Just another manic Monday

I awoke at 3 am, got dressed, off to work. We had to wrestle a large box of sandwiches onto the van. I got dizzy. AGH.

Don't read this paragraph if you are eating or about to do so. I warned you. Saturday at work, we were approached by a very scary looking homeless guy. We were waiting at the little "waiting area" outside and this guy got it into his head that we were waiting at a bus stop. I could tell by looking at him that we didn't want to chat. He was very belligerent and argumentative, but we finally convinced him, no bus comes here. If you want a bus, go that way. As he walked away, I could tell he had a bowel accident at some point in the past. I looked over at the bench. It was soiled. Considering I had no gloves, rags, or cleansers I did what I could to fix it up (old newspaper to "sop it up"), but I vowed to make it nice again.

Today I came armed with a can of fake Lysol I got at Walmart. I threw away the paper, which did a decent job considering andsoaked the bench thoroughly with the disinfectant spray. When I came out later to receive the sandwich delivery, I soaked it again. It's in a sunny location, and sun is a natural disinfectant. Tomorrow, I'll bring a 1-gallon laundry detergent container full of Pinalen cleanser and some rubber gloves to finish the job. I can't live with myself if I don't do what I can to clean it up. I'm not responsible, the scary homeless guy walking around like that is responsible, but still. I know it's there, no one else will do it (for sure), so I will. I sit there often waiting on Metrolift. He may not have gotten my bench but that's not the point.

But wait, there's more! We got to work, got the stuff in the building. Where's the junk food delivery? Not there. 7 AM. I get my donuts. He's on time. I hear a rumor, no junk food 'till 8. OK. I get my sandwiches, came in, and gave them to Ron. My empty snack machines glared at me accusingly. "We're empty. Hungry and naked. Where's our snacks? Hungry postal workers are walking away from us right now!" I apologized to them. Ron tells me delivery is 8:30 now.

I do what I can around work, but it's not much. See, I'm supposed to get my delivery at 5:30-6 AM. I unload the pallet and put the needed merchandise on my rolling cart (If I have an office, the Mag-liner cart is it). 7-8 I receive deliveries, check expiration codes, and help Ron. 8-9:30 I stock, stock, stock. Metrolift arrives at 9:45 and we go out to eat.

NO. It was sit sit sit bored bored get the other deliveries. Bored sit. Finally 8:25. I go out a little early. I see the delivery truck is on the dock, so I tell the other vendor's employee. She is paged repeatedly, messages left on the cell phone. I was out at 8:30. I said "My hero!" and happily hugged my pallet of junk food, my snacks will look great now. When I have a problem I present it as "I can't find the peanuts, could you help me find them?" When something wasn't on the pallet I said "I'll just subtract it off." Pitching a fit just makes me look bad, it makes my husband look bad, and it makes our business look bad. I'm already to go at 8:40. Problem.

The other vendor shares a pallet jack with us. They keep it. It's not a problem, they use it more anyway. Remember when I said I told them at 8:25 or so the delivery was on the dock? She doesn't come out until 9 AM. "You messed up my routine!" It lasted a while, a shrill tirade, which ended in "And it better not happen again!" I mean, think about it. He's had to wait forever on you, he's going to be even later to all his other stops, and he has to deal with a bad attitude from you and everyone else. Trust me, if he can help it, it won't happen again. But you can't tell people this. She's old enough to be my other. I can't tell her anything. She wouldn't listen.

I'm glad I acted the way I did. I want to be the person I am.

Snacks can wait 'till tomorrow. We scheduled extra time.