Wednesday, May 31, 2006

I've Been Out of High School for 6 years, FYI

I really thought we'd have grown out of this by now, but aparrently not. It seems to me that everyone, regardless of age (within reason), is always clamoring to secretly figure out how old everyone else is.

I assume this is so they can feel better about being younger (or older, in some cases??) than other people.

On Monday, Joey (my faithful pal) and I went to a barbecue. We knew one couple that was going to be there and other four couples were just acquaintences. Seems everyone was that way, knowing one or two couples and not the others, because there was a lot of this age guessing thing going on.

First I must say that it was odd to be at this barbecue and have a women's table and a men's table. I did not see much of Joey the entire 3 hours we were there, except if I peeked around the corner, but I definitely heard a lot of him. (He was regaling the guys with the "cross-examining the cop" story.)

So it was me and five other ladies/girls/women. (What ARE we supposed to be called?!)

We talked about weddings for awhile, since everyone has either been in or been to about six weddings so far this year, and then someone's traumatic 28th birthday came up and the conversation degenerated.

The moment everyone had been waiting for: "So, how many years until your 10 year reunion?" Asked the particularly perky blonde.

It was disturbing.

Everyone perked up and put in their two cents; "Mine is in 2 years", or "We just had mine", or some such nonesense. I could tell that every single person at that table was quickly doing the math to figure out how old every other person was.

I found out that three of the girls graduated at the same time as me, which I suppose ought to give me a sense of camaraderie with them.

This just goes to show that people always want to know how old everyone else is, even though most of the time they deny it. Someone told me a long time ago (probably 6 years) that when you get to college "nobody cares how old anyone is", but I've always thought that was about as false as false.

People are universally tricksy and seem to want to know if they're superior or inferior to others' ages. For some reason, it seems to matter.

No further questions. :)

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Suspicion: Confirmed

I am too short to be seen over my desk.

I had been thinking that this was the case because when people come in they look right at me and don't seem to see me.

Sigh.

My desk has this handy wall that's 3' 10". I know because I just measured it. Note that I am 5' 1", and sitting down I'm probably about 4' 3". The top of my head is all that shows above the ledge, and that blends right into the navy cabinets behind me.

I found this out when I scared the mail lady.

She usually delivers the mail to my desk, but today was setting it on CW1's desk. I said "Hi, Mail Lady" and she jumped. "Oh, I didn't see you there!" She said.

I wilted.

Mail Lady went on to confirm my suspicions that nobody can really tell I'm at my desk since the ledge effectively covers most of me, except the top of my little brown head.

I suppose now I'll just jump up and scream when people come in -- that way they can't miss me.

My House is Hot Like Fire

87 degrees is powerful hot.

That's how hot it was last night when Joey and I got home from dinner with friends. 87 sweltering degrees and no box fans to put in windows. I cannot tell you how hard it was to fall asleep. We rigged up two small fans and put one (rather precariously) in the window and the other on the dresser and I think we took the temperature down to 83 degrees, which feels so much more temperate.

I have several reasons why it's bad to have it so dreadfully hot inside:
1. The chocolate chips (that have just been brought home from the grocery store) get squishy and hard to measure in less than 5 minutes.
2. It's hard to sleep.
3. The birds get really lethargic.
4. I get really lethargic.
5. In the morning when there is a 20 degree difference between the inside of your house and the outside weather (like there was this morning) it's really hard to dress appropriately. I am freezing because it's not even 87 degrees outside. (It was more like 64 degrees when I left. It's probably a bit higher now...)
6. It makes the air conditioning at work is rather uncomfortable.
7. Joey has to listen to me say, "Man, when are we going to get a box fan?!" a lot while we both try to fall asleep. (This was, of course, before we stuck the little bitty fan in the window. We're pretty lucky it didn't fall off into the laundry basket right below it and suck up our clothes...that happened last year, which is why we kind of hesitated about trying it this year.)
8. It's not even June yet.

Several reasons why it's not so bad:
1. The chicken thaws really, really, really fast.
2. The frozen bread does too.
3. It's cheaper.

Seems to me the cons way out weigh the pros...if only it wasn't so much cheaper to leave out the stupid air conditioner units!!!


