My Chit List for the Week: The Repairman, The Boss & The Cat

It's a good thing we have that new thermostat installed here at the asylum. Now there's no doubt that it was 86° in the office when we arrived. Another week begins, all the doors open, dollar store fans positioned strategically throughout the hall way and a thick cloud of weld dust drifts in from the opened entrance to the manufacturing floor.

Lovely.

Oh they installed the new ac unit on Friday. Everything was connected and working fine.. for about a half a minute. It was then discovered that the ac unit which was supposed to come from the factory, charged with freon, was damned near empty. The "guy" is supposed to be back this morning to charge it up, but me and the girls have decided it probably was charged at the factory and just leaked all the way to Frog Pond Holler.

Because that's the kind of luck we have.

In other news that gripes my ass before I've even downed a cup of coffee: I came in this morning to find a stack of notes on my desk from Bossman. Apparently he snuck in either early this morning or over the weekend and went through everything on my desk, leaving little obnoxious notes on everything.

He's not supposed to be here. He's not supposed to call, email or otherwise make contact while he is on furlough.

And he's really starting to tick me the hell off.

Meanwhile, back at the trailer...

Ma seems to be feeling better. They took her off her arthritis medication, so she's having pain in her legs and back, but she goes back to the doctor tomorrow and hopefully he'll give her something different.

She's not thrilled with diet Cokes. I bought Coke Zero, Diet Coke and Diet Caffeine Free Coke. I told her to try them all, I'd drink what she didn't want. By the middle of the week she was offering a hundred bucks for a real one.

The precious kitten is in heat again. She squawls and hollers all night, rolling around on the floor and acting like she's dying. I'm usually pretty sympathetic in such matters, but when she rubbed against my leg the other night, then turned and sprayed kitty tinkle all down my leg, onto my foot and in between my toes.. well... let's just say I was a tad bit unhappy.

I hope the Amazon gets her an appointment soon.

Anywho...

I guess I should get to work and tackle this big stack of crap on my desk. Ya'll have a good one.

Later Taters!

Is It Five O'clock Yet?

Lawd have mercy, I'm glad it's Friday.

It's 9:30 here at the Asylum and I've already had to give in to the scrunchie. Frumpilicious is the new fashion statement 'round here lately.. what with the lack o' a.c. and all. We've tossed the dress code and become an office full of ponytails, flip flops and short britches.

But there is hope.

Yesterday, we gathered in the parking lot and watched with hands clasped and smiles of joy upon our faces as a crane lifted the bright, shiny new unit to the roof. Hopefully, we'll have air, probably just in time to go home today.

Keep your fingers crossed.

After spending most of last week running back and forth to Big City with Ma, then going on my cleaning rampage last weekend and having a fun filled week without Bossman here at the Asylum, my plans for this weekend include a whole lotta sitting around on my big butt... and I don't care if I sound lazy or not.

Deal with it.

I'm sure other people will have other plans in store for me.. but that's what I'm shooting for.

Anywho.. I need to get back to holding my head up and yawning while I stare off in to space, sipping coffee and watching the clock work. We'll talk more later.

Ya'll have a good one.

Later Taters!

Mayo, Rats and Shrunken Heads

It promises to be a warm one here in Frog Pond Holler this Humpday. My desk is covered with mounds of paper, consisting of assorted orders, multiple "urgent" requests and ... oh no, don't tell Bossman but.. filing. The red message light on my phone is blinking obnoxiously and I'm afraid to open my email.

And yes.. I'm sitting here in the middle of it all updating my blog. I've developed a serious case of asskissamyus when it comes to this place.

It's easy to do around here. It's 8:36 and no managers have shown up for work. We still have no air conditioning and all the guys out in the plant are running to Thelma every five minutes to find out what they need to be doing because they've run out of other people to ask.

Oh yeah.. good times.

