Closing.

I was scheduled to work until 10:00PM tonight, which is the first time it has happened. Really i’m only supposed to stay until 9:45 PM at the latest but I decided that i’d stay after like all of the other 18+ people to help clean the store so we could close. This was the first time i’ve ever stayed after. I ended up leaving Target at 11:20ish or so.

I guess the main reason that I stayed after was because i’d get an excuse to chill out with Janelle. Seriously, very few gals even compare to how awesome she is. It was fun, I got to spend some of the day with her from work this afternoon until closing tonight. After all the minors left, I stayed on register until we ‘closed’ the store. After that, I restocked all the bags at the registers before collecting all the hangars and dumping them in the back room. I wanted to stay with Janelle because I had no idea what I was doing and so we went to help clean up the Softlines department.

At first, we started cleaning and organizing the clearance racks until it was mostly satisfactory. Then Janelle got assigned to Lingerie, and I was told to assist her when I got done. After mucking around and cleaning up the clearance area, I finally went over to help her out. We got to talk for a little bit about various things and joked around about various undergarments, which was fun. After that, we were assigned to organize the Baby stuff. That was when we were both like falling over and suffering from exhaustion, but the zone was called and we were able to go home. She then drove me home and i’m here now. Tommorrow, she and I work from 8AM until 4:30PM.

Something weird happened though. I could have sworn that I saw my old best friend, Shana O’Brien applying for a job. If I was able to work with her, that’d be friggin’ amazing. I haven’t talked to her in years and I really wish I could. I should have said something, but I guess I was just too shy. She looked at me, and I wonder if she knew it was me.

I seem to have lost my good Target name tag, and so i’m stuck with a “New Team Member” one until they are able to order me a new one. I think I lost it somewhere inside the house, but i’m not sure. Either way, I just want my name tag back. It’s like a badge of pride, you know?

Yesterday, Sophie came home. She’s actually well enough to be at home which is good. She ran into the study when she got home and wagged her tail and licked my hand before I realized she was even there. I really missed her. I wonder how she is going to take Shadow not being around…

My dad also gave me a Zune yesterday. So far, I’m really enjoying it. I don’t have anywhere near all of my music on it though. Most of my music is on my old desktop which kind of died. I really need to get that fixed. Speaking of computers dying, the old Craptop’s screen went out. I treid plugging it up to an old monitor and it still wouldn’t work, so i’m not sure what’s going on. That more or less means I won’t be on instant messengers for a while because I don’t want to put them on my gaming machine. Well, other than XFire.

Anyway, I should be getting to bed because I have to be back at work bright and early in the morning. Hopefully it will be a good time.

He’s Gone…

    Shadow is gone… I can’t believe it. Just the thought of it rips me apart on the inside and breaks me down. It hasn’t until just recently and now I’m feeling the full effects. I guess I was just in denial, I thought he would still be coming home, but he’s actually gone. I went to see him at the hospital yesterday. When I was in there I was surrounded by death. I saw other dogs and cats with severe other injuries such as a dog with one half of its face all torn up… and then there was shadow. Trying to sleep, laying on this metal thing panting with his heart racing trying to get his fever down. He had all these needles and tubes in him, even 4 of them in his neck. It was awful; I couldn’t stand seeing him like that. Katie went and petted him for a little bit but he didn’t move… The same thing with my mom, he just kind of laid there.. When I petted his ear like I usually did, he opened his eyes and looked at me. I realize now that he was saying goodbye…

    I was told this morning that his lungs had failed and that they had to keep an oxygen mask on him for him to stay alive. This was something out of a nightmare to hear. To make things worse, my mom told me she would give him one more day to get better or else she would put him to sleep. How could she give up on my dog like that?! I was so outraged. But that doesn’t matter any more. He died around 8PM, his heart just went out and he died…

    I remember when I first got him as a puppy. I was living in Minnesota at the time, and I was around 10 years old in the 5^th grade. We drove out some place in Minnesota where the breeder lived. There were all sorts of puppies there and they were all adorable. I saw him out of the three litters and he immediately drew my eye. I could tell he was a gentle and sweet dog and his color markings were dark gold which I liked. I picked him up and sat on a swing with him in my lap. I decided to call him Shadow… Later, I decided he was the one I wanted and my sister chose Sophie out.

