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Vices

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So I’m beginning to wonder how healthy my occasional formula for surviving-a-busy-day-while-still-being-able-to-enjoy-the-evening really is. Let’s see… I roll out of bed (usually exhausted), and drag my ass through the early morning routine of showering, eating, facebooking, blog-posting, news-watching, makeup, hair, heels, commute. And by the time I sit down in my office chair, I’m even more exhausted.

I reach for the faithful friend that is a big, fat, coffee mug and I head across the hall toward the office fuel pump… Or rather, the Keurig coffee maker in the break room. One cup starts to perk me up and makes me feel like perhaps I will NOT flop my forehead onto the keyboard and drool all over the space bar as initially feared.

Two cups make me feel like I can begin to pick up the pace. I can actually comprehend my email and voicemail messages. I can focus long enough on my tasks at hand and begin to feel like I am climbing on top of the To-Do list, rather than lying prostrate beneath the weight of it.

Three cups enable me to operate under the assumption that I can take on the world! I am returning emails, answering the phone and taking notes while performing Photoshop miracles. I can whip out an ad layout standing on my head with my hands tied behind my back. And I am greeting everyone who walks into my office with the loudest, cheeriest and most hyper “HELLO!” that they run scared in the opposite direction.

However, by the time I get home and it is finally time to unwind and relax… I wonder why I am so keyed up. Perhaps a nice glass of wine will calm me down and ease me into the evening so that I can eventually drift off to dreamland peacefully and soundly.

So… I reach for the faithful friend that is the corkscrew. I nearly shatter my sparkling-clean wine glasses as I reach for one since my hands are shaking like mad from all the caffeine I’ve ingested throughout the course of the day. One glass starts to enable me to take deeper breaths as warmth and calm gradually spread through my limbs. I think that perhaps I will NOT bite the head off of the first person that speaks to me as initially feared.

Two glasses allow me to feel like I can begin to cope with the reality that I will have to do this all over again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. I can relax and focus long enough on an exchange with my boyfriend / mother / father / sister / niece / nephew / neighbor / friend so that they will believe I am happy, engaged and perfectly willing to handle whatever it is they say to or ask of me without “losing it” because I am “overwhelmed” or “stressed.”

Three glasses enable me to operate under the assumption that I can take on the world! And just as I attempt to take on the world… my forehead flops onto the keyboard of my laptop and I begin to drool all over the space bar.

The Disease That is the Need To Please

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Recently, I was inspired by a fellow blogger’s post about an annoying co-worker that she had begun to avoid. The offending employee was new to this blogger’s office and the annoying behavior of which I am about to address was something we’ve all had a little experience with… no matter which side of the fence we’re on. I am talking about the need to please.

In case you are curious, the entry—cleverly titled “Killing Me With Kindness”—that inspired THIS entry can be found here: http://hvoorhees.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/killing-me-with-kindness/

See, while my blogging buddy writes from the perspective of the person who finds “people-pleasing” behavior to be quite vexing… I, on the other hand, am The Pleaser. So you can imagine why I found her post to be so insightful. This was, for me, a view from the other side of the fence.

So inspired was I by her view of things that I posted the following comment below her entry: “I am so glad you wrote this post. Because, let me tell you, although I’ve been on BOTH the giving and receiving end of your co-worker’s obnoxious chipper-ness… MORE of me definitely falls into her camp. And I wrestle with it. Constantly. See, at 36, I have become more aware that I am “that” person to some people and it is a HUGE struggle. Honestly… I am being serious… I have asked my therapist about it. I told my therapist that I feel I should just shut the hell up and not talk to anyone and that perhaps that would make everyone happier. (See… ever always TRYING to PLEASE) But then she tells me that I shouldn’t deny being myself around others. It is a tough one. I must admit that even with her advice in tow… I probably have been TRYING (at least mentally) to be more of the “shut-the-hell-up” person anyway. And it’s hard.”

People-pleasing is a horrible and (I’m not being melodramatic here) destructive trait to have. If I were to serendipitously cross paths with a genie in a bottle, and he granted me just one wish—I honestly think I would ask him to change this manner in me.