I suppose I shouldn't complain, though, because if I lived in the Sahara Desert I bet it would be way, way hotter than 87 degrees in their houses.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

I Am Old

Alex (The Kid) and I went rollerblading. I am so so so so so sore. It was only 4 miles, but it feels like a million zillion and now I think I am near death.

Perhaps I am too dramatic.

The fact that I ate a piece of cake right before we left probably contributed to my near death state. Hopefully I recover soon.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Revenge of the Shave Gel


This is what our bathroom cabinet looked like last night when we opened it. Joey's shave gel must have exploded sometime during the day (how?!) and its ooze filled up the entire bottom shelf. The picture does not convey the true nature of the shave gel ooze.

Do you have any idea how hard an entire cabinetfull of shave gel is to clean up? Especially when the water pressure in your bathroom is next to nothing?!

Fortunately we had a shelf liner down so I grabbed that and took it to the kitchen sink to wash it out while Joey scraped the thick blue goo that was left.

That goo is not easy to remove, either. It's so terribly slimy.

We have no idea what happened; the can didn't really look punctured...and we know it came out of the bottom since the thickest, bluest junk was at the bottom of the shelf.

Grody, grody, grody.

Stuff like this always happens when you're trying to pack to leave town, ya know?

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

In Praise of Ernie (sort of)

I am so tired today, I have to make a big deal out of something in order to keep myself from falling asleep on my keyboard.

I keep breaking things (such as the copier, several times) and dropping things (such as my freshly washed Nalgene...into the trash can full of creepy spaghetti type stuff). I'm surprised I've gotten anything accomplished at all. Surprisingly, I've been quite productive. All things considered, of course.

Last night I bought Ernie a doggy ice cream cone for $1, and a doggy cannoli for $2. The cannoli is awesome looking, it looks yummy and edible. It's got little carob chips and carob swirls on it and is all full of dried whipped cream.

Delectable.

That is, if Ernie can get his little mouth around it--it's kind of plump and his mouth is very small. But I'm sure he'll enjoy licking out the dried whipped cream. He's quite a cute little pup.

Joey is probably bemoaning my affection for Ernie at this very moment. He thinks I'm rather obsessed. Perhaps he's right. But I still think Ernie is my cutest little nephew.

I think my tiredness is causing me to ramble on about boring, senseless things. I should quit.

Monday, May 22, 2006

A Remarkable Discovery

This has been such an eventful day. The goats have been out twice (fortunately some high school boys came over to get the three renegades back in this last time, and then they shooed them all down to the pasture they were supposed to be in) and I have just made the most amazing find.

I have a slight obsession with binder clips. You know, those black things that hold lots of paper at once?

Oh man.

I've always liked them, and a couple of weeks ago I found some really itsy bitsy ones and they fascinated me quite a bit. I usually hog them, too. I hate putting them on papers because I never get them back!

But....

I noticed a few weeks ago that there is a large, large box on top of a cabinet in the back room. It is labeled "binder clips".

I just hauled it down (it was excessively heavy) and opened it up.

It is full of binder clips!!! Thousands upon thousands of them!!!

I have only found one itsy bitsy one, but I'm planning on sorting the entire box so that I can easily restock myself when my favorite sizes run out. This could take awhile, but it's worth it to find all the small clips.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Public Snoring Should Be Banned

Last night, Joey and I went to a choral concert. It was an OK concert (kind of long). After intermission, I began hearing this loudish, obnoxious noise. It could only be one thing:

Snoring.

Some hoser behind us had fallen asleep and was sawing logs to beat the band.

It wasn't so bad in the louder parts of the songs...just when the choir was singing the softer, more emotive pieces. It was quite a distraction, if I do say so myself.

The entire time I was picturing some plump, older farmer with a straw hat and piece of hay in his mouth, slumped down in his seat, piece of hay vibrating every time he snored. I also imagined he had a rather hard-of-hearing wife who had a bright pink floral dress on with big turquoise jewellery. In my mind, I wished she would smack him with her handbag every so often in an effort to get him to stop.

I never got a chance to figure out which person behind me was the offensive snorer, but I sure do like my mental image.

I cannot tell you how much snoring grosses me out. It really bugs me. It especially bugs me at a concert because there's no possibility of kicking/smacking/poking the person who is snoring, because you don't know them.

If you didn't want to go to the concert in the first place and are going to fall asleep, I have two words for you--STAY HOME.

