Yes, today was my first official vacation day since being hired as a regular employee at my company! Yes, I've taken full advantage of it...though I'm sure it's not all that exciting to anyone else! Of course the day didn't start off too swiftly:

>>>I woke up at 6:45 this morning! YUCK!! There is NOTHING worse than waking up with the chickens when you don't have to go to work!! Of course I could have gone back to sleep, but my stomach decided that wasn't going to happen. So I stumbled into the kitchen in search of food...all I managed to come up with was a Little Debbie cosmic brownie. Oh well...it satisfied the hunger at least!

>>>After it was decided that I was NOT going to go back to sleep, I hopped onto the computer to check the balance in my bank account, as I always do on Friday morning. I almost had a stroke when I went to my bank's webpage and logged in: my paycheck hadn't been deposited!!
My first thought was to get on the phone to the bank and inflict a serious cussing on some poor unsuspecting call center agent...but then I thought it might be my company's goof. So as I start searching through the breakfast nook for all the paperwork from the office, I came across something that made me feel pretty stupid: my paycheck.
I'd forgotten that my first few paychecks are being mailed to me until my direct deposit kicks in!

>>>After making myself look like an idiot, I decided it was time to go ahead and get a shower because if I waited too long, I'd end up vegging on the couch or the computer and not doing it at all. Naturally, since my morning started off on the wrong foot, it could only get worse from there. I dropped a bottle of shampoo on my foot...a FULL bottle of shampoo...and of course it was the economy sized bottle. Then I discovered that my face wash was empty...I use this stuff from Noxzema that has those little scrubby things in it and smells like oranges. I was pissed to say the least. The only thing that could have made the experience worse was if there had been a spider perched on the wall or ceiling.

Guess what.
Yeah.
The little fucker was on the ceiling just waiting for me to let my guard down for an instant. Naturally, the spider had to die. So I picked up the closest thing I could find, which would be my washcloth and I flung it up towards the spider.

Wait.
It gets better!
As I was throwing the cloth towards the spider, my dog decided he was going to come into the bathroom to hang out until I was done in the shower. He pushed the door open as the cloth was in mid air. The cloth hit the top of the door and then fell onto my dog's head.
If it had not been happening to ME, I would have never believed it COULD happen.

Since I'd thrown my washcloth at the spider, I now had to get out of the shower, avoid the spider, and get another washcloth...not an easy task after I stepped out of the shower and realized that I'd not put down the rug on the floor after I'd mopped last night. So here I am, buck naked, trying not to slip on the floor while keeping an eye on the evil arachnid bent on eating me, and laughing at my poor dog who was still trying to get the original washcloth off of his head!

My showers normally don't go over 10 minutes. Fifteen if I'm ...well, never mind about THAT! Anyway, by the time that I was FINALLY able to finish up my shower, 25 minutes had passed!!

>>>If it hadn't been for the fact that I needed to get my check into the bank, I would have just stayed home so as to avoid any more catastrophes! As fate would have it though, I had to go out.

Remember Christine the Truck? Well, this was her morning to announce to the world that she's got a squeaky belt. Or pulley. Or something! Hell if I can figure out where it's coming from, but I'll tell you this: IT'S LOUD!! I couldn't be embarrassed...I had figured that damn truck would do SOMETHING to me today!!

So I head into town to deposit my check at the bank. I decide to just go through the drive thru in hopes of saving a few minutes. I should have known better. Bank of America in Fuquay Varina has one of those damned tube things just past the drive up teller window and today must have been Aunt Louise's day to deposit the social security check because it took this bitch FOREVER to do her business!

>>>Once I finally got done at the bank, I decided that I'd treat myself to some lunch. The shopping center that the bank is in has a Chinese buffet with the BEST curry chicken around!! When I walked into the restaurant, it was PACKED, so I decided to get a buffet to go. I loaded up on the curry chicken...after waiting 10 minutes for more to be brought out!! Nothing annoys me more than going to a buffet and having to wait on my favorite food on the bar!!

>>>I'm heading home when I come up to an intersection that I have to turn left at. There's a rather angry looking lady cop in the intersection though...so of course I figured I was going to have to wait. Strangely enough though, she wasn't directing traffic..she was just standing there! I shrugged my shoulders at her as if to say, "can I go?"..and she looks at me like I'm an idiot and waves me on by. I wanted to tell her, "look bitch...>>I'M<< not the one standing in the middle of the road looking like someone just ate the last Krispy Kreme doughnut!"

