Chapter 51: Stop Trying to Be My Boyfriend

So I think my mom is trying to set me up with my brother-in-law’s brother. My sister is dead set against it. I didn’t care at first but now I don’t want her to bother at all. It all started about a month ago. He kept telling my sister that he thought I was pretty and couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have a boyfriend, while at the same time he is a shallow man who wants his woman to have a nice body, a characteristic I lack, though he never said this, I just know the truth. But ever since I think my mom would just love it if he became her next son-in-law, she did this with the other brother until he got married.
At first I wasn’t sure what was going on and to tell the truth I still don’t, because I’ve never been good at reading people, he may just want me to be his wingman at activities to help him find a nice Mormon girl. By the way he thinks MM is pretty…but needs to come out of her cocoon…what the hell does that mean? But back to the story, one time everyone was leaving the house and most everyone was related to each other because we had his brother over and his brother’s wife and my sister and him, and they are all connected, and then his brother’s wife is my friend from childhood. So hugs were going around but I didn’t hug him (he needs a name because this is going to get confusing) G.I. Joe, that’s his name, he’s kind of like a little G.I. Joe doll…err, action figure. So G.I. Joe says, “We’ll build up to hugs.” And we ended with a handshake.
I invited him to a movie party I was having because I had been talking about it in front of him and it would be rude not to. (That’s when he met MM).
So, apparently every Friday he eats dinner at my parent’s home. I don’t however because most Friday nights I work. But this past Friday I got off early so I went there to have dinner, he stays at my parent’s house until 11…every Friday. That’s my gig; he can’t be taking over my gig. So then this past Saturday I get a voicemail from my sister while I’m at work, so I call the house to return the phone call and my sister’s fiancée picks up the phone and asks me who I want to speak with, I told him either my mom or my sister because I was returning the phone call. Then who gets on the phone? G.I. Joe. I said, “You’re not my mom.” And he asked if I was coming over for dinner. I say that I will (only because my parents knew I was getting off work early). He jokes around with me a little on the phone and when we hung up I said aloud, “Stop trying to be my boyfriend.” Which is where the title came from.
So, I’m doing my usual, keeping my distance thing that I do anytime I get nervous that a guy might actually like me, but at the same time trying to act like nothing’s going on, we’re just friends, because again, I’m horrible at reading people and I want to be prepared to take whichever course of action I need to take. All night he would mimic me, not what I said or anything, but I poked a piece of bread, a little action that is done when not expecting anyone to be watching, and suddenly his hand approaches out of the corner of my eye, travels to the bread and pokes it. Why was he watching? Why did he poke? Later we were sitting on opposite sides of the couch and when that happens the cushions in the middle push out so you actually can’t really see the other person, so he said something to me so I smacked the cushion back so I could see and respond and then, even though he didn’t need to at that point, he smack the other cushion back.
G.I. Joe is a really cute guy, don’t get me wrong, and in most circumstances I would be thrilled just to be able to hang out with him. However, I’m not. I don’t know exactly what it is because I felt this way before last night, but all I know is that last night’s conversation sealed the deal.
I’m a movie person; I think you can tell a lot about a person by their movie choices. For example, if someone really enjoyed the Pride and Prejudice version with the girl from Pirates of the Caribbean, then they may have some pretty simple ideas of what a good movie is. I don’t fault them too much for it, but I can’t really trust their opinion on movies. But there is also the opposite, if they hate movies that are in all actuality good, but just don’t fit someone’s genre we have a problem, also if they don’t enjoy a good stupid movie now and then, there’s another problem. They take movie watching far too seriously. It’s like when people complain about the movie “Swing Kids” because it is historically inaccurate I feel like slapping them up side the head and telling them it’s fiction, in case they missed that the movie was never based on a true story, never claimed to have much sway as far as historical facts go, but just happened to be a fictional story based in an actual time period. Yes, many of us are aware that the dancing these kids did was completely unknown to actual teenagers in war time Germany; however, it’s a whole lot more interesting with the American moves thrown in now isn’t it? Tangent! Okay, so G.I. Joe is going through some movies, most of which I will never see because I don’t watch R-rated movies and I try to steer clear of the questionable PG-13 movies. I just began to zone out while he was talking to my sister about movies, I wasn’t going to pretend to be interested when I wasn’t. Later my mom was looking for a movie on TV and G.I. Joe kept shutting them down, or giving his approval of movies that I knew she wouldn’t be interested in. It was just…I don’t know. Have I mentioned he doesn’t like “Backdraft”? I love that movie, I woke up at 7am once because it was coming on TV and I missed being able to watch it. “Ladder 49” is the poor man’s “Backdraft”, a good movie but is cast in the shadow of an even better movie.
At one point yesterday he started to tell me how he was thinking of coming to the single’s ward but then thought about how high gas prices were and my sister said, “Well, Jessie can come and pick you up.” And he looked at me like, “yeah maybe” and I said, “That would mean driving to this side of town first, and ‘no’,” I don’t feel bad about shooting him down, I don’t want to spend a 30-plus minute drive to and from with him. I covet my drive to and from church when I don’t have anyone in the car with me. I can think about whatever I want or need to, when someone is in the car with me I am robbed of those precious moments.
Yesterday he stood really close as I said ‘goodbye’ and then he went for a hug, I had to give him one, you don’t shoot someone down for a hug when you’re in your parent’s home where your mother is always close by to remind you of your manners. So, now we are at that hugging stage and I don’t want to be. It’s just beginning to get annoying.

