Eight Days A Week

Hold Me, Love Me

I’ve been working up to 16 hours a day this week in order to have a three day weekend. I’ll say that again. I’ve been working up to 16 hours a day.

I have to tell you how many hours I’ve been working. That’s the rule. No, you don’t outwardly brag about it. You don’t hold up your paycheck and yell, “Wooo-eeee! Lookee here! I worked 92 hours last week and can buy all of the canned beans that I want!” No, the rule is that you groan, affect a limp even if your work involves sitting in a comfy chair all day, and moan, “Yeah, I’m getting through it. It was a hard one this week. I bet I put in 76 hours or more. May be less hours next week. May be more.” Then you pause so that others can stare at you open-mouthed, an example of the hardest working person in the world. After that you limp away, saying nothing. That’s how you brag without bragging.

Those people, of course, drop dead from lack of sleep, but in my case I’m allowed to whine about it because I want to live. I’ve never pretended to want to work that many hours. My ideal work week is 30 hours, because I’ve somehow become so fast and talented that it’s all that I need. I would spend my off hours learning another language or solving physics challenges.

But I’ve never existed at that level. It’s true that some of my best ideas were made in the shortest amount of time, but those were happy accidents. I can’t plan happy accidents any more than I can solve physics challenges, so I have to make up for my lack of innate genius by working until things are halfway good. That takes forever.

There go my bragging skills. Let’s get this three day weekend started, shall we?

This is Tabby still covering the meat counter, and yes, those people in the background left a package of ground beef just sitting on the edge of the freezer. That happens. At least they didn’t leave it on loaves of bread in the bread aisle. I’ve seen that too, and those people should be jailed.

I once developed the perfect alibi for being late at getting back to my assigned station. I could find the boss, wherever she was, and ask her how she’s doing today. After she said “Fine?” with the appropriate amount of confusion I would use that brief encounter as the reason for my lateness. “Sorry I’m late. I was talking with the boss.”

Unfortunately, I developed this alibi during a team meeting. Everyone laughed, agreed it was a good idea, but pointed out that I just ruined it by sharing it with the team. I can think like Berle, I just can’t act like him.

When you reach the point in the day where you can no longer pretend like you want to be there, it should be a valid reason for going home. You’re out of character, the scene is ruined, and the show will have to be postponed until tomorrow.

I am actually less stressed with a line of customers. You can only help the person in front of you and you know what you’ll be doing for the foreseeable future. Might as well settle in, enjoy whatever beverage you’re hopefully allowed to have, and go at a reasonable pace. It’s kind of like jogging, but without headphones on.

I just want to point out that I’ve been wearing a hat like the one Rusty has here since I was 13 or 14 years old. I’ve never gotten any compliments on my hats, but I have had a few people who were annoyed. “What’s with the hat?” I’ve never understood hat annoyance.

One time when my high school art class visited the Chicago Art Institute, it was pouring down rain. We all marched from the train station to a local McDonalds and we were soaking wet. Mine was the only head that was dry and my teacher asked me why that was. I held up my hat. “A hat? What a ridiculous thing to wear today!”

He was the best teacher I ever had, by the way. Mr. Hurt. He won all of the prominent teaching awards (the Teachies? I’m really not up on my awards) and he shaped a few generations of artists. The next year I paid thousands of dollars in college for lesser teachers, but I’m not bitter. I just take every opportunity that I can to bring it up.

This was a take on people who try on glasses at an optometrist and then can’t find the glasses they were wearing when they walked into the place. This is way more common than I ever thought. I was with someone whose glasses accidentally wound up on the display rack and it took forever to find hers in the midst of glasses that were for sale. I brought this up with other people, thinking it would be a funny and unique story. Nope.

April Bloom is the Assistant Manager and I need to explore the perils of being an Assistant Manager more. It’s a special kind of dystopian nightmare.

I liked this joke because it’s me trying to correct every mistake I ever make.

If I really want a vacation I just need to drive a good thousand miles from here. It’s really hard to be stressed out about anything in my life when I’m a thousand miles from it. Astronauts, unfortunately, bring their work with them. Otherwise, they would be the most stress-free people alive.

Here I’m introducing a new character. And look! She has a hat. I may be biased, but I think people who like hats are better prepared for an unexpected rainstorm than others.