It is downright crippling at times, not to mention it causes you to constantly cast aside your very own identity and wellbeing in order to make others happy or more comfortable. And here’s the kicker: Most of the time… they don’t care that you’ve done it. They might not even notice that you’ve done it. It is a lost cause, wasted energy, and an exercise in futility. It is a sickness. A disease. The Disease That is the Need to Please. So… if anyone has been successful in finding the cure—or happens to know the whereabouts of a certain genie in a bottle—you can see why I, for one, would REALLY like to know.

The Ugly Cloak

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There’s this certain shirt hanging in my closet that I hate. No, I’m not talking about the type of hatred that is you-hate-it-so-much-you-never-wear-it-so-it-just-hangs-there hatred. I mean, I have tons of clothes in closets, drawers and storage boxes that fall into that category. This is a unique sort of hatred. The dysfunctional relationship that I have with this particular shirt is like no other relationship I have ever had with any other garment… ever.

You see… I hate this shirt… and YET I continue to wear it every few weeks or so. Does anyone else have a clothing item like this in their possession? I don’t know what is the matter with me, but I never seem to remember how much I dislike it until it’s too late. I keep thinking that I will like it. Why do I keep thinking that I will like it? I keep giving it one more chance, and one more chance, and one more chance and it keeps right on letting me down… every… single… time.

There’s comes a time each evening that I go to my closet and select whatever it is I plan on wearing the following day. Inevitably I will stand there, staring at my clothes and feeling like I “haven’t a thing to wear” like most women do. I flip through the pants and skirts, blouses, cotton tops and sweaters until I find something that will do. And every so often, I come across this collared, grey, stretch-cotton, button-down, three-quarter-length-sleeve blouse. And it’s almost as if I’ve never seen it before. I pull it off the rack and look it over. It seems fine. It’s really basic and goes with just about anything.

The funny thing is… I bought it specifically for a meeting once, and I even hated it on the very first day that I wore it… which, I have to tell you, is highly unusual because you ALWAYS love something the first time you wear it. It’s not until after at least 3 to 4 wearings that it ends up getting shoved further down in the fashion rotation.

Holding it in my hand, I realize that if I NEVER wear this shirt… then there has to be a reason. Therefore, I carefully look it over a second time and ask myself the question: WHY do I never wear this blouse? It isn’t stained. It isn’t torn. It isn’t see-through. It isn’t missing any buttons. It isn’t too tight, too short, too long, too low or too revealing. So WHAT the hell is the problem!?!?

Then I usually think back to whatever “bottoms” I wore with it on the previous occasion. Ahhh… that must be it, I tell myself. It’s because I didn’t wear the proper pants or skirt in which to compliment the grey shirt. The brick-red skirt was too wrinkled and didn’t create good overall lines. When paired with the darker-grey slacks, I just ended up looking like a giant pidgeon. The shirt’s seams hit me in all the wrong places the time I wore it with the denim trousers. So perhaps if I combine it with something other than the brick red skirt, charcoal slacks OR the denim trousers, it may actually be possible to make the shirt work for me.

So I try about the only option I have left available to me… and that is to match it up with a pair of black slacks. WRONG again! Like Harry Potter and his Invisibility Cloak… I have decided that this shirt is my Ugly Cloak. Every time I wear it I feel absolutely hideous. How is it that I can so easily forget just how ugly this shirt makes me look and feel? Sure… there is nothing OUTWARDLY wrong with the item, which must be why I continually pull it off the hanger and choose to drape myself in it for 10+ hours a day! However, it is uncomfortable to wear, and the color makes me look as though I have just contracted the H1N1 virus. It is shapeless and makes ME look like I am shapeless underneath of it. It rides up in the chest, neck and shoulders causing me to constantly TUG at the hem in order to keep it from eventually floating up and completely over my head. Oh yeah… and it wrinkles if you so much as look at it wrong.

And the only reason I am able to recall all of this information now with such passion and clarity, remembering enough detail to get it all down in writing, is because right now… even as I type this… I am wearing the blasted grey shirt. That’s right folks, I gave The Ugly Cloak yet another chance… and once again… it has deeply disappointed me.

