistake that was, but alas.

We left Julie Darling's and hippity hopped around and looked at schtuff and more schtuff. It was nice. We ate at the Pickle Barrel, a nostalgic sandwich spot for my mother and then we hippity hopped out way back to the hotel to get ready for visitation.

I was already in a weird mood during visitation because my mother's new husband (we will call him Grandpa Sweetums) was making fun of all the Jesus Pictures in the Hallway..along with everything else he could see. He found one picture especially amusing and he will probably mention it in days to come. Let me show you!:

It is Jesus healing the liberty bell... while sitting on the constitution with an eagle planning an attack on his head. Grandpa Sweetums was just fascinated by this patriotic masterpiece and when JewBaby showed up unexpectedly, this is the first thing I drug him to see. He was suitably amused and impressed. These are little details that allow him to be a kindred spirit.

We floated back to the visitation room after looking at all the inappropriately amusing things in the building. Tardface wasn't any less behaved. She saw a chair that was taller than the others in the room and to her, this was a prop so she could amuse the family. I am not entirely sure what her mind saw the chair being, but when she sat on the chair and made a distressed face and grabbed her stomach and her hindparts, I saw the tall chair as being her toilet throne.

I really don't know what goes on in her head to make her do things, but I find them to be quite amusing most of the time, so godspeed Tardface! Keep up the good work. Thank you for being a fountain of inappropriate entertainment for me. I need that kind of stuff.

anyway.

Someone got hungry and I offered to go down to the grocery store and buy food for the fam! I don't care if its cold and raining in the mountains and that I am wearing a skirt and flipflops! I'm bigger than the environment! I will trek down and bring nourishment to my people at whatever cost! I will make the journey for my family no matter how the cold will slash my flesh!

"Or I could drive you" JewBaby says.

Oh, word?!

"ok!"

And off we go! The drive was about thirty seconds long and when I stepped out of his car in the Food Lion parking lot, a middle aged man was pushing a shopping cart full of toilet paper right in front of me. JewBaby was still in his car messing with a paper or something so I just back in frantically because this was important.

"Oh my Lord, look at this dude's buggy when you get out! Hurry! Look! Ahahahahaha what's his problem dang what in the world that must suck to have whatever he has I wonder if he is okay dang thats gross he doesn't even have any food....thats all toilet paper, the devil"

It was at this point in the night that I realized I was more hyper than I usually am and I was talking nonstop about friggin nothing.

We get into the store and I don't know what people want on their dang sandwiches so I play it safe and just get meat to make sure I don't buy something that people don't like. Everyone wants meat on their sandwich...so yeah...that's the safest route. We walk to the bread isle and a couple are walking in our direction as we are walking in theirs. We stop two three feet in front of each other and do the "which way are you going to step?" dance. I keep the dance going by sort of jumping in front of them when they try to get out of the way. I laugh and jump and jump and dance and they don't laugh so I stop.

JewBaby says nothing. Poor guy! He seems shy and I am bringing attention to him with my idiotic shenanigans. Oh well, I can't help it.

Come on people.

We pay for the sandwich bread and meat and off we go! Off to provide nourishment for the family! Thirty seconds later we are back and no one is really wanting a plain ass sandwich like I had hoped. They want condiments. Of course they do! So I have to go back to the stupid store later with Grandpa Sweetums because JewBaby left to go do something psh.

Grandpa Sweetums humored me by saying he would walk with me down to the store down the dangerous, busy, hilly road in the night cold and rain! Thank you Grandpa Sweetums! Halfway down the hill I forgot that I hurt my knee doing something dumb but I didn't say anything because I finally had someone to walk with me. We get into the store looking beat up and cold...because we are and we get in the checkout behind a dude paying with food stamps. He looks in better shape than we do in my opinion. This is mildly ironically funny to me.

"Oh! We almost forgot the ice!" Grandpa Sweetums reminded me.

"Man, are you serious!? We have to carry a bag of ice back to the funeral home what in the world were we thinking oh my lord we are so dumb oh wait nevermind that was all my fault because I wanted to walk so my bad I'm sorry, I'll carry it, my bad."

I don't remember Grandpa Sweetum's response because I was too busy rambling on about something, but I never stopped talking the whole night.

WE can do this! We are not weeny girls! We will carry groceries and ice up the wet, cold hill at night! We walk around the building and a car pulls up to us. It's foodstamp man.

"Ay, ya'll wanna ride?"

Oh Lord, really? Scuzzy foodstamp man wants to help us because we look poor as a mug and to' up and cold. Foodstamp man got more irony points. We declined his offer. Man! maybe I'm walking because I want to walk! Does no one want to walk ever? Maybe I want to walk in the cold in a skirt carrying ice in the dark with a hurt knee while struggling to see, you don't know! Leave me alone! And plus I'm mad that you have food stamps, go away. Plus your probably a serial killer because you're a single white man in Tennessee who drives a pickup truck and your on foodstamps. I can't help it, its what the statistics say. Scuzzy man, psh.

