A few nights ago I was about to fall into bed and snooze until arising for work later that morning.

I thought, oh I should get my work clothes out so I don’t have to rummage in the morning. It’s a good thing because I did just that: rummaged through two laundry baskets full of clean clothes I need to put away. F***k! All three of my Sprouts t-shirts are dirty!!!

I trudged downstairs with my white, round plastic laundry basket and stuffed my dirty laundry into the machine, poured in the detergent and slammed the lid down. Then I trudged back upstairs, plunked my butt on the edge of bed and snatched up my digital clock and set my alarm for 3:15 am so I could trudge back downstairs and toss my wet laundry into the dryer. Ugh. I was so pissed at myself but, at least I did have clean work shirts.

In my current stretch of working eight consecutive days I wore my last clean shirt. Right now all three of my t-shirts are tumbling in the dryer and it’s only 11 pm. I work 12:30 pm to 7 tomorrow. I worked the same shift today.

Being around new food is making me curious and hungry. I bought two soups from Pacific Foods. The company is headquartered in Tualatin, Oregon, which is Just Southwest of Portland. They make a butternut squash soup I love. They also make a carrot soup I ate tonight. It’s in the picture below. I also bought the cherry fruit spread.

I did a new chore tonight. I restocked the three drink fridges that are in front of the cash register lanes. They contain coconut waters of various flavors-pineapple, turmeric (yes, you read right), raspberry-lime and others. There are also all kinds of energy drinks, other than Monsters, Red Bulls or Rock Stars. Some I’ve never heard of. There also Smart Waters and Sprouts store brand water. It was not a chore I enjoyed-too much stimuli. It was similar to restocking, drink case in the Barnes & Noble Cafe. We had an open three tiered cooler where we stocked Horizon milks, orange and apple juices, Izzy sparking waters (Izzys are also stocked in the fridges I was stocking tonight), two sizes of Fuji waters plus other drinks. I wasn’t thrilled to do that chore either. Although, it was more organized at Barnes & Noble. The cafe manger I worked with the longest was very organized. It was probably her strongest skill. I worked there almost five years under four different managers. At least at Sprouts I got to use a shopping cart to haul drink bottles.

Another thing this chore did was to remind me that I don’t want to work retail the rest of my life, at least not for my primary income. I’m a writer. I want to earn my living artfully stringing words and sentences together.

I’m grateful to have escaped Walmart but, I realize as much as I like what Sprouts does, it’s not part of my dream. In any event, I am blessed to have a job and income because so many people are suffering badly. We have to get a grip on the COVID pandemic.

I was counting the number of people I directly know who have had or currently have COVID. That number is up to nine. And many more who managed to avoid it have been under the strain of extra caregiving on top of working their actual jobs.

Thus, I am very grateful to be employed and be healthy and working. I’ve been lucky.

It’s almost Midnight. I’m going to run my laundry through another drying cycle and go to…oh, shit, I have to wash my CPAP machine parts. Oh goodie.