Damn Grey Shirt… I swear… you have screwed me over for the last time! I am NEVER, I repeat NEVER wearing you again!!! That is, until three weeks from now… when I find you there, hanging in my closet… looking oh so innocent… and I’ve somehow managed to completely forget ONCE AGAIN how you truly make me feel.

Out of Touch

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Last night I was perfectly content sitting on my couch and NOT multitasking. I was doing one thing and one thing only. Watching Seinfeld re-runs. I was not on the phone or the laptop Facebooking, Twittering or blogging. I was just sitting there—like a tree stump dressed in grey sweatpants and a weathered In & Out Burger t-shirt—and it was glorious.

It was at this point that I saw a commercial for the newest ipad. The commercial showed a woman about my age, in the Apple store, looking at the shiny new gadget the salesman had just presented to her. She cautiously grasped the ipad like it was the Holy Grail and the moment it was in her hands, she was immediately transported to all of these exotic locales.

She traveled to remote sun-washed beaches, gourmet, five-star restaurants, rockin’ night clubs, casinos and both National and International landmarks. And all the while, she never looked up from that damn ipad. Apple’s selling point being that this device can go with you wherever, whenever and you can stay connected.

WTF?!?! Helloooo!!! You're in P-A-R-A-D-I-S-E. LOOK AROUND!!!

I’m sorry, am I the only one who has the desire to visit remote and exotic sun-washed beaches, gourmet, five-star restaurants, rockin’ night clubs, casinos and both National and International landmarks for the sole purposes of getting away from AND staying OUT of touch with the world? I mean, there’s a reason that the freakin’ screen savers and wallpapers on these things have pictures of Fiji and Mt. Kilimanjaro on them. Duh.

Though perhaps that is the final irony here… The place in which we’ve arrived on the evolutionary ladder of man vs. technology… If you’re toiling at your desk… you dream of Fiji or of standing in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. But if you’re actually IN Fiji or standing in the shadow of Kilimanjaro… you want to be at the office?!

I don’t know about you, but if I had the time and resources to travel to far-flung corners of the globe and visit the types of exclusive destinations that this chick was inhabiting in the ipad commercial… I would take that flat, wireless, super-sleek, state-of-the-art, hi-speed, touch-screen piece of crap capable of keeping me “connected” 24/7… and fling it as far as it would go.

Mornin’ Sunshine

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Yesterday morning I got stuck behind this ridiculously-slow-moving truck on the way to work and was so frustrated I could spit nails. I HATE slow-moving traffic. I LOATHE slow-moving traffic. I have no patience and no tolerance for it. In fact, one day it is probably going to cause me to stroke out behind the wheel. OK, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.

I know I’ve said it before, but I firmly believe that anyone who is going to drive under the legally posted speed limit should restrict their travel to between midnight and 4 a.m. That way they are less likely to interfere with people who ACTUALLY HAVE TO BE SOMEWHERE… And quite frankly they will annoy fewer people. If they cannot adhere to the midnight and 4 a.m. rule, then the absolute least they could do is not travel between the hours of 5 a.m.- 9 a.m. Is this too much to ask?

However, since these restrictions are not yet LAWS… there is little I can do about it except complain, fume, roll my eyes, slam my hands against the steering wheel and call the driver of said slow-moving vehicle all sorts of nasty names while performing obscene hand gestures beneath the dashboard 1. so as not to incite road rage and/or get myself killed and 2. because I haven’t got the balls to do this above the dashboard where the offending motorist might actually see and identify me. But yesterday morning was a little bit of a different story.

Because of the aforementioned ridiculously-slow-moving-truck, I had the opportunity to meet the sunrise. While trapped behind the giant snail, I began to notice the tops of the brightly-lit, green trees and golden-tassled corn. My surroundings on the road down below were all a greenish-grey… but higher up on the horizon everything was brilliant blue, green and gold. And since I now had the time to watch this lovely scene unfold in front of me… thanks to Pokey-The-Passive-Pick-Up-Driver (jerk)… I decided to enjoy it.

