Animal habits

Have you ever noticed how routine animals are? Like your dog or cat. And if you disrupt that routine, then there are some major consequences that will be paid.

This weekend, my mom went out of town. I stayed at her house to watch her two dogs. We get along fine. There are never any real problems. We played and hung out, no big deal. And then it was time for bed.

Excuse me what? There is no bed time when mom's not home.

It was like having little kids who knew the parents were gone. They didn't want to sleep between 11:00p.m. and 6:00a.m. I've had dogs refuse to eat, refuse to go outside, refuse to come back in the house, refuse to come out from under the bed, strip the bed of all the blankets and pillows - but I've never had them refuse to sleep at night.

Since mom went to Las Vegas, maybe they were channeling that whole "the city that never sleeps" thing to be with her in spirit.

Put the phone down and no one gets hurt

There are always times when no one should be talking on their phones. Especially if you are having interaction with someone else. Don't continue a conversation. If you are trying to complete a transaction of any type, please call them back later and continue. Also, don't answer the phone. Or, if you must, simply do so just long enough to state that you will call them back in a minute when you get done. It is rude to the person you are expecting to help you. In fact, it brings them to some place relatively close to road rage, but it doesn't have a name yet.

Phone rage? Going cellular vs. going postal?

Please for every person that you might encounter that is trying to take your order, complete your transaction, answer your question, find what you're looking for, check you out, etc......please for the sake of everyone's sanity, and to show that you haven't lost all manners that you were taught as a young child, put the phone down.

Cell phones

Yes I have one. Most people do now. It's very rare to find someone that doesn't. Anyone that doesn't should be put in the zoo - they're a dying breed.

I seem to find that I am more and more bothered by them. Especially as I continue to work at the book store. There is something that bothers me about them. People will come in and ask for help and contintue to talk on their phone, call someone while we're in the middle of a conversation with me, answer their phone in the middle of a conversation. They are all seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are being rude.

Last night, after I had already dealt with a handful of these people, I decided that I couldn't do it anymore. So the next person that came up and was still talking on their phone, I politely told I didn't want to interrupt and would help them when they were done. I think they kind of got the idea by the look on their face.

I wish people would do that more.

What you once hated, isn't so bad

While I am a huge fan of kid stuff(Disney movies, cartoons, toys, etc.) I don't love all of them. And I am partial to things from my own growing-up.

Fraggle Rock good. Barney bad.
Muppets good. Spongebob bad.

You get the drift. I have friends who have gotten hooked watching Spongebob, Hannah Montana or Zoey 101 because their kids watch. And now they will very embarrassingly admitt that they will watch those shows on their own if they catch them when flipping through channels.

Last Friday I was watching my cousin's two little boys (4 and 2 years old) so that she could go to an appointment with her husband. We played Dora the Explorer computer games, then we played dinosaurs. We also had a tickle fight so that all three of us were laughing till our faces were red and we were out of breath. We finally decided to calm down and see what was on t.v.

Spongebob.

They were very excited. So there we sat, watching Spongebob on the couch. Pretty soon I had one on each side of me. Heads leaning on my shoulders. A blanket thrown over the top of us because it was chilly. And we watched Spongebob. All snuggled up.

Spongebob is my new favorite show.

Spring

The other night on the evening news, the weather guys is saying that the "next couple days are going to be pretty quiet. Nothing much to talk about."

He the preceded to talk for 5 minutes about how much nothing was going to happen.

And anyone that was watching will never get the time back.

Equality

So I am, once again, working at the bookstore. These two middle-aged African-American women are standing near the customer service desk looking a little lost. I stop and ask them if they need help with anything. They turn and look at me and ask if the tables in front of them are all the sale books we have. I answer yes. The one gets an attitude with me and says "I see. Y'all don't have any African-American books. Interesting. Well then, we'll just look around."

I tried to explain that the books that end up on the sale tables are the ones that there was a large amount of backstock from the publisher. So by not having any leftovers to send to us, they must be selling really well.

This didn't seem to help. The attitude was still there.

I walked away to take care of something, leaving them to wander around. There wasn't much else I could do at that point.

When I returned back to the customer service desk, another woman began to approach me. She was a middle-aged white woman. I asked her the same question, did she need help finding anything.

She looked at me and asked if these tables were all my sale books. Having a moment of deja vu, I paused for a minute. I answered "yes".

She smiled, "oh, cause you don't have any books for chubby white women."

I smiled at her and had to walk away.

Teenage boys...

Last week I worked at the store with a wonderful woman - C - who I would guess to be about the same age as my mother. She used to work in a library. She's very nice and great to work with. And I totally respect the fact that she doesn't take alot of crap from customers. She has wonderful customer service skills, but manages to use them to point out to people that their kids are running around, being obnoxious, damaging product, that she'll wait until they're off their cell phone to help them, etc. You get the drift.

Last week, there were three teenage boys look at the sex books. Standing there giggling. They were pretty obvious, but not being overly obnoxious so we left them alone. Once they were done, they were snickering to each other, laughing. C asked them if they were done giggling now. She stopped for a second and said 'yes'. C was working on climbing a ladder to put books up into the overstock area on top of the bookshelves. She grabbed a stack of the books she was working on and handed them to the boys as said "Good. Since you're done, hand these to me."

I doubt that they will be back to look at those books again any time soon. Or if they do, they'll probably make sure that she's not working.

Shopping for sheets...

So I'm wandering around a newly opened department store in the area this past weekend. It's a beautiful store. Much more room than the space they previously occupied. Beautiful displays. And my favorite part - lots of stuff on sale for the weekend. As I wandered around the bedding department, I saw a display of some type of natural sheets (going with the whole 'green' thing). So I stopped to check them out and see what was so special about them. Then I started reading the label.

"Absorbent sheets"

Now maybe I'm a little weird, but I need absorbent towels, not absorbent sheets. And I want to know if they've ever had a someone who bought them because they're 'absorbent'.

Ahhhh....winter

So for the past week or so, we keep getting these little storms that move through. Nothing huge or anything, but each are dropping and inch or two of snow on the ground. Personally I think that's great because that kind of snow still allows for you to get around easy enough.

The local weather people keep referring to these as "snowbursts".

Does anyone know - is this the techincal meteorological term?

It's a big big world out there

It never ceases to amaze me how people become so used to staying within their own little bubbles and never venture outside of it.

I worked at the store the other night. The store is located in the northwest part of the city. Not too terribly out west. Maybe about 2 miles from part of the interestate. No biggie. There are 2 other stores of ours in town. One in midtown and one in Papillion, which is kind of attached to Omaha on the southern edge and alot of people consider it all part of one big city. If you're driving to Papillion, there is nothing to indicate that you are leaving one and entering the other.

At the store, I end up helping a woman who asks me if I can tell her how far away Maple Street is and how hard it is to get there. I look at her for a minute to see if she's just totally joking. She has a completely straight face.

"You see the busy street right out side that the store faces, that's Maple," is my response.

"Oh, I'm not from here."

"Oh, really. Where are you from?"

"Papillion."

She is dead serious.

It took every ounce of strength I had to not look at her and say "You ARE from here!!! It's all the same thing!!! Get out of your bubble once in a while!!! And if you can't get around any better than that, please just go to our store that is 'where you're from'."