“Hey there Internet. I would apologize for my lack of posting, but I have a pretty good excuse. You see, since it’s finals and all, I thought that this would be the perfect time to get a job. My logic is impeccable. Also, a combination of stress and being sick of campus food has dramatically decreased my food intake. I’m pretty much running on fumes at the moment.”
The above was written several days ago while I was still at college. Now I have returned home, to a magical land where there’s food in the pantry and the heating works. Actually, I’ll be here until mid-January, so I’ll probably be going bonkers by the time I’ve got to return to school. But until then, it’s good to be home. Plus, I got that “A” in College Algebra. Ha! Permission to laugh and point revoked.
But let me tell you about my new job.
So after a semester at college, my savings account was running too low for comfort. I knew there were only two solutions. But the first one was illegal and involved armed robbery, so I went with solution number 2: get a job. And just my luck, as I was walking through the Student Union one fine November day, I happened to notice a sign outside the campus bookstore. The very best kind of sign for a bum like me. A “hiring” sign.
So I applied. Two weeks later, I was in the library working desperately to finish a huge project for my writing class (I got it done in time, by the way. And the fact that I got an “A” in that class as well did nothing to deter future procrastination. Oh well.) when, of course, my phone rang. Because I’m a loose cannon, I ignored the social conventions of quiet in the library and had as quiet a conversation as possible with the woman on the other end of the line. I would have gone in the stairwell, but it smelled like asbestos and I was kind of afraid the door would lock behind me, leaving me trapped there forever.
Anyway, the phone call was to inform me that I’d gotten the job. Yay for gainful employment!
I showed up the first day to discover that I’d taken a job at Book-stacking store. I have never known the alphabet so well as I do now. That happens when you alphabetize approximately 17,000 books. But I won’t complain, because they are paying me.
Technically I’m supposed to be a cashier, but it wasn’t until day 4 that I actually got to perform cashier-like duties. On day 2, I had to shrink-wrap.
Let me tell you, Internet, that you should really appreciate shrink wrapping. Because the thin sheets of plastic you so carelessly fling aside were probably put in place by me, or someone like me, in the backroom of some store or factory, desperately trying to get two sheets of plastic to melt together in exactly the right way.
After a couple of hours, this song got stuck in my head. See all those stacks of paper in the picture below? Yeah. I had to shrink wrap all of them.
Don’t get me wrong- I’m really grateful for the job. Turns out you need money to live- who’d have thunk it? And for the most part I managed to stave off the rats. I just wish the plastic hadn’t smoked as I melted it. Cancer, here I come!
P.S. Some changes to the look of this blog will be coming in the next few days, so don’t freak out if it suddenly looks completely different.
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