Gradually, as the sun rose higher and higher in the East, the color spread down through the trees, illuminating more and more of the landscape. It was like being on the inside of a blank canvas while it was being washed with color. At one point it felt like I was driving through a glowing green tunnel as tall, mature maples guarded both sides of the highway. It was stunning. Little by little everything sprang to life as a promising new day began!

And before I knew it, I had stopped screaming, put both hands back on the wheel and forgotten ALL about the sluggish vehicle in front of me—probably because by now I had run it off the road and it was lying upside down in a ditch, wheels still spinning—but that’s another story for another day.

So, I would just like to close by saying: I guess there really IS some validity to the statement: “Take time to enjoy the scenery.” I would just prefer to enjoy the scenery… while traveling at least 65 miles per hour.

Morning Battle

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It’s raining harder now and I would so much rather stay in bed. This is the kind of morning where nirvana could be achieved by simply pulling the covers over my head and hiding out awhile. The rain is a soaking, cleansing rain. It is as though it has the ability to wash away all of the troubles I took to bed with me the night before.

It is still dark. And as autumn has officially announced its arrival to the world. The air has grown fresh and cool. I’ve left the windows open so that the crispness of the night can float in and settle between the planks of my wooden floors. I hear a distant rumble of thunder and the rain is coming down in big fat drops that make a beautiful noise as they slap against the shingles and the siding. To me, the sound may as well be a lullaby.

But duty calls. Responsibility beckons and pulls on the strings of a tired and over-burdened conscience. No matter how irresistible the thought of staying between the sheets may seem, I have a million things that demand my attention. There’s the 10 hours today that the job requires… The ever-growing heap of laundry begging to be washed… The dust bunnies on the floor taunting me to vacuum… The ring in the tub that isn’t going to remove itself… The empty shelves in the refrigerator, and the way-too-light carton of milk reminding me that a trip to the store is in order.

Oh but the thunder and the darkness make it so tempting to retreat for the day! Instead I rise reluctantly and shower and put on make-up. I rinse the dishes in the sink, trade my slippers for heels, blow dry my hair and put on lipstick. There’s no turning back now. Time to greet The Dreaded Day whether I’m ready for it or not.

The rain is still steadily coming down as I unlatch the door to step outside and face the world. I force open my broken umbrella and hear the click as the door now locks behind me.

“Shoulding” On Ourselves

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There is a little-known occurrence reaching epidemic proportions and running rampant through our culture these days. This problem may be affecting you or someone you know in some very harmful ways. Perhaps you’re already familiar with it… it’s called “Shoulding,” and it is a dangerous thing. I was first introduced to this concept by my mother who was frequently telling me that it is never productive to “should” on yourself. And even though she reminds me (almost daily) NOT to SHOULD on myself… I still do it.

It starts out harmless enough… with a few benign statements such as: I should clean my house. I should do some laundry. I should pay some bills. I should balance my checkbook. I should wash the windows. I should wash the car. I should wash the kids. These statements in and of themselves aren’t harmful. They can actually serve in a helpful manner by prompting us to take care of those things in our lives which need to be taken care of. However, there is a much darker side to “shoulding”… and this is the side that we ought to be concerned with.Let me demonstrate by sharing some personal “shoulds” I have dropped on myself over the years… I should be happy. I should be married. I should be a mother. I should be a successful graphic artist making more than enough money to meet my monstrous suburban mortgage payment. I should bake brownies and change diapers. I should be shuffling kids off to soccer practice and swimming lessons in between power lunches and networking dinner parties.

And I’m just getting warmed up…

I should be a size 2. I should have 8-minute abs. I should have Madonna’s arms, Angelina’s lips and Jennifer Aniston’s flawless skin. I should have thick, lustrous wash and wear hair (in the trendiest style of course) I should arise in the mornings looking like I have just stepped out from the pages of Vogue. I should start each day by running 6 miles and eating nothing but fiber, lean protein and organically-grown produce. I should wear fabulous clothes and drive an equally fabulous, environment-friendly, hybrid car. I should have a perfect mate who looks like Prince Charming and treats me like a queen. He too should earn an obscene amount of money… and together with our beautiful and well-mannered 2.5 children, we SHOULD be the poster-family for happiness and domestic bliss.