    We finally got home and I had decided I wanted him to sleep in my room with me because he was my dog. He whined the whole night and kept me awake, but I still loved him. He really missed his mom, because he was definitely a momma’s boy. Later on, we would play together and lay around. It didn’t take much to entertain me with him and I liked it that way. However, soon I began to almost tire of him and went back to my games. He became second to them and that really hurt him. He would always come and see me to want to play but I didn’t give him any attention, so he would always go to my mom. She would give him the attention he wanted and he became strongly attached to her. He still loved me though, and he was my dog.

    I remember when we had this huge blizzard in Minnesota. Shadow loved the snow as much as I do, if not more. He was always incredibly energetic when there was snow, even when he got older. I used to love to throw snowballs towards him. He would jump up and catch them in his mouth and they would break. It was so much fun going down the hill in the back yard in a sled and having him chase me down… I really miss that.

    It wasn’t all sunshine and buttercups with him though. He and Sophie were always trying to find a way to escape from the yard and run around for a while. They used to get out every so often and they were fast back then. Granted, I was younger and smaller but I remember them getting out one time and me having to chase them for a while. I once was able to grab onto Shadow’s collar but he managed to drag me along the street which cut me up pretty bad.

    We somehow forgot to get Shadow neutered and Sophie spayed though. One summer in Minnesota, Shadow and Sophie ended up having puppies. They were so cute and adorable. There were 8 of them if I remember right. I was in the middle of the 6^th grade if I remember right. In fact, my favorite one of the lot which I named Sunny, I was able to give to my best friend at the time, Colin. I really wish I could see Sunny sometime. But I really miss those puppies. It was utterly heartbreaking raising them for 6 weeks and then having to sell them since there wasn’t enough room in the house. I remember them all stepping over each other trying to get to the food, and their first winter. I would take one of them and put them in the snow and make them jump around to try and get to me. They were the cutest things ever.

    Eventually, we moved to New Jersey. I don’t think that the dogs liked moving, and neither did I. I left a lot of amazing things and people in Minnesota… (I still miss you, Tracie)… But that’s a different story. They still managed to get out and escape our yard in Jersey as well, which was always a pain. The dogs were finally starting to get older now. Sophie was starting to get some grey and eventually while hairs on her chin and mouth and Shadow was starting to plump up and get fat.

    In the end, he was rather fat. I had stopped walking him when we moved to New Jersey because I was always having such a hard time dealing with things. Leaving Minnesota was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my entire life. We had even less of a relationship now since I was really into games like Everquest and I didn’t really feel like doing anything other than it. I really regret that now, but it’s a bit late. I still remember him recently jumping up on the sofa, with one paw on the arm rest and he would literally watch TV with me. He didn’t really come and see me anymore and he would rarely wag his tail at all for me, but he still loved me.

    I will admit that I have some regrets. I wish I had been strong enough to put the games down and give him the attention he deserved. I will try and make sure that my games never come before anything that’s actually important in my life. After all, there will never be a sweeter and more tolerant creature than that dog. I really believe that he had a heart of pure gold, which was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The sheer possibility of an animal being able to love everyone so much and touch anyone who had ever met him is simply mind boggling. For anyone who’s ever met him, I’m sure you will miss him as well. If you have met him, please post a comment and share an experience or at least what you thought of him. I will truly miss you Shadow, and I loved you.

Shadow.

    He’s in the emergency vet in Longhorn PA or someplace. I can’t really be bothered to remember the name after all. I was told by my mom this morning that he might not make it… You know, when my sister told me to say goodbye to my dog because he was going to the vet, I was watching a movie. I simply said bye without even looking at him. Now, I may never see him again.

    I did get my new computer today though, but I didn’t get a chance to set it up. The Fed-Ex truck was right at my house when I got off the bus and so I ran up and signed for it. It’s really sweet, but there are a few things I’m not happy with. For example, one of the case hinges is broken so if I lift up on a certain spot, it will bend a little bit. But I can easily get a new one.

