Not Angels

   Invariably, when I am working, there comes The Child, the one who is demon-spawn sent with the sole purpose to cause havoc and mayhem. And The Child inevitably comes with The Mother, you know the one who insists that the havoc causing imp is an angel. You know what I'm talking about. You may be shaking your head at my candid honesty, but deep down, you know.
   But some of these mothers really don't seem to know. I understand that your child is the apple of your eye, and I'm not saying that it should be otherwise, but really, kids do need to behave in public. And I'm not talking about the occasional hissy-fit, crying binge that we all hear from time-to-time. That's normal and a part of parenting and we have all been there (all of us parents at least.) I am talking about true, beyond needing-a-nap badness. Kids who aren't taught to behave in public don't grow up to be adults who behave in public. Also, if you want everybody to dote on your child, they need to not be holy terrors bent on world destruction. People don't like that. But some of you truly do seem to be clueless, so here is a little list of things that I have actually witnessed as a cashier.

• If your child grabs the order dividers and tries to hit everybody within reach, she is not an angel. 
• If your child wants a piece of candy, and puts it in his pocket, and then kicks you in your shins when you make him take the candy out, he is not an angel. 
• If your child turns around and screams to the person next in line "Get away from me! I don't want you here!" she is not an angel. 
• If your child gets into the Cadbury eggs and bites them through the foil and them puts them back while no one is looking, he is not an angel. 
• If your child says "I'm going to pee on the floor if you don't buy me that" and then actually pees on the floor, she is not an angel, and I'm bringing you the mop. 
• If your child tries to bite someone else's kid because their mom bought ice cream and you didn't, he is not an angel. 
• If your child picks her nose and tries to wipe it on the checkstand, she is not an angel, and again, you get to clean it up. I am not in the daycare profession for many reasons, and that's one of them. I don't like pee and boogers. 
• If your child is climbing up the magazine racks and bellowing at the top of his lungs, he is not an angel. He's in training to be the next Godzilla. Good luck with that. 

   The thing is, all kids have bad days, so I am not talking about tears and sobs. I am talking true issues here. Your kids can't be hitting and kicking and climbing and peeing and biting. People don't look at them with adoring eyes, they look at them with "This is why I'm never having kids" eyes. No one wants to deal with this, least of all me, your happy little cashier. I'm not so cheerful when some kid has pissed all over my lane, or tore my magazine rack all to hell. Not cool, and not angelic behavior.

   

Security

   I've worked in a lot of places. This job always encompassed some form of money handling, but not always in a grocery store.  The third job that I ever had, I held when I was 18: pre-baby days. I worked for this man who owned his own business; a small, local businessman who had an unusual business plan. This was  when I still lived in Gulfport, Mississippi, and this businessman owned 3 stores, all of them located along Pass Road. One of his stores was a movie rental store, back before Netflicks, when DVD was the new thing and Blu-ray was as yet, unheard of. The other store was a tanning salon. And the third store, the one I worked at, was a combination of tanning salon and movie rental, with a twist. There was a special 18 and older room that people could go into to select and rent porn. Yup. The man was a genius; women would go in to tan and their boyfriends/husbands would browse the kink in the back. He got business from both sides, and this was probably the only tanning salon where dudes where happy to go wait for their chicks to get their tan on.
   We had to wear many hats at this job. I had to know how to run the beds, and I had to know how to audit the videos, set up accounts, turn people in to soft collections, make bank deposits for the store, and I had to play security guard. There were monitors set up all over this place. Of course, the tanning rooms and bathrooms where not recorded, but the areas that sold the lotion, the videos, and the porn room was recorded and we had little TVs were we could watch for suspicious activities. Guess which room I never, and I mean NEVER checked? If you're thinking this room starts with a 'P' then you would be correct. Go get yourself a cookie, friend.
    Why did I never check that? Ummm...you aren't really thinking that, right? If you are anything like me, then you are thinking that if they want to steal that, there is no way in any kind of hell that you are actually going to be the one to stop them. Uh-uh. No friggen' way, I'd rather eat my eyeballs than sit there and watch what goes on in that room. I would never even go shelve the 'movies' unless that room was empty, and checking to be sure that the room was empty was the only reason I ever looked at that particular monitor.
   But griping about the porn room is actually not the reason for this blog post. I didn't mind renting out porn. I would rather people watch that then go rape/molest someone, and further, I don't actually care. Watching porn is not illegal; I just wasn't willing to make a bust and be all, "Dude, I saw you put the porn in your jacket, hand it over." Nope. Can you say chicken? I can. So I don't know if anyone even attempted to steal that stuff, because I was not attentive. Funnily, audits and inventory for that room did not show missing items, so the porn watchers are a little more honest than others, it seems. Because they totally could have robbed us blind with me manning the cameras.
   The real surprise to me was how many people we caught stealing tanning lotion. What a thing to steal, and there is no excuse. You don't need tanning lotion; lotion isn't essential to survival. I have a sneaking sympathy for people who are starving and stealing food, or women who are stealing things like prenatal vitamins (food stamps do not cover vitamins, before you go shooting off at the mouth, and those things are costly). The world is a hard place, and sometimes people have to do hard things. But tanning lotion? Oh, you thief. And of course, not only did we catch thieves on camera, but usually, they went in to tan. Which means that we had all of their information stored on the computer, via their account. Walk-in tans were not allowed; to tan with us, you had to have an account. We knew their home phone, their address, where they worked, and we also had their thumb-print on file, because this business man didn't want people to share accounts, so he had some thumb scanning thingy-majigger all set up to scan your thumb and connect you to your account (it never worked and we were always having to bypass it. Stupid technology.)
   Not the best place to be stealing from, but people can be crazy stupid. However, with all that info on hand, did I ever make a bust? Nope. I saved the tape, gave it to the boss, and let him call them at their happy little homes. Hey, at least I was attentive.
   But really, I was just barely making over minimum wage, and people, yeah, they can be crazy. And Pass Road? A lot of crackheads in that area, and I was not getting all shot up for $5.45 an hour, over a bottle of tanning lotion. But I never did make good security. Good thing I'm a cashier. 