It is my opinion that people who fall asleep and snore loudly during concerts, graduations, and/or church should be fined. I think it should be a steep fine, too. Either that or someone should stand at the door handing out No-Doze.)

Speaking of cows, I had the craziest dream last night.

I dreamt of frosting. Lots of frosting.

I don't really know why, but Joey and I were in China again with our student Lisa. We were at a wedding and had somehow offended the bride and groom in a major, major way.

We were trying to sneak back into the reception because I had noticed that, in addition to cake, they had an entire frosting wall.

It was made of bricks, bricks!, of frosting of all different colors. I really wanted one.

I woke up right before I got a chance to have a frosting brick.

But when Joey came back from the store, he had a surprise for me--a frosted cookie! It had a big, plump flower on it.

I am ashamed to admit that I shrieked, "HONEY!!!! A FROSTED COOKIE!" It wasn't even 8:15 a.m.

Friday, May 19, 2006

My Magic, Drastic Weight Loss

I usually weigh myself in the morning, first thing. We have a nifty scale that has two settings (one for Joey, one for me!) and it records the weight difference from time previous. It's pretty sweet. I like it when it says ↓1.6 which, of course, means I lost 1.6 lbs.

Last night we tested the scale by putting two 10 lb weights on it. The scale read 20.6 lbs, which I figured is close enough for government work.

This morning when I stepped on the scale, glory hallelujah but I weighed an entire 10 lbs less than yesterday!!

I am not sure how this is possible.

I was wearing the same clothes and even had an extra sweatshirt on (since my house is freezing in the morning). If we hadn't just tested the scale last night I'd figure it was busted.

Maybe the gravitational pull of the moon is less today?

I still figure the scale is wrong--I don't feel (or look, for that matter) an ounce skinnier for my 10 lb weight loss. This isn't April Fool's day, is it?

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Bang Snaps

Joey and I had to run to Hy-Vee to get some sugar. (We were out and I need a cup tonight to add to the Amish bread.)

Somewhere between the Pepsi aisle (Joey: "Woah! They have 10 for $10!!!) and the sticker aisle, I lost Joey. (Stickers are on the way to the sugar, dontcha know)

While I was trying to find him, I happened upon a display of 4th of July things.

They had Bang Snaps, 3 for $1.

I couldn't resist.

I looked around real quick to see if Joey was about, he wasn't, and I grabbed a box. I didn't want him to see because I figured I'd just start throwing them at the ground around his feet once we got outside.

I hadn't yet figured out how I was going to:
a.) hide them from him while in the store,
b.) pay for them, or
c.) get them out of the box without his keen eye catching me.

I finally found Joey. Or, rather, he found me. (I was in the sugar aisle.)

Joey: "Hey, what's that in your hand."
Me: "Uh, stickers."
Joey: "No, that other thing. Behind the stickers."
Me: "Um...don't look at that. It's a secret." Stinkin! That wasn't very smooth.
Joey: "I want to see."
Me: "No way, man. You can see once we're outside the store."

Joey kept trying to sneak peeks at the box of Bang Snaps I had hidden under the sticker package. He's really tricksy.

Since I'd forgotten my wallet in the car, I used his while he sulked over by the haircare products. Poor thing. He hates it when I keep "secrets" from him.

I finished checking out.

Joey: "Can I see the receipt???"
Me: "NO."

We headed outside. I was trying to open the package of Bang Snaps without being detected. It wasn't working. Joey kept casting sidelong glances my way trying to figure out what I was wrestling with in the pocket of my sweatshirt.

Once outside, I began pelting the ground around his feet.

Joey: "Oh, you got Bang Snaps."
Me: "What, you weren't even sort of scared by the noise?!"
Joey: "No way, babe."

Alas.

I decided to roll the window down and start throwing them at things outside the car. It was pretty fun, it made louder noises than when I just tried to weak-arm throw them myself.

Joey: "I dare you to throw a Bang Snap and hit that big green van when we drive by."
Me: "Um....OK, I'll do it!"

We passed the big green van. I threw.

Bang! Snap!

Bullseye.

Joey sped up and drove away real quick, just in case the van owners were in the yard and we hadn't noticed them.

After that I tried hitting Stop signs (too high) and throwing one in front of Yoda to see if he'd run into it and cause it to pop.

All that did was send the Bang Snap down into the engine somewhere. Oops.