Yesterday was Noggin Doc day. I'm learning alot about myself during our visits. Like.. did you know that PTSD, when triggered during childhood, affects the physical development of your adrenal system, changing the way your body reacts to stress and metabolizes medication for the rest of your life? Is that not weird as heck?

I almost giggled when she said, "I suspect you've been unbalanced for most of your life." I was like... yeah.. no kidding.

After my weekly head shrinking, I headed to the ginormous new Uber Wally World for groceries. Ma has finally accepted that she is diabetic and can't be living on white bread and sucking down Coke's 24/7, so I picked up a bunch of sugar free, low-fat, whole wheat goodies. I told her we'd try different stuff and she could decide what she liked. I did not, however, tell her that that the wienies I fed her for supper were fat free and we hid the rest of them in the back of the freezer, buried under a bag of lima beans.

She can't know about the wienies. The woman is very persnickety about her dawgs.

When I fixed her plate, the Amazon entered the kitchen:

"Did you just put mayo on those hot dogs?" she asked.

"Yes, she wanted mayo. I know it's gross, but your nana is weird."

"That paper says she can't have mayo!" she said.

"I realize that but," I lowered my voice to a whisper, "these are fat free hot dogs on whole wheat buns."

"IT SAID NO MAYO," the Amazon insisted.

I started towards Ma's bedroom with the plate as I called back to the Amazon, "You gotta learn to pick your battles in life."

"NO MAYO!"

"PICK YOUR BATTLES!"

"Would you please shut up and give me my damn hot dogs?" was heard from the other room.

Anywho.. either there's a 2 ton rat in the crawl space over my office or they're working on the air conditioning. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ya'll have a good Hump Day. Let's hump it like Arts and Crafts hour down at the nervous hospital.

Later Taters!

My Boss, the Genius

***WARNING: RANT AHEAD***
As most of you know, I've not taken any actual vacation time in the last two years. With my reduced schedule, I've used a few hours here and there to make up for the cuts, just to be able to make the house payment etc.

But time off? I've not taken any. Bossman, however, has made countless trips to his home state, was out over a week for the death of his mother (we get three days) whom he said he hated anyway and just gets up and leaves whenever he feels a tickle between his ass cheeks.

Last week, I took two and a half days vacation time to go be with my mother in the hospital. TWO AND A HALF DAYS.

After making countless trips back and forth to Big City, nearly having a breakdown in the hospital as I watched them wheel Ma down the hall to have dye shot through her heart, tossing my FMF into overkill by doing the tango with a queen sized box springs and mattress and umpteenjillion loads of laundry, I come dragging ass back into the office this morning (where there still is no a.c.) to find this lovely note on my desk:

"I hope your mother is feeling better. While you were out I spent some time in your office and I'm concerned about your/ours filing system and order maintenance. I had a hard time locating open orders.

We need filing completed.

I know you are the only sales person and your job is far reaching, but we need to get this completed.

Your being out with your mother as shown me that our present system needs to be cleaned up. If you think you need more than 30 hours to complete all of the tasks assigned to you, I'm willing to discuss it.

I will call you Monday morning and talk to you.

B.M."

Oh golly gee fricken willackers Bossman.. doing the work of three people with less time to do it has put me behind in filing? YA RECKON? Here's a thought... how about you put crap back in the filing cabinet when you get done instead of tossing it on my desk? Or.. how about you learn to run a dang report all by your pitiful self? Maybe.. since you've been here over three years, it's about time you learned our inventory system, instead of making me drop everything to look up parts for you, just because you won't take the time to learn to do it yourself.

I hope to hell he doesn't call me this morning. I may end up fired.

Anywho...

Ma's feeling better at least. She's not running any marathons, but she's acting closer to normal than she has in forever.

I'm gonna go pop a pill now and try to calm my little ass down before Bossman calls... I'd hate to lose my cool and threaten to go upside his bald little head with a tire iron.

Ya'll have a good Monday.

Later Taters.