>>>Once I finally got home, I decided not to tempt fate any more for the day, so I settled in at my home within a home...my computer. I fired up my Yahoo messenger..something I ordinarily don't do because Yahoo sucks. I remembered then WHY it is that I never open Yahoo messenger...I had 10 offline IMs from SPAM bots. I hate SPAM...the meat AND the trash that sends it over the internet. I still am trying to figure out why someone participates in that shit. I mean really...do these people HONESTLY believe that sending an IM with "hey guy..wanna see my boobs?" is going to turn anyone on. If I want to see a set of boobs, I'll break out my little black book and call my boob suppliers!

>>>And in other news:

>>I finally persuaded my roommate to apply for a job at my company. This was a task that was NOT very easy. He does NOT want to work in an office environment...for some BIZARRE reason, he enjoys working in retail!! He works at the same home improvement store that I worked at for a few months....so I REALLY don't understand his reasoning for wanting to stay there!! At any rate, he's been there a year and a half and is only making $11 an hour, whereas I've been with my company for three months and am already making MUCH more than that!! I'm thinking that my telling him that he either had to get a higher paying job or recruit an additional roommate motivated him to rethink his options. He would rather DIE than have another roommate in addition to me! So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully he'll get the job and end his dependence on his mom and dad when he runs short of money every month!

>>A pretty strange thing happened not far from here today. It seems that some guy was crazy enough to get into his airplane and take off in fog that reduced visibility down to nothing! By the time that it occurred to him that he'd made a big mistake and started to turn around and go back to the airfield, he was already in trouble. Apparently the plane was having some mechanical problems and when he started to descend, he ended up realizing that he was going to crash....right in the middle of a major highway!! He was able to turn away from the highway, but unfortunately ended up crashing into the parking lot of a restaurant, bouncing off the pavement and into the front of the eatery!! LUCKILY, everyone in the restaurant got out the back door and there were no customers in the place because it wasn't open yet. Sadly, the pilot of the plane died in the crash. I will say though that he did a good thing by putting the plane into a building rather than the highway...things could have ended up MUCH worse than they did!!

Well, that's about it for now. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!!

I've been writing this blog for a while now....almost a year and a half actually! I was looking through some of my old entries recently and decided I'd do a "Best Of".....

From October 31, 2006:

"""Well, it’s Halloween…at least for another couple of hours anyway. So in keeping with the spirit of the season, since there’s no good horror movies on TV, I’ll spend my time posting some good Halloween superstitions I came across on the internet (of course with my own commentary added):

If you hear foot steps behind you on this night, don't look back. It may be the dead following you. Turning back could mean that you will soon join the dead…. I’m so fucked!

Girls who carry a lamp to a spring of water on this night can see their future husband in the reflection….clearly, this was made up by some ugly chick back in the 1600s""""

From November 29, 2006:

""""I got word tonight that at least for a couple of weeks, I will be free from the store from hell. Of course, in making a deal with the devil, you have to spend some time in hell..in this case, hell shall henceforth be known as Durham, NC. More to come later on that subject. Right now I'm exhausted and I desperately need my beauty sleep! haha""""

From December 29, 2006

""""The second sign of disaster is when I put the first two chicken breasts into the sizzling hot oil in the frying pan and a huge plume of smoke came billowing out of the pan, hitting me directly in the face. Luckily, I was able to feel my way through the cloud and I turned the burner down a couple of notches. Coincidentally, this was the very time that all NINE of the smoke detectors in my house went off simultaneously..""""

From January 18, 2007:

""""Well, winter has FINALLY arrived in North Carolina! We have less than an inch of snow on the ground here, mixed with some ice and freezing rain. In other words, nothing too treacherous. Of course, here in NC, just the threat of anything wintry sends the news crews scurrying!

Newschick in studio: So tell me Mindy Jo, do you SEE any snow out there?

Newschick outside: Well, Cindy Lynn, I see lots of snow! I did manage earlier to get an exclusive interview!

Newschick to snowflake: Tell me! Are there more of you to come??!! Will you be covering our roadways??!!

(No response from the snowflake)""""

From April 28, 2007:

""""Questions Customers Have Asked Me:

1. "Do you sell eggs?"

2. "I bought a gallon of milk that was spoiled when I got home...can I come in for a refund?"

3. "I've lost my daughter...have you seen her? "

4. "Do you sell tires for cars?"

5. "Can I leave my child here with you while I shop?"

