Public Humiliation

So. The Rejectionist is having one of her "uncontests" today, in honor of the beginning of banned book week. The idea is for readers to post embarrassing exerpts of their early writing on their own blog and then link to it in the commments section of her blog. Alas, I have no early writing samples. So, never being one to have the sense to avoid a chance for public humiliation, I thought I'd tell a story instead.

I went, first through eighth grades, to a small rural elementary school called Leesville R-IX. It's been expanded in the decades since I was a "bluebird", but when I started the kindergarten, first and second grades were conducted in a partitioned-off corner of the gymn (which was also the auditorium and the cafeteria)and the library was in a strange little, wedge-shaped closet at the bend in the hallway. Every classroom held two grades, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and probably the worst trouble you could get into was for taking the name of the Lord in vain.

Our principal was a lady named Mrs. Thompson, who had taught at a one-room schoolhouse before Leesville was built. She was a tall, stern, woman who brooked no nonsense from anyone. She always dressed properly in a skirt or dress, wore nylons and sensible, dark shoes, and was the first woman I ever knew who wore makeup. Looking back now, I know she was a kind and dedicated woman who cared deeply about the students under her protection, and I credit her with the high standards that Leesville adhered to and that gave us all a strong education, at least in the basics of reading, writing, and arithmatic.

In grade school, I was in awe of her.

When I was nine, Mrs. Thompson called all the fourth through eighth grade girls into the auditorium (no longer, by that time, doubling as a classroom). There were maybe 100 students in the whole school, and perhaps twenty-five of us, sitting there nervously on grey folding chairs, wondering what we'd done to get in trouble. That we were in trouble, no one questioned. Mrs. Thompson stood in front of us, hands clasped in front of her. She had a light Southern accent and spoke in a high, melodic voice that carried even over the din of a crowded playground. In the subdued silence of that auditorium, it echoed.

She said, "I understand that some of you girls have been talking about periods on the bus and on the playground."

Instand mortification! They'd been talking about periods! Mrs. Thompson knew they'd been talking about periods! And now she was talking about periods! Right out in the open and everything!

"Now, I know that this is something you're learning about, and that it's interesting to you. But you can't be talking about these things where these little boys can hear! These little fourth-grade boys like Ronnie and Radon*, they don't need to hear this sort of thing! I don't mind if you talk about it when you're alone, in the restroom or on a corner of the playground, but I don't want to hear any more about you talking about periods in front of the boys. Do you understand?"

Twenty-five little girls nodded solemnly, still not raising their heads. Avoiding eye contact.

"And, you know, you can also always talk to your teachers and me. You come to us, and we'll be happy to try to explain anything you're confused about. Understand?"

More nodding.

"Okay, well, before we go back to class, do any of you have any questions?"

Twenty-four little girls sat in uncomfortable silence, staring at the concrete floor, ready to die rather than involve themselves any more than necessary in this discussion. But I did have a question. So I raised my hand and when she called on me, I asked if we could talk about commas . . . .

*Yes, his name was really Radon, like the gas. ;)

Cats are weird!

Okay, so after absolutely detesting the kittens from the day they were born, Layla has suddenly decided she loves the baby kitties. Right now she's crammed herself into an empty Dr. Pepper box and is slapping playfully at Helios and Foggy through the holes. This morning she was sleeping with Persephone and a little while ago she was cuddling the mother cat (Portia) while Portia was feeding the babies.

People are weird too. I've been reading emails people sent to a Missouri ghost hunting group, sharing their stories. I keep seeing (about different places) "this was once part of the underground railroad and the tunnels used to run under all of those houses . . ." Folks, if you don't know this, the underground railroad was, for the most part, not actually underground. Also, there generally weren't real trains involved.

Time for the annual Cider Story

Cider is evil. Did you know that? Sure, it looks innocent, a rich, brown nectar sitting there on the shelf in clear plastic jugs, beckoning the unwary. But deep in its dark soul lurks dastardly and terrifying plots!

Okay, maybe not. But I am paranoid about cider, as everyone who works with me comes to find out each fall when the yearly pallet of Louisburg Apple Cider arrives in the store. But there is a reason for my paranoia, and it is this:

The first autumn I worked at Walmart I spilled 47 gallons of apple cider.

Actually, I didn't spill it. It spilled itself at me. I just got to clean it up. In the Walmart "spills and hazardous waste training module" it says that "spill in excess of 10 gallons are considered too big to be cleaned up by store employees". Don't you believe it! See, it happened like this:

We have a walk-in produce cooler that's about eight feet wide and about twelve feet deep, with wide steel shelving lining both sides. When the shelves are full, the excess is stored on wooden pallets down the center of the cooler, and there is almost always at least one pallet full of freight in the cooler. (Sometimes there are as many as three. If we get slammed with more than that we have to take over the meat prep room which is unpleasant because then we have to kidnap Glen, who bitches about it, and tie him up in the Culligan water softener cage. We'd take over the deli cooler, but those deli girls are just scary!)

