Sunday at work my co-manager was trying really hard to make me unproductive. I really should write more about this co because he is such an idiot that I don't know how he gets himself dressed in the morning. I am so serious. It wasn't even a joke.

For instance, he's the comanager that will call you to check on the paging system from the register right beside you after you've already been checking right there for 2 hours.

He once was eating dinner across from two ICS associates, had been talking to them, then stood up and paged them outside to get carts. Seriously, he did and he wasn't joking about it.

He calls out for returns to the service desk from his office. He really does. You can be at the service desk and hear his voice calling you to go up and you don't even have any returns. This guy is a piece of work.

Well, Sunday, the first thing The Commander (that's what my dept manager calls him) did to annoy me was to tell me to do something that I already did. He wanted me to do throwaways. Why did he tell me? Well, because he walked by and happened to see the cart in the cutting room that hadn't been thrown in the barrels yet cuz it was Sunday and the middle of the day. He wanted me to scan them and claims them out. Only a department manager can do that, which I am not. I cannot get the options so I couldn't do it if he just asked me to do so. I had them done, however, because I did it when my dept manager had been logged on. ;) Any other assistant knows that salesfloor does not have the options to do throwaways. As a co-he should know this even better.

The second thing he did to annoy me and make my job harder was to steal my cart I was stacking from. He took my produce cart while it was empty and in the cutting room then pulled it out to the floor to change an end cap. Then he just left the merchandise onit in the middle of the aisle! I had to run around looking for an empty L cart and not finding one had to convince produce to let me borrow another of their carts. Eventually, hours later, I did find another L cart, switched the merchandise the Commander just left there all day on that one, took my old one back, and returned the other to produce so they wouldn't get angry.

Then, after all of that he tried to convince me to work on a day I'm not available after I've told him over and over and over I only work weekends. It's on my availability sheet. It's in the system. It's on the schedule. No exceptions unless they don't mind if I spend the entire day lugging meet around one hand and a 4 month old with the other.

The dude gives me a headache. I swear sometimes he tries to make your day more miserable. He told me that he wanted me to do pick list for meat. That's a complete waste of time when if you need an item all you have to do is walk about 10 feet to the cooler and just grab it. You don't need to spend 5 minutes logging onto a Telxon, going to the right screen, then scanning something when you can just walk a couple feet to see if we have it. In the time it takes to log on, that item can be already filled.

I have so many more stories about The Commander. You just wait. He's going to be a regular in my posts.

The Weekend sure was interesting. First of all Saturday there was a lot of call-ins because of the weather. Interstate 80 was closed because of ice. All of the major highways were covered in ice. Naturally, we were busy at wal mart-people with small children.

I worked during the day and when I left at 4pm on Saturday my car was just one thick sheet of ice. I had to kick the ice to break it with my foot before I could even get in my car to turn it on and begin defrosting. It took me a half hour to just clean off my car and then make it home.

Then when I went to work the next day, I learned how many people were without power. There were a lot of call-ins again and therefore I was area D. I was the only person in all of area D. It was fun, I tell you.

I felt horrible, cuz I was the bearer of bad news. "No, we are out of lamp oil. We are out of propane. We are out of generators." Of course everyone else was in all of the cities around us too, but I just felt bad cuz I kept hearing stories of people who won't get their power on until Tuesday or Friday.

Then, in the midst of all of this, We will have STAR come in. Management wants the store to look good. I can tell you that as employees, our priorities were not with STAR. It was with stocking the candles and finding motel rooms for all of the employees from out of town who had no power. One electronics girl says, "I came in to work today and I am leaving at ten. I have to pick up my daughter, find a hotel room to stay in, and get her ready for school. I have no power or water. I don't give a f**k about STAR right now."

I can't say I blame her.

I was in toys (duh) and just cleaning when this couple is in the Dora aisle. He's playing with a General Lee and I walk by him saying nothing. I hear her say, "Don't put it like that." and he says, "What, it's her job to clean it up."

Which, always pisses me off. I don't go to his job and start screwing around with his stuff. From the way he looked, he probably didn't have a job anyway, especially not the type of job where you harass Wal Mart workers. But I digress.