We get back safely without the help of serial killer food stamp man and the family ate an extravagant feast of maybe one sandwich with mustard on it. Spoiled family psh! I didn't want a sandwich and it was a good thing because that is when I noticed it. Jewbaby had a stethescope....and I wanna listen to people's insides. I stare at the stethescope and he notices me looking at it. I ask if I can see the thing. And he hands it over.

WOOoOOo SteThhhEsCoppe!!! let's listen to something! My dear, sweet mother is the closest to me so I put the hearing end of the thing up to her throat. She gives me a WTF look and I think that is just hilarious. I tried to tell her the instructions to the game I just made up...but I was wheezing a bit too much to get it out on my first attempt.

"Say a word inside of your mouth but don't open your mouth because I'm not supposed to hear the word out loud, I have to try to see if this think can hear what your saying!"

Her WTF look changes into a WTF look mixed with a look of indignation and she covers her mouth and does what I ask. The sound she makes is like she is choking. I completely lose it. It's the best game ever at the moment and I keep telling her to say different words. Each new choking sound makes me double over and then it is time to leave the visitation room. Jewbaby takes his stethescope back and that is when I learn that my people are going to a place called the Terminal........

"...Ay, I can get uh appluhcation?"

Something amazing happened at the Fruit Shop a couple days ago. I was dipping strawberries into chocolate and I backed up to throw something away and it happened!... I actually slipped on a banana peel. Something I thought couldn't really happen except in children's books and MarioKart World.

Yes. I stepped on the banana peel and slid on it for about two feet. After I got my balance back I just looked at the flattened peel and the smear on the ground with a sort of "wooow" face. I looked around to see if anyone else saw the unbelievable wonder that just happened, but no. No one was really paying attention. We were all in our own world dreading the moment when Corporate Fruit Shop Man would be in to stay all week to watch us all... and that would be any moment now.

I continue to dip strawberries because I am not really concerned with Corporate Fruit Shop Man. I am about to walk out of the place anyway. Every morning I feel like a bum for working there and I have my other job that I can go to. The customers are beginning to get on my last nerve and Bunnies (the owner who hired me) has sold the store to an Indian Patel (THEY ARE ALL PATELS! HOW ARE THEY ALL PATELS??) who uses a fake first name because his real one is an impossibility. I saw it on our employee packet and it looks something like this: "Dijikiolipmhjijiuygulipa"

I like Indian Patel okay, you know. I mean I guess. I suppose. Whatever.

We carry on with our morning activities. Dipping, cutting, skewering, and screaming profanities at each other, throwing grapes and wet strawberries at Charley, the manager who gets paid like a regular employee because no one wants to pay him what he deserves. (It passes the time)

We terrorize each other constantly. It is unending and it also explains why there was a banana peel in my space. Someone threw it at me. These sort of things are nice and I used to have fun at the Fruit Shop. I am hoping the hatred-funk I am in is just a phase that will soon pass.

The doorbell chime went off. I look at the Kracken and the Kracken looks at me. The Kraken looks at Charley and Charley looks at the Kracken. Charley tells me to answer the door because he's bossy and I'm obedient. I go up front and an extremely tall black man wearing a Fruit Shop hat, Fruit Shop jacket, Fruit Shop pants, and holding a Fruit Shop notebook is making his way into the back of the shop without acknowledging my "hello".

What a douchehole.

I walk back to the production area where Mr. Corporate is looking around disgusted. Nothing is how he wants it. He says in the most condescending diva fashion ,"Oh, no no no. This will not do. Lookssssssss like I came just in time!"

Yeah he was (and still is, I presume..) a big, flaming homosexual who really did draw his S's out for a noticccccceably long time. It was esssspecccially bad when the S was on the last letter of the word in his sentenccce. The longest S run was four seconds. Yeah, I counted. It was just sort of awkward because we all had to wait until his S sound finished until we answered his question or commented on his remark. Gay. Gay and odd.

I want to walk out now. But then I would only have my Web job to go to...and I want to walk out on that one too. Dang. Why can't both of these jobs be as nice as they were when I started?

I heard Winston Churchill and my other boss talking about how my hours were going to be cut and they said NO to the raise I asked them for so I doubt they would even notice if i stopped coming in.

Dang doorbell. Another dang customer. I saw this one coming from the parking lot. He demands attention. Mr. Gangsta Gold Teeth With An Attitude Drug Dealer wants some effing fruit. If I go attend to the customer I can get away from Corporate Gay Man. So I go.

Gangsta Attitude wants to order a huge fruit basket with a bunch of extra dipped fruit and then complain about how expensive it is. This is typical of this type of customer. They do it every time and then they pull out a huge-ass wad of "fiddys" (fifty-dollar bills) and peel off a few and then curse at you under their breath. You don't have to get a fruit basket you know. But dang.

So yeah. He mumbled quietly as he forks over one hundred and thirty dollars, "You high fo' some fruit...". (This translates into "This is expensive fruit)

"Yes, I know sir, but people buy it so it will continue to be that way."

