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Wednesday, April 02:

New month. Oh, joy. Anyone else agreeing with me that these months are just flying by? I'm actually looking forward towards Halloween again. Dear lord, what is wrong with this picture?

Okay, so work has been a killer. Again. I feel really strained right now. Doesn't help that I witness this same scenario I'm about to type too many times to count, and recently it's been happening more and more.

Old people FRUSTRATE THE HECK OUT OF ME. stressed

There are some people you see in stores, and you can tell, just by the way the act, that they don't belong outside in the normal human world. That, or at least without an escort of some kind. They wander around aimlessly, take four minutes to find just ONE penny with over seven people in line behind them, ask you to repeat the total five hundred times and each time they repeat it back they're getting wrong, or spill out their fifty year past history with you while you're trying to keep the line moving for more costumers to get checked out. Yeah. Old people agitate the heck out of me. Seriously. Today was no exception.

Today I was busy stocking, struggling with this huge load of planters that had to be placed out on the sales floor. The things were gigantic for planters, and the box they were stuffed in wasn't helping me either. An older lady came up, and judging from how she looked, and how senile she acted, I'd guess a safe seventy-five years of age. Anyway, clearly I was busy doing my job, but I paused, looking at her, and pleasantly I asked, "Can I help you?"

I had a hard time hearing what she said. She muttered something. Confused, I asked her to repeat it. Oh, butterscotch candies! I knew where they were. Then it hit me. Oh, frikkin' LORD, I knew where they were.

Blinking, slowly, I raised my hand and pointed directly behind her. "That aisle, mam."

"Where?"

...Oh dear merciful god, I knew this was going to be bad. Once again, I pointed. "Right down that aisle. It's the candy aisle."

She smiles, thanking me.... and wanders aimlessly down the aisle. I stop my work, bemused, watching her. She's walking back and forth, looking around. Not even twenty seconds of looking she comes back to me. "Where are the butterscotch candies?"

I wanted to cry. I put down my stuff, and walked down the aisle. Taking three steps into the aisle, I point down at where they were CLEARLY located. "Right there, mam."

"Where?"

I could feel myself screaming on the inside. I walked over and pointed to them, standing right in front of the candies this time.

"Do you have Werther's candies?"

I felt like a broken record going, "right there". I pointed, and she was standing directly in front of the blasted things and she still could not see them!!! What was WRONG with her!

After about forty seconds after finding her precious Werthers and godforsaken butterscotch candies, I went back to my work. As soon as I pulled out a few more planters she came wandering back.

"Where are the musketeer bars?"

I stared at her, and I actually felt my right eye twitch. The demon of a woman wouldn't go away, and I had heard my mind actually snap a short while ago. There she was, looking at me, dazed because she couldn't locate her dang chocolate crack fix when it was sitting right in front of her eyes, under her nose and everything!

I walked down, again, and walked over to their location (which was one tier above the butterscotch disc candies). I thrust my hand there, and, sharply, I said, "they're right HERE, mam."

"Right where?" She looked in the opposite dang direction, and I felt like tearing a shelf off the wall and bashing my head in with it just to escape the nightmare.

"Right here!!" I pointed again, and she began walking towards it. Satisfied she finally got it through her numbed skull, I started back to my work. As soon as I got near it, the wrinkled menace came back. I felt like clawing bloody chunks of hair out by their roots.

"I can't find them."

You were standing right in FRONT OF THEM, I thought. You were there! I saw it! You could have reached over and taken your glorious, but clearly disillusioned pieces of sugary lumps!

I nearly tear down the aisle in a manic fervor. My mind was cracking, and I could feel the pieces of my brain shifting and sliding, breaking like a vase that had shattered amongst the hard tiles of the floor.

"They're right here! See, mam? Right here!" I grabbed two of the eight bar musketeer candy packs. Holding them up, I repeat, "see? Here they are."

Standing at the entrance of the aisle she nods, simply going, "Oh," as if it was no big deal and her soul mission to agitate me to within an inch of my life was nothing, and she did that to innocent cashier/managers every single day of her unholy life.

Then the true bomb hit.

"Just grab me two packs," She says, waving her hand aside nonchalantly. "That should be good enough."

I wanted to drop to my knees- or, better yet, collapse. What was I now? Her lackey? I mean, sure, we're supposed to do stuff like this for the customers; but after that hellish ordeal this seemed just to cruel and monstrous a fate to behold.

In the back of my mind I was whimpering as I handed them over. "Here you go, mam," I said weakly. I swore, even thinking back on it, that my voice cracked a little when I spoke. Fatigue was setting in, and I thought to myself, if I see another candy bar, or my mom offers me one when I get home, I'm jumping off a cliff. (Safe to say, I later contradicted this by, whilst writing this, I ate a Reese's Whipps bar; I enjoyed every bit of it, and I with each bite I chomped down on it, I toasted to that old geezer of the confectioned goodies).

I gave a sigh of relief. Oh, sweet blissful mercy! My mission was done! The second she took the bars, I felt like breaking out into a full fledged celebratory dance. I didn't care if James Blunt was wavering over the overhead speakers, I was going to celebrate that my mission from hell had been finished.

"These bars get smaller and smaller, don't they?"

And then my world came crashing down. I slowly looked at her, eye twitching again, as she stared at me with a look that said, "yes, I'm complaining about this product of yours that you have no control over and that I've put you through the seven circles of hell to retrieve".

Defiantly my mind screamed out. No, not again. I wasn't going to repeat this. I pointed to an endcap on a shelf, saying, "the bigger bars are over THERE."

With that, the devil woman left me be. Peace, sweet blissful peace! Closing my eyes for a second, I let my nerves calm down. I turned to go back to my work, looked up at the cash register...

...and the woman was standing there.

Someone had a sick, twisted humor when they made my day up.

heart Peace out, ya'll! heart