He turns to me and starts going, "Right? Right, it's your job, right? You gotta clean it up! Hey, aren't you gonna talk to me? You are rude, why won't you talk to me?"

Why aren't I talking to him, because if I did I'd be saying something that would get me fired, that's why. Well, I walk away and into the next aisle and he's yelling after me, "Hey, what happened to a helpful smile in every aisle? Wait, that's hy vee."

So he doesn't stop there after I go to another aisle. He's telling other customers I won't talk to him and I"m rude. One guy asked me if I was rude and I said, "No, I just ignore the people trying to harass me." Does that stop the guy? No, he keeps yelling things at me.

So I go to the front and I tell the CSM's about him. Five members of management show up at Toys. I tell them what happened, but they aren't too concerned because the guy wasn't cussing at me. So it's okay for me to be followed and yelled at, as long as they are not swearing, I guess.

So Management checks off Toys, by that time the guy is gone. Later I am pushing a return cart to the front and the dude is at Register 12. I tell the CSM's that he is the guy. He sees me and makes some comment that I don't hear, but the CSM did. She heard enough that she went to the service desk and said, "Just stay here at the service desk until he leaves."

So we both stay there at the service desk until he and his girl walk by, make some kind of stupid noise at us, as they walk by the service desk. The CSM has me wait until she is sure he went out the door.

Later, I tell management about register 12 and the Co-manager says, "Well, tell us if he ever comes back again. We don't tolerate harassment."

You don't, huh?

Our Blitx day, it was so dead. Seriously, it was dead. It was busy in the morning, but everyone bought what they wanted in about an hour and then they left to go to other towns. It was crazy because we finally were fully staffed and for once we didn't need anyone.

It was like nothing I have ever seen. I felt like I was in another reality. It wasn't even busy for a normal Friday. It felt more like a Wednesday's sales. They started letting cashiers go home early. All of us got out an hour early. At 7 PM we were $100,000 below our last year's sales. Toys was completely zoned by 9:30 PM.

It just felt really weird. We think the fact there is no layaway anymore had a lot to do with it. We are a blue collar small town after all, and we can expect at least $78,000 usually on just layaways.

I can't believe how low our sales was. There should have been no way we could even move in the store. I'm still dumbstruck about it.

Now, we are told we are getting a regional visit about every 6 months, and our regional manager has only ever showed up once and you can imagine how much we didn't believe them. However, management did their usual freaking out. It's always fun to watch management sweat.

Anyway, the regional manager did come and our store got awesome marks. He said that we were one of the best he'd seen in the region and the only things he really complained about where parts of clearance. So we all felt pretty good about ourselves.

Of course, we did cheat. Other stores around us called us ahead of time to let us know what things he was looking at, and so on. We always do that when management is coming-we cheat. We also spent over $9,000 over our payroll budget to make sure that the store was perfect. I had never seen so many people in the store on a weekend ever. There were actually three people in HBA and usually no one is scheduled at all.

Honestly, that is the way it should always be. The store would continue looking nice if we had the staff to maintain it. Now we are cutting for the rest of the week to make up for spending so much payroll.

But, the store looked good, so management can stop freaking out.

We have just counted 10 pregnant women working at our store. Ten. That's a huge number, even before the Walmart Hire-a-lot-of-pregnant-women-at-Xmas policy.

They just put up the sign detailing there is no time off between November 15th and January 6th. The best part about this? All of the pregnant workers are due between November and January.

I am going to be interested to see how this works out.

I have made the journey over to myspace and I probably won't be updating this journal anymore. Therefore, if you want to get ahold of me or see what I am doing, venture this way:

http://www.myspace.com/jacfu

I went down to visit Grandma and Grandpa yesterday and I left at around 7pm. On my way home my light went on saying I was overheating at grandview four corners. So I pulled up, bought a whole container of coolant, bottled water, and I put the whole stinking thing in my car.

I made it just to L-M school before my light was on again. I knew that if I just kept going, being stuck on Muscatine Island would be worse than being stuck in front of L-M, so I started walking back. I stopped at the first house there, the big freaking white one. The lady there was nice and let me use her phone to call Grandpa to pick me up.