Once we got home I threw some against a Port-O-John (they make cool echo sounds) and the rest against the wall. Joey threw his at me. They didn't pop. So he threw them against the wall, in which case they did pop.

I suppose he's lucky they didn't pop when he threw them at me.

And now I have to go watch the season finale of CSI.

In a Tizzy

I am positively helter-skelter today.

My attention span is about nil, and that could be due to a few reasons:
~I may still be traumatized from the rather large, gray, wolf-like dog I saw get obliterated on the highway this morning. It was my first time to witness a roadkilling.
~I've been trying to get these dumb percentages to equal all morning long, and they're off by the tiniest margin. I'm about to start throwing cotton balls at my computer screen.
~I may get voted off the island.

All things considered, I am impressed that I've gotten as much done as I have.

I still do wonder if that wolf-like dog thing I saw get smashed this morning was a wolf or a dog...

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Erstwhile

People keep asking me what "erstwhile" means.

I suppose I'll just tell you, even though you could look it up on dictionary.com. This is easier, though, right?

erst·while (ûrsthwl, -wl)
adv.
In the past; at a former time; formerly.

adj.
Former: our erstwhile companions.


I am an "erstwhile telemarketer" because I used to be. (But not any more, praise the Lord.) In the past I was. Formerly.

You know.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Disgusting

I experienced one of the grossest things of my life this morning.

It was random drug test day. That's all well and good, but they used our microwave to microwave the samples!!!

I microwave my lunch in that thing.

Why do they need to get it warm, anyway? Seems they should just be able to drop a few drops of something in the little specimin jar and it would turn colors if there were drugs in the sample.

They should NOT put it in my microwave!

As soon as she left, I got the highest octane antibacterial cleaner I could find. I hosed the inside of that microwave down and then cleaned it out with dish soap and hot water. While zapping urine in my microwave is highly, highly disgusting, I figure it's only slightly less gross to be tasting the vestiges of the bathroom cleaner I used to sanitize my microwave with.

Acronyms Don't Mean Anything Anymore.

So aparrently it was a really big deal that I get an RSS feed on my blog. The Kid, The Brother and Joey harangued me considerably about it. The only problem is, I can't even figure out how to get links to appear in the "my links" part of my blog much less do something with an RSS feed.

Perhaps this wouldn't have been so hard if I could just remember that it's called an RSS feed. I was all geared up to go change my settings and thought I had it all figured out until I said, "I'm gonna go change my blog so that it's got an RSV feed".

Joey just laughed at me.

"Did you just say RSV?!" Joey squeaked out.

"Humph," I said, realizing that I must have gotten my acronym wrong.

The next day, I thought I'd done it. On my blog it said something about an RSF (or so I thought) and that made perfect sense to me. "Remote Site Feed" must be what it stands for, so that's got to be the right thing. The Kid will be so proud of me.

I emailed Joey and told him I thought I'd enabled my RSF feed. Again, I got back ":) Yeah, I'll check it out. and it's RSS :)"

Who the heck invented RSS?! It's so stinkin' annoying and hard to remember.

A day or two ago Joey and I were talking about this darn feed and I said, "What does that stupid acronym stand for, anyway? I could remember it a lot easier if I knew what it stood for."

"Well, nobody that I know of knows what it means. It must just be one of those things."

So I figure it stands for Really Super Sweet. (Makes sense to me, anyway.)

Monday, May 15, 2006

In Which Jenna Requests Comments

So I can't figure out how this works.

Alex, aka The Kid, has had a blog for a whopping three days. He has three comments. Now, granted, two of them are from me, but the third is from ANDREW.

Joey says Alex is kicking my blog-comment butt.

I figure no one really reads this blog anyway, but if you do leave me a comment and make me feel better.

My Bangs, or Lack Thereof

Yesterday after we got home from Omaha, I had a "brilliant idea". My bangs were really bugging me because they're kind of long, and I thought I'd just cut 'em up real short.

So I did.

Now I could have stopped by just nicking the ends so that they were not in my eyes anymore, but I didn't.

I could have stopped after I took them up 1/4 inch, but I didn't.

I could have even stopped after I took 1/2 inch off, and yet I didn't.

I think they're something like 3/4 inch shorter than they were yesterday at this time. I was quite traumatized yesterday evening. I kept thinking, "I look like Amélie!!" (Well, they're not quite that short.)

