Oh! Just in case you had any doubts

Never, Ever, EVER leave anything on the counter at a pawn shop. This means cell phones and wallets.... Basically anything you own that you want to continue to own. It's a pretty simple idea. For god's sake what are you thinking? Otherwise the police have to get involved and it's a big mess. Like once a day someone is missing something and we have to go watch the video. Granted, it always happens that nobody stole anything, and, in fact they never brought whatever it was in, but today was the day. Someone performed a magic trick and made a wallet disappear.

Here is one more tip. Never, Ever, EVER steal anything from a pawn shop where you are a regular. We have video, we enter your i.d. into our computers every time you come in (sometimes more than once a week), some of us even know your name, now the cops know your address. For god's sake what are you thinking?

Stressed out checklist

• Headaches- You betcha!
• Sore back- Done!
• Nightmares? - On board!
• Sore Throat- Shit, why not!?!
• Twitching of all kinds- You know it!

AND INTRODUCING a new player to the game: Rash on my sides! I can't wait until I get older and I get shingles. Yippee!

In other news:

• Last week, I got to go to training for a week and sit down, so today after work my feet didn't hurt. I just needed an extended break from standing so my feet could recover.
• Grubb seems to be showing some signs of feeling better. He has been awake and alert longer today than he has been in the last month, I think. He gets in and out of the bed like he owns the place.
• Grubb loves Kraft Singles. They are his fav. Each day he takes 4 fish oil pills. Omega-3's are supposed to naturally suppress inflammation, and half a anti-inflammatory. These anti-inflammatory pills are $40 for 10 pills. I'm gonna have to sell a kidney.
• I can't wait for tomorrow night. I am excited about grilling steaks at the neighbors house.
• A new word I heard from a woman who make way more money than me- theive, it was used as a verb, as in "Don't thieve".
• Today I used the word "precarious" with a regular and he said, "Excellently placed word." I said, "Good, I didn't get that degree in English for nothin'." He thought it was pretty funny.
• Good night.

Grubb songs

Me and Grubb like to sing "You Can Call Me Al". It goes, "You can be my body guard I will be your long lost pal. I can call you Grubby and you can call me mom."

Also Graceland is our song. I like to sing, "My traveling companion is nine years old a child of my first marriage" to Grubb.

Just in case you didn't know some of Grubb's favorite things are pickles and tomatoes.

He only has arthritis in his knees, but it is very bad. He is in a lot of pain still. It's hard to take.

Sometimes crying helps

I wish it would just fix my problems too. If it did I would cry until next week. I may do that just in case.

I need to cut the tree outside the window. When the wind blows it makes a nasty noise and when Grubb and I are up at 4 in the morning it irritates us.

Miles apart

Yesterday, Grubb was in a lot of pain. He peed the bed and shit himself yesterday. After three aspirin last night and three this morning, Grubb is a brand new dog. Today, was the first day I have been home and he has been alert in at least a month. Sometimes he is sitting up in bed. Today he was in the living room just standing around. More of his food was eaten. It was great. Yesterday, I had a mild breakdown and cried and cried and cried. Now, I know at least the pain is manageable with aspirin right now. The vet told me that arthritis in a dog's spine can make them incontinent, and basically there is nothing you can do. Some dogs benefit from anti-inflammatory medicine, but not all. Grubb goes for x rays tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be able to fill a prescription so that incase aspirin isn't helping I will just be able to give him a different pain killer.

Fun on a Friday night

I'm at the laundromat. It's like a ghost town in this place. I love it. I miss that about having a job where I worked until midnight. Everything you do, you do alone. Even when you do things before work, because nothing is busy at 10 in the morning on a weekday. (Except maybe the grocery store in a neighborhood where a bunch of old people live.

I feel the need for bullets. The non-violent kind. The literary kind.