Now, I wanted to just go home and call a tow truck, but you know Gramps. He's all, "But it'll cost you $100 for a tow truck, You don't want to pay that!" Well, it's my money and I can waste it as I want to. Besides, I was cold, it was windy, and I didn't wear good shoes yesterday, I had been walking in the gravel in bedroom slippers. Well, grandpa wanted to try to make it and so basically we kept going a couple miles and then stopping and then going again and then stopping every time the red light came on. Grandpa was all, "Well, it doesn't feel too hot. I used to run my truck until I saw it steaming." And I was like, "I've had an engine catch on fire on me before, Gramps. I don't want to do that again." And he's like, "Oh, well, okay."

So we eventually made it to Fruitland gas station where we put in ANOTHER entire container of coolant. Then we filled it up halfway with water and then refilled the container with water just in case. I did manage to make it home then, after that without stopping. The needle kept jumping up and down though, but the light didn't go back on.

So it took me two hours to get home from CJ to Muscatine. I was in a bad mood. It is just one more thing that is wrong with my car. I told Rod about it when he got home and he's like, "Well, looks like I'll be looking at your car tomorrow. I guess you know what you'll be spending your bonus check on."

Yeaaaaahhh. Great.

I was reading an article about how they have found out that the X chromosomes 7, 8, and 10 are the ones responsible for whether your son is gay. Which, I am going to use in the next argument about whether being gay is a choice or not. But, anyway, as I was reading this, I became interested in which celebrities were gay that maybe I didn't know about.

I mean, we ALLL know that Elton John is gay, and KD Lang, and Rupert Everett. I wanted to find the ones I didn't know. And so here they are.

People I didn't know were gay:

Sara Gilbert-Darlene from Roseanne
Jodi Foster
Anderson Cooper-anchorman
Barry Manilow
David Hyde Pierce-Fraiser
Chad Allen-'80's TV
Rip Taylor-comedian

Britney Spears...Why is she still famous?
G.W. Bush... why isn't he assassinated yet?
Applebee's... why do they always offer us alcohol first?
Reality TV.... isn't really real Real Reality is some guy sitting on his ass at home and isn't actually entertaining.
Bathroom... where I get all my best ideas
Public Bathroom... Always smells like a sewer
Ice Cream... chocolate
Milwaukee... Jesica
Chicago... Shedd aquarium
Money... spending
Police Officers...seem to like me.
McDonald's... fattening and greasy
Natural... instincts by Clariol. Yes, I think of hair dye.
Free... previously stolen
Cheesy... chili, which I am eating now
Fruity... fruit cocktail
Romance... only in movies and games
Kissing... makes a horrible sound
Ketchup... is good on all meat
Forrest Gump... is a movie I don't want to see anymore.
Madonna... is a freak.
Brett Farve... Who's this?
the Dentist.... scares me. I still need cavities filled
Chocolate... I want
Kindergarden... milk and stories-also unbelievable trauma
Dollar Bills... Id have more of if I was a stripper
Dancing... um, stripping?
Beef... tasty
Lowrider... toys in my dept
Juicy Fruit... makes me hiccup
White Trash... Some ppl may think I am. Most ppl at wal mart are
the 80's... were awesome!
the 90's... were the beginning of this sensitive politically correct bullshit
High School... is traumatic
WWF wrestlin... isn't entertainment
Red Head... Julianne Moore
Blonde... Jessica Simpson
Brunette... hair dye
Wal-Mart... Hell
Babies... are not as cute as ppl seem to think
Christmas... presents for me
West Allis... What's this?
Cudahy... is what?
Oak Creek... huh?
Naked... where?
Hot... sweat
Cold... snow
Flavor.. chocolate
House... mine!
Team... team what?
Sun... cancer
Oprah... that woman is loved.
Noodle... homemade is the best
Rain... washing hair
Quiet... sleep
Control...transformers. I have no idea why I thought of transformers
United States... is hated
Wisconsin...Jesica
Michael Jackson...is a freak
Prince... William
Harley-Davidson... old men with scraggly hair wearing leather.
Gun... Dick Cheney
Pro... expert
Maury Povich... still has a show?
War in Iraq... Should have never been.
Poverty... most of my neighborhood
Racism... is everywhere
Sexism... is everywhere
Gay People... are everywhere
Jimmy Buffett... doesn't do anything for me
East Side... I duno
Bay View... is that like Bay window?
South Side... That Moby, gwen stephani song
Potato... baked with sour cream and cheese
Dirty... fighting
Strawberry... Shortcake
Wesley... works w/Angel on the tv series Angel *grins*<--thinking same thing!
Virgin... 40 year old
Devil... went down to Georgia
Cake... the rock group
Friend... friends stab you in the front
Lucky... Green care bear!
French... esgcargot
Table... wood
School... sucks
Wayne's World... schwing!
Ferris Bueller... Matthew Broderick
Molly Ringwald... Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club... If he gets up! We'll all get up! It'll be anarchy!
Joy... Luck Club