Washing Mountains and The Black Mamba

Hoppin' horny toads.. can you say T-I-R-E-D?

Ma was released from the hospital yesterday. Aunt Moses volunteered to go collect her and bring her home, so I had at least a half a day to work on Ma's bedroom.

Before I go on, I have to explain that Ma is a packrat. I don't mean she's got a few knick knacks sitting around.. I mean she's the kind of packrat you see crying on Dr. Phil's show while he publicly humiliates them on television, in the hopes that it'll be enough to shock them into tossing some junk.

Stuff was piled chest high on the floor and on her bed, leaving just enough space for her to lay down. I've tried to clean it before, but she'd always pitch a fit or go in to this long speech about how she didn't want to be any trouble to anyone and how worthless she felt until I just couldn't take it anymore and I'd give up. She had a path to the bed and to the bathroom. I'm not exaggerating.. if anything, I'm leaving out he worst of it.. I'm ashamed I've allowed her to stay in there, but I really didn't see any solution.

So... yesterday morning at 7:30 I began by gathering up all the soiled sheets, towels and bed pads that she'd hidden around the room. I piled them all in the kitchen to give myself an area to move around in her room and started the washer. The washer and dryer ran constantly until 5 o'clock yesterday.

After I stripped her bed, I found the busted spot in her box springs and single handedly flipped the queen sized mother humper, without taking the ceiling fan down, but sending her bedside lamp sailing into the bathroom.

Okay.. so there were a few casualties.

I flipped the mattress.. the box springs were easier, then Lysoled the hell out of them both. As I excavated the piles of... stuff.. I uncovered an unopened package of brand new sheets I'd bought her three years ago.

Sweet!

I'll spare you the details of what all I found, but our big garbage bin in front of the house is full of bags, as is the back of my truck.

When she got home, I was almost finished and she didn't fuss. She even commented that she didn't remember the last time her bed had been made.

I'm not done buy any means, but it already looks like a different room. I'm still washing sheets, bedspreads and quilts.

Her heart cath procedure found no problems with her heart at all. The general consensus is that either she had a light heart attack that left no damage or she got screwed up taking some of her prescriptions and damn near killed herself. She's also been taking OTC stuff that she shouldn't have been taking with her prescribed medications, which we suspect might have caused alot of her confusion and craziness.

On a side note, while she was being prepped for her procedure, they gave her a nice dose of something to make her drunk, which caused her to put the moves on the male nurse escorting her, a large, bald (and damn fine, I might add) black man, who called himself The Black Mamba. By the time we got to the cath area, they had a date for tonight at his place, where they were gonna dance under the fireworks. He lives by the Big City baseball stadium and has the perfect view.

He asked where we were from and Ma proudly told him, which lead to a discussion of moonshine and Ma's admission that there's a big quart jar of the stuff somewhere in this house.

During this time, Aunt Moses, who wasn't medicated at all, suddenly started channelling Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies, explaining to T.B.M that she lived 14 miles deep into the Pisgah National Forrest and that she had "bars up yonder." T.B.M. said he always wanted a bear skin coat, he'd like to come up there and go hunting. Aunt Moses told him to come on up, Uncle Barney would love to show him how to take one down.

I had to bite my tongue. I wouldn't advise a person of color going into the woods with my Uncle Barney, especially if he was armed.

Anywho.. Aunt Moses then began describing the new "Apple Pie" flavored moonshine that was gaining popularity now and how smooth and tasty it was.

The whole time I'm standing there like... who the hell are these people and what are they talking about? And why don't I know of this new, tasty Apple Pie flavored whiskey?

I guess I'd better get back to folding sheets and starting another load. I feel a nap coming on soon, maybe after the Amazon goes to work. It's been a rough week. I'll try to be more coherent in future posts, I realize I'm rambling like a madwoman.

Ya'll have a great holiday. If ya come by, tiptoe in. I'll probably be sneaking a nap.

Later Taters.