Happy, Happy Birthday!

   My daughter was born at 12:03 p.m.on February 23rd. The first thing that she taught me is that childbirth sucks and only the truly crazy could enjoy pushing out something roughly the size of a watermelon. The second thing that she taught me is that breastfeeding is extremely hard on the mother, and whatever choice a woman makes should be her own, because there are so many hurdles with breastfeeding. I am not talking about vanity; although after you breastfeed your boobs will never be the same. No, there is milk production, nutrition issues, nipple infections, pumping, and all manner of unpleasantness. If a woman decided to skip all that mess, as a mother who had an extremely difficult time breastfeeding, I find I can't blame her. There have been a lot of formula-fed babies out there, and most of us are not living in a plastic bubble because of illness or horribly deformed.
   After that mess was done, my daughter taught me that I could feel exceedingly frustrated and helpless. She took me through a stage where she would start to cry at 3 p.m. and would not stop until around 10 p.m. The doctor said this was something that babies sometimes did and she was developing her lungs. And she was also developing her ability to drive her mother batshit crazy.
   Then her plumbing got in a bind. She couldn't poo and watching her strain and strain and strain resulted in yet another panicked trip to the doctor. My daughter was a very healthy child, but that meant when something did go wrong: full mommy panic mode. My daughter taught me more about unblocking a baby's poo pipes than I ever wanted to know.
   Then we moved, and I decided to be a stay-at-home mom until she started school. Because I was newly single, and had no income, this meant self-employment. I relied on family for a lot of what  I needed, but I did the best I could to support us with babysitting and housekeeping. This taught me that housekeeping sucks and being a stay-at-home mom is hard, and I had to learn how to make a $6,000 (no typo there) yearly income support us. A $6,000 income couldn't; we relied on Grandma during that time.
   Then she started school and I was proud of her for getting so big, but I also hated letting her go, even just this little bit. She had been my buddy for so long. We had hung out all day, every day in those years after leaving her dad. Although I had worked out of the home before, somehow this was different. She started her lessons in how a mom needs to let her kid grow, and how to begin to suppress those helicopter mom tendencies. (NOT easy, let me tell you.)
   I started work and college, and at this time, I went to college on campus. This meant daycare; I had to entrust her care to strangers. With work and college, I also didn't see her much, so I had to learn to put her first, even if finals were stressing me out or if I needed more hours because we were broke. I had to make the time we did get to spend together count. Mornings became our special time, even though I detest mornings. Mornings and weekends were the longest amounts of time that we could spend together though, so I couldn't waste the mornings being the grumpy fire-breathing dragon/banshee/bitch that I am when I first wake up. I had to learn to suppress those early morning demons.
   She did so well in school. She learned to read in a heartbeat, and she taught me that in a lot of ways, she was much smarter and wiser than mommy. Mommy tends to procrastinate; my daughter gets all her homework/chores out of the way first thing. According to her, she does this so she can have more time for fun. Smart girl.
   I earned an AAS degree, but the recession started around the same time, so I stayed on with the stable job that  I already had. Offers where out there, but they offered less pay, fewer hours, and no health benefits. That last one was the kiss of death for the possibility of my acceptance of those positions. I am a single mom,  I need some hope of health insurance. I learned to put my little family's needs over what I merely wanted and didn't need.
   My daughter was doing so well in school that she was recommended to the GATE program, but I was nervous about this because I worried about her being pushed too hard. I had grown up seeing kids snap over too much pressure and while I wanted her to be challenged, I didn't want her to be stressed. I did talk to her though, and I learned that she was very excited about being able to go into this program. I sent her, despite misgivings, and I learned to listen to my daughter about what she wanted, because she knows what she can handle.
   I went back to college to earn a BA, but I went online, because that year off of going to campus had given me more time to spend with my daughter, and I got the chance to volunteer in her classroom and be a more active person in her life. I found that although I wanted to continue my education, I was unwilling to do this at the expense of time with my daughter. So I learned about alternative options for education.
   In that time, daycare got out-of-hand and my trust was broken, forever. I will never trust another stranger with my child again. She was unhurt, physically, but mentally, she was harmed. She learned first hand that some adults are not nice and can't be trusted. Family rallied to support me, and I learned that I had not suppressed that dreaded crying gene that all women in my family are cursed with; I went and bawled all over my boss at work when  I asked to restrict my hours so my daughter could be cared for by family while I worked. I learned that I had a good job that would try to accommodate my new needs. (Or maybe this was self-defense against the crazy crying woman; give her what she wants so she'll get out of the office and go cry somewhere else?)
    And over time, we stabilized and slowly the kinks worked out and the time came when my daughter and I where able to get our own apartment. Now we are celebrating her first birthday in our new apartment. She is excited for this school year to be over because next year she will be in middle school. A little girl no longer, but still my baby. I've watched her go from wanting to be a rockstar to wanting to be a scientist. For the past 4 years, science has fascinated her, and I have learned more about science than  I ever thought I would know.
   To the daughter who continues to teach me something every day, I am so happy that you were born. Happy 11th birthday!!!
   