Okay, I had heard the rumors. I had heard that Malibu Mark Manuel had gotten another job at another radio station. I head 96.1's little goodbye, but I had just been in utter denial that it would really happen. However, when I turned on my radio on the way to work on 98.9 I heard...

Christian music!!!! *gasp!*

And I thought it was a fluke, right? I mean, some Christian music becomes mainstream if it is just extra good. But then I heard the deejay! It really was now a Christian radio station! 98.9 is gone!

Now, this is a horrible, horrible thing. I know that radio stations change a lot, but not 98.9. I have been listening to the all hits of today station since I was old enough to listen to the radio. I first heard Madonna's Cherish on there and taped songs off that station for years. Now it's gone, just gone and away is another station that I will actually listen to their music. I still can't believe it. 98.9...*sigh*

I'm here and I'm sick yet again. I have never been as sick as when I started working in Toys. Everyone brings their sick children to moan and gripe in the cart while they do their frantic shopping for DVD's. I feel really bad for the kids. One little girl was really tired and she told me she had a headache and her dad was in hardware buying paint. All she wanted to do was sleep. Freaking ppl keep your sick kids home! What kind of parents are you? Your freaking painting can wait a day or two. Priorities....damn.

I was checking on Monday and every other person that came thru my line had a prescription of some sort. It was like, Daaammmn. One woman had nothing with her but Flu relief. Another person gave me something that their kid slobbered all over to scan. I was using hand sanitizer about every other order.

Muffin is 14 lbs. I weighed him, just so you know. That's a big fat kitty.

I, on the other hand, now weigh 143. I told you I could do it! I gots the willpower! I am a very good girl. I've been buying all low fat and fat free stuff. I don't eat unless I know I am hungry. If I am on break and I can't decide what I want to eat, then that must mean I am not hungry enough. The new 100 calorie packs are so awesome too. They are the perfect size for a snack and each package is 100 calories and only, like, 6 grams of fat. Best of all, they are baked and sooooo tasty. I have tried the honey grahams, the chocolate chip, the oreo and the peanut butter. I haven't had a single one that I don't like. With six little packets in one box, they are totally worth the $5 you pay for them. I mean, that's only 50 cents more per bag than a little bag of chips that aren't good for you.

Mommy called me up today apologizing for saying that she was glad that Rod got me out of her hair. Or something like that. I was like, "Okay, whatever, Mom." I didn't even know she said that. I figured mom was on one of her rants and was mad at me that day. She does that once in awhile. She's like a child that when they get mad they are all "I hate you!I hate you!" and then the next day they apologize and say they don't really hate you. I was just like, "Whatever, Mom, didn't even notice" and was telling her how crappy I feel today. She told me what she bought for groceries. All was good.

Grandpa stopped by. He made me shelves. He was complaining that Grandma refuses to go to the doctor. She fell out of bed one day and he had to help her up. We all agree that if Grandma just went to the doctor, the doctor could fix her up in no time. Gramps was like, "I go to the doctor all the time. We have insurance and everything." But Grandma is a stubborn old woman.

Speaking of Doctors, I have a pap test scheduled for Tuesday. Gee..fun. *sarcasm*. Nothing like having a car jack stretch you wide open so that ppl can stick their hands in there and play with your ovaries awhile. I always feel really creepy all day right after one, cuz you just feel weird. The muscle they pull down and stretch feels all weird. Your ovaries feels all weird. Your cervix has been swabbed and stuff and so it feels all weird. I get home and I am like, "No, Rod! Back! I've had enough weird stuff up me today!" *brings out whip* Whoopsh! I know, I know. TMI. But Paps are good because I can get new Anti-baby Rodneys and Jacques pills. They are good.