Well, the first fall I worked produce we had a pallet full of cider against the back wall. The cider was stacked seven cases high with four one-gallon plastic jugs per case and we were down to two rows of cider with other things on the front of the pallet. None of us were aware that the bottom cases had gotten wet and that the only thing holding up the cider stacked against the wall on the left side was the stack in front of it. I took the cider from that stack out to fill the floor display, came back and the entire stack had collapsed. The cooler floor was littered with busted jugs, sopping cardboard and approximately 24 gallons of apple cider.

Obviously, I couldn't clean up the mess with the pallet in the way. I got a pallet jack (sort of a manual fork lift) and very carefully pulled the pallet out into the produce area in front of the door. I successfully maneuvered it past the floor drain right outside the cooler, swivelled it slowly and set it down ever so gently.

And POW! Another stack of cider went over!

That's how I spilled 47 gallons of apple cider. Two years have passed since then with no other major mishaps (we did have a couple of jugs explode last year, but that's only to be expected). I still don't trust the stuff, though. I know it's just sitting there . . . watching . . . biding its time . . . .

Questions! I get questions!

A few days ago one of our new associates, a young man who works as a cart pusher, asked me shyly if he could bother me for a second. Silly question! I'm working. He can bother me for HOURS!

Anyway, he had a problem. He needed a zucchini for class the next day (I'm hoping cooking class and not, say, sex education, but I didn't ask). What's a zucchini? I know he felt silly having to have a common vegetable pointed out to him, but he really shouldn't have. That is FAR from the silliest question I've heard or heard of since I started working retail.

One of my friends came to Warsaw from Warrensburg, where she worked in the Walmart fabric and crafts department. One time someone asked her if they had any more of a certain kind of fabric and she told them brightly, "I'm sorry! I don't think the elves are making any more of that kind today." They stared at her in dismay and said, "well, can you go ask them?"

A few weeks ago my friend Matt answered a call that came to the deli. The caller wanted to know if the bakery had any fresh brownies. Matt told them that our store doesn't have a bakery to which they replied, "well, can you go look?"

Some years ago my friend Mitch was working in a large grocery store produce department somewhere in the city. He was at a counter coring pineapples and had a large stock of pineapples next to him, a coring machine in front of him and a goodly supply of packaged, labelled, cored pineapples on his other side. A customer came up and asked, "do you guys carry cored pineapple?" Mitch, incorrectly assuming the man was joking, said, "no, I'm sorry. We don't have any pineapple." The customer turned away in disgust, speaking into his cell phone. "We're just gonna have to go somewhere else, Mable. They don't carry it here!"

And just a few weeks ago a trio of teenaged boys, looking lost and confused* as teenaged boys often do, came up and asked me if we had any plums. I pointed them towards the plums and in a few minutes they were back with a bag of fruit.

"Are these peaches or pears?"
"They're nectarines. I thought you wanted plums."
"Yeah . . . these aren't plums?"

I guess I can't blame it all on retail madness, though. After all, my crazy uncle Lawrence did once call my mother up to ask her what her phone number was.

*Drunk and/or high

Horoscope

I didn't read my horoscope for yesterday, but I figure, if it wanted to be accurate, this is what it should have said:

Saturday, May 10 -- One star (at best)

This is going to be an annoying day. You will be inconvenienced by another's lack of consideration.

Woman I barely know sends me a little email newsletter thingie with not one, not two, not three, but four ENORMOUS JPEG attachments. It took an hour to download via my dialup (only thing available here) and completely wiped out my morning online time. I think, from glancing at the letter, they were pictures of baby goats. They were so big you had to scroll to see them in the OE preview screen and mostly they seemed to be trees and sky. I didn't take time to open them -- by the time they downloaded I was running late for work. I almost cancelled the download and skipped the mail for the morning, but it could have been Janet sending me a book contract, you know. If it had been, say, a FIVE star day instead of a ONE star day . . . .

You will find what you need is out of reach and will be stymied by modern technology.

Walmart, in their infinite wisdom, has switched to a cheaper toilet paper that is roughly the same consistency as fog. As long as the roll is more than half full it is impossible to pull any off, because the weight of the roll is greater than the tensile strength of the paper. The result, of course, is that people both use more and waste more. If you try to pull some from a full roll, all you get is a little swatch the size of your fingertips (this is why the restrooms now are littered with little piles of paper snow under all the dispensers). The only way to get any is to spin the roll with one hand while pulling on the paper with the other, an awkward prospect at best.

Also, several years ago Walmart switched to automatic-flush toilets. There is a special place in Hell for the person who invented automatic-flush toilets. If you're lucky enough to be unfamiliar with these fiendish devices, they are electric-eye operated toilets that flush themselves, basically, whenever the hell they feel like it. They're supposed to flush when you stand up. Often they flush when you sit down. They flush if you move slightly, if you sneeze or -- and this is the really obnoxious bit -- if you reach for toilet paper.

Also, the genius who designed our particular Walmart built it with just one stall in the front women's restroom. This means that there is almost always a line, especially on busy holiday weekends.

So this is me yesterday using the facility. The closest roll of toilet paper was empty, but the holder holds two rolls so there was another, almost full one at the point where I could just barely reach it.