    I’m not going to be going to school tomorrow. I’m going to get my mom to take me to see Shadow. I just hope it’s not too late…

Alone.

    Today hasn’t exactly been the best day to say the least. I came home and found out that Sophie, one of my dogs, is sick and in the animal hospital. I also found out that my new computer did arrive but no one was here to get it and so I never got to get it today. I did get a good deed done today, but other bad things still happened to me.

    My friend Gabe hasn’t ever really had a cell phone which is a pain in the ass. To make things worse, his job is delivering pizzas so if something was to happen to him, he’d be pretty much fucked. That’s why Alicia and I decided to buy Gabe a pre-paid cell phone and a bunch of minutes. Gabe and Alicia showed up at my house and we drove out to Target. We got him a green Oyster Virgin Mobile phone which actually is pretty nice. However, right after we got it they dropped me off back at home because it was “the-two-of-them” time.

    I come home to find out that no one is there, and neither is Shadow. He is apparently extremely sick too and was taken to the animal hospital along with Sophie. However, after getting a bunch of tests done it turns out that he is ‘fit’ enough to come back home. The poor thing can hardly stand up and trembles when he does. My mom and I had to carry him upstairs because he couldn’t make it up the stairs. It pains me to see him like this after all I’ve been through with him. In fact, I’ve raised not only him as a puppy, but his own puppies as well. I feel guilty because he always came second to my games and that is really making me feel bad because we don’t really have a very close relationship even though he is my dog. I wish I had done things differently.

    That has me really stressed out, and for some reason I just feel awful. I wish I had someone here with me right now, instead of being alone.

Protected: “I’m happy anyway…” Part II.

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“I’m happy anyway…”

Today:

    Today was rather chaotic to say the least, but it turned out to be a good one after looking back on it. I actually had fun even though some pretty lame shit happened to me. That actually doesn’t happen very often, where I’m able to so easily shrug off the bad. I guess today was mostly a work story so here goes.

    I had to work starting at 8AM up until 4:30PM. This was right after closing last night (which will be mentioned later), so I was rather tired. When I first got to Target, I was one of maybe 4 or 5 team members around that I could see. So I simply got to work starting up the Photo Lab. I saw Janelle, which made me very happy. It turns out that she was scheduled to work Guest Services next to me for the entire time that I was there! That alone made my day amazing. It was also pretty great because I had no way of getting home and she was able to give me a ride home.

    The workload was pretty much the same, although it was mostly catch-up from last night. I still wasn’t able to get all of it done because there had been so much from the other night. But when I’m around Janelle, I feel really calm and at peace. She’s just that awesome. Having her there made this day hands down one of if not the best day I’ve had at Target.

    The only thing that kind of sucked was how I messed up my right hand… twice. Granted, I get a lot of hand injuries at work, whether it is from paper/plastic cuts or the occasional burn; this happened to be right next to each other on my right hand. I got my middle knuckle of my middle finger slashed by a cardboard box and my top knuckle of my middle finger got smashed and slashed by a sharp cabinet corner. It looked kind of silly having to wear two band-aids on the same finger so close together, but they helped.

    Alicia and Gabe were actually supposed to show up at Target today; however, they never did. She said that Gabe came over and got upset and left. Since she didn’t have a car, she didn’t show up. We were going to buy Gabe a cell phone together since he is a mutual friend. Oh, and yes, we are talking again.

 

Yesterday:

    Yesterday was pretty damn bad. I didn’t really get any enjoyment out of it what-so-ever. I had to close down last night, and when I got to work, it was utterly packed. It was like friggin’ Christmas! Not only that, but Hakim called out that morning so no one was there to get the machines up and running and get some of the orders taken out of the way! To make matters worse, I covered his shift on Friday night, so when he didn’t show up for work on Saturday I thought that he was like stabbing me in the back.

    I was so stressed that day that it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had at Target. Granted, the worst would probably be the one where I got so upset that I more or less told my boss off, but that was just terrible. There were so many orders that I had never seen so many full film envelopes up till that point. Even at Christmas there weren’t that many film envelopes. There were at least 15 of them on top of some digital orders.