This process of “shoulding” can also work in another way… for there are just as many things that fall into the “Should Not” category. A few of my personal favorites are: I should not be divorced. I should not be single. I should not be childless. I should not struggle to pay my bills with a college degree. I should not have any debt. I should not feel the need to constantly defend or explain myself. I should not (occasionally) wish for a different life.

As you can see, “shoulding” is a lose/lose activity. An exercise in futility. Nothing productive or good can ever come from “shoulding on ourselves.” The moment the word “should” leaves our mouths, we are damaging our current and future happiness. This is what my mother is always trying to get me to see. As a woman of 60 she tells me how much time she wasted “shoulding,” when she could have just chosen to be happy and content with who she was and what she had in THAT moment. She hopes that by telling me this while I’m in my thirties, it might save me a great deal of heartache and disappointment and it might allow me to enjoy what I have right now.

So I guess if there is anything, ANYTHING that I SHOULD do… the singular exception to the “Thou Shalt Not Should” rule… it would be to stop all of this “shoulding on myself” RIGHT NOW and start accepting, embracing and enjoying the reality of what IS and what IS NOT.

A Life of Convenience?

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I bit the head off of the girl at the Circle K convenience store yesterday morning. OK, I didn’t bite it completely OFF… but I’m not gonna lie… I did leave a mark. In all seriousness, I snapped because she didn’t have Cherry Pop Tarts AND she couldn’t do a cash-back transaction at her register, which would have enabled me to purchase future Cherry Pop Tarts out of a vending machine on campus.

Upon realizing what I’d done in showing her my “dark side,” I immediately and profusely apologized to her and said that I was having a terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad day and it was barely 8 a.m. And then I said that I hoped that SHE had a great day today (extra emphasis on GREAT)… and I smiled just a bit too wide to show her HOW MUCH I meant it.

I settled on some strawberry pop-tarts instead and drove to work like Andretti on crack. As I drove, I began pondering the potential speed bumps in the life of the Convenience Store Clerk (bad pun intended). Please understand, I mean no disrespect to anyone who currently is or has been a convenience store clerk. Nor do I mean to offend anyone who knows or loves a convenience store clerk. I am merely presenting my take on why I think THIS particular profession would be a toughie.

  • Creatures of the Night – You most likely work odd hours and therefore interact with odd people. Aside from shift-workers, I personally don’t want to know who is roaming about at 4 a.m. in desperate search of a Twinkie, a Ho-Ho or a slushie… nor do I want to know why.
  • Twinkies and Ho-Ho’s – You deal largely with people who either ARE Twinkies and Ho-Ho’s or whose diets consist largely thereof.
  • Midnight Heist  – You probably live in consistent fear of the “hold-up” for the “less than $50” you carry in your drawer. Anyone else ever notice the 7-foot, vertical rulers framing the entrance and exit doors and how the place is lousy with not-so-cleverly-hidden cameras?
  • Lotto Lady – You have to put up with the daily blue-haired ladies who insist upon scratching their scratch-offs AT the counter (despite the ever-growing line of impatient customers chomping at the bit behind them) and if they win even one freakin’ dollar, they will use it to buy yet another scratch-off from you and continue standing there while they scratch that one too. This cycle could continue indefinitely perhaps taking up the better part of an afternoon.
  • The Conversationalist – Every store has at least one of these losers who are clearly one-can-shy-of-a-six-pack and they love, LOVE, LOVE to hang around and talk to you… about everything. And where can you go? Nowhere. Even though you are clearly NOT interested OR listening, they’ll talk about the weather… about their sister spending 2 hours straightening her hair every morning…  about their mother’s psycho ex-boyfiend and a detailed account on why he belongs in prison… about the government’s conspiracy to monitor our every move through jars of Jif peanut butter… and about Stella—their goldfish—and her third nipple.
  • Road Warriors – If your store happens to be attached to a gas station (which they often are) you inevitably deal with a vast amount of misguided wrath over the current price of gasoline.
  • Tobacco and Booze Police – Anytime after 2 p.m., on top of doing your regular work, you must be hyper-vigilant in your efforts to keep illegal substances out of the backpacks, pockets and coats of minors and/or would-be thugs.
  • Breakfast of Champions – Each morning there is a decent possibility that you will be greeted by an angry, I-hate-mornings and the-world-revolves-around-me bitch, running late for work, who throws a fit when you run out of cherry pop-tarts.