6. "I bought a tree from your store last week and it's now dead...can I bring a leaf in and get my refund or do I need to bring the whole tree?"

7. "Do you accept food stamps?"
""""

Have a great night!

Since my blog material is running in pretty low supply this evening, I decided to just list some things that annoy me:

>>Putting my last 75c into the vending machine at work and watching helplessly as my bag of Doritos gets all the way to the end of the spiral thingy and then getting STUCK!!

>>People who are deathly afraid of going the speed limit on the Interstate! It's always one of two things: either the lunkhead is creeping along at 50MPH or some transplant from up north who goes whizzing by me at 90MPH!

>>George Bush: he's such a wienie!!

>>People who do not hold the mouthpiece of the phone up to their MOUTH when they're talking to me! HELLO! That's WHY it's called a 'mouthpiece'!!

>>Attorneys: They're just evil. Enough said.

>>The Internal Revenue Service: Legal extortionists.

>>Banks: When you owe THEM money, they want it NOW. If THEY owe YOU money, they'll pay it to you when they're damn good and ready.

>>Car Salesmen: Back in 1992, I was considering buying a Pontiac Firebird...the salesman told me that was 'too much car for me'...EXCUSE ME??!!

>>>>>>>>>>>>Other Stuff:

>>Saturday will suck...I already know this so I need to get prepared for it. It's the anniversary of my mother's death...it's always a difficult day for me, even after 14 years. It's gotten somewhat better over the years, but it still sucks.

>>Orientation class sucked today. They gave us the WORST breakfast and lunch I've had in a while! That was on top of the fact that I almost fell asleep TWICE today!!

Well, that's about all for now. I'm pooped. It's time for bed

Well.
I'm a bit miffed.
Someone seems to have stolen my margins!

I'd file an official police report, but it seems that margins are a bit harder to describe than I'd originally thought. I mean how do you describe something like them besides just saying that they're very handy when it comes to not having a scrollbar that is 30 feet long?

The eerie thing is that the missing margins seem to be only missing from my comments section. The main posting page seems to be intact. This leads me to think perhaps the case of the missing margins is in fact....SABOTAGE!!!

I have compiled a list of suspects:

HeatherScot: Oh sure..she CLAIMS to be just an ordinary co-ed these days, but I heard through the grapevine that back in the 80s she was busted for stealing semi-colons and apostrophes from her school's typing class!

DitzyChick: I thought I'd caught her red handed when I spied her in the local internet hang-out, Bella's Bar & MPEG Motel...but as it turns out, those were just dangling participles she had hanging from her ears!

Bella: Kindly internet cruise director or criminal mastermind?! Let's face it..her page always looks perfect..almost TOO perfect! I thought I saw one of my margins sticking out of the top of her purse early this morning, but it was just the string of a ....well, you know!

ValAnne: I've always had my suspicions about her. Her sentences are always perfectly punctuated..the kind of perfect punctuation that one only finds on the streets these days! I've kept my eye on her, but unfortunately she saw me looking, thought I was a pervert, and slugged me in the eye!

Randy: It's no secret that he takes a good photograph..but is that ALL he's taking??!! I've heard whispers that he's been seen on more than one occasion hanging out in the seedier parts of the internet flirting with some pretty scary looking prepositions!!

Secret:Victoria's First: Oh she'd LIKE for everyone to believe that she's innocent...but I've seen first hand her abilities to juggle exlamation points, commas, AND capital letters! I think she's got more than just a few adjectives stuck in that handbag of hers!

n.lynn: I'm apparently not the FIRST person to wonder why she uses all lower case letters in her name. It seems that the Las Vegas PD (Punctuation Department) almost had her nailed on some shady dealings with foreign intersts..apparently they suspected her of trying to unload a truck full of asterisks and question marks! If it hadn't been for a slick attorney by the name of Dewey Decimal, she'd be rotting away in a quadrangle right now!

LadyBlu: Well, I can't really claim that she's still a suspect anymore. After all, she's STILL trying to find the missing "e" from her name!!

So! There you have it: this week's mystery. I'll figure out who it was that stole my margins..and when I do, there's going to be some serious ampersands kicking going on!!

IN OTHER NEWS:

>>I've got a REALLY long day tomorrow. I have to be at work at 7:45 in the morning for some stupid all day orientation! If that's not bad enough, I was informed that after the orientation is over with, I have to stay an extra 90 minutes for a staff meeting!!