Fortunately, my bangs were pretty long to start out with. Stretched out, they came to the end of my nose. Now when I flatten them, they hit the top of my eyebrows. I really hacked 'em off good!

This morning when I was getting ready I wasn't quite as heartbroken as I was yesterday; now I even sort of like my little fringies masquerading as bangs!

Sort of. :)

Friday, May 12, 2006

H.A.T.E. Strikes Again

This Sunday is Joey's and my first anniversary. We're going to Omaha to hit the zoo, go to the symphony, and otherwise just hang out. I'm quite excited.

The only problem is that I've been grounded from mentioning Ernie, Coolguy's doggy! I can't talk about him from Friday night (tonight) until Sunday night.

I suppose this is all my fault.

Joey likes Ernie OK, as long as I'm not going on and on and on about his cuteness, guilelessness, and overall adorability. I generally talk about him two to three times a day, which annoys Joey to no end (ask him, he'll tell you!) and sometimes I even make up songs about Ernie.

Last night (or maybe it was two days ago?), I think I overdid it.

Poor Joey had been working overtime to try to get this video done for Mom Woestman and he arrived home kinda late. I think it was about 11:00. Normally I'm asleep by then, but I can't fall asleep anymore if I'm all alone. That and I was hyper about something. (Maybe that scrumptious coffee you made me
wasn't as decaf as we thought, Jamie?) :)

I began singing odes to Ernie. (serious)

I waxed eloquently about how cute his little face was.

I praised his little white fur.

Joey said, "OK, that's it. You can't talk about Ernie the entire weekend. I am not going out of town for my first anniversary and hearing about a puppy dog the entire time."

He has a point.



I said I wouldn't mention Ernie until Sunday. Let's hope I can keep my word. Just so everyone can appreciate Ernie's ultimate cuteness, I have included a picture.



And so that everyone can get a close-up of the guy, here's my favorite one. LOOK AT HIS FACE!!!



I suppose none of you will fault Joey for starting the H.A.T.E. club. (Husbands Against The Ernie) Fortunately, the only members are Dad, Stephen and Joey. Nobody else is allowed.

I love Ernie. Now I'm done. Until Sunday.
YAY! This is my 100th post!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Neutrality

In an effort to avoid having join the war of Office Politics, I have decided to declare myself neutral. I printed off a Swiss Flag, colored it (and used most of my red crayon) and posted it at my desk.

I am now neutral.

I haven't set up my countries borders yet. I have a feeling that all the CWs might wonder what had happened to me if I started taping Lines of Demarcation all over the floor with masking tape.

Just wait--in the next battle I can whip out my flag and say, "Hey, don't ask me. I can't have an opinion; I'm neutral!"

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Update:

I am not arrested and/or fined yet. More later.

No one has outbid me in the Tupperware auction yet, but they have 1 hour and 43 minutes to do so.

My CWs 1,2 and 3 are off "svelting", so I have the entire office to myself. I do not know what "svelting" is, but I think it has something to do with Weight Watchers.

The Five Woes

Many bad things have happened to me today.

1. I am wearing a long, long white skirt and I keep getting it stuck in the wheel on my chair. This causes the skirt to get very dusty and I'm afraid it will tear.

2. The Kid just went through Jiffy Lube and said he didn't lock his keys in his car. This has brought back many unpleasant memories from the last time I got my oil changed at Walmart. I locked my keys in my car during their busiest time of day, and my car was 2nd in line to go in. And blocking traffic.

3. I bid on 10 Tupperware orange peelers on Ebay and I found a good deal. I put my maximum bid up to $3.50 and then, five minutes later, found a better deal with better available colors. Now I am blue. I'm hoping somebody outbids me so I can get the better deal and better colors.

4. Since it's a slow day at work, I decided to experiment with PowerPoint, since I've only used it one other time and that was last week. I made a slide show for the bus driver rules, since I'm retyping their handbook today. (The only reason I'm doing that is because I haven't got much else better to do yet.) Joey wanted to see it, so I emailed it to him. Now he says it's terrible and that I broke all the rules of Bad PowerPoint Presentations and that it's abysmal. He's sending it back later, edits included.

