I want to be left alone

I woke up depressed.  I slept really horribly last night.  I suspect my heated mattress bad is the culprit. 

I also woke up with a headache.  What did I do?  I took a shower and went to work. 

Well, I went to the warehouse.  The first driver made a tremendous amount of noise, in front of the house, backing up (loud beeping), "accidentally" honking the horn, "accidentally" leaving the door open with the radio turned up very loud, etc.  AFTER I informed them #6 had a newborn.  I also "casually" mentioned, I would give the neighbors the complaint number so they could call in complaints "if someone" woke them or the baby up.   I will do that. 

She left the our house pretty quick after that. 

One or two things, I might have attributed to "6-AM-on-a-Saturday-morning".  All if it together, combined with a smug "Oh, did I do that?  Sah-ree!" attitude told me she was playing games. 

She also played "Oh, did I take the wrong turn?" (several times, even though they are issued a GPS and she said it was working - the smirking pretty much told the whole story), took "the scenic route", all the while watching me in the rear view mirror -ugh.  I didn't give her what she wanted. 

I just acted bored and ignored her.  After passing the warehouse, (blandly "You missed it" - with a yawn), going past the turnaround spot, going down 3 more turnaround spots (like I said, trying to provoke us), and finally coming back, then starting to pass the entrance  - I did mention "You can stop here".  Blandly, of course, because she was trying to get me upset. 

I have dealt with a lot of bullies and game-players in my day.  Ugh. 

Why do you want to drag me into your petty internal dramas?  What did I do? 

Do they think "Oh, you're happily married and you live in a 'nice' subdivision?  I'm going to crap on you?"  It it a racial thing?  I don't know if they do this to the black clients.  Come to think I have never seen them do that to black clients. 

At any rate, I got Ron setup and got my flatbed cart.  I have been very happy with the shiny new carts. 

I loaded up on inventory.  I got everything on Ron's list, except for Big Red.  He had hysterics.  I told him I didn't think our friend would want to wait while I stood there waiting for a manager to do a floor search for inventory.  I mentioned I didn't see any tags, the planogram had eliminated it, and I was 99% certain they did not carry it anymore. 

Ron had a tirade.  I reminded him they are going crazy for the green tea, perhaps we could put more green tea in the big red spot?   He agreed, and I got more. 

I finally got over to "my" area.  More lunch buckets.  More pastry.  More coffee products, they are working a lot of overtime.  More snacks.  I figured plain Lays, Cheetos, hot, and "big chips" - larger bags.  Just to name a few.  I also got some candy, including the gummy worms.  And the assorted peanuts.

When I got to work, I was down to my last bag of gummy worms, the peanuts, and some other items I'd bought.  First, though, I had to empty the truck.

I emptied the truck (our friend told Ron people were making coveting looks at my merchandise).  I got it all loaded onto my carts, and pushed the carts inside.

Ron (unwisely) decided to spend half an hour working on the bill changer.  Here's a question.  If all the vending machines are empty, ALL of them, why work on the bill changer?  It doesn't matter if they can get change if they have nothing to buy!

I focused on stocking my vending machines.  It took a while.

Ron was verbally abusive to me most of the day.  I'm sure he told himself he was "just stressed" and "busy".  I just heard him name calling and being ugly.

I didn't make excuses for him, either (unlike the past).  I just told myself "This is who he is.  He is showing everyone who he is."  He'd better be careful.  Some of the people at work are very opinionated and they will tear a strip off his hide if they catch him at it.  

It is probably "bad" for me to say I hope it happens soon.  One time Ron called me a "stupid bitch" in front of a deliveryman.  The guy ripped Ron up one side and down the other. 

It started with "She is your wife!  She is helping you!  She got up early to help you run your business!"  

I also concluded I may have been wrong.  A couple years ago, someone we knew told Ron he was "making (me) depressed".  I didn't agree at the time.

I've concluded the abuse certainly exacerbates the depression.  It doesn't cause the depression, that's just weird flashes in my brain.  However, being harangued for hours a day has got to have an effect, much as I hate to acknowledge it. 

I grimly set to work, doing everything, helping the customers, serving everyone with a smile and a great attitude.  I never forget they are paying the bills. 

I sold two bags of hot fries off the cart before I could even stock them. I put certain "iffy" items, that don't always fall properly, into the "magic vend" machine with the eye.  If the "eye" doesn't detect an item drop, it will send a message to the motor to keep turning until the item does drop.   I don't have to worry about an item like the hot funyuns, which hang frequently in the other machines. 

I also added more chocolate items, cookies, you name it.  I stocked it all.  I didn't get to do as many pastries as I would have liked, but I did do tons of coffee (more important, I figured, for all the overtime workers), and lots of cold food (corn dogs, lunch kits, cup-a-noodles, sandwiches, etc.).  All of it properly stocked and dated, of course. 

Ron also needed some help.  The bottled vendor was nearly empty, save some diet drinks.  I helped him stock the cold drinks out of our fridge, and put warm drinks into the fridge to chill for our next day at work. 

I also had to shelve a lot of items in the stockroom. 