"Whatchu' mean by dat?"

"I'm saying if you don't want to spend the money you don't have to."

**silence**

"Ay. If I bring some bud and some stuff in, you ca' make me a basket wit dat?"

"Are you asking me if I can make you a basket out of Marijuana?"

**Insert hysterical gangsta laughing here*

"WOOO day would be hot, right??... Maybe I could send it to da Po-po Department." He continues to laugh because he is the funniest man alive while I wonder why I come in to work everyday.

Charley and Corporate Man come to the front to see what is going on. They look at me for an explaination, but before I could tell them what his Police basket plan was, I didn't even know what was going on because Gangsta Attitude is getting passionate about tax rates and going on about some dude in Washington. He was an idiot.

I go to the back to sip my coffee and reflect on what just happened.

I go back to dipping and I am doing that wrong and get corrected.

I start putting grapes on the stick and I am doing that wrong too and I get corrected.

The phone rings and I answer it and I get corrected because I didn't answer the phone right.

and so on.

Indian Patel comes in and tells me that my apron looks scuzzy. A blood vessel throbbed in my eye. I lied and told him I had to leave because my other job wants me to come in and they are priority over the Fruit Shop because I get paid more there. This makes him be "concerned about my future at the Fruit Shop". This doesn't make me care any more than I already don't.

I was almost out and walking to my car when a brand new Gangsta customer came in.

I greet him with a, "Hey! how are you today?"

He responds with a ,"Ay, what ya'll do in hurr.. cut up fruits and shit?"

Wow. "Um, yes. That is what we do here."

Gangsta looks around the walls and ceiling for God knows what and says," Ay, I can get uh appluhcation?."

**Blink, blink**

"Of course!"

I open the kitchen door and tell Charley that he has a customer and leave quickly.

I believe it is the beginning of Fruit Shop Burnout.

"...I'm sorry, what? I didn't catch that..."

So July has been the worst July of all time. I haven't written anything and I have had no will to even keep an ear out for exceptional quotes. July was so bad that I don't think there were any to hear even if I was paying attention. This July makes me dread next July.

I hate July.

July is when I realized that I just don't have the right mind to be good at my job. July is when I started to hate seeing the same scenery everyday. July is when Mason became no longer my Mason. July is a big 'ol stupid, waste of time month. BUT, tomorrow is August and I have decided to come out of exile and put the horribleness that is July behind me.

How optimistic.

Turning points are never stupid. I only said that because I hate July. Turning points are good! They let us expand and move and keep from stagnating and I will take advantage of my terrible turning point and let it lead me somewhere I want to be. Yay optimism!

I have asked my English co-worker to help me get a job near London. I believe to have him as a contact and friend is the only reason God and the universe let me even get this web job in the first place. I hope everything works out with that because moving there has been something I have thought about everyday since seventh grade. I think it will. (there's that optimism again!)

July is also the month where I bought my Dear Motherbear Murphy, the cat. She woke up to a rattlesnake on her porch and I thought a cat would be able to protect her from vermin. He came from PetSmart and stood out with his one blue eye and one green eye and demonic looking face. Such a mean looking creature should be able to scare away vermin! And he had been found tramping around on Pamplico Highway so he obviously had the street skills to fight.

I told Dear Motherbear that I had found her the perfect farm cat and the next day we skipped down to PetSmart together and took Murphy the cat home. He crawled into the back window of the car and screamed bloody murder the whole way home. D'aw!

Murphy gets home and immediately acts like he has been living there his whole life and he is exactly where he is supposed to be. He is not acting like the street thug he is supposed to be at all. He doesn't even look mean anymore! He is perfectly white and fluffy with a bell collar who likes sleeping on pillows. There is nothing intimidating about that. Especially to a rattlesnake that is trying to kill my mother.

Anyway, that plan was a bust. She still hasn't taken the thing to the farm where it belongs so it can't really protect her when it is in Florence watching TV all day. At least she has someone to play with at home, I guess.

In the meantime, I am going to my new web-job. Each day is a surprise because I don't know if they are going to fire me for being incompetent or if they want to keep me around to laugh at. It really keeps me on my toes. I hope they decide to keep me for a while despite my incompetence because I enjoy working there (or trying my best to do the work they give me while I am there...). Its a nice little place when you try your best to see it that way... I have my own cubicle and my own double-screen computer and my own personal signature that goes on the end of my emails when I email my very own clients. It is just the big-girl job I need after I clean the floor mats and the trashcans at the fruit shop...because thats what getting a college degree gets you. Thanks Coker.

But yes, my new web job is a nice little gig. It is like getting paid to take a web class and the only thing I have to do in return is be humiliated by my incompetence and get made fun of because of how young I am. I am at the bottom of the web place chum bucket and I get the crappy machine that has trouble saving files and the "cubicle of doom".

I was told that it was called this because it was right across from the "men's loo", the English term for "men's crapper". I hear everything that goes on in the men's loo and it is not a healthy thing. I'll leave it at that. I'm just saying I will never forget my IPod ever, ever again ever. It's a pretty horrid thing, but the men's loo is the least of cubicle-related problems.