Chapter 50: Another Visit to the Institution

I think I have written before about running into crazies at work, but maybe that was in my Myspace blog. There’s a manager at work…we’ll call him Frosty because he always does this hilarious dance that he says is from those old cartoon movies such as Frosty the Snowman. So I have a bit of a habit of almost getting Frosty killed. I’ll recap quickly just in case I have never mentioned it. So one day I had a bunch of trainee’s at work and I was coming downstairs to check to see if they were there. There is a door to get to the stairs that you have push open if you are about to go down the stairs. So I pushed it open and it was a little too fast and it turns out that on the other side were Frosty and my trainees. I almost hit Frosty with the door and told him I was going to kill him one day but it was only going to be by accident. A couple of days later (seriously, it all happened in the same week) there was a crazy lady at work. She was in line for one of my trainees and she asked me what kind of credit cards do we accept. I told her pretty much all credit cards. She told me to wait a second while she pulled hers out to double check. She handed me a hotel card, the kind you use to unlock the door. I flipped it over a couple of times in my hand just to make sure that I was right in it being a hotel key card and not a credit card. I told her it was a hotel card and she nodded and continued to look at me like a hotel card was going to cover it. At that point I realized that there was something wrong with her so I told her I would be right back. I went over to Frosty and told him that we had a crazy lady in line who was trying to pay with a hotel key card. Frosty came over to help out with the situation and I tried to continue to coach my trainees on register (I had two of them). My one trainee finished up with the customer in front of the crazy lady while Frosty talked to her. She handed him something and he threw it away so I assumed that she had given him trash from her purse to throw away. Then she gets an attitude with Frosty and says, “Where’s my money?” and Frosty is absolutely confused at this moment and he’s not sure what to say but he asks, “What money?” and she goes on that he threw away her money and he contests that all she gave him was a paper clip and a piece of trash and that he threw it away. She insists that her money was on that paper clip. Bernie reached into the trash can and pulled out the paper clip and handed it to her. This only made her more irate, she started to yell that he took her money. Frosty turned to me and said, “Move you’re trainee down to register 12,” and then he looked at my trainee and said, “Welcome to Ukrop’s.” and then turned to continue to face the customer who at this point had come behind the register, grabbed the trash can and dumped it out on to the register belt. So I pack up one trainee and take him to a safer location and get him set up. I look back at Frosty and the lady is going nuts, Frosty at this point has already called the security guy to the register and he is on his way. Frosty gives me a look and it turns out later it was because I had just missed her shove him, so he had looked over and by that time I was looking in his direction, but had missed the actual push.
The rest of the day Frosty was telling everyone that I tried to get him killed and I had threatened him earlier that week so now I had just paid that lady to cause him harm. It was horrible, I felt really bad, but we always joked about it. That was several months ago. This past Friday I was training courtesy clerks, four of them, so it was hard to keep track of all of them, and one of them was bagging for a lady that was complaining or something about a card, but no one could really understand her. I asked her a bunch of questions about the card, I thought maybe she lost hers, or wanted a new one, but she didn’t want any of that, and in fact may have already slide her card for all I know. I helped my courtesy clerk bag for a while and then went to check on how another one was doing. Then I returned to the first one, the lady said that she had to wait and asked if the courtesy clerk could wait with her, he said he would and they went and stood by the wall. They were standing there for a while so I wasn’t sure how long she was going to make them wait and I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. So I walked up and she asked if I was going to check her bags. I thought she was just taking training seriously so I said, “you want me to check the bags?” and she said, “yeah for drugs and alcohol.” Which actually I didn’t catch on the first two go arounds, I caught it on the third. I kind of look at the courtesy clerk and we both shrug our shoulders and start looking through the bags, you learn that maybe you should just humor the crazy people of the world. But then apparently I wasn’t doing it right, and certainly she didn’t want me to open the grocery items so I told her to hold on a moment and I went to customer service to get a manager, and who should be the first one I see? Poor Frosty, who just got back this week from working a month in Roanoke, so…welcome home, here’s a crazy lady. I just looked at him and said, “Frosty?” and he knew by the look on my face and he just said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” So I quickly explained the situation and he came out to talk to her. The moment she saw him her face broke out into a smile and I don’t know if it’s because she thinks he cutes or if she’s just so excited to see a manager. She starts asking his name and he just cheeses it and tells her his name and she starts to write it down on her receipt and then starts to write down other things and Frosty tells her that he can write it all down for her on a piece of paper at customer service. So he writes down his name, the store number, and the general manager’s name as well. I don’t even know what to do about the bags because she seems to have forgotten she even wants them checked. She’s gone into journalist mode and she’s writing down everything. After she was done with Frosty she went back to the register she checked out from and starts to get the cashier’s name and keeps asking questions and finally Frosty goes to her and tells her that he is happy to help her but she needs to leave the store now, she can’t interrupt business on the front end like that and if she doesn’t leave he’ll need to call someone (like the cops). This is when I realize that my trainee is still set to take her outside, Frosty is getting ready to walk with him but then turns to me and asks if it would be better if I follow him out since it would probably set her off if he did and the trainee might be more comfortable with me there. So I said I would go and then Frosty says, “Better yet, let’s switch him out.” So we picked an individual who is more seasoned and used to dealing with people there who may not have it all together in the cognitive factory upstairs.
The rest of the day was spent smoothing things over and telling people what happened. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point since I’ve gotten to that store the employees have come to expect me to know everything that is going on and they all come to me to find out what, “that was all about”. I hope this doesn’t mean that I am the “town gossip”. I’m going to console myself and say I’m not, I’m simply telling interesting stories, now people’s personal business. I just think it’s cool that the people like me and know where to go to get the interesting stories, considering when I first came to this store I didn’t think I’d ever get to the point where I would talk with any of them with more than a ‘hello’.