I read an article that now they have figured out that the pill actually decreases a woman's sex drive. It is one of those things that they just don't mention when they prescribe it to you. I guess it doesn't matter which kind you get either. It just suppresses your sex drive after you have taken it for so long, like 2 years or so.

Which My Little Pony are you?! (very cute pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm wearing two pairs of socks, sweatpants under my pants, and three shirts. I am totally freezing today. Welcome to freaking January. I will go turn my spaceheater on in my bedroom now.

Okay. There.

My aim rpers haven't been on. You know who you are. Bastards.

I dyed my hair, right? I was going to dye it a golden light brown and I picked that particular color because on the box it said it would work on the darkest of hair. Well, guess what? It lies. Damn thing didn't work AT ALL. It was the same brand I always get and it did absolutely jack squat to my hair. Even my roots are the same. Anyway, don't get the Nice and Easy for darkest hair crap. It lies.

And I just remembered what I was going to buy when I got off work today. I knew I would remember when I got home and didn't want to get up again. I was going to get tacks to hang up the calendars. *smacks forehead*

I got new MLP's and now their heads turn! That is so awesome! The old ones' heads didn't turn unless it came unglued or something. Now you can turn their heads and that excites me so. The first two I opened didn't have little packets that told what new ponies were coming out. That is half the fun of the opening experience. I felt really ripped off. Finally, I came to a pony that had a packet and so never fear, all was good again.

are stupid and no one ever keeps them. So, for, like, the 8th year in a row I am going to instead focus on what I will "Continue to Do" in the upcoming year.

I will continue to...
1. Not answer the phone.
2. Get way too involved in roleplaying games.
3. Argue with people at work for argument's sake.
4. Dye my hair at least 8 times.
5. Sleep entirely too much.
6. Drink lots of tasty Ovaltine.
7. Be angry at people for all time over tiny things.
8. Join web things I post to for awhile and then forget about completely.
9. Refuse to pay for anything online, excepting webshots.


Yep, I will guarantee I will continue to do these things in 2006.

On a blacker note, I got my photo printer, only they sent me the wrong one! It didn't bother me so much it didn't come with a power cord or supply. I figure I can get that off the canon website. But they sent me the wrong model! Now I am trying to get ahold of the company to send it back and receive the right one. Bastards. I still don't get to print off fun pictures.

Well, today we went out shopping and to Old Country Buffet for Vik's B-day. Sure, it isn't for a couple of days, but I have to work the next few days and so we did it tonight. What is it about shopping that makes one so tired? I'm totally exhausted and all I did was walk around the mall, Target and stop at the Davenport Wal Mart. You'd think I was running a marathon. I bought myself ponies and a pony calendar. The calendar was only $6! How could I resist. After all, Rod says I can have my screen door and so I spend Christmas money. I still have $20 left of it.

We stopped at Bath and Body works and I got a couple "Breathe Serenity" things. I love the smell of that stuff even more than the Breathe Calm. I am going to take a shower for no reason just to use it.

I was burning my yummy scented vanilla candle and the glass suddenly cracked. I have no idea why it did so, but it cracked. I need another fun candle to burn now cuz I am almost out. I have discovered I like burning smelly candles a lot.

My car is even more ghetto now. Here is a list of what is wrong with my car:
1. No insulation on the driver's or passenger doors.
2. Leak in the windshield
3. Fuel injector clogged
4. Rusting gas tank.
5. cruise control broken
6. Left turning signal won't shut off.
7. fumes coming from....somewhere.

But the muffler, exhaust and window wipers are fine now! I also got new tires.

I have a my space space, but I forgot my password so now I can't get on it. That figures, huh?

I don't know who it was, but now I can't stop sneezing, sniffling and I have that bile taste in my mouth. Gross.

I watched the movie the 40 Year Old Virgin. Man, is it good. It's like, the closest thing to a guy chick flick there ever was. Written by the dude who starred in it, it is really sweet and there are some parts that are just "oh my freaking god."