Since I have started this job, I am learning a lot more about why this cubicle is cursed. It sits right in the middle of a triangle of chaos. The men's loo is directly to my left. A registered sex-offender is directly to my right. ( good thing I'm twenty three and too old for him...yeah..he likes them young...real young.) Then there's Robbie, the farting man, who sits directly in front me. The man's aura is a methane cloud. He has so much gas that I wouldn't be surprised if his insides were shriveling up. It is vomit inducing. It's the rancid icing on the moldy cake when he scans me from head to toe when I walk past his desk. He is the reason I don't wear heels anymore. He made it very noticeable that he likes my legs in heels. So I wear my brown, ratty flip flops even if they don't match my outfit. They work well as farting-man repellant.

Regardless of the many charachters, the office lacks personality. It is a place where someone could easily snap and throw him or herself off the balcony or beat their head on the stairwell until they were a vegetable. I wouldn't be able to work there it if the English co-worker I mentioned earlier were not there. I will call him Winston Churchill.

I work for Winston Churchill. I was hired to help him with the overflow of work that he constantly has. Little did he know that I am mentally challenged. Everyday I ask him questions that I should already know the answers to and I take about 78 times longer on assignments that I should be able to do with my eyes closed. When I finish my piddly assignments, I make my way over to the Guru's (Winston Churchill's) cubicle and I have a computer lesson on junk that we both know I will never ever understand in my life. There would be no way that I would be able to listen to this junk if it was not being told to me in an English accent. I think God and the universe knew this, another reason why I am employed at this particular place.

Despite my handicap, I try like nothing else to do my work and they recognize that, so they deal with me. They also deal with me because they need someone to make fun of. Winston Churchill used to be the butt of all the jokes, but now it's me. It doesn't help that I can't control myself and say some dumbass things. I am the unintentional entertainer. I like to think of myself as the life-bringer to the personality vacuum that is the web place. It works out to be the one people laugh at even if it does sting. I don't think they realize I would purposely fall down the stairs and break my dang leg to keep the focus off how confused the work makes me. I am a joker because I am nervous and I often have a lump in my throat that I have to force down. You can laugh at me any day if I could trade in the place of my humiliation.

One of my very first assignments I was given totally blew my mind. I was so lost that I wanted to slither through the window and down the rain gutter all the way down to the underground sewer lines and live there.

I get very dramatic at the web place.

I didn't want to ask Winston ANYTHING because it would give away how much of a moron I was and I would lose my job and be embarrassed and not have any money and not be about to pay my credit card and have all sorts of expenses pile up and have my mother disappointed in me and be rejected by my family and never have friends and get matted up hair and furry teeth because I was a failure and I live in the sewer with all my broken dreams!!!!! I CAN"T ASK ANYONE ANYTHING! I WON'T!! No one will know that I don't belong here except me! ...ever......

I tried everything to get past what was stumping me as I pushed the lump in my throat down. Nothing. I wasn't getting anywhere and the time was going my so fast and I had nothing done! My mind's voice was whispering, "They are going to find out soon Samantha, maybe even sooner than soon because you haven't gotten ANY WORK DONE!!!"

I broke down. I sent Winston Churchill a chatbox message. I revealed my secret. I. am. stuck. I pictured him at his desk looking at my message and shaking his head in the most horrible disappointment that he has ever had in an assistant. I heard him walking over to the cubicle of doom and I knew he was going to ask me how I managed to even get hired. He was so close to my cubicle that there was no time to slither to the window. He was already here.

He was so nice about it. It turned out that my computer is a piece of crap and I didn't have access to something I needed or whatever. Well dang. I feel fine now. Whoa drama! I had no idea I was such a basket case...but alas. As he is explaining what is going on with whatever bug was in my computer, I am listening intently so I won't miss ANYTHING. I am not playing anymore. I will understand EVERYTHING.

In the middle of Winston's sentence, farting man farts a big'en one cubicle over. Winston stops ever so slightly, but continues explaining with a hope that I didn't just hear what everyone in the office just heard. I played like I didn't hear the bomb drop until the end of his explaination. When he stops talking I look at him with the most serious face I could fake and said ,"I'm sorry, what? I didn't catch that last part."

Winston Churchill looked at me for a second with an equally-as-serious face. When he figured out I was joking because farting mans fart was so huge, he wheezed from laughing and walked back to his desk shaking his head in embarrassment for his co-worker still cracking up. From that point on going I was no longer scared or embarrassed to let him know that I was incompetent. I started getting chatbox messages full of jokes and friendly conversations. I made my first friend at work, and most importantly he probably knows some contacts in London!

While all this is happening, Dear Motherbear manages to lose Murphy the cat.

"...How do you know?..."

"Hello....hello? Can someone answer me? ....hello?", said the challenged customer on the fruit shop answering machine. "HeLLO?!"

