ocularnervosa

 I forgot to post this yesterday but when I was chatting with the Late Guy on Friday he told me about a bear situation. It seems that a bear broke into someone's house and was eating their food. The people called the Game And Fish but by the time the ranger got there the bear had taken off. They baited a trap in the area and caught it, they hauled it to a place about 40 miles away. Well this week it showed up again and broke into someone's garage and ate the contents of their fridge, and it turned out to be the Random Woman's garage. The bear was easy to catch because that is where she stores her edibles. The bear OD'd so they had to "put it down". The Random Woman is going to be on edge for a while since her "prescription" went into the bear.  The weather report said it was going to be clear so I got out the Bad Hawg and fired it up, it's an electric trike for those who haven't read my past posts. As the day went along the horizon got really...

 As I was heading to work the rain was coming, so I was rushing. First I had to wait for an RV that was sloooooly turning a corner. Then a guy was coming the other way with his turn signal on, but he wasn't in the turn lane. I sat there and waited until he actually turned, I flipped him off of course. And then it rained. At least I only had to run from my car to the door but none the less, if you're turning use the turn lane.  Bigfoot miscounted his drawer, again. He adds up the loose coins but doesn't include the rolled ones. Good thing I'm not a thief.  The Manager had taken the anti slip rug from under the soda machine and put it outside. Did I mention it was raining? The thing was soaked so I had to leave it outside for half the day. A guy was parked at the pump, not a customer, just sitting out there playing on his phone. I was going to go out and tell him to leave but I had too many customers in the building. When the place finally cleared out he was gone. Here...

 Remember when I said there was a strange tuna smell in the building and I couldn't find the source? It turns out the Boss put up a bag full of fly bait and that's where it was coming from. It got so strong that something had to be done, even the customers were complaining. So the bag is gone and the stink is gone. Those things are meant to be hung up inside barns or garages, not businesses.  The only time I like being in a soap opera is when I'm just in the background. Today is one of those days. When I walked in the Manager was on the phone with the Boss because nobody could get hold of the Late Guy. After she hung up I got the full story, she dropped a glass bottle in the walk in cooler and was trying to clean up when she heard someone shouting her name. When she went out Frankie the Cop was there, and he had questions. It seems that when the Boss was checking out the security cameras he spotted an RV parked behind the Haunted Station, and they were plugged into the buil...

 I woke to the sound of my phone ringing, since the Graveyard Shift Guy was loudly coughing last night I didn't want to answer it, could be the boss asking me to cover the graveyard shift tonight. It turned out to be my niece, her and the family will be in town next month and wanted to make sure they could stay here. The only problem will be the fridge, I now have a small one and there isn't room in it for stuff for 9 people. When I got to work the Manager was in a bad mood. A little of her normal Monday bad mood and a post vacation bad mood. I did my best to not say anything. For some reason she felt it necessary to clean the restroom despite both me and Mrs. Late Guy being there and it was slow. Oh well, I'm not going to complain, and I wasn't going to say anything to her either. I got the Manager's drawer and she was $10 short. She miscounted her five dollar bills. Again, not going to say a word. I just opened the door for $10 less than normal. The Handyman was a...

I started the day in the usual way, I wanted to do my opening paperwork but some guy wanted a pack of smokes but he didn't know which one, he finally went with the cheapest brand. Then he had to get his card to work on his phone. Meanwhile a line was forming behind him. Seriously people, you can turn on your card before you get to the counter. I counted in Bigfoot's drawer and he was $7 off. A crowd of people were coming in so I opened it at the proper amount and figured I could recount it after the shift change rush ended. Except everyone decided to pay cash and altered the amount in the drawer. I could try to do the math but when I finally took a second look I discovered he had forgotten to add in the rolled coins, dimes and nickels, which came to a total of...$7. Ha, I was right and he was wrong, and I'll never tell him. A storm was blowing in, literally. I was trying to keep an eye on the trash cans to make sure they or their lids didn't blow away, while waiting on ...