• My area manager is a lez. I thought the interview went overly well, it made me wonder. Usually, me and women don't just jive automatically. I was feeling a little pinging on my radar yesterday when I kept looking at her nails, then down at mine and they looked like they were kept the same exact way.
• My mom has a knack for dating X-treme assholes. She should join the x-games, or should I say ex-games. Ha! Anyways, She was telling me that they were breaking up and having a fight and he threatened to come to my house. I don't know why. He probably thought that my mom keeps secrets from me or something and he was going to tell me. Not the case, but I guess he thought he has something over her. So she tells him, "Would you like me to give you her address?" Clearly he wasn't prepared for her calling his bluff. So I tell her, "I don't know what he is going to do, but come on motherfucker." She says, "I know, you can handle yourself." Then she says, and this is a direct quote, "I wanted to tell him 'She wouldn't shit in your mouth if your guts were on fire.'" I fell out laughing. Truer words were never spoken.
• My favorite thing about my job is when people play instruments in the store.
• My second favorite thing about my job is that, surprisingly, no one is ever angry. They sure don't take it out on me if they are, because they know good and well I have what they need.
• The worst thing about my job is that I am on my feet 8 hours a day. My feet hurt so bad at the end of the night it isn't even funny. It feels like my heels are bruised.
• The best thing about my roommate is that I never see him.
• The worst thing about my roommate is that the only way I know he has stopped by the house is by his beard hairs in the sink. I have one pet peeve. Well, two, the other has to do with ice trays.
• I am thinking about doing volunteer work tutoring in a correctional facility. The thought really excites me, but I wonder how I would get anything done, like sleeping and eating.
• There are not enough hours in the day.

"U.S. History in Four Words"

At the store there is a huge chain. Over 200 grams of gold, and incase you don't know, that is almost half a pound of gold. We call it the Mr. T chain. Well, the sad news is that we sent it off to get melted down yesterday. BUT, before we did, I took a picture in it. Just as a farewell, you know.

I needed a farewell, because I have a relationship with this chain. Just the other day I put it on before we opened and I said I wanted my emergency button to hang from it. (Did I mention we have to wear emergency buttons all the time while we are in the store.) So my store manager says, "Some big black guy would come in here and snatch you up and leave, and he would get a chain and a white girl."

MP says that is U.S. history in four words- White Women and Gold.

P.S. I should have titled this blog "Gangster Bitch".... Ah, this tickles me.

Sometimes ...

I have some outbursts. Sometimes, I have bad days. I get angry. As a consequence, I get down on myself and think that I had been controlling my anger so well, but I fucked it up.

Then, I think of my spiritual and behavioral role model, The Dude, and I realize that he had some bad days too. We can't be Dude-like all the time. We are only human after all. I feel pretty good after that.

The Pawn Shop

One very important thing I have learned since working at the pawn shop:

Write down the serial numbers to all your expensive shit! That is the only way you will ever be able to reclaim your stuff. The police have access to all pawn shops data base (in texas, at least) but if you don't have your serial number you can't do anything.

We have discussed ...

how I have dreams about looking in the mirror, right? Last night I was looking at all my grey hair. There were tons. I just kept looking thinking, I swear those weren't there yesterday. This morning when I was running errands before work I thought about this dream, but thought it was real for a second. I thought, Oh, I should have checked on my hair again. For what I don't know. For the record, I had seen myself in the mirror before I left. It looked nothing like my dream. Why did I think that?

Here's a bit of advice

The curb of someone else's house at 3 in the morning isn't the single's club. Even if the guy you called to fix your tire is really cute. I can hear every word you're saying and your shrill fucking laugh is getting on my nerves.

After an hour I went out side. I said, "Is there a problem here?" She said, "There was. I had a flat tire." It was kind of winey. It set me over the edge. So I say, "I can hear every word you say and it's 4 in the morning on a fucking Sunday. Move it along. Cause I'm about to call the police." I was pissed. I could hear the anger in my own voice. Then I slammed the door. She said she was sorry before I could manage to get in the house. Thank god she didn't say anything else. I was about two words from saying "I'm gonna call the fuckin' police to drag you away after I get done kicking your ass." I swear her voice set my nerves on edge from the very second she woke me up. I hate more than anything to be woken up in the middle of the night it pisses me off. I was able to fall asleep again, but I was awaken several times. I had had enough. I would have gladly ripped that bitches tongue out.

Now, I'm awake and pissed and can't go back to sleep anyway.

Productive

For such a crappy start I have had a really good day. I got a ton of stuff done. This is exactly what I needed, especially since next week I don't have a day off until the weekend.

Plus, I'm pretty sure living in a house that isn't cluttered improves my disposition.

