Major Crazy Brain Dump
OMG! I had such a crazy day at work. There's so much on my mind right now, I feel like I'm going to explode. So, if you're interested in two very interesting stories and some other life generalness, click away.
The DNC continues to rock my socks. After tonight, I am way happier with the choice of Biden. And I LOVED his "dream deferred" moment in the speech. I actually gasped when he said it, and then I had to explain it to my mom. It's nice (on the rare occasion that it happens) to know something that she doesn't that's actually important. And I had the biggest fangirl squee when Obama came out. I shrieked (as usual) and then my mom was whining "Devin, shut UP!" but I didn't care because it was so unexpected and exciting. I'm not going to be home to watch his speech tomorrow, but I'm excited to see it. If the last few days have been any indication, its going to be very good.
Work today was very weird, one of those strange days where there was all this stuff to do and I really didn't get any downtime. There are new receipts piling up left and right, and we have no where to put them on the floor or in the stockroom, so there is much chaos. I don't even know why I bother to care anymore, seeing as I'm leaving in a week. (Thank god for that.) Quite literally, a week from today will be my last day. But it's hard to just sit around when the only people I work with now are the manager, the OCD lady, and the new girl who cares because she's knew.
But around 4:30, just as I was about to settle in to working a bunch of monotonous projects for the night, something very exciting happened. Joe, one of the guys from Loss Prevention came down and asked me to be a witness. For a short backstory, a few weeks ago, when he had nothing better to do, Joe came downstairs and had some of the Lands' End girls sign a waiver to be witnesses when he needs to apprehend a suspect. So, he came and found me this afternoon and I got to stop hanging jeans and ringing customers, which was very nice. I took off my name badge and followed him around the store. Ryan was watching the girl upstairs on the cameras and giving Joe updates on his walkie talkie, telling him that she was still putting things in her purse and where she was. She stayed in men's for a while, and since we had to linger but still look like shoppers, we pretended to look for rings at the jewelry counter. I think we all (including the jewelry lady) had a little too much fun with that. She was taking rigns out and telling us about how we would save 40% with our Sears card, etc. But then Ryan said that she had went out the door in men's, so we got to run after her. As she was just getting into the parking lot, Joe ran in front of her, and told her that she had been seen shoplifting. Then the three of us went up to the LP office and he dug a bunch of pairs of underwear out of her purse. And then I sat there for like an hour while they processed paperwork. I had to fill out a short bit of paperwork myself, but mostly I had to sit there so they had an official witness for the whole thing. And at the end, the State Police came, cuffed her and took her away. I felt bad for her at times, because she seemed really upset. And she kept giving me these pleading looks, probably because I'm the only person she dealt with during the whole process who wasn't 6 feet tall or a former Marine. But then when the police officer was there, she was talking about how she had citations for disorderly conduct and underage drinking on multiple occasions. And I was less sympathetic.
Wow, that was a long story. But that was only the beginning of my night. Unfortunately, the rest wasn't nearly as fun, because it involved me being alone with the new Lands' End girl, Erin, for several hours. I don't know if I've ever talked about her here before, but none of us are particularly jazzed with her. I already knew from the other days I had worked with her that the she was pretty religious and definitely Republican (the latter has a lot to do with the former in her case). But tonight was a whole other level of distressing. I already didn't like this girl (because she grew up in the school district that is diametrically opposed to my own) but now I'm pretty sure I can't really talk to her any more. I also found it very hard to be nice to her after the first day when she said that gay people are sinful, if for no other reason than the fact that I have a gay friend who I'd take a bullet for any day, and that kind of thing is so hard for me to swallow. I thought I had had our outrageous moment of the night when she said that women shouldn't be president, because "they might PMS and blow something up." (I almost had a stroke when she said that.) But then, later in the night, she saw my copy of the Darwin biography that I'm reading for the One Book, One Northwestern. In short, here's what transpired:
Erin: What's that?
Me: A biography of Darwin. Everyone at Northwestern has to read it this year.
E: Oh, so you believe in evolution?
Me: Yes.
E: So you don't believe in creation.
Me: I don't know what I believe, but I do believe in evolution.
E: So do you think we came from fish or monkeys?
And then I tried to explain some of the basic ideas of evolution, but I also said that it had been a while since I studied it, and I wasn't really able to explain anything PROPERLY. Then she goes off on this big religious tangent about creation and sin. And there was lots of discussion of how if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your savior you're going to hell.
Basically, it was a really fun night. So fun that as soon as we parted ways at the end of the night, I literally ran in the other direction. As soon as I got in the car, I called my coworker Hannah, and said "Get yourself a big suitcase and come with me to Northwestern, because I'm not leaving you with this psycho for a whole year.
Now, just to clarify something, I don't have a problem with people being religious, but please leave me out of it. I don't like someone telling me that my loved ones are going to hell. Especially when also goes around saying, "I don't judge people."
In other news from the evening, I went out and got my copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls, which is one of the novels we're reading in my freshmen seminar on the Spanish Civil War. Professor Fahey suggested we get a head start on it, since its 500 pages, but its not really required summer reading. But I'm excited to read it, I think it'll make a nice intro to the course, building on the somewhat limited intro I've already had during the war. I'm also kind of ashamed that I've never read any Hemmingway, but now I won't be able say that.
So I'm probably going to read that after I finish this post and reading my flist, although I'll probably be too tired. It is late, but at least I don't have to go to work until 2 tomorrow. But I've got to clean a bunch in the morning.
Oh, and one final tidbit. After I was had split off from Erin and was just about to leave, I ran into Joe again.
Me: *briefly rants about aforementioned Erin!torture*
Me: According to Erin, you're going to hell.
Joe: Oh, really, why?
Me: I'm sure we could pick from a pretty good sized list of reasons.
Joe: Like what?
Me: Your adventures in college to start with....
Joe: Where are you hearing this stuff?
Me: You told me. And Floyd. (One of Joe's friends who is the manager of the cashiers.)
Joe: Don't listen to Floyd.
Me: Okay, sure.
Me: *opens door and steps halfway through it*
Joe: It was self defense when I gouged that guy's eye out.
Me: Wait....What?.... Scratch that, I don't want to know.