 It's Saturday which means I'm back to my normal schedule. After 24 hours of recovery I'm ready to face the day, but first I'm going to lay in bed for a little while longer and play Angry Birds. That's when my doorbell rang. I live in a small town so this is a pretty strange event, everyone comes to the back door. There have been wildfires in the area and I was hoping it wasn't the fire department telling me I had to clear out because one was burning in my direction. Instead it was the Late Guy, what could this be about? The Boss sent the Late Guy over to my house to pay me a bonus for working the extra shifts. $300 bucks!!!!!! I'm going out to breakfast! Oh wait, since I've been laying around instead of getting up and doing stuff I'm behind on the day and don't have the time. Perhaps I'll take myself out to eat on my day off. When the Boss asks I'm going to tell him the Late Guy gave me the full $100, and then laugh. There was a big hail...

 I had a dream that I was taking a bath, but was fully clothed, and the door to the restroom was open, and my family (parents and siblings) were all home. So I got out of the tub to close the door and then looked in the mirror, someone else was looking back at me. And the alarm went off. When I got to work I had to close out the day and wait for the report to run, and just as the printer was making the download sound a power spike hit. The computer started making all kinds of interesting sounds while various warnings blinked. Thankfully the register worked but the report didn't print. The Crazy Lady suggested closing the day again but I told her yesterday had already closed and all it would print was the one customer I had waited on this morning. I don't know the system so I didn't know how to get it to reprint. Oh well, Skippy will have to take care of it later. Later when he showed up he couldn't get it to print either and had to take a screen shot. On Friday when Mrs...

 Hell Week Redux Day 5, and make it a double. Whatever was burning last night must have been stomped down fast because the air is clear this morning, at 5 AM.  Later I found out that it had been a shift in the wind and the fire was still burning strong on the Colorado side of the mountain. If it shifted to the west it would shut down the interstate and that would cause traffic chaos The first time I got stuck going back to the Truck Stop the Crazy Lady would mumbly, very loudly, under her breath that I was taking too long to finish my paperwork and was just "milking the clock". My attitude was "bite me, I'll take as long as necessary". Today she spent a half hour cleaning the restrooms, something she could have done for the eight hours she was on her normal shift. No wonder she's on the short list to get fired. They had said they weren't going to put in an order this week so I wasn't going to have to deal with the supply truck, however the last order...

 Hell Week Redux Day 4 I was almost late to work. I thought of something and had to post it on Threads, looked up and was supposed to be on my way. I still showed up on timeish. There was a mob of people but they cleared out quickly. I still had to deal with lingerers while doing my opening paperwork but it wasn’t as bad as usual. The price of fuel went up 20 cents a gallon yesterday and dropped 10 cents a gallon today. It’s going to be a fun fall. I had a couple of things to do but I had to wait for a guy who was sampling the slushies. He finally picked one and a crowd showed up, as if planned. And just like yesterday every time I went outside people would show up, mostly just to check their phones and leave. Do you get more bars by a fuel pump? The Late Guy came by to get a photo of a register screen. And he was an hour late getting off work from the Haunted Station. Gotta wonder what is going on with the Random Woman, I’m sure her days are numbered. Btw, the Late Guy wasn’t talk...

 Hell Week Redux: Day Three I thought Mrs. Late Guy had cursed me again when she told me that she had a slow day. Sure enough, for the first hour I was swamped. After that it was super slow, you'd think it was mid February. Tell me again about how great the economy is doing. Speaking of which Sturgis is going on and I realized that there were very few bikers through this week. Normally we'd be overrun by outlaw gangs, weekend enthusiasts and loners. This year, perhaps one or two small groups and stragglers. I don't think this is going to be a good fall. I was trying to do my first of the shift stuff but two women kept running in and out of the restroom. I wasn't going to ask what was going on in there, and hopefully I didn't have to clean up a mess. When one left and the other was still in the restroom I figured I could run and do something but she came out and practically sprinted to the register. When they finally left here came the swarm. I left the low toilet pa...