Here's a photo:

As you can see, I do my best to take advantage of the vertical space.  The warm bottled sodas wait in here for their turn in the fridge, then they go to the machine.  The canned sodas can be stocked warm because they sit on top of dozens of cold ones, and chill quickly.  A "hot" drink will be cold in an hour.  If, for some reason, we are sold out, we will put a note on the machine "Coke cold after (2 hours from stocking just to  be safe)", but we haven't needed to do that. 

Here's another photo:

Cold food vendor.  Note all the cold food. 

This is Snack #3, the one with the magic  vend.  Also some inventory on my cart to the right there. 

There's our friendly neighborhood vendor in her back brace (boy I worked my back today, I'm glad I had it.).  You can see a Christmas tree on top of Snack #3 in the background (I have about a half dozen, differently colored trees). 

[Ron made a smartass crack when I told him a lot of people were "liking" the photo, making really ugly remarks about my weight and how could anyone like that. ]

I was pretty happy when we left; things looked a lot better.  About 90% of "ideal". 

We went outside and waited.  Our driver went past, slowly 4 times before figuring out we were waiting inside the only open driveway.  He's in the wheelchair, visible from the road.  You can see me waving (I made sure to do it languidly in case she was playing games) from half a mile off, according to the drivers.  Deliberately passing us up, 4 times, when we're easily found just reeked of (sigh) yet more game playing. 

Sure enough... but she had only been driving for a couple of months, according to her cab license.  I don't think she's going to last very long. 

Ron and I debated, as we waited, was she really "that" dim?   We were apparent, yet she drove by like she didn't see us, 4 times. 

Or, my theory, she was playing games.  I hoped that was the case. 

I really didn't want to ride with someone who could miss us (standing 100 yards from the road in plain sight, and waving no less) 4 times.  I'd rather assume she was trying to get us upset - and it is upsetting. 

I used to "present" upset, and the driver would yell at me.  Then the driver would get all smug "See, you do all treat me like crap".  Some kind of payoff for them if I'm upset.  I'm not sure how. 

Anyway, it really bothers them if I'm just doing the placid thing.  And I'm good at that after years with Ron.  She kept looking at me sideways. 

We finally got home.  I ate, took my meds, and took a nap.  I had a pretty good nap but felt fairly chilled.

Since Ron is a little less worried about money, he's been running the heater constantly.   It's like an oven.  It's ironic because he would have a fit if the house were this warm in the summer. 

My fuzzy slippers seemed to do the trick, though. 

I got sucked into some family drama.  My nieces' daughter is pretty depressed - this is ongoing.  But if I mention getting help she vomits up a platitude and puts on a happy face.  I am fairly worried about her.

I reminded her, she has seen my own battles with depression, and the only thing that helped was medication.  I told her I didn't know what would work for her, only her father (she does not live with her mother and reviles her) and a doctor could decide what might work.

I wanted her to know "I have depression too, but I have a good life with medication".

I tried to share this with Ron, and was viciously mocked: "I was so desperate for anyone to tell me it would be OK, it would get better, to hang in there just a little longer.  That other people felt this way too and had battled if for decades, and were victors".  That's what I would have said if he hadn't started mocking me.

I called him on it, then he turned it around "You can't fix people" and lectured me on the subject for over an hour.  I'll remind you it's "after 12" and he bought a couple big bottles of vodka today.  He went on endlessly.  I just tuned him out.  Asking him to stop would just provoke real ugliness.

I tried, a couple times, to explain that "sharing my struggles" and "giving someone hope" are VERY different from "fixing" someone.  Ron was always into "fixing" people.  I just want to cheer them.  Again, viciously mocked.

My niece (the reviled mother with many, many, dramas you wouldn't believe if I shared), got in there yelling at me saying I couldn't medicate her daughter.  I reminded her that only *her father* and *a doctor* could do so, and that "many dramas and a lot of un-necessary pain could have been avoided if unmedicated people in our family had taken things *as directed*".

I was mainly referring to my mother, but it also applied to her.  She knew that. 

I am dead serious.  You.  Would.  Not.  Believe. 


Probably wrong, but I use her life, and that of my mother, to remind me what would ensue if I stopped my medication.  Drama.  Endless drama. 

I have enough endless drama (Ron was just screaming at me because I told him he had lectured me for an hour).  "Why didn't you tell me to stop?"  I did.  Several times. 

"You have to tell me to stop".  I did, already.  "You have to be (really aggressive)."  Yeah, and you're going to feed on that and throw it back in my face, getting even more aggressive. 

"What do you want?" 

"I want to be left alone." 

He talks some more, asking what I wanted. 

"I want to be left alone."

I know that.

"I want to be left alone and you're still in the doorway."

What?  You want to be left alone now?  (How much vodka did he drink?)

"Yes, I want to be left alone right now!"

He's still sitting there.

"Now.  Not 10PM.  Not next week.  Now." 

Cue vapors, wounded martyr routine, and finally left.  

He had a tantrum, cancelled all his trips for tomorrow, got out of the doorway, but the house is small, so still yelling and having his vapors. 

Like I said, I have enough drama already.