Crazy for Shoes

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Three years ago, while living in New Mexico, I was gainfully employed as a graphic designer, but I needed to land a part-time job to earn some extra cash. I set out on my journey to find this part-time job and fortunately found one fairly quickly at a brand new Kohls store that was just getting ready to open. I was thrilled to have gotten an offer so soon after starting my quest for cash. I filled out the paperwork and agreed to jump through all of their corporate hoops in order to start getting that additional paycheck. These “hoops” included a criminal background check (no problem), employment history check (ditto), reference check (call them up!)… and a drug test.

Here is where I should probably mention that like many other “chemically-unbalanced” Americans, I was under the influence of some prescription medication that helped me to feel a little happier… A little less like sitting in a corner and crying… and rocking… and talking to myself… A little less like setting my hair on fire… A little less like ripping everyone’s head off or crashing my Wal-Mart cart into their cars… A little more… shall we say… balanced 🙂

One would think that this medication, being prescribed by a local and reputable doctor, should not and would not pose a problem on a drug screen. But just to be on the safe side, I took my prescription with me to the facility on the appointed day that I was to—eh-hem—produce the sample. I told the girl behind the counter (who looked like she should be drug-tested herself) about my “situation” and showed her the prescription. She made a photocopy of it and recommended that I inform the store management to cover all my bases. OK. Not a problem. I called management as she suggested. Surely this would be OK. I cannot be the ONLY one out of 150 new employees taking legally-prescribed, mood-altering medication. And besides, who can argue with the virtues of honesty and openness?

However, much to my surprise, management asked me to provide them with medical and pharmaceutical records for the past 18 months! 18 MONTHS!?!?! I was beginning to wonder if that task alone was even worth the $7.35 an hour I was going to be making?!?! But I complied. The records were obtained and presented and then I waited.

And I waited…

And I waited…

Bear in mind that other people I knew and had met along this journey toward part-time-minimum-wage-retail-imprisonment (I mean employment) were already getting calls about scheduling their training and orientation, etc. And yet I waited. While I waited I began questioning the ethics of what the management team was actually doing. Were they even allowed to peer that deeply into my medical life story? And so, while I waited some more… I conducted some independent research on EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) regulations and compliance.

I won’t bore you with what I found there… but suffice it to say that if they did NOT hire me over this prescription-drug-laced urine sample and my “questionable” medical history… I actually had a real case on my hands. And believe me I was considering it… I would have made A LOT more than $7.35 an hour and then I wouldn’t even NEED the damn part-time job. I had the name, address and phone number for the nearest EEOC office—located in El Paso, TX—in hand when I finally got the call that they were ready to schedule my orientation and training.

Lucky for them. <cue Law and Order scene change music>

I attended my orientation at Kohls. It lasted 4 hours. More paperwork. Laughable sexual harassment videos. Stupid Get-to-Know-Your-Team-Member games… Then I found out what I’d really been anxious to know: the department I’d be working in! They passed out work schedules to everyone with their name and the name of their department in the top left corner in big, bold letters. I was so excited! Would it be Misses Apparel? Accessories? Maybe Lingerie? Or Bed & Bath? I was imagining the possibilities when I got my paper and it simply read: Shoes.

Yes, shoes. I almost laughed out loud when I read that at the top of my work schedule. The people around me all had sophisticated, multi-syllabic department names on the tops of their papers like: Junior Menswear, Intimate Apparel & Sleepwear OR Jewelry & Accessories… but on my paper it just read: SHOES. And ladies, I love shoes as much as the next gal, but let me be clear: We’re not talking Prada, Gucci or Manolo Blahnik here… we’re talking affordable-practical-department-store-shoes-for-the-whole-entire-family type deal. Needless to say, I was deflated and disappointed.