Roll. Rip. Damn! Flush. Little girl hopping up and down outside the stall. "Mommy! I have to go pee!" Roll. Rip. Damn! Flush. "Mommy! I have to go pee now!" Roll. Rip. Damn! Flush. "Why is the lady taking so long?"

A lack of attention to detail will set ill with you.

On lunch, in a hurry, I grabbed a cheap package of instant noodles without reading the ingredient label. Ate more than half of it before I decided to look and see why it tasted weird. Chicken fat and chicken broth. It's making me sick just thinking about it. I've been a vegetarian for 28 years.

I didn't throw up, but it was a near thing for several hours.

Your judgement is poor today; You're all wet.

I sat on the bench under the overhang for about ten minutes waiting for the rain to let up before heading to my car which, being as I work there, was parked all the way at the far end of the lot (uphill, of course). I timed it just perfectly to get caught half way in an enormous downpour. Good thing I have an umbrella. Too bad I left it in my car. I got there dripping wet, rain running down my back from my hair, my clothes soaked, heavy breathing steaming up the car windows (which is really no fun when you're alone!). Within two minutes the rain quit completely and didn't start again so far as I know.

Tonight: Back to nature.

The road from Warsaw to my house is a narrow, twenty-mile long ribbon of hilly, twisty pavement that is unwise to travel too fast on windy, foggy nights. It is also a road which, at ten o'clock on a Saturday night, has not a single open business with a public restroom. Fortunately, the last few miles run down gravel and dirt roads bordered by cow pastures. Cows are curious creatures with no manners about staring, but at least the bushes don't try to flush themselves and I think the less said about that, the better!

Reasons why I am . . .

SOOO not as psycho as Christopher McMannana.

Okay, so a while back I was telling my friend and co-worker, Christopher, about the time I drowned my sister. It happened like this: I had gotten into a fight with my sister Dorothy because she was trying to force me to get a haircut that I neither wanted nor could afford. I was working as a substitute teacher at the time (I realized I was not cut out for teaching when I found myself standing over a bleeding five-year-old with my hands on my hips saying, "what made that seem like a good idea?"). The next day I was supposed to sub in her granddaughter's class and Dorothy was afraid I was going to embarrass the little darling because I didn't look "cool" enough. When I tried to politely decline a trip to the beauty parlor she got hateful and insulting and told me that I dressed like an old woman. She said that long hair was completely out. I pointed out that she herself had long hair and she said, "yes, but when I go out I put it up!"

"I put mine up!" I objected. "It's up right now!"

She glared at me. "Yes, but you put it up wrong."

Anyway, by the time I got home I was steaming mad. Now, I don't know if you've ever played Roller Coaster Tycoon, but if not, it's a computer game where you build amusement parks and have to attract guests and make a profit. You get an operating budget and you can build rides and attractions and hire little guys who all look alike to be handymen, maintenance workers, security guards, or panda-suited entertainers. The main goal is to attract guests, which are also a bunch of little guys who all look alike (but wear different colored clothes). If you let the program name the guests it will give some of them women's names, but they all look like little guys. Now, I had discovered early on that it's possible to kill these little guys. I accidentally dropped Handyman 14 in the lake. He floundered around for a few seconds, then sank out of sight and a little alarm sounded and a message flashed across the screen that said "Handyman 14 just drowned!"

I was very sad for him.

In this instance, though, a good drowning was just what the doctor ordered. I went home, opened the game, found a really cranky little guy and named him Dorothy. It was a desert-themed game so I had to build a moat, then I dropped him in. He floundered around for a few seconds and sank out of sight. A little alarm sounded and a message flashed across the screen that said, "Dorothy just drowned!" and I pumped my fist in the air and said, "YES!"

(And then I put a swinging ship ride in the moat and named it the Dead Dorothy.)

Anyway, I was telling Christopher this story and he shook his head and said, "sheesh! And you call ME psycho!" Clearly this suggests that he thinks I am more psycho than he is, but I am not and so I'd like to take this opportunity to defend my non-psychoness.

Reasons I am NOT as psycho as Christopher McMannana:

1. I do not have a plan for turning everyone in Warsaw, Missouri, into a zombie "with just one drop of zombie serum . . ."

2. Nor a contingency plan in case someone else manages to turn them into zombies first.

3. I do not know how to film an exploding head.

4. I have never sighed and said, "you know, sometimes I really wish my [spouse] was a zombie!" (Granted I don't *have* a spouse, but even if I did that statement would still be true.)

5. I have never asked my teenaged son to let me shave off all his hair and eyebrows and paint his head white. (Christopher makes homemade horror movies, if you hadn't guessed.)

6. I have never plotted to kill Frozen Jason the Jason formerly known as Frozen. (Okay, so maybe I have -- who hasn't? -- but I was never serious!

7. I have never cut my kneecap in half with a chainsaw without noticing!.

8. I have never impaled myself on a tractor.

9. I have never cut the crotch out of the pants I was wearing with a chainsaw!!! (And keep in mind that Christopher is a guy. That adds extra exclamation marks to that statement.)

10. And finally and most conclusively, I have NEVER eaten a stale popcorn and Miracle Whip sandwich!

And on that note I rest my case!