    The only good thing about yesterday was that I got to spend a decent amount of time with Chris from electronics. We coordinated our lunch breaks so that we could go at the same time. We decided we would drive to Arby’s in his utterly awesome car. It smelled really good because of his crazy air freshener. Even better than that was the other stuff though. He had some crazy awesome red and black seat covers as well as a Pioneer sound system and a radar detector. It was this ridiculously cool Red Saturn; I don’t remember the year or model though…

    On the way to Arby’s from the Target Parking lot we saw a Lancer Party. A Lancer Party is where a bunch of Mitsubishi Lancer owners get together and bring their cars, chill out and play loud music. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from seeing it. It’s probably a bit deeper than that, but I’m not sure.

    I got two things at Target on Sunday as well. I bought Wii Play and this movie called Pro-Life. I’ll try and post a review of Pro-Life after I watch it again. Anyway, it’s getting late and I should head to bed…

Stress.

    I’m not sure why, but I haven’t been feeling very well lately. I’ve been feeling very stressed out and irritable. I think it’s because I haven’t been sleeping enough lately, since I’ve always been going to bed too late but it might be some other things. I’ve been kind of tired of being single for a while now, and I wish that the gal that I’m looking at felt the same way. I’m also tired of having to do so many things at once. I just need a break, you know? I think that I will let Hakim take both my days next week since he offered to do that. At least that way I get some time to myself.

    I am almost done writing this paper for Careers class. We have to write an essay about something we believe in such as a feeling or a memory/experience that we had. It’s called “This I believe”. There’s actually a website with essays on it, but I forgot the address. Mine is on my experience with homophobia and how my friend Louis changed me as a person. I’ll end up posting the final copy when it’s completely ready, I’m still tweaking it.

    I just beat Armored Core 4. That game can be extremely frustrating but it’s still a lot of fun. I made a lot of custom mechs and mostly named them after Anglo-Saxon/Norse lore. For example, my main assault mech that has a killer sword is named Grendel. My fast and agile machine gun mech is named Nidhogg. Finally, my heavy weapon tank mech is named Ragnarok. I love playing it online because everyone has their own custom mech and logos and it’s all about self expression. I also love it because I usually really rip the opposition apart. I can take on two people against me at the same time usually.

    It’s far too late for me to be up writing still so I need to go to bed. Hopefully I’ll stop getting into the habit of writing so late so I won’t be so tired and stressed out in the future. Good night.

Last Night.

    I realize that I didn’t post anything last night and that I broke the daily posting goal that I had set. However, I was able to do it for a long time. I have noticed my entries starting to slip a little in purpose anyway since I end up posting them so late. Lately, I’ve been getting in the habit of posting right before I fall asleep at like 1 in the morning. Last night however, I ended up too exhausted from staying up so late the past week and it was too late for me to try and write one because I had my sleeping pills knocking me out.

    Yesterday I went to Target even though it was my day off. I decided to help Hakim by taking his shift tomorrow even though I really don’t want to. I also got 2 new games from Target yesterday. These were Armored Core 4 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. I also got Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on my 360 and that game is just confusing. I haven’t played Stalker yet but I can’t wait to try it. The game takes up a whopping 10 gigs of space! There is good news however. After having to switch my case because they couldn’t get the liquid cooling for the one I had originally wanted, I’m finally going to get my new computer albeit with a different case. The good news is that it will be here very shortly, the case is still cool, and I will still get liquid cooling.

    While at Target yesterday I also opened up a Target Credit Card account. I don’t know if I was accepted or not though. I’ll be finding out in about 10 business days or so via the mail. I wanted it because I have to either use cash or a Target Visa card with my employee discount, which is crap. I wish I was able to use just my Debit card with it but I can’t. I guess it’s just Target’s way of trying to have more control over me, and frankly, it works.

    

Pandemonium.