(peacock stationary set, calendar from korea, and coaster with drink recipe)

Now, not every flat surface in my house looks like a clutter monster fucked it.

This is my wall. (top map of hong kong subway, bottom map of seoul subway, 4 pictures I took, bulldogs, and a diva)

Still have a few things left to do, but it feels good.

You want to hear a really bad way to start your day?

My roommate came home. I only heard walking and since I was asleep and it woke me up in my sleep induced confusion I thought, "It's just MP walking around the apartment." Then quickly realized WHAT! and my head jerked up. Then just as quickly realized that I'm not even in an apartment, and MP is in Korea. There are so many weird things about that moment when I didn't know where I was. Had a small flash back to Korea I guess. Maybe I was dreaming about him. Here comes the point, Sleep. Over.

Is you feeling that?

First off, our company has their own radio station. I have heard this song from when I was in high school that goes, "From the front to back, where my boys at, Is you feeling that?" Is you feeling that? I have heard that phrase probably twenty time in the past three days. Just say that out loud to yourself. It sounds worse out loud, if you can imagine. The phrase creates turmoil in bowels.

Another gem.... It seems to me that people who patronize pawn shops must fart cluster rings. (Just incase you're in a higher income bracket.) We have so many damn cluster rings. They are so ugly. Every time I think cluster I immediately think fuck. You say cluster. I say fuck. Cluster. Fuck.

Get this

On my way to work I was pulled over (in the parking lot next door) because my inspection sticker is expired. I was totally fine for like 5 minutes. The cop is writing up the ticket. Then I start to cry. Just a little, I was holding it back pretty well. He asked if this was my first ticket and then the flood gates opened. I told him I was just having a shit week. Now the tears are just pouring down my face and I'm laughing to myself a little about how when you have a shitty day it just gets worse and worse. He honestly looked sort of shocked and freaked out and told me he didn't know what had me all bent out of shape but that he wasn't going to give me the ticket. I cried for a few more minutes and sat in the parking lot before pulling into work. I was 10 minutes late. Thankfully nobody said anything to me or my crying streak would have just kept going. I actually had wet spots on my shirt when I walked into work. Tear stains.

Yikes. I'm a wreck. I need to be totaled and scrapped for parts.

Whoops

Sorry for the outburst. Life will be better today.

I have totally forgotten the fact that on my day off I did nothing I intended to do. Not to mention it was a worse day than when I'm at work.

Dear Walmart,

I will never spend a penny in your store. If I ever step foot in one of those shit holes again I will have to be dragged in kicking and screaming. If it was the last fucking place on earth I wouldn't even go behind the building to take a shit. Furthermore, if the poorly constructed, sweatshop shit you sell were free I wouldn't even take it.

Holy Shit! My day went south in a hurry.

P.S. Now I'm drinking wine straight from the box and it's 11:30.

Just because you don't see it everyday doesn't mean it isn't happening.

A Tale of Two Pawn Shops

Yesterday was story time in the pawn shop. The stories were about porn. On the floor behind the counter was a dvd of girls gone wild. The story behind that was one of our regular customers bought a tv/dvd or something and she got home with it and porn was in there. Then out came the stories... Testing a man's dvd player and man on man porn starts playing. Getting a tv for a girl on her first day and bondage porn was in the dvd player already.

Then the manager was telling me that somebody tried to pawn a gold painted dildo. He says it's true. He also said it was used. How he knew I didn't ask. I have a hard time believing it. Sometimes his punch lines are a little too perfect.

On the other hand, pun intended, a manager working at one of our other stores took some one's prosthetic arm as collateral for a loan.

The hits just keep coming.

A little old black woman came in because she had to get a loan on her new generic brand garden shears and a desk fan. All she needed was 10 dollars. It broke my heart. Sometimes the world is an awful place and I just can't see past it. She was incredibly sweet.

And one more thing

As if I didn't live in the twilight zone most of the time as it is. Who goes to a gay bar and gets hit on by straight men? Is no place sacred? For god sakes. It would have been fine if it was only one guy that possibly was in the wrong place. But TWO in one night. Really?

Not only that a few weeks ago when I was in a lesbian club a straight guy hit on me. What was he doing in there? The breeders start coming out of the woodwork whenever I'm around.

Life is too weird. Too fucking weird.

Oh! No girl! You di-unt!