6 x 6 = 25???

   As a cashier, I know that counting every single item that you have is frustrating. You told me you have 25 packs of kool-aid, and here I am, still counting. Can't I take you at your word? Let me tell you a story.
   Summer is when this happy little story takes place, high summer, BBQ weather. Corn selling at 25 cents an ear. Great price, and people can by corn in huge quantities. Boxes of corn that I have to get placed upon my overloaded belt so that I can dig around, get those strange little corn-strings scattered all over the place, especially my apron, and spend the rest of the day feeling super-duper grimy and itchy. I hate corn season. Love to eat corn; hate to sell it. I was wondering myself why I was counting all these corns and not just taking a customer at their word. I mean, usually when a person tells you they have 50 of something, that is actually what they do have, and I just look like a jackass when I count it all out.
   Then I had the customer. It's his turn at the belt and he looks at me, and without taking a single thing out of his cart, he tells me, "I have 6 bags with 6 corn in each. I have 25 corn."
    What? Not a math whiz here, but I don't think that's right.
     "I need to count your corn, sir," I tell him, and shit, even I know that my tone is a liiiiiittle bit pissy. But, I mean, come on, if you are going to scam me, at least try to be credible. I'm not dumb, regardless of what you have been trained into thinking about cashiers.
      He hands me one bag. There is nothing else in his cart but corn, the bottom is completely covered with produce bags stuffed with ears of corn meaning there is no way he only has 25, and he doesn't know his multiplication tables, but he expects to get away with just handing me one bag of his corn. Which, by the way, has more than 6 ears in it.
   "I need all the corn on the belt, sir," and now I sound super-pissy, but if the bossman gets called because of my attitude, I'm hoping he understands my situation.
   He doesn't ask for the boss, but doesn't put his corn up either. "I told you how many I have!"
   "Need them all, sir. 6 times 6 doesn't equal 25, and also, there are more than 6 in this bag."
   Oh yeah, I'm not in a good mood anymore. He still won't put the corn up, so I stalk around, slam his corn on the belt, go back behind the checkstand and start counting. Well, he has a lot more than 25. Closer to 100. Not quite, but closer. I don't know how you are going to manage to eat 100 ears of corn before they go bad, but whatever, it's your money. But if your going to lie about quantity, giving me a number so far off that you can tell just by sight that it's wrong is really dumb. Even if, for some reason, I didn't know that 6 x 6 is 36, I would know that something was up just from sight. He paid for them,  because considering that this was obviously not a mistake in counting, I didn't even ask if he wanted me to take some off and put them away. And he has never been back in my line. Scamming some other checker, no doubt. Not me.
   Unfortunately, this tale is the reason why we have to count quantity. Most customers are not lying, and sometimes there are honest mistakes, true. But there is always that jackass: the one who ruins things for everybody else. 