It was almost like she thought the louder she got the more likely the fruit shop would stop playing games with her. She knew workers were there at nine O'clock on memorial day. She knew.

"....hello?"

Jeeze, we are not here lady! This is an answering machine!

Her desperate longing for a worker went on for so long that I walked away to finish opening the store for the day. I could hear her droning more "hello?s" as I walked to the back of the store.

Amazing.

I heard her faded voice from the back sounding more and more defeated with each "hello?"

"...I would like to place an order please...hello..? I want someone to talk to me.

well. okay then..."

BEEEEP

"You have no more messages" the automated answering machine told me. The answering machine got the better of her.

I always thought thursdays were stupid customer days...but the winds may be changing.

The day continued with the usual. Kraken told me she won two hundred dollars before work when she scratched her lottery ticket. She also lost twenty more pounds that weekend. It was a long weekend after all.

The phone rang.

Sigh.

"Fruit Shop in Florence! This is Samantha! What can I help you with today?" I still think it is too much to say.

"Yes is this the Fruit Shop?"

See, there is no point for that whole intro.

"Yes ma'am, it is."

"Well I have a question and I don't want you to laugh at me or think it is stupid."

"I definitely will not laugh at you ma'am, and I am sure it is not stupid." I am very reassuring.

"Well I have been hearing around town that you take EBT, is that true."

UMNMMMMNMMMMMMMMMMMM no it is not true, and even if it was I would lie to you and tell you that we didn't because I don't feel that I get only 60% of my check from my minimum wage job so you can get 80$, cute little baskets of fruit on sticks for FREE! I will never assure another customer again that their question is "surely not stupid!"

"No ma'am. We don't accept EBT."

She hung up and didn't even wish me a nice day.

I go to cut pineapple shapes because it is nice it pineapple land.

Doorbell rings. Its the mexican lady who works with me. She doesn't work today though...apparently she looked at the wrong day on the schedule and no one in the shop knows how to tell her to go home. She doesn't have a ride anyway so I take it upon myself to leave so she can have my work. It was very unselfish of me. I had to get to the t shirt shop anyway. They were going to give me summer work!

On the way out of the fruit shop, a woman came in to buy a fruit salad. She caught me before my hand hit the door so I was obligated to help her.

"Are these the only fruit salads you have."

"yes ma'am, right now that is all we have, we will make some after we get more fruit cut but there are two different kinds for you to choose from."

"Is this a strawberry-pineapple fruit salad?"

"Yes ma'am." can you not see the pineapples and strawberries through the clear plastic?

"How do you know?"

How do I know what? How do I know that when I look through the clear plastic bowl I am looking at pineapples and strawberries? How do I know if I can be sure that the pineapples and strawberries that I am looking at are truly pineapples and strawberries?? She was right. How did I know? What is true knowing? Her question was about truth! Her existential insight made me doubt everything I had ever known. And then I realized that it was stupid customer day and she was really struggling, so I cleared up the confusion.

"Because that is what it is."

This seemed to satisfy her because she bought the philosophical bowl of implied strawberries and pineapple. I found out later that she was just a bitch who wanted to passively tell me that I should label my fruit salads so that customers would know what they were getting into.

Maybe the world of t-shirts will be better.

"...can you pass me that weed?"

It was animal weekend at Susan's house along with Abigayle's thirteenth birthday party. Very eventful! She had a bunch of her little friends over including Ben, her crushy-poo. The children carried around an ipod player and blasted Lady GaGa everywhere they went. The party was supposed to include a successful "Operation: Float the Dog", but he never made liftoff. It was still fun though even if the event I had high hopes for was a failure.

Mason and I had nothing to do the day after the party so we (I) decided that we would take Manks to the park for a day filled with romping and swimming and terrorizing other park goers. As we were getting ready to leave I decided that I might want a bunny. They are so cute and nice and cute and fluffy and cute! And plus, its animal weekend! The perfect time to think about wanting a bunny. But most of all, they are really light and could probably get lifted off the ground by 100 balloons...unlike a yorkie.

I ask Mason, "I'm sure that if I got three more tanks of helium the dog would make liftoff, don't you think?"

"Samantha, by that time you have wasted about two hundred dollars on Operation Float the Dog. Do you really think it is worth it?"

Maybe. Gah.

After that comment I think to myself about how to make Operation Float the Dog/Cat/Bunny a success. We carry on with our animal weekend.

So we retrieve the Manks- the maniacal Manks after I prep the car for her arrival. I clean it out completely and cover the backseat with a sheet and towels and secure it down do she won't strangle herself. She bounds into the car and still manages to crack a cd that I like a lot. But whatever. She rolls around and starts ripping up the sheet that I put down to protect the car. Thats what I get. But it is animal day and that makes it okay.

On the drive to the park there is a sign on the side of the road.

