But, its a 2 minute walk from my apartment and smokes are about a dollar cheaper there than they are anywhere else in town. So, I suffer this excursion about every other day and view it as penance for smoking in the first place.
The line moves at the pace in which the seniors occupying it probably fornicate, and I'm jockeyed into second place before the manager bothers to saunter to one of the three empty registers. She glances at the old lady being waited on, looks at me and the remaining customers behind me, shrugs and leaves. And then it happens. The cashier, a rotund black man with a lisp that makes him sound more effeminate than a pop diva announces:
"This is why I don't usually even bother to call her when she in da' building. I call on Jesus. At least He answers."
Yeah? No shit? Can you call Jesus now? Because, I have to tell you; I'm irate at this point. I woke up about 4 hours ago, smoked the only cigarette I had left in my pack and the frustration of waiting in line to buy the pack that contains the next one I need to sedate the monkey on my back makes me want to kick a puppy, punch a baby, drown a kitten...you decide.
Just do me a favor there, Ricky Bobby, don't call baby Jesus down to man the register. I need the grown version. The resurrected one with omnipotence that won't need to bother to ask me for my i.d. when I'm clearly old enough to have technically fathered the vast majority of the cashiers that wait on me daily. Get me the one with holes in his palms, so I can chuckle when he drops my change. That would be fucking awesome.
In reality, I'm not sure Jesus could get a job at CVS. Whats his past work history? Fishing and light carpentry? His charity work with the lepers might qualify as a people skill, but it isn't really customer service experience, right? We're talking about a guy that was reputed to have laid waste to a bazaar because he didn't care for it's location. And, I haven't seen too many of the long haired hippie types working at the CVS. So, I'm figuring the dress code might pose a problem.
Listen, I'm not saying that manning the cash register anywhere is a stress-free job. Working with the general public is always stressful and it always sucks. For whatever reason, people seem to enter a business with a sense of entitlement that leaves them feeling like they can treat the poor slob waiting on them like he/she is an object and not a person.
However, I feel like; if you're phoning it in to the messiah to get you through doing the basics of your job, you might be wasting His (and your) time. I'm going out on a limb here, but if I'm Jesus, and you start calling me over and over for trivial shit, I might start screening your calls. And then, when you have an actual problem, I'm looking at my caller i.d. and asking myself if I really want to take this call.
"Unrest in the Middle East? Baby dying of incurable cancer? Starving children in Africa being eaten by Sally Struthers as she films PSAs? Pfffffft...sorry homeys, I got to help Roberto run the register. Its all about priorities."
Maybe I'm jaded. This kid implied that Jesus always answers his call. Personally, I'm pretty sure Jesus gave me a bum number that time in the bar. I must be dialing it out to the rejection hotline...
Being as it was Valentine's Day, you voyeuristic fucks get a bonus quote o' the day. It happens to be the one I heard repeatedly throughout the day:
"I told him he didn't have to get me anything."
This reminds me of an old saying: How can you tell if a woman is lying? Her mouth is moving.
One of the women I work with had flowers delivered today from her husband. I thought this was a sweet gesture on his part. He had clearly gone out of his way to state that he was over looking her abrasive personality and the fact that she made Jabba the Hut look slender.
Later, this bitch was pulling her bouquet apart and counting how many of the three dozen roses were 'actually' long stemmed, and how many were just tied into the arrangement. Sweetheart, you've got the depth of a teaspoon.
The dishwasher (who is typical of his breed; John Merrick ugly with the personality of my left shoe) informed me that Valentine's Day should be renamed Singles Awareness Day, because if you're single, you're more aware of it on V-Day than any other day of the year. I'm sure he picked this witticism up from the internet or a T-shirt he spotted at the mall where he cruises for lonely girls the way a lion stalks lame zebras. But, I understood his point.
My girlfriend loves penguins. Loves them. I think I drove half the state looking for a gigantic stuffed penguin that would ellicit the smile I wanted and got.
What a materialistic, greeting card induced holiday. It annoys to me to no end. I cook my girlfriend dinner damn near every night. I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, after having gotten in from work just hours before, to have coffee with her and pack her lunch while she gets ready for work. I buy her random cards when she feels blue, and have been known to surprise her with favorite candies and such on a whim. I don't need the pressure of topping my obvious affection for this woman.
If you need a day designated for going out of your way to remind your significant other that you love them, the odds on your relationship making it aren't Vegas worthy.
Don't get me wrong, the Flogging Molly tickets my girlfriend bought me as a Valentine made my heart stop. But, I also know that she would have bought them for me on a whim. Because she truly loves me.
Now, as promised, here is your most intelligent statement of the day: You'd figure that employers would just accept that everyone has a cell phone at this point and not make such an issue of it.
At first glance, this might seem pretty trivial. In fact, I considered it for my dumb-ass quote of the day. But, you know what? I'm guilty. I text at work all the time. I'm forever abandoning my post to check my phone or shoot out a quick ":)" to my girl. How much time would my place of work save if I wasn't forced to go running off to a hidden corner of the establishment to do this?
Don't mistake my intentions here. I'm not saying its okay to plug in your bluetooth and chat it up with your buddies while you're at work. Nor am I saying its okay to spend more time on your phone than at your job. But, really, the vast majority of the workforce is doing just that and wasting more time by trying to hide it than they would be by employers simply giving it a quick frown and not making a huge issue of it.
I'm not checking my facebook, I'm checking in with home. Like all modern technology, the cell phone has a bad reputation because it is abused more than it is used. But, I saw Jesus at CVS today, texting John or Matt or Luke or Sleepy, Dopey or Doc...and hell, I got waited on just as slowly as if the manager had bothered to come out of the office and do her job...
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