Two black women came into the store today and their nails were disgustingly long. I'm talking tickle your gag reflex long. At least six inches or more. They were her real nails. From across the room I couldn't tell, but close up they were kinda bumpy and just disgusting and painted some god awful ridiculous orange and gold. The other ladies were red. Outrageous. They curved to the side. Oh gross. I can hardly stand thinking about it.

A man told me that he always wanted a girlfriend with a lot of tattoos. Ok. Did he want an award? I just l-o-v-e the fact that I'm somebody's fetish or notch on their belt. Please, tell me more. You would never go up to a fat woman and say that you really want to have sex with a huge fat person. Or to a woman with giant feet and say hey lady your feet are huge that has always interested me. Why would you try to pick someone up like that? People. Please, let's think before we speak.

The really awesome part is is that I'll have to be back in less that 12 hours. Fun!

I fffound this looking at porn

Marc Jacobs in bed with a bull terrier. Yes, please. I'll take 3. The only thing missing is an awesome pair of shoes. That is what I call porn.

"What am I supposed to do? Sit alone waiting for you?"

Oh, Stevie Wonder. I don't want to be alone. I don't want to date people. Where does that leave me? Limbo. It's gross. This isn't the first time I have been in this situation. The situation being, the one person I want to be around is in a different country. Maybe there is something wrong with me. Like I seek out relationships where that could be a possibility. Tell me who of you has been in this situation. This is TWICE for me. Can it really be coincidence?

Well, I'm being a little dramatic. I really like being alone. Just not 7000 miles alone.

More about the pawn shop

My feet hurt. I wish a boy was around to massage them. Damn they hurt.

I have a black spot on my hand and it won't come off. Not sure what it is either. That can't be good. I'm totally compulsive about my hands feeling dirty. Which is bad news in a pawn shop. My hands are instantly dirty once I wash them. Between people's dirty collateral and money, ugh, just thinking about it makes me want to gag. I'm an obsessive washer. I wash my hands before I come home from work. If I have somehow forgotten I wash them as soon as I get in the door.

Today a woman asked to see the channel. She literally said, "I want to see these channel". (As far as I know she was white, if she was hispanic she had no accent of any kind.) I didn't know what she was talking about until she pointed at the case with the sunglasses in it. She meant Chanel. Then said, "Are these real Channel?" Like what you change on your television. What could I have done? I said, "I don't know."

Tired and tired

I ate desert first tonight. Which is better than what I had two nights ago- just desert. That means key lime pie and a beer. Tonight I ate key lime pie and wine. Then I went home and ate left over Thunderclouds.

I'm just not very good at feeding myself. It's a mixed blessing. Have you seen how bangin' my body is? Kidding. Kind of. I've dealt with it. I'm never going to be able to want to feed myself three times a day, well, anything that takes effort anyways.

If it's edible I put it in my mouth and don't complain. One more piece of evidence suggesting that I should have been a man. If there is a god, turns out he does make mistakes.

Last night

When I was sleeping terribly... I had a dream that I was testing my thoughts with a diamond tester.

I need a note pad for work

Yesterday I saw a man who had been in the sun too long. His face was permanently discolored at least three different shades ranging from red to white to tan. The discoloration plus his features made him look curiously like a dog. He was pawning the stroller thing on the back of a bicycle that holds your kids or dogs. Weird.

If a man is under 30

I kinda blow their hair back. For some reason I think 30 is enough years to have met someone at least similar to me. The problem is my crassness and willingness to talk about anything with less than mild enthusiasm and no shame whatsoever is getting worse as I get older. So 30 may not be good enough pretty soon. I just don't give a shit. When someone asks a question I answer honestly. It surprises people who don't know me. If there was a job title that included surprising normal people in their world I would be CEO.

I hate cramps. The best is when it wakes me up in the morning. You think your alarm clock sucks. Nothing like internal hemorrhage to start your day.

Dear Life,

Could we all just get it together and be fun and happy all the time. If all the time could feel like I feel when I'm with my friends and kinda blitzed that would be great. I'm not all that interested in the times that are downers. I would also like to have that fuzzy feeling I get when MP tells me that my pessimism is cute... all the time.

Either way, you have been great so far. Let's keep it up! See you tomorrow.

Team Work!

Love,

Lauren