    You know it’s going to be a long day when you don’t even make it to school before work calls you and tries to get you to come in. I didn’t even make it to school when Target called me and asked me if I could come in. I told them I was still in high school and they were like… “Oh..”. I immediately knew it was going to be terrible because I had to work today and that meant that the person before me called out. I had to hope that Hakim would go in, but I didn’t have too much faith that he would.

    So after a boring day at school I end up getting home only to have Target call me again and ask if I can come in early. I was like, “Sure, I guess. It all depends on if I can get a ride.” I ended up getting there at 4:45 instead of 5:00, which meant I got a lunch break. That alone ruled. However, no one had been there all day so I had to more or less open up the Photo Lab. There were orders all over the place. Some inside the drop box and some sitting on my counters, it was a total mess. There was so much that I actually wasn’t able to get it all done before it was time for me to leave. It felt like it was Christmas because I was rushing all around trying to get things done on time since I wasn’t able to finish everything the night before and had to rely on the person the next morning to finish it, which is a common occurrence. But since there was no one there, I had to try and get it done before all the other stuff. It was utter chaos…

“This is fucking horseshit!”

    I’m not going to say much about my school-day today because nothing really worth mentioning happened. Well, with the exception of that Shakespeare guy coming back. But he’s gonna be there on Mondays for a while, and I’ll talk about him when he does something worth mentioning. This entry is more or less about what happened at work today and this one woman.

    So I got to work a little early and I noticed we were out of Dino-Magic Eggs. Bummer. I was going to end up buying one and bring it to my Chemistry class because it’s a chemical reaction. Lisa said it would be ok too, but we were out of them. Anyway, when I got to the Photo-Lab, Sharon warned me that people were really nasty today. I kind of shrugged it off because of what happened with Janelle. After that happened to her and the way it made me feel, I figured that I could take it. Wow, was I in for it.

    Later on, some young teenage girl shows up and was going to return this little doggie carrying bag she got because it was defective. Unfortunately, she didn’t have her receipt. She claimed that she never got it and that it wasn’t her fault so I got Jeff. He told her there was nothing we could do and that we’d have to do a no-receipt-return. I explained that to her and she asked if I could just give her store credit, which I couldn’t. She wanted to speak to someone else so I got John to come and more or less tell her the same thing. This made her angry and so she said some things and walked off to get something.

    After a while, she showed back up with her father there who was this big looking dude who I’d seen before, definitely the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to run into in a dark alley. Anyway, she was really upset and ended up bringing two items that equaled the amount of the bag. We can’t do that since it has to be one item of equal or greater value. She claimed we didn’t tell her this and so I went and got John again. He more or less really let her have it. He told her how the three of us told her that it had to be one item. She started freaking out and I could tell she was choking back tears she was so upset. She started cursing at John about how “this is fucking horseshit!” and all sorts of other things. Her father was sitting there calmly and explained how he’s a really calm guy and what we could do to fix this. Eventually Jeff came over and made an exception for him but only because he was so calm and nice while his daughter was freaking out and cursing.

    I only had a 15 minute break today since I worked 4 hours and 45 minutes. If I had my shift 15 minutes longer, I would have a 30 minute lunch break but I didn’t get one, as usual. Anyway, my friend Jared got on his 30 minute break when I went on my 15. We decided to go to Wegmans next door which was a crazy idea. I decided I wanted some Wegmans pizza for my break for once and Jared wanted some Chinese food. I lent him some money for it and we rushed over to Wegmans because I had to go over, get the pizza, get back, and eat it all in 15 minutes. Somehow, I was able to do it and it was definitely worth it.

    It turns out that the old woman in the electric wheelchair that I previously mentioned is well-known around Target; her name is Phyllis. Anyway, John told me stories about her and how she used to actually be nice but still equally racist and crazy. At one point she was talking to him a while back about how we shouldn’t outsource things. He told me about how when he was trying to help her with her payments that she randomly said something about America buying its bullets from Israel because we don’t need to make them. There were all sorts of random stories like that about her. There was even one about how she comes in for hours at a time so she can be with Team-Lead Jared from Furniture. She really wants to take him out to dinner, or so I hear. Either way, it was a weird day at work today…