 Hell Week Redux: Day 2 Today started off pretty good. I went to get the tank readings and looked up, there was a dollar bill stuck on top of one of the fuse boxes. Why was it there? I don't know. Who put it there? I don't know. Where did it end up? In my pocket. Mrs. Last Guy told me that it had been a slow and boring morning. This is a quick way to curse another shift. Sure enough I was overrun with customers for hours. I had to dump the outside trash twice. It's worse than mopping the floor. Today was "Small Children" Day. Everybody who came in had toddlers who were at the age of walking and exploring. I wouldn't mind but it means that they all take at least 20 minutes to find their stuff, have a discussion about not buying the stuffed animals and finally picking something out. At least there wasn't the "pick something out, you can't have that, hurry up" conversation. Yesterday I intentionally loaded an almost empty roll of paper towels in...

 Hell Week Redux, Day One The Part Time Woman works Saturday mornings at the Truck Stop. When I walked in she was taking a small bag of trash out to the dumpster, and was still in her drawer, as was Mrs. Late Guy. They know when I'm coming in and could close one so I can count in and go to work. But noooooo, they were still in both drawers. So I was stuck hanging around waiting for one of them to close their drawer. Finally Part Time Woman closed her drawer, and once again she was off in her count so I had to open my drawer for an odd amount. Oh well, I guess the Random Woman is going to be gone for the next two weekends and Part Time Woman will be covering across the street. So I got that good news. I'm going to have to cover Wednesday morning but the only good part was that they weren't putting in an order so I wouldn't have to unload that. Except it turns out that last week the supply company didn't send any of the tobacco so they had to put in an order. And ther...

When I arrived at work someone towing a trailer parked across the entrance to the diesel pumps. I drove straight at them before turning and having to go around. Then someone tried to pull into the pumps and blared their horn at the person. Seriously, directly in front of the pumps is not a parking space.  The Manager was in a hurry today, she had several things to get done and then she is on vacation. She hustled through everything at the Truck Stop and then ran down to the West Side Station and then clocked out. She's on vacation and come Saturday I'll be on Hell Week. After the third person in a row I wondered how long I could go before I yelled in someone's face "If It's A Debit Card You Have To Enter A PIN!!!!!" Honestly, if you want to use your debit know your PIN. The third person pulled out his card and jammed it in and out of the reader several times, which caused the card reader to jam up and I had to open the second register for .01¢ to run his card ...

 It was a quiet day at work. Not for the usual reasons of a seasonal slow down but instead it was because of bad drivers. First there was a semi rollover on the highway to Texas, they had to close the west bound lanes so it was bottlenecked to one lane in both directions. Then someone towing a trailer came down the mountain pass too fast, they didn't have breaks on their trailer so it started pushing them, they tried to slow down which caused them to jackknife and rolled both the car and the trailer shutting down the south bound lanes (If you're gonna tow a trailer through the mountains and are not use to it, go to a mechanic and see about tow breaks or at least slow down). To top it all off someone rolled their truck on the side road that runs east towards Oklahoma. So it was slow, then busy, then slow again, and a lot of angry impatient people. The Random Woman was across the street this morning, gotta wonder why the Dyslexic Woman wasn't working. Maybe the Boss wanted he...

  When I got to work it was a typical Monday, busy as heck. Bigfoot had left me a mostly acceptable drawer but I was going to have to get coins out of the safe later. The Manager was pissed because she cleaned out the slushie machines and there were bugs in one of them. Someone had to have left the top off. I told her I don't touch the thing and how someone had filled up one of the coffee machines with the wrong stuff, she wasn't happy about that either. I though they kept the mix locked up but I guess it's in the back somewhere, this is the first I learned about that. She was happy to get out of there today. Today two of the regulars showed up. First it was the Stuffed Dog guy who was buying milk and then the Butt Picker who was buying a pack of smokes, the rains have filled up al the outside ash cans with water so the butts out there are floating.  Last week I found a pair of sunglasses laying outside so I put them on the picnic table to see if someone would take them. Fo...