>>While my news about finding Tammy had me more or less in a state of euphoria yesterday, unfortunately the good news was followed by some bad: through MySpace, I'd caught up with a girl who lived next door to me when I was a kid. She & her sister, my brother and I, and another kid across the road used to get into all sorts of mischief when we lived around each other! Anyway, I found out from the (now 36 year old!) girl that her sister had died back in 1999. Apparently life hadn't been very good to her as she grew up..I didn't get all of the details, but to be honest, I really didn't want the details. I'd rather remember Lisa as the crazy girl who climbed on top of the storage shed in her back yard with me and then couldn't get back down because she was afraid of heights, or the time when she and I devised a money making scheme..writing a newspaper for the 10 people who lived in our little corner of the world. When we ran out of stuff to write about, we just made stuff up...hmm...early Inquirer writers??!

>>I started in my new position at work today..it went ok I suppose. I'm still not very comfortable with my level of knowledge of the position though. Luckily, the people that I'm working with are aware of the fact that I was sort of just thrown into it with less than a week's worth of training, so they are REALLY helping me out a lot for the next several weeks!

That's all for tonight!

May, 1980: I was a new student in my 4th grade class at Benhaven School in rural Harnett County, North Carolina. I was absolutely MISERABLE. The place was built in 1924 and had NO air conditioning and if that wasn't bad enough, the kids at this school were just mean. Of course, I was from an actual named TOWN while they had grown up in tobacco fields and learned how to drive tractors while they were in diapers. Naturally, they were jealous of me. Anyway, there was this one girl in the class that was halfway decent towards me. She was kind of chubby and had this dark very curly hair..I call them "Lulu curls" because they reminded me of the cartoon character. In fact, for the first couple of days that's what I thought her name was because a couple of the boys in class called her that! I soon learned however that her name was not Lulu...it was Tammy.

September, 1980: The new school year was starting and I was faced with a terrifying ordeal: meeting my new teacher. I'd heard that this woman was EVIL. Worse yet, rumor had it that she wore a wig. For some reason that seemed to freak me out. Ironically, I'd end up having my first real crush on this "evil wig wearing woman", but that's a story for later. Anyway, it turns out that Tammy was in my class that year..something that made me very happy! She was the only person that I'd really gotten to talk to very much during the last couple of weeks of school the previous year. We sat by each other throughout the year and had become pretty good friends by the time that school let out in June. We ended up with different teachers for the following year...I ended up with the "evil wig wearer" (ugh! I had her for 5th AND 6th grade!) while Tammy ended up with a nice teacher!

September, 1982: I started 7th grade with a new haircut, zits, and 2 inches taller. Tammy cut her hair and grew boobs and discovered the advantages of tight jeans. We ended up in the same class together, and this time we had a 3rd added..Tammy's cousin Lisa. The three of us ended up being quite a crew. The big thing that year was the "Valley Girl" lingo...it was a fad that Tammy latched onto with a death grip! Every sentence began with "like" and ended with "totally"...Yes Lisa and I contemplated Tammy's demise many times that year!! Anyway, that was a year of firsts for me...I had my first real girlfriend, my first heartbreak, and my first cigarette. Tammy was there for all of them. She jumped for joy when I got the girlfriend, consoled me when I got dumped, and supplied me with the cigarette at the school carnival!

The summer after 7th grade, my parents decided it was time to move back to civilization and I had to leave Tammy behind. Fortunately, the town we moved to wasn't very far away, so Tammy and I were still able to talk on the phone. And TALK we DID!! Of course being teenagers, that's about all we did for hours on end..every day!! Since we were both now teens, our parents let us hang out at the local bowling alley which was within walking distance of my house. Lisa had moved to Michigan, so Tammy and I were left to meet up on the weekends at the bowling alley and have our adventures...heh heh..adventures that I shall not divulge the circumstances of, but trust me..they were fun. By this time, Tammy and I were the best of friends. Friends isn't even a good enough description because it was and always has been so much more than that. We have always connected on a much higher level than just friendship. We know everything about each other...both the good AND the bad. heh heh At one point I even wanted to lose my virginity to her...THAT is another story as well!