Chapter 49: One Way Only

If MM asks me one more question centered around Bull I am going to beat the crap out of her. Bull wasn’t at church today, do I care? No, not really. Do I know why? Absolutely not. Life petered to normal the rest of the day and then around 9:45 I hear a knock on my bedroom door. Then I hear little fingernails tapping. I want to rip those fingernails off. Then in a high pitched voice she calls for my dog. I stopped myself a few nanoseconds before I said something rude loudly. Then I opened the door, I made sure it was the uninviting door opening, where you stand there ready to shut it at any moment. She doesn’t seem to be the best at picking up visual cues and I doubt she’s ever really noticed because she’s never really focused on the other person involved in the conversation. She invites herself in despite the warning signs not to. She goes over to my dog and pets him a little and says, “how was church?” like she didn’t go even though she did. Then she says, “I missed Bull at church today was she there?”. I said, “No,”. “Why not?” I just rolled my eyes (because I knew she couldn’t see me) and told her I didn’t know. She tried to make a light of the fact that she was even asking and then left. I guess once she figured out that my well of gossip was dry she had no reason to continue conversation with me.
I just feel like MM uses me as her source of knowledge into the Relief Society and I’m not going to be that for her. I swear the next time she says anything that has to do with relief society or with Bull I will bludgeon her. I can’t tell you how much she aggravates me. During church today I sent Diva a note that told her to options she can choose from to help phase MM out of the house. First is to get two roommates when Jelly Bean moves out because MM said that she wouldn’t live here if we had 5 people here. Then the other option is to take over Jelly Bean’s room and make it our storage room so that when the new roommate comes and takes the room that MM uses to store all of her crap (she really should be paying double rent) then MM will have no where to put all her crap and maybe she’ll realize that she needs a place of her own because she’s not fit to share space with people.
By the way I am not moving out. Diva sent me an e-mail that pretty much changed my mind, that and I am fully aware that I may have been over reacting. However, this new realization that I am not getting away from MM makes life a little more dismal especially coupled with the fact that Ms. X is back. Life was going all right for a while but I suppose everyone has to deal with the natural bumps along the way. Still, if circumstances don’t change by the end of the year I may just have to go ahead and move. But hopefully things will change. It would be nice to be able to get my couch from my sister and to be able to unpack my kitchen stuff though. I love Diva and Jelly Bean, but it would be nice to have a place all my own where I wouldn’t have to hide out in my room so much.