5. This one is The Doosey. Two months ago when we traded in my car, we realized we couldn't find the title. I figured that it got lost in the mail and was with my Social Security card, which also never arrived. So I hoofed it down to the Polk County building and got a new title made. A week later, we traded in the Stinky Saturn. As we were leaving, I remembered that I'd forgotten to grab the title. I ran upstairs and got it, and while I was doing that, I found the original title. I figured I'd just throw away the duplicate title, forgetting that I'd said I would mail it back to the Polk County people if I ever found the original. We traded off Stinky Saturn, never to be heard from again.

Today.

Joey sends me a message, " Hey, I just got a call from Toyota of Des Moines regarding the Saturn. They wanted to know why we got a duplicate title issued. What did we do with that second title? Do you remember?"

My poor little heart almost stopped. I heard my mother's voice in the background, Your sins will find you out, Jenna!

I figure I've really done it now. I'll probably get fined and/or arrested because I probably signed some paperwork down at the Polk County building saying it was OK for them to do that to me if I didn't mail the duplicate title back.

If only I'd done what I was supposed to with that stupid title instead of shredding it. I thought it would be OK!!!

I promise I'll let you know if I get fined and/or arrested. And if I get outbid on the Tupperware. What a morning, it's only 11:30!



Monday, May 08, 2006

Is bluffing really lying?

I had a dream. It was weird. I suppose, since I haven't got anything better to do right now, I'll relay it here.

It was an early Saturday morning. Joey and I were at my parents' house and were up with the sun. Dad came into the kitchen and said, "Hey, Jenna and Joey, I want you guys to go over to one of the houses in the new development and check it out. I know people live there right now, but since it's real early I bet they won't be home yet." (Yeah, the logic kind of doesn't make sense to me either, but remember...I was asleep when this all happened.)

So, Joey and I grabbed the doggies Ernie and Gus (who was visiting) and headed out.

We approached the large red-bricked (on two sides, the other two sides are white vinyl siding) home on the corner of the two streets in the new development. We always have liked this house but felt rather sorry for it because of the white vinyl siding.

Joey and I snuck in.

We had to sneak in, of course, because people lived there.

We headed upstairs with the dogs. We were looking in all the rooms (the beds were messy and unmade, but nobody was in them). Ernie kept going to the bathroom on all the lamps. I kept telling him not to, but he kept doing it. I cleaned up after him for awhile, but then I finally gave up.

Joey decided he was bored, so he took Gus and went outside.

Lucky him. As soon as he left, I heard a sound from downstairs. I froze. Somebody's in the house! I thought. I snatched up Ernie, who had taken a break from checking out the lamps and darted for the stairs.

Around the corner came some guy I'd never seen before. And he had just gotten out of the shower, so he was only wearing a towel.

I screamed.

He screamed.

Ernie just kinda sat there.

"What are you doing in my house?!" The guy asked.

"Uh, uh, uh, my dad sent me here to....look for something!" I bluffed.

"OH! You must be----" He said somebody's name I'd never head of.

"Uh..." I said.

He cut me off with, "My dad left that for you in the study. It's right around the corner. I hope you can find it, it should be sitting right on the desk."

I was rather shocked. Sweet! He's not going to have me arrested for tresspassing! Well, wait until he goes upstairs and looks at his lamps...

"Oh, OK, thanks." I said, and ran down the rest of the stairs, pretended to go look in the office and then zipped out the front door.

Joey and I took off running and ran the entire rest of the way home. As we ran I thought, Man, that was scary. But at least it'll make good blog material.

Forunately, I woke up right away and realized that it was all a dream. But my heart was still pounding and I was still super embarassed until I fell asleep again.

And that's the end of my dream. Weird, eh? I love how I can save face, even when I'm sleeping. It's a good skill.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

The Grand Total

It's a slow day. So I decided to count all the paper we have stashed away in our office. We go through a lot (2,000,000 sheets this last year) so I figured we'd have a ton of it. I was right.

White--371,000
Salmon--3,500
Cardstock--1,500
Buff--4,000
Blue--6,500
Rocket Red--1,500
Orchid--5,500
Canary--4,000
Goldenrod--5,000
Green--14,000
Cream--8,500
Tan--7,500
Gray--8,000
Pink--8,000
Cherry--12,500


This comes to a grand total of 461,500 pieces of paper. Too bad it's not a few thousand more, then we'd have half a million!

As you can see, it's a slow day.

