Say kids! What time is it?!

It's time to cool my jets. I lost it a bit with a customer. I didn't yell or rant. I have dealt with this woman since the year 2000. First from 2000 to 2011 and now back at the same location since a year ago March. I am of Italian decent. I am proud of my Italian heritage but I have to say they are amongst the worst customers at a deli. This woman comes to the counter and orders her usual assortment of cold cuts. She orders a half a pound of mortadella and before she can say what I know she will say I say, "I know, cut it thin." Or as some of them say, "cutta tin". Now I grew up hearing broken English. My mother was the only person, save for my cousins, who didn't have an accent. Now she orders a quarter pound of hot capicola. The two items I have mentioned are made of pork. I cut it, wrapped it, priced it and gave it to her. She orders some cheese and I start to cut it. As I am slicing she says, "Are you sure this is the hot capicola, not the sweet?"
I unwrap the package and show her what I cut.
"See the red pepper? This is the hot one."
I pick up a piece of sweet capicola and say, "See the black pepper? This is the sweet one. Why do you always question me?"
She became a bit sheepish and said she was sorry. I didn't feel all that great but I guess I let my guard down and let the situation finally get to me.

This followed by a "Some company big wig is coming alert. Quick everybody scurry around!" Most of us just watch this in amusement. The usual person in charge, the store director, formally known as a store manger, was off today. I guess director sounds more important. After all he or she directs. 
"Put that over there! I have so directed. So it is written, so shall it be!"
Whereas a manager, they just manage. They just get by. Doesn't sound as important. So with no director or assistant director the chore of directing fell on the shoulders of the front end manager or the cash department, where they take your money. He was a nervous nelly. At one point I went outside on a break as it was a beautiful day and there he was out side the store, looking into the distance. A hand shielding his eyes from the sun, staring into the distance as if he were on the bow of a ship searching for land. I would have loved it if he shouted, "Vice President HO!"
As I went back into the store I passed the Admiral and said, "He's here. I just saw him get off the bus." 
He didn't think it was all that funny. 

Another alert came in about an hour later. "He's at Porter Square!" A store about 4 or so miles away. In afternoon traffic that could take 25 or 30 minutes I was there until 4:00pm. No sighting. And on the odd chance that someone official does show up it always goes like this.
Mr. High and Mighty -"Hello. How are you?"
The common, lowly, worker droid -"I'm well. And you?"
Mr. High and Mighty-"Fine! Thanks!"
Whew! I think we survived that!

In other news, this past Sunday, it was early and I was asleep. Then suddenly I wasn't. I was startle awake by a sound that I couldn't identify. It was a loud, whooshing, white noise sound. It was a small, flexible pipe that flows into the toilet tank. It had burst and as spraying water at about half the bathroom. The floor was filling up with water as I turned the shut off valve. Long story short, I mopped the floor, Found out it leaked downstairs. The plumber actually came on Sunday but didn't have the right size replacement on his truck. So I know what that meant as far as the bathroom went. I'll spare you the gory details. Later that day Arlene and I went out for supper at our favorite place. Then back to my house we sat on the back deck having some wine. I know that sounds so snobby, but it was a nice night and we like wine. It's not like Arlene has to go far to get home, next door. Anyway, Arlene knowing about my bathroom situation asked me, "What if I have to go? Do I have to use a bucket of water to flush?"
"No!" I replied. "There's still a full tank of water."
And trying to get a bit romantic on Mothers Day I said, "I saved the last flush for you."

In my continuing effort to unclutter my life and organize things, I know I'm still in the process adapting to a much smaller work load and more free time. Sometimes it is not so different because this week as a favor to my boss I worked on Monday which I haven't done in years. As a part timer I set how many hours I want and what days I'm available. So as a favor to her I worked Monday and ended up working 4 full days. Arlene kept trying to point out that she is taking advantage of me. My experience and familiarity with the store and customers and for a lot less money per hour than the year before. And Arlene is right in the respect that my boss is getting a bargain basement, full time employee who can do just about anything she can do. Not everything but pretty close. So I had to tell my boss, who has been good to me, that I only want 3 days. I'll work 3 full days if you really need me but no more.  I'm not really semi-retired, I am retired. 

So some of this free time has been taken up by organizing a stack of cds with pictures and videos of places locally we went to back in 2009 when I still only had a blog on Spaces. Back then I had organized the pictures as a video photo album. I forgot I had these.
They were about 2 minutes each. I combined the first two and slightly modified them. 



 
So I guess that's about it.
I'm outta here.