Over the next couple of years, Tammy and I had a lot of adventures together and we also made it through some pretty rough times as well. When one of us was going through something, the other would just KNOW...and would jump to the other's aid. The only time that I didn't act on my feeling that something was wrong with her was one night in 1985...I remember it'd been a pretty busy week and I didn't really feel like going out to the bowling alley, so I decided to stay home. Tammy had been having some trouble with her boyfriend, parents, and life in general. I had been worried about her, but I figured that she'd be ok after she went out and had some fun during the weekend. Late in the evening I got a very uneasy feeling..panic almost. I felt sick to my stomach and just had a general feeling that something was VERY wrong. The next morning a friend of mine called and said that Tammy had tried to kill herself the night before. She'd gone behind the bowling alley and slashed her wrists. I was somewhere between hysterical and catatonic from the shock. Luckily, Tammy survived...and I never made the mistake again of not acting on my feelings when I felt that something was wrong!

As the years rolled by, Tammy and I would go for a few months of not seeing each other at a time because of various things going on in our lives...but we always at least TRIED to keep in touch with each other. It was tough for a while because Tammy had gotten married and he was VERY jealous of me. Luckily, Tammy divorced the turkey a few years later and we picked right up where we'd left off...both of us vowing never to be separated like that again.

After her divorce, Tammy and I had the first real test of our friendship..my father died suddenly and then my mother got sick and eventually died. Tammy was there for me every step of the way and never gave up on me. When I needed a good slap in the face, she'd give it to me...but when I needed someone to just LISTEN, she'd do that too. We'd often talk about how much it sucked that adulthood was a LOT harder than childhood, but how ironic it was that we'd been there for each other through it all!

Then in 1997, my beloved grandmother died. I'd had the task of staying with Nannie after the life support was unhooked and to say that I was in bad shape that night would have been the understatement of the year. After it was over, I went straight to Tammy's house. I walked in, sat down, and fired up a joint. I didn't say anything and neither did Tammy. We sat there and got high....I just wanted the pain to go away..just for a couple of hours. Tammy just KNEW that I didn't want to...and COULDN'T talk about ANYTHING at that point. Tammy is the only reason that I made it through that night.

A year later, I'd become a different person. I'd developed a serious drug problem and try as she might, Tammy couldn't save me from myself. I knew that it was killing Tammy inside that I was in such horrible shape, but at that time I grew less and less concerned about how anyone but myself felt about anything. For the first time in nearly 20 years, our friendship developed a serious rift. Not long after, something happened that in years past I would have never thought COULD happen: I stopped speaking to Tammy altogether. I moved to Pennsylvania and didn't even bother to tell her that I was leaving.

Six months later, I was back in North Carolina and got a call from a friend of mine who told me that Tammy's mother had died. I'd all but quit the drugs at that point, but I still wasn't myself. I went to Tammy...I just wanted to be there for her like she'd always been there for me. It was a strained reunion to say the least. A lot of damage had been done and neither of us was sure that it could be repaired at that point. I left that day with a promise to her that I'd be back soon. I didn't go back though. We'd both changed so much that I knew it just wouldn't be the same anymore. That was almost 10 years ago.

As time went by, I distanced myself from most everything in my past..including Tammy. I kicked the drug habit, and as I became more and more of the person that I had been, I started regretting the decision to say goodbye to Tammy. I tried to find her a few times over the years, but with no luck. I eventually came to the conclusion that she was just a part of my past and that I needed to move forward and leave her in the past.

Today I was on my way to visit my cousin when I decided to stop at a convenience store to get a drink and my newest obsession: a king size bag of Raisinettes. I walked into the store and heard the cashier say hello to me....as I turned around to say hello back, it was as though everything went into slow motion: I froze in my tracks when I looked up and saw who the cashier was....it was TAMMY!!!!!! We stood and stared at each other for what seemed like 10 minutes before she finally came out from behind the counter and came running towards me. We were hugging each other so tight I thought that we'd start breaking some ribs! In that instant, 20 years of laughs, tears, silly adventures and everything else that comes along with a true friendship came rushing back to me.

We spent the next three hours catching up...whatever had caused the rift all those years ago vanished and it was as though the last 10 years of being without each other had never happened. I told her about having tried to find her for so many years and we had a good laugh over that one. Her last name is VERY common...so common in fact that there are literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of women with her exact name in this country! Ironically, as recently as 2002, we'd lived just 10 minutes apart and never knew it!!!

I have no idea what is in store for the future with Tammy and I, but I can be sure of this: I'll not let another 10 years pass without her in my life! If there's ever been a time that I believed in FATE, today was it! I strongly believe that I was meant to go into that store, and I'm grateful to God that I did!!

So that's my weekend....how was YOURS?!