BUNNIES: 8$

Holy crap! Someone wants me to get a bunny! So I do. We pull over to this farmer guys house and walk through his farm/backyard to try to find him. We nervously walk up to the barn and a dang horse makes a horrible noise (a horse noise) and I jump back and grab Mason like a am a little weeny 6 year old boy. Boys are weenier than girls : )

We find the side-of-the-road, country farmer bunny salesman doing farm things in the back behind the barn and he takes us back to where the bunnies are. It was like a bunny asylum. We step into the bunny shack and a huge monster bunny throws himself against the front of the cage. I instantly wanted to help all of the bunnies in the bunny asylum. But Susan and my mother would disown me and I would have nowhere to live and I would have to roast my own pet bunnies to stay alive. So I decided to get two. Two non crazy, baby bunnies that I would raise to be the best bunnies ever.

The farmer was very rough with the little bunnies. He grabbed the first one with one hand and folded in half twice and squeezed it into a tiny hole in a diaper box that he found from the trash or somewhere. The bunnies didn't seem to mind. I guess they are very flexible and squishy with no spine. I don't know.

We take our two new bunny children to the car and Mason opens the box and they are both staring up at him. I watch Mason's masculinity melt away and he quickly turned homosexual because of the power of the cuteness. We name them Moops and Muffin. (This way all of my pets start with "M". Manks, Moops, Muffin and Mason. )

We take Moops and Muffin over to my dear Mother to show her because she loves bunnies and because I am sort of nervous about taking them to Susan's because she's Susan. Mother insists on holding one and she chose Muffin because Moops scratched Mason's neck and he is bleeding. So cute.

We all three take the bunnies to Susan's.

"What is that?"

"It's a bunny! We both have one"

"....."

"Aren't they the cutest dang things you've ever seen ever?!"

"I thought they were squirrels."

"You wanna hold one!?"

"no."

"How do you not like bunnies? Are you the devil?"

I decided that Susan was the devil because she doesn't like bunnies. Who doesn't like bunnies? little baby bunnies?! She must be the devil.

We take Moops and Muffin to the backyard so they can hop around and do cute bunny things. We are all sitting on the grass with them. Mason, Susan, Mother, Abigayle and myself. It was quite the scene of happiness. The bunnies are eating grass and flowers and looking around and Abigayle asks, "Hey, can you pass me that weed?" She wanted to feed the bunny.

Yes. I can pass the weed.

So animal weekend went swimmingly. The yorkie got over being traumatized, Manks got a park day and ham bones and Moops and Muffin got a good home. Until some dogs broke into the fence and Muffin went missing and is probably out in the world hungry, lost and scared.

The End

"...the strawberries are strawberry sized and not cantaloupe sized...sir"

SO it has been a few days after my deadline for figuring out what I wanted to do with my little life. So far I have had many ideas but still unable to decide on one. I now want to be any of the following:

A glassblower

A metalworker who makes awesome stuff

A silversmith who makes awesome stuff

A coffeeshop owner who is mad chill all day

A bar owner (a dark, moody little place) with an apartment above it.

A bakery owner that has an apartment above it that I live in.

A cake decorator

The advertising person at GarlicValley Farms

A ceramic snail maker who listens to Rush in the garage all day

A professional organizer who goes wherever

A furniture designer that makes awesome stuff

A coffee taster and critic who is sought after.

or a vagabond who lives in the forest.

This is huge progress by the way, but the only jobs that are available and that I have applied for have been the following:

Photographer of snotnosed children at LifeTouch Studios

Teller at a Credit Union

Market Development at a screenprinting place

The advertising person at GarlicVally Farms

and Head Blogger for Alicia Keys talking about women's rights and junk all day.

and other things not interesting enough for me to remember. (monster.com didn't even keep track of them so you know they are godawful.)

They were various receptionists positions.

I have one match though which is hopeful. The advertising person at GarlicVally farms! I think that would be fun. But yeah probably not going to happen because I think they are looking for an older person because the work is so slow and easy. But we shall see.

Meanwhile in the beautiful meantime, I have been going into my cushy fruit job everyday with a slight big fat hankering to walk out or either punch the Kraken "up under her froat" as it often says about whoever its talking about. Here is a snapshot of what sort of thing has been happening in the meantime:

Amanda was speaking with a customer trying to take an order. Amanda asked the customer her name so she could get the order placed and for some unknown reason this offended the customer in such a way that Amanda got verbally accosted for about ten minutes. Apparently the customer thought we were supposed to know who she was by the sound of her voice through the phone.

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM? YOU SHOULD HAVE MY PICTURE HANGING UP IN YOUR STORE RIGHT NOW SO YOU CAN SEE MY FACE EVERYDAY! YOU SHOULD HAVE MY PICTURE IN YOUR WALLET AND SEE ME IN YOUR DREAMS AT NIGHT! YOU GONNA SEE MY FACE IN YOUR WINDOW WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO SLEEP! YOU SHOULD KNOW WHO I AM!"

Oh my Lord. Help us in this fruit shop.

Poor Amanda! I know I don't really like her that much but I would rather her not get yelled at by some crazy ghetto lunatic.

Understandably, Amanda still didn't know who this customer was so she asked the lunatic to spell her last name.

"OH YOU STUPID BITCH DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL NEITHER?"

