On a bench at Walmart and on a bench at Sprouts

Oh, the unfettered joy. It’s 9:50 am EST. My shift at Sprouts starts at 11. Rose’s Walmart shift starts in nine minutes. Vickie is having a phone consult in her car, in the parking lot.

It’s raining. It’s gloomy. If I have to up, I want to be drinking coffee in a cozy spot.

*Outside the Oviedo, Florida Walmart. Note the first responder* *vehicle. Emergency vehicles and Walmart are a matched set.*

It’s 10:07 am. Vickie is driving me to Sprouts. My shift starts at 11 am.

*I think this rain is supposed to end around 4 pm.*

Yay, three, “silenced,” calls in about 30 seconds, as I typed that last line of text. I wonder if they were from non-working numbers.

It’s 10:36 am. I’m in the Sprouts breakroom, having second breakfast.

So, I called the doofus who called me three times. He answered, “Hello.” “Hello, is this a private number?” “Yes, is this the nail shop?” “What? No. I got three calls from this number. Please don’t call it again.” I clicked off.

So, as Vickie steered her little black Honda into the Sprouts parking lot, the doofus had called twice.

Why does a male person, who lives in Daytona, call what he thinks is a nail shop that’s an hour away, in Orlando. I KNOW there are plenty of nail shops in Daytona. I lived there for four years. Sheesh.

I’m sure some chick he drooled over, who does work in a nail shop made up a number just to make him go away. Oh, lucky me. He might have been dropped on his head several times as a child.

While I was in Wally World I found a new appointment book for 2022 fir four bucks. I need to have one now because my medical appointments are already stacking up like planes at O’Hare International Airport. Errgh, I’d like to be on a plane right now headed to a vacation spot-almost anywhere.

I got my few things I needed, went to self checkout and headed to a bench outside. Someone had pulled one of them forward, to get it under the awning.

*Me, my cart and my bench at Sprouts, in Winter Park. I’m waiting on Vickie.*

It’s 4:37 pm. I’m sitting outside of Sprouts, waiting on Vickie. She’s waiting on Rose (our other roommate). She got off work at 4 also. … and here they come.

*The Sprouts sign through the rear window of Vickie’s Honda.*

It’s 4:44 pm. I like fours. I’m in the Vickie-mobile. We’re on Aloma Avenue in Winter Park.

My work week is done. I can’t say it bums me out. I’m just over working retail. I really need to fill in the work void, but I’m hunting for a work from home job.

I have to say, though, since I returned, work has been a whole lot more fun because of the replacement front end manager. Yolonda (Mesolousy, as Chelle called her), who hated me quit. There are a couple of people who miss her, but from talking to most of my co-workers, I learned that she’s not really missed. Next the administrative assistant is retiring. She hates me too, so I’m not going to miss her either.

It was kind of a weird day. We were not having that supply chain problem when my car and shoulder got creamed, so it is odd being out of a lot of things. One of those things is my damn Pacific Foods Cashew, Carrot, Ginger soup that I’m in love with. I have a feeling it’s being discontinued. It’s hell liking weird things.

I had a customer who was looking for fresh figs and couldn’t find them. I joked, “My orthopedic surgeon grows them on his farm you want his number?” He laughed. He said he was making jam.

Then, I was ringing up a lady and we got to talking about the Western US, mountains, great coffee in the Pacific Northwest. I said, “Yeah, lived in Oregon for seven years. Moved out there fir eventual grad school and I got distracted by coffee and Oregon.” She laughed and said, “ I can see why.” As she was pushing her cart away a new young woman customer moved in and she was wearing a yellow and green Oregon Ducks jersey.

“Eeh, this lady and I were just talking about Oregon!” “No way, really? I was born and raised there-Portland.” “ I lived there for seven years. I was supposed to go to grad school at U of O. Did you go there?”

It turned that she didn’t, and she got her shirt in a local thrift store. She was a Valencia College student and was going to be UCF bound soon. “Yeah, I’m trying to talk my boyfriend into going back to Oregon with me when we finish school, but he’s a Florida boy, born and bred.” “Well, good luck. Im so sick of the heat here. Growing up here, it was unheard of to need to put on the AC in December. I hate it.”

It’s 7:46 pm. I’m home and pooped. I’m preheating the oven for my dinner. I bought a deli dinner at work: Alfredo pasta with chicken. I also the deli seasoned green beans, which are amazing, and probably easy as hell to make at home, but I’m pooped. I don’t feel like putting a whole lot of work into dinner, but I don’t want junk, either. Gee, I sound so American here. We’re so lazy.