Steve Carell (Brick from Anchorman) is this guy who is 40 and still a virgin. He tries to cover it up from these guys from work but they figure it out. He's all, "Oh yeah....I've seen lots of titties. This one girl talked nasty. She was all "Oh, I want to....screw.....and do you." It was nasty." Well, then they all give him bad advice in getting laid. One of the guys keeps cheating on his girlfriend and she finally finds out near the end and dumps him. Then he's all crying at the store and Andy (the main guy) is all, "Why did you cheat on her?" And he's like, "Cuz I'm insecure! Can't you tell?" Then this other guy is still hung up on this girl he had been dating two years ago and while the other guys are like, "I fuck this bitch and this one" he's all, "When Amy and I made love it was like our souls became one." Then they'd tell him to shut up.

It's only 2 days til Xmas and I hate going to work. God, work sucks. Now I am going to get all of the people who waited until the last minute to get presents and they will be angry that we are sold out of all of the good stuff. It will be crazy and bad and I will be tired all day.

Vik and I went to grandma's, which wasn't a bad visit. Way better than expected. Then we went to my house and cleaned up. We used a lot of pet fresh on the floors and the vacuum was basically just scattering it around cuz the filter needs changed. Now my house smells like powdery Pet Fresh and I think I accidentally swallowed some a couple of times. That could attribute to the bile taste.

I need a calendar this year. I want a pony one. Or care bears or something cool like that.

Elaine at work made my whole day. She told me that it looked like I was losing weight and I looked good. I was all happy and was like, "You are my new best friend."

Otherwise, work was work. I was at service desk from 8:15 to the time i had to leave. So, yeah, toys was once more a mess. We had a lot of cancelled layaways and so we had 8 carts of returns. It was all kinds of fun.

I have my wrapping done and everything. I am on top of this Christmas thing. If ppl don't like their presents, well they didn't send me a list. I have wish lists on everything. It is not hard to buy for me, you just have to listen once in awhile. And then the failsafe is always ponies.

Work has me so frustrated. First of all we are told that we have to have all of the trailers empty by Friday. That didn't happen because we simply didn't have the shelf space, riser space, none of it. We had 3 trailers full of toys plus some in the garden center trailer. Wasn't happening. Now we are told we have to have them empty by Monday. Guess what? Not happening. We have one trailer clear, but all of the pallets are sitting on the garden center patio getting snowed upon. There is too much stuff: It's not going up. Period.

It's not going up because there are fifty ppl in toys at once. Then I am called up to cashier besides. They give help and then they pull it away. Then I won't even mention the returns.

I saw, like, half my family today. Jerry, Judy and Heather showed up! I was like, Whoa! I think Heather was surprised to see me too. It's like , "Oh hey, it's you!"

I have only half of my Xmas shopping done. Oh lordy.

I had the rest of my teeth cleaned and two cavities filled today. They even grinded down on of my sharp teeth in the back I was cutting my tongue on. My mouth is all hurty now and I still have two more cavities to deal with on the 20th. Don't try to eat green beans, shrimp and rice when half of your face is drooling. It just doesn't work very well.

I have a couple pics of lady playing in the snow and the snow outside. It has been snowing about every other day and unlike normal Iowa snowdays it isn't melting the very next day. It's accumulating! It's been so cold that a lot of cars aren't starting. People had to take the bus to work! I took one person home whose car didn't start.

I am so behind in the Xmas shopping that it isn't even cool. A lot of it has to do with ppl's presents are not coming on time from the places I sent for them. Bastards.

I've got 4 games I'm either admining or coadmining on Play By Web now. I started a new Doctor Who game cuz I need my Doctor Who fix. I had a lot of ppl join within, like, a day and so I am happy about that. So far most of them are very good posters. My games are going pretty fast when some of the others remain slow and that makes me happy. I hope it keeps the momentum.

I've been cleaning house of my idle games and so that leaves me free to join more. Everytime I say I don't want to admin any more games I end up adopting another one so crap, don't listen to me. I'm all about the GM power!

The new Doctor Who series is soo awesome I could crap my pants. I love it with my whole body including my pee pee!