Poor Amanda! The girl is only seventeen and the lunatic is making her lip quiver and giving her a lump in her throat. Amanda puts the lunatic on hold and comes in the back and asks one of us to finish the order for the nice lady on the phone. The Kraken looks at Amanda with the ugliest Kraken scowl and tells her she better get off her ass and do some work around here and suck it up and finish talking with the customer herself because she is not doing any work for her. (The Kraken isn't even allowed to answer the phone anyway. I don't know why she was so angry.) I think the woman on the phone was the Kraken's mom or something. I don't know.

So yeah. Fruit shops are hostile environments. I didn't know and I bet you didn't either. Maybe all workplaces are hostile because the majority of customers everywhere are HORRIBLE PEOPLE! If you are a decent person, I thank you. All fruit shop workers thank you.

Oh yeah- and this one guy got mad at me because the strawberries were not as tall as cantaloupe slices when they were put on skewers. I had to give him a box of strawberries for free to get him to stop crying.

"Sir, there is the same amount of fruit as the arrangement you see in the flyer, the strawberries are just strawberry sized and not cantaloupe sized....sir."

"Did you make this? I just want you to know that I know you are cheating me, and I want you to know. I'm not going to do anything about it, I just want you to know."

"Sir, I am not cheating you out of anything, strawberries are just not as tall as slices of cantaloupe. The strawberries are strawberry sized...." (?)

He looks at me angrily for about 48 minutes without a word.

"Let me go see if I can't do something for you..."

I dip a box of beautiful, free strawberries (strawberry sized strawberries) and gift wrap them for him because I am a pushover and he leaves ...but not before he tells me one last time that I cheated him.

Just crazy.

Just as this crazy guy leaves, Frank the delivery driver comes in and the Kraken puts on her fake happy masks and yells "FRANKY! Franky's here!"

I hate her.

Frank isn't that bright of a ray of sunshine either. He is an asshole to most people. He is about eighty years old and with that comes a bitter attitude to all the "youngsters" trying to "take his job". Everyone except me apparently. For some reason he likes me okay and told the owner how great I am. I've never spoken to him in the three months I've been there. I decided to say good morning to him this morning.

"Good morning, Frank."

Frank looks in my direction and scowlgrowls. He looks at me a few seconds longer. With his weird boston accent he says "Oh Hello! I thought you were that idiot, Amanda!"

"No sir, it's me, the idiot Samantha." I go back to typing the rest of the order that I was editing on the computer because I don't want to talk to Frank anymore because he is an asshole. Frank surprisingly continues to talk.

In his low, growly voice he asks me "Well how are you doing today, miss?" I look up to answer him. Maybe he is not such a angry old man. My eyes met his and the bastard winked at me.

Don't wink at me.

Don't wink at me.

Don't. Wink. At. Me.

So after this day I decided to continue to go into the fruitshop everyday. The more horrible the customers and the workers become, the more motivated I am to come home and look for jobs and write cover letters and work on my portfolio. The fruit job instills its own motivation for me. It is helping me both stay there while helping me leave.

"...I found an egg with a dollar in it today..."

SO my dear, impatient mother has given me a week to figure out my life plan. Today is day two. Quite a thing to accomplish in a five-day-alloted amount of time. Apparently she doesn't think my minimum wage paying, cushy fruit shop job is cutting it...and she may think it is embarrassing.

I agree with her.

The thing is, I can't see myself doing anything. At all. It's really discouraging. I am afraid of picking a career path because then I feel like I would be locked down (trapped) doing the same thing everyday forever until I retire or die. No thanks.
In my talks with people, I have found that this is a very common fear and concern. Most people, even successful adults are still unsure of what they want to be when they "grow up". While this is comforting for some, it is not comforting for me. I want a goal and I want it to be the right one. I don't want to waste time on the wrong one. So which one! I have five more days to decide!

Sigh.

I am aware that I am making this decision a lot more difficult than it needs to be and in turn putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself. (That's what I hear anyway.) So dear, sweet, impatient mother: you need not leave a comment or call me later telling me so. (unless you absolutely feel the motherly need.)

She will. *tired face*

SO this may very well be the reason I am dipping fruit into chocolate everyday while seeming to be outwardly content. It is a way for me to put off getting a real job. I can work my fruit job everyday because it is temporary and everyone knows that. They don't associate the job with me and (to me) that makes my time wasting okay.

So what do you do when you can't see yourself doing ANYTHING and you have five days to decide your life plan for your dear, sweet, impatient mother? You ask the people who know you the best what they see you doing. Surely my family and friends will have some helpful ideas for me.

Mason and I have had a beach day planned for a week so I will use the travel time and sun-soaking time there to my advantage. I will have a serious conversation with him about what I should do with myself. After all, he knows me the best. (Apart from my dear, sweet, impatient mother.)He will have helpful ideas for me.