Why Walmart is The Great Satan

Yesterday, being Wednesday, Joey and I went to church. It was our first night down in Youth Group, which was quite fun. We had decided to ride our bikes to Walmart after church, so we boogied out of there pretty quick so we could be home before 10:00. I figure it's about a 7 mile round trip to Wally World and back.

I have no idea why we decided to go to Walmart instead of Target. We both dislike Walmart, but after yesterday...the dislike is much, much worse.

Here are some reasons why I hate Walmart:

1. They have "People Greeters" at the front door who give you uncomfortable looks when you walk in. I used to wonder if they thought, when they saw me, "Holy cow, how many times can a girl go to Walmart in a week?" But that was before I quit going.

2. Walmart carts are really junky. They're usually swervers and usually have a busted wheel.

3. It's hard to find someone, anyone, who knows what you're looking for, and harder still to get them to come help you. A particular instance comes to mind: Sister and I were at Walmart trying to buy sparklign grape juice once. Naturally, they were out. So we called some guy over and he said, "Um, I'll go get someone." He ran over to the little phone hooked to a post and paged someone to the juice aisle over the intercom. Aparrently his scanner said there were 4 bottles of this stuff in the store somewhere, and this other person was supposed to find them for us.

We waited. And waited.

No one came.

Sister finally decided to go to the film area to grab something. I said I'd wait for the juice guy.

I waited.

I got tired of waiting, so I snuck over to the wall phone the guy had just paged the juice person on, and pushed "intercom". I paged him again. It was really weird hearing my own voice go out on the loudspeaker over the entire Walmart store, but it was satisfying at the same time.

Still no one came.

We finally gave up and went to Target, where they had exactly what we wanted. Target always comes through.

4. Walmart keeps their groceries on the opposite side of the store from the toiletries and hygine items. SO ANNOYING! Target, on the other hand, has all that stuff together. You can run in, run out and never have left the green side of the store. It's beautiful.

5. There are only about 5 people running checkout lines at any given time at Walmart. This forces people to use the "Self Check" lines. Oh. My. Word. This brings me to last evening. Joey and I got our groceries (mind you, we rode our bikes over and it was 9:20 pm) and headed to check out. Nobody was in line for the Self Check line, so we started scanning away.

We get entirely done, and go to weigh the 6 red potatoes that we'd picked up for dinner on Sunday, since we're having company.

The scale is broken.

We hit the "help" button and wait for the girl to come over and fix it.

"Oh, the scale's broken on this one," she says. The proceeds to try to weigh the potatoes three more times. "I'm going to have to get someone to help you with this."

That's fine, we wait. Joey's wondering why the lane is open if the scale is broken. I don't have an answer for him.

Some lady comes over, not the manager who was called, and decides that she'll be the one to help us.

She weighs the potatoes. "Oh, this scale is broken." I consider beating my head against the conveyer belt. She weighs the potatoes three or four more times. Nothin'.

The manager comes over, sees that this lady is "helping" us and leaves.

She weighs the potatoes again. And again.

Finally, she gives up and starts typing things into a screen. The potatoes ring up for $14.44. "Woah!" Joey says.

The lady is embarassed and tries to take the charge off. People behind us are mumbling and grousing. I consider telling them to go get another line, this scale is broken anyway. I don't do it.

A few more minutes pass. The lady finagles the machine to ring the potatoes up for $0.05. I suppose I should be happy that I just paid five cents for potatoes, but my annoyance level is kind of high. I keep my mouth shut and we leave the store.

Twenty minutes later.

Self check lanes are a waste of your time. Especially at Walmart.

6. Last, but not least, is those stupid metal detectors. Every time I walk through one, I set it off. Doesn't matter if I am carrying anything, if I have my purse, or if I stole something. (Which I don't do.) I set the darn thing off.

As we're walking out, commenting on how we'll probably never come to Walmart again unless someone's got a gun to our heads, I set the alarm off.

The "People Greeter" we saw earlier makes a beeline for Joey, who begins digging through the bag trying to find the receipt.

He can't find it.

I consider just running out the door, but I realize that won't help Joey be able to leave any faster, and besides, he has the keys to unlock the bikes. So I stand there. Joey digs and digs....

Finally, he finds the receipt. It was stuck under something.

The People Greeter allows us to go on our way.

All this is why we're never, ever going back to Walmart unless we have no other options available. Sorry, Dad.