Back to the neighbors again

Interesting. 

My neighborhood is about a third each black, latino, and other (white and asian).  My (latino)neighbors on either side have had particularly loud parties. 

Generally, it was loud, drunken revelry going into the small hours, if not all night.  I think the Christmas eve parties were the worst. 

I was a little nervous yesterday when I saw #7 setting up for a party.  They are latino.  They started around 4PM.  They had quiet festivities, and a huge bouncy house, for the first few hours, then about 3-4 hours of moderate music.  I could drown it out with my music.  About 10, everyone went home.  By 11 they were done cleaning up and completely quiet. 

Wow.  "I hope they're a good influence on the other guys" I told Ron.  "They could teach a few things!"   In fact, #6 and #7 both have people over, but for now, they're quiet. 

Here's a strange, random, thought: why does the Facebook programming thing I want to adopt a child?  That is the last thing ever I would want.  Kids are a tremendous amount of work and this world is filthy.  That's assuming anyone would be dumb enough to give us a child. 

I'm not denigrating us; but Ron likes to drink.  Every day.  He has a head injury and impulse control issues, in addition to being very disabled.  Yes, I think it is fine for someone with a disability to adopt.  I don't think it's fine for a person with all Ron's issues. 

Let's look at me:  I am insane.  The kids next door came looking for their ball.  If the parents had any idea what I battle every day - they'd move.  They'd never let their kids within a mile of me, ever again. 

I did, politely, say "Next time please don't ring the doorbell.  My husband is asleep."  They've seen him, they know he's "sick".  Ugh.  I got all itchy. 

But I have to get the ball or have 10 kids running around in the yard.  The boy came over with most of his siblings (two little brothers) and a couple of visiting boys.  Imagine that running around in the yard, loudly screaming and yelling (they do, proven fact). 

So, I have to get the ball.  Happily they are not kicking it into the side of the house.  I didn't even know they were outside until they knocked on the door. 

Interesting fact: when they fixed their gate, and that strange man came into my yard to "fix both sides of the fence" - I was not happy waking up from my nap to find him outside my bedroom window!  They also replaced the entire fence along the border with #8, the pitbull owners.  That wasn't cheap, I'm sure. 

I'm sure there's a story there.  I understand why they play on this side of the yard, especially after I caught the middle boy pulling boards off the fence in '11.  Do that with a pitbull... 

Well, you might not have a middle boy. 

Anyway, enough about the neighbors. 

I didn't get enough sleep due to the party.   Back to the neighbors again. 

In a perfect world, where I'm not disabled, I would live on a large piece of property away from everyone.  The hermit thing.  I'm sure I'd have trials. 

But, when I had that broken water pipe back in 2011 #6 shut off the water for me.  I couldn't get the leverage I needed.  Can't forget that. 

So (big sigh) I'm really getting to my day here... woke up a little manic.  Took my antidepressants and wow.  I went on quite the trip, let me tell you.  I kept sweating, couldn't stop talking.  I'm sure some people think I'm on "illegals". 

Poor Ron basically hid.  I don't blame him. 

I took my shower and waited on my God Time.  We went to work. 

We were pretty busy: power was out to our fridge/freezer unit.  Turns out that's just the electricians again.  When I came back from taking out the dumpster, it came on again as I walked past. 

That was pretty awesome.  I felt like God.  [giggle] 

I don't have room for a dumpster.  The other vendor stores his dumpster outside the stockroom.  Normally I take out my trash, on my handcart.  Today, though, I threw mine on top of his trash, and took out the whole thing.  Then I brought it back empty and left it in it's spot. 

I try to bless them when I can.  God sees.  I want to honor Him.  All my ravings about the neighbors nonwithstanding. 

I will admit to shoving their junk over into their area, if they block my racks.  That's about it. 

Ron and I also try to avoid them, because it's just too crowded and the guy can be touchy.  It's tedious, but I like Ron's new policy of accompanying me when I go into the stockroom, when the other guy's present. 

No misunderstandings, when I have a witness.  [tips hat] 

Anyway, just us today.  The bottled vendor is working but needs the tuneup it's getting tomorrow. 

Food machines are fine.  I needed to stock, once our freezer got power back I could take out the inventory.  I need all cold foods when we go to the warehouse. 

Soda one, the moneymaker, had a coin jam, but we fixed it.  Soda 2 (naughty children!) has a bad bill acceptor.  Dr Pepper will have to come out for that one, I did everything I could. 

A lot of times, "fixing" the machine is just checking connections. 

Soda 3 was being a good boy. 

Snack 1 had been beaten up.  Literally.  Racks were loose and it looked as bad as I'd ever seen one of my machines. 

My immediate first thought: WHAT HUNG UP? 

Not, "Those customers!" 

"What hung up?"  You don't see that kind of violence unless a customer got cheated.  That's MY fault, and I need to fix it. 

I opened it up and fixed the racks.  Happily none of my merchandise had been stolen (I'm sure you've heard of, or stolen, food from a snack machine by shaking it).  I was very pleased with my stocking on that.  I did test vends on the thickest products, concluding one of them must have hung up. 

Sure enough, it was the Moon Pie.  It unwound about halfway and stuck.  I can see how that would trigger a beat-down.  Bad enough they have to work there...

I took them out and put them in #2.  #2, my oldest snack, is a good boy and doesn't hang.  Although I have had a few coin jams. 

Snacks didn't need much stocking.  I did what I could.  I need more Cheetos, though. 

Ron did his sodas.  I put up the remaining sodas I'd gotten the other day, still sitting on one of my carts.  I got them put up. 

I took out the dumpster, and brought it back.  Oh, and I heard this one guy shouting in a very angry manner.  He was screaming and using the N-word, not in jest. 

This guy was blowing his top.  From what I gathered, one of the other employees had said something like "Don't worry about messing up your shoes".  The guy kept raving about "Don't you disrespect my stuff...Don't you tell me my stuff isn't important!" 

I just gaped, then hid in the cafeteria again.  As I took out the dumpster I saw the guy again.  He looked kind of sheepish when he saw me because, I think, he saw me listening to his tirade. 

When I went back, I told Ron "I think that guy and I have something in common" - bipolar maybe?  "Well" Ron replied "You take your medication." 

That, I do.  He's very blessed he works there.  Any other business would have fired him for that kind of behavior. 

I will say, the next time he needs an assist he probably won't get it.  What's more important, your shoes or your job? 

Anyway, glad I work for Ron.  I worked for an irrational tyrant back in 2000 and it was hell.  I couldn't wait to quit. 

We got it all done and I even cleaned the microwaves.  Per the contract, I am responsible for the Blind Vendor microwaves, of which there are 4.  There are 4 post office microwaves. 

Per our supervisor, I'm to clean "our" microwaves.  I just do all of it.  It makes the postal workers happy. 

It was funny.  I was using a pine antibacterial spray.  I got multiple complaints, so I got some lemon degreaser spray.  No one complains, the fragrance is very light, and it does the job well. 

I hate leaving with work unfinished - this time I got it all done.  All of it.  Even the trash and the microwaves.  I was happy. 

I put out the last of the cold food so they have corn dogs and hot pockets tonight.  Generally Sunday can be a lean night for the cold food vending machine. 

Now I'm off to get item numbers so we can do our will-call with the wholesaler this week. 

Busy, busy. 

Happily, no headache today.