I'm excited about beach-day-with-Mason 2010 and I want to get the fun part of the day started as soon as possible. I'm not driving so I'll start drinking. At 10:30. (The best way to get the day started) The alcohol will open my creative mind and allow ideas to flow! Or something... I have me a Mike's Harder Lemonade. It's just like Mike's Hard Lemonade. Only Harder. *winky face*

I tell Mason that my dear mother has given me a week to figure out my life's plan and he is going to help me. He agrees because he is in the car with no way to escape. He really doesn't have to do much, just sit there, drive, and sort of listen while I drone on and on about how I feel like a wasteful shell of a human. He is good at that. One of the many reasons he is my Mason.

So I go on and on. I talk about where I want to live because that is close to talking about what I want my career to be.
Not really.
I talk about funny random things I notice on the roads as we drive... because that is sort of the same as talking about me getting a job.
Not really.
I talk about the garlic tattoo that I want but am unsure about because that is really close to talking about working.
sigh.
I talk about blah blah blah and this and that and I am no closer to knowing anything more than what I didn't know at the beginning of my attempt at a conversation attempt.

My topics of conversation are becoming more sporadic and my ideas are getting more random. Hm. The Mike's Harder Lemonade might be a tad bit harder than I anticipated. I haven't even finished half of the giant can yet and I already feel like dancing the soldja boy across the sand.

"I wanna study dreams! What do you think about that? Does that sound like me?"

Mason looks out the window. I guess he doesn't know I am talking to him. I guess he thinks I am talking to the other not so interested person who is NOT IN THE CAR. I'll ask again.

He says, "Okay, I can see that. I can tell your'e definitely interested in dreams."

Woo! Confirmation! This serious conversation of ours has been beneficial!
Very minimally beneficial...but Mike's Lemonade and I think we have made tremendous progress.

"Yeah! I"ll have a dream clinic or something and do dream therapy and tell people what's going on with their subconscious!"

Mason gives me an "Okay" then I start thinking about what a dumb idea that is. Yeah...it's really dumb. Scratch that idea. I've changed my mind. Now I want to own my own coffee shop again. I've brought this idea up to him before, but I bring it up again because its appropriate.

"What about me owning a coffee shop only I serve alcoholic coffee drinks!? Irish coffees, coffee martinis...regular coffee and stuff. Wouldn't that be fun? I would call it The CoffeeSot...like Coffee Pot...get it?! ahahaha isn't that cute?! I think it's cute."

He asks,"What is sot?"

"A sot is a drunk person."

"Oh. ok. Yeah that's cute."

sigh.

I don't want to talk about careers anymore for a while. That ten minute burst of two ideas was exhausting. Mike doesn't want to talk about it anymore either. We are done. No more. Mike and I are discouraged but we ignore our feelings and continue our beach trip where we left off.

Mason, Mike, and I get to the beach and I have to keep one eye closed to focus on Mason and whatever his face is asking me. How is it possible to feel this tipsy?! I haven't even finished one giant can yet. What is going on? ...Such a giant can.

Mason's face is talking. I am still thinking to myself about what I want to be when I grow up. I don't feel like an adult. I don't feel like I am at the point of my juvenile little life to have a career. Do other people with careers laugh at fart noises and drink in the mornings on the way to the beach? Something is just not adding up with me.

We spent a few hours on the beach and got a bit tanned. Four o'clock rolls around and I hadn't even eaten breakfast. No wonder Mike is roundhouse kicking me in the face! I knew there was an explaination. Mason takes me to his favorite restaurant, Carrabba's. I eat bread until I am cured. Mike and I go our separate ways.

Until another beach day, Mike! See you later!

The beach trip continued with random, hilarious, stupid, typical of Samantha and Mason conversation, but during the rare silences I would think about what I wanted to be when I grew up. The beach trip ended with no more ideas from Mason or myself. Nothing realistically helpful anyway... (Hey! Passions is hiring!)

The next morning I wake up earlier than Mason and eat breakfast while thinking about careers. My brain is a barren wasteland and that has nothing to do with being inebriated for the majority of the day yesterday. I am blank. Yet I persevere.

When Mason wakes up we go outside to lay in the sun so get a bit more tanned. It makes us attractive. Or something. I bring my notebook to write down ideas and plans for life. We lay in the sun in silence.

Susan comes out later with her bathing suit on because she wants to try to tan also. Yeah whatever. Freckled skin doesn't tan. Yet she perseveres.

"Hey Susan! We are talking about what I should do with my life, thats why it's so quiet out here. You want to conversate and we can talk about what you see me doing with my life?"

She agrees to and proceeds to lay out on the trampoline.

There is more silence...but this silence is different. This silence is hopeful . This silence is evidence of thought happening. Someone is going to have something constructive and useful for me! I wait for it...minutes go by and the exceptional happens.

Susan breaks the sounds of distant lawnmowers and birds chirping to say, "I found an egg with a dollar in it yesterday."

We had an Easter egg hunt a few days before this and a few eggs had gone unfounded. This is what she was thinking about during what should have been constructive thought time.

I have three more days to have my life plan thought out for my dear, sweet, impatient mother.

sigh.