Wait a minute! I see what’s happening here!

Sure, sure, Kohl’s Department Store… AVOID a potential EEOC lawsuit and go ahead and HIRE the psycho drug user… but let’s put her in SHOES. She can’t really do much damage there. It’s literally stacks upon stacks of numerically-arranged pieces of leather and rubber, held together by synthetic glues and gels wrapped in paper and encased in cardboard. I’m sure we’ll ALL be MUCH safer that way. The worst thing she can do is wing some Sketchers at someone’s head. If she comes in strung-out, hung-over, or wound-up, she should still be able to eek out the phrase: “Ma’am, can I show you something more like a wedge in, say… a size 7?”

Accessories and Apparel are too “out front.” Housewares is obviously too dangerous, for all the knives and glass that are around. The Bed & Bath Shop is out because she might figure out a way to hang herself with the sheets and towels… And Home Decor is a no go because perhaps she would set fire to the whole damn place by lighting an obscene amount of scented candles… no, no, no… Let’s put her in SHOES.

So for several months, I stood amidst towers and towers and stacks and stacks of shoe boxes for 6 hours at a time… for $7.35 an hour… occasionally fetching a different size from the stockroom and once assisting in the investigation of a shoplifting incident. At least I didn’t have to touch anyone’s feet. And I never felt like ripping a customer’s head off… well, almost never. Maaaaybe once or twice… 3 times MAX. But that was the great thing about the prescription medication… I may not have been working in a cool or glamourous department—but then again—I was probably too medicated to care.

Who Me? Territorial? Nah.

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Never let it be said that humans aren’t territorial. Otherwise, why would we have legal property lines and build fences? Why would we hang signs that label “our areas” as such? Why would we get irritated if our neighbor decides to park a GINORMOUS camper next to our driveway, obstructing our view of the street and making us feel like we live on a Hollywood set, or we’re in prison or we’ve been relocated to Big Arbs campground!?! Huh?

The following is a little internal narrative I wrote down about 2 years ago when a grumpy old fart just up and started randomly TAKING my parking spot… EVERY. DAMN. DAY. I’ve since left that place of employment for a different place … with better parking.

_______________________________________________________

My eyes narrowed when I saw him pulling into the spot.

THE parking spot. MY parking spot. I’ve never seen him park there before. Why did he decide to start now? Everyone should know by now that THAT is MY parking spot. I’ve been parking there for months ever since the layoffs started and a “prime” spot became available just outside my office window. My window. My spot.

And I heaved a heavy, aggravated sigh.

Alright. I guess I’ll just have to take the spot next to it today… and hope that this doesn’t become like a regular thing. I mean, I’d hate to have to start cutting my lunch hours short just to safeguard the spot. If I don’t… and HE starts parking there… before you know it, he’ll think it’s HIS spot. And then what will I do? I’ll have to find another spot. This really does annoy me.

So I glared at him the entire time while he squared up his car and shut off the engine and gathered his things and walked into the building.

That will show him. My iron stare. WHO does this guy think he is? I don’t even know this guy. Does he even WORK here full-time? I think maybe he’s an engineer. Oh! Look at me! I’m an engineer! I’m better than you! I make more money than you do! My job requires a lot more brains and skill and responsibility than Marketing does… I can park wherever I want to!

And I slide into the second-rate spot right beside him. Meanwhile… one of the retired guys enters the parking lot, returning from lunch, and he glares at ME!

What is YOUR problem?!? What the #@%* are YOU looking at? Why are you even here? You are retired and supposed to be coming here on a part-time, consultation-only basis. But instead, I think I see more of you NOW than I did BEFORE you retired! What is up with THAT?!? Do you have a problem with me? You don’t even KNOW me. We’ve never even spoken. Stop looking at me. Jerk.

And then it dawns on me… I just parked in HIS spot.

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Listen… when it comes to territory… the only difference between us and the animal kingdom is the fact that we don’t “mark” our territories with bodily fluids. Then again… maybe there are a few of us who do.

If there are… I really wouldn’t want to know.