Dear Niece: You Are Not Peter Pan

   Today I am babysitting my niece and nephew. I love them dearly, but the things that they get up to can be hair-raising, to say the least. They are very active and curious kids who like to get into everything possible. Adventures in babysitting bring to mind another time with my niece and nephew.
   My sister and I were settled in to watch some adult TV, (not funky p-word stuff, get your minds out of the gutter!! Just, stuff like Walking Dead or Weeds or such) something we can only do at the kiddos bedtimes. She had put her kids to bed upstairs, they didn't have to sleep yet, but they were supposed to be settling down and maybe watch a little TV. My daughter was in her room downstairs; my sister was making brownies, something that she now refuses to do because she is convinced that brownies make bad things happen. (Don't even get her started on the number 13 or 666. And yeah, she now places brownie-making right up there with those.) We weren't expecting a knock on the door because it was late, but we heard this soft little knock. So my sister went to look out the peephole, all ninja-like, just in case the person at the door had x-ray vision and could see her through the wall and happened to be an ax murderer.
  I wasn't expecting her to open the door. I really wasn't expecting her to yell, "Oh my god, how did you get outside!"
  So I got up to look and see, and sure enough, there stood her daughter, a little scratched up, but not looking like you would expect someone to look when they had just fallen out of a second-story window. We demanded to know how she fell and she told us she just fell while my sister frantically pulled off my niece's clothes to see if we could determine more injuries. She had two scratches on her chest, and a few on her back and face, but we couldn't find any bruising or broken bones, or swollen anythings. She couldn't really have fallen out the window. We rushed upstairs to check, because she must have just stealthily popped out the door and knocked to fool us. Except the door was locked, but a person who fell out the window would be smashed. They would not get  up and come knock on the door.
   However, inspection of her bedroom window did provide proof that she had fallen out of it. The window was wide open and the screen was missing. I stuck my head out, and the screen was in a bush. She had fell out of the window with the screen underneath her and landed in a bush.
   We turned to my wide-eyed niece, who watched all of our frantic scurrying about with little reaction. "Why didn't you scream? Did you scream? We didn't hear."
   "I didn't scream, I shutted my eyes so I wouldn't see," she calmly replied. Oh, the reasoning of a five year old. If you can't see it, it can't hurt you.
   "And then what did you do?" we asked.
   "I gotted up and knocked on the door to come in." she replied. But no matter how we asked, she wouldn't tell us how she fell out, and we didn't question long. Our priority was to get her to the ER; just because we couldn't see an injury didn't mean that there wasn't an internal one or something of that sort. So I stayed home with my nephew and my daughter while my sister rushed to the hospital, her daughter in tow.
   I fretted and worried, because that is what I do best, but they were actually home a lot sooner than I expected, and this is the story as my sister tells it.
   Once they arrived at the ER, and the accident was made known to the nurses and doctors, my niece was seen right away. My sister says that all the nurses and doctors crowded into the tiny cubical room that patients are given and that when the primary doctor ordered a chest x-ray, that you could hear the order being echoed all the way down the hall. They examined her, and questioned her, but could find no severe injuries. The x-rays showed no internal injuries, she didn't seem to have hit her head, she was doing okay. When the doctor asked her why she had fallen out of the window, she told him (although she wouldn't tell us a thing) that she had got up on the window sill to open it because she thought that her plant needed fresh air. Then the screen fell out of the window, and she lost her balance and fell with it.
  We had to keep her under watch for a while just in case there was an internal injury, but in the end, she was free and clear of any real injuries, just some scratches and some mild bruising. A nurse told my sister that kids fall out of windows all the time and usually they are not hurt at all, which is amazing to me, because if I fell out of a second story window, I'm sure I would have something broken. But regardless, I am no longer comfortable when I see my niece near a window. Truthfully, I freak. This is yet another reason living on the first floor is better than living on the second: if my niece falls out of the window, I can just be pissed. I don't have to experience terror beyond all belief.