shanmonster | Counting Down the Moments

I kept waking up in the middle of the night, struggling against sleep to get up and make the sandwich for the poor customer who'd been waiting by the sandwich bar so very patiently.

Then, as I was about to push myself out of bed I'd realize, what the fuck? I'm in bed in the middle of the night. I don't need to make anyone any godddamned sandwich!

Today is my last day. Last day. LAST DAY! Yeehaw!

A couple of somewhat interesting things happened at work over the past couple of days.

One regards a co-worker, Julia. Over the past month and a half, she went home early for about a third of her shifts. She has epilepsy, and suffers from several different types of seizures. She also has some sort of throat polyp, which occasionally swells up and makes speech painful or impossible.

Or so she says.

The night before last, she approached me while I was on break.

"Do I look as bad as I feel?" she asked.

"Uh, actually, you look pretty good. Why? What's wrong?"

"I don't know. My stomach really hurts, I have diarrhea, my head is spinning, and my arm is numb and tingly. I'm going to go in to the emergency room."

"Oh wow. That's pretty bad. Maybe you've got a flu."

And so off she went to the hospital.

About two hours later, one of our regular customers came in and ordered a sandwich. While I made the sandwich for her she asked, "I thought Julia worked this shift."

"She's feeling sick, so had to leave early."

"Oh. That's interesting," she said. "She's at bingo."

Hmmm....

Fast forward to last night when Julia walks into the store halfway through her shift in street clothes, then informs the supervisor that she won't be coming into work anymore.

She just up and quit without notice.

There were a couple of times when I was feeling ill (like that time my foot was so very painful that even standing put me on the verge of tears) and put in a request to go home early, but Julia put in a request afterwards, saying that she felt like she was going to have a seizure. Seizures win out over any ailment I may have had (which is perfectly understandable). But now I can't help but wonder if she was faking those, too.

Some of what happened yesterday was just plain entertaining, though. There was the man with the handmade ~~purse~~ saddle bag made of saddle leather with a really great brass clasp. I commented that I have a bag almost exactly like it, and that started him up. His came from New Brunswick, he said. Well, so do I....

And the next thing I knew, he was singing made-up songs about coffee and purses and telling me how people at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford were offering him $600 for his saddle bag.

He was getting weirder and weirder by the moment. I smiled, nodded, made him his coffee, and busied myself with all sorts of coffee shop tasks to appear too busy to converse with him further. But that didn't end matters. He took a seat at a distant table, and sang to me from across the store.

And then there's Barnie. He's a co-worker of mine, and was covering me on my break. He's a nice guy, and very quiet. As I showed up from the end of my break, he had just started up two pots of coffee. He saw me, then went over to drive-through so I could resume storefront work. A few moments later, I heard another co-worker yell, "Omigosh!"

Barnie had neglected to put a pot under one of the filters, and coffee was pouring inexorably onto the counter and floor.

Later on, I saw Barnie and said, "Next time you start some coffee up, you might want to consider putting a pot under it."

The look on his face was priceless, and I got to hear the normally quiet boy guffaw loudly, with a huge, incredulous grin.

Oopsie!

Oh yes, and then there was the moment when a customer came up to me, said, "Yeah, I'd like a large .... Shantell?!?!?!"

I looked up, and we both did literal double-takes, with the stereotypical slight backward stagger and all. It was Babs, an old friend of mine from New Brunswick who I hadn't seen for about a decade. So who knows? He might be showing up at my party tomorrow, too.

Small world, ain't it?

Link time!

Custom MP5-K: I'm no gun nut, but this is gorgeous.

The Children's Crusade: Funniest IM transcript I've seen in ages. Fundamentally different from my own ICQverts.

Farce of the Penguins: "What Happens In Antarctica... Stays in Antarctica." Featuring Samuel L. Jackson. Oh yeah, baby!

Monocopter: Looks heavy and unwieldy, but oh-so-fun!

Pennsylvania letter carrier attacked by squirrel is taken to hospital: "'In about 230 years of postal history, I bet it is not the first, but I've personally never heard of another squirrel biting,' said Steve Kochersperger, spokesman for the Erie district" (thanks,