Bag it all

In high school I worked as a grocery bagger at the neighborhood family-owned market.

I made $5.25 an hour (a 10 cent raise from minimum! go me!), wore the uniform of terrible men's polo shirts that were several sizes too large, "faced" the aisles, re-stocked the Shasta soda machine out front, went on cart-return missions no matter the weather, directed customers where to find the pre-made pizza dough, and made sure to put the bread and eggs in a separate bag from the heavy stuff.  To sum it up, I was the world's best and also the world's scrawniest bagger.

Ugly uniform aside, there were some great perks to the job.  My co-workers were great. They were mostly college kids and other high school kids working part time, and the management did a great job of hiring friendly, personable people.  Those of us in High School would work either a 3pm - 7 pm shift or the 7pm - 11 pm shift on weekdays and a 4 or 8 hour shift on Saturdays.

I dreaded the 7pm - 11 pm shifts because (and Blake will confirm this) I've always needed a full night's sleep. And by full night's sleep, I mean at least 9 hours.  I love sleep.

The only thing that I looked forward to on those late nights was when, twice a week, I was on bakery clean up duty.  Now, we weren't technically allowed to take home the day-old bakery goods, but it seemed such a waste to just throw them in the dumpster.  So, often, the other bagger and I would triple bag the doughnuts etc., take them out back, and place them next to the dumpster instead of in it.  That way, at the end of our shifts, we could sneak back around the building and take the bounteous and slightly stale freebies home.

Now that I think about it, maybe this is where my illustrious career in dumpster diving began?

I also prided myself in being an excellent bagger.  I kept the meats with the meats because meat juice in with the produce is disgusting.  I kept the frozen goods together to self-insulate.  I put the bread on top and the eggs in a separate bag.  Maybe it's because I was only 16 and trying to prove my worth, but I really took my job seriously.

This brings me to the important point of this jog down memory lane.

Bad baggers.  There's always that one bad bagger at the grocery store that you try to avoid.

There's one at our local Giant and I will reverse my cart mid-line just to get away.  He puts the bread on the bottom and slams the eggs around.  He lets the produce roll out of the produce bags and then practically throws it into whatever bag is nearest.  Yes, I know I'm picky, but I specifically choose non-bruised apples...

Last week I thought I was home free.  I had loaded all of my groceries onto the conveyor belt and had just answered the checker "doing well, how are you?" when my bagging nemesis showed up at the end of the counter and started pulling out my re-useable bags.

I looked at my groceries - breads, produce, meats, eggs- and back at him with an internal wince.

Each week when I grocery shop, I bring two large reusable bags.  They don't fit everything, but I like to get a few disposable plastic bags because I use them as kitchen garbage bags.

I asked Bad Bagger to not overload the re-usable bags and then to use plastic for whatever didn't fit.  Then I chatted with the checker while I saw the total rise and rise (I hate how expensive food is...).  The next time I looked over at Bad Bagger, he had tried to stuff everything into the two bags.  Cans, bread, eggs, produce. All squashed.  The bags entirely too heavy.  I asked him again if he could use plastic for whatever didn't easily fit into the two bags because I'm not allowed to lift anything super heavy right now.  He just stared at me and kept putting cans in the already overloaded bags.

I had to ask for/pay for several extra plastic bags and re-bag the groceries myself in the parking lot so that they were light enough for me to lift into the car.  By that time, my bread was flat, my apples bruised, my grapes squished, and, well, you get the picture.

Take some pride in your job, man. But until that time, I'll be requesting that I bag my own groceries. Because a good bagger, much like an elephant, never forgets.

Young-ish

As I've mentioned before, I'm slowly hacking away at writing a book.  The main character is a 15-year old girl.  So, lately I've been trying to get in touch with my teenaged self by doing the following:

Wearing my retainer at night
Listening to high school throwback tunes like Relient K and Blink 182
Eating three Cadbury creme eggs for lunch in lieu of vegetables
and
Re-reading my journals from that era

It's been a painful process.  Apparently my teeth have moved during my "wear once-a year" retainer routine and practically stage a coup each night when I force it on.  The journal entries are deliciously (make that painfully) awkward.

Though I hate to admit it, I just can't seem to turn my back on Blink 182.  As hard as I try, those were my angst-y high school jams.  I'll never let go of those nasally, whiny, percussion-filled diatribes against the man.  Too many good memories.  Driving around in my 1980, mustard-yellow Volvo station wagon (appropriately named Colonel Mustard), manually rolling down the windows, and blasting punk music over the protests of my friends of the boy-band musical persuasion.

The journal entries have simultaneously been the most informative and most hilarious aspect of my retrospective. The writing reads the way nails on a chalkboard sound.  I'd always thought myself above the normal teenage drivel.  Guess I've been looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.

Here's a gem from a road trip with my family:

It was so funny. Meg and I sat in the front, but she thought my mom was also sitting up with us, so she scooted close to me, so I said "well, meg, if you really want to sit that close to me you can, but it really isn't necessary." We both started laughing, it was so funny."

Such beautiful descriptions! Such cascading prose! I was a regular Charles Dickens back then. Beginning and ending the story with "it was so funny." My younger self astounds my current self with the depth of her literary prowess.

Then later from the same road trip:

I got really car sick today. I had to throw up in a plastic bag. It was gross, and I felt bad cos I had to barf in front of everyone. Hopefully I didn't gross Meg out too much. Quite the embarrassment, huh?

Spoiler alert. Meg and I are still friends all these years later. Never let a little backseat barfing come between true friends.

And do you remember when photography wasn't digital?  Getting your prints in triple so you could give them to your friends?  It's probably for that reason that I can't find many pictures of my 15-year-old self on my current computer.  So this one is minus Meg, but plus Lindsey, Ashton and Rachel Cam.

These were the days when we thought we were cool for wearing our brothers' little league shirts to school and then playing baseball in the park after class.  Epitome of cool right there.

Ode to Meg

An ode to Meg on this, the illustrious day of her birth.

(Note: Because it's been ages since I studied poetry, I can pretty much guarantee that this resembles nothing even close to an ode.  Be forewarned.)


Way back in the awkward days of my youth
I wandered, lonely, the halls of an ugly brick school

There were populars, druggies, goodie-goodies and tools
Then there was the orchestra where the best kids hung, that's the truth

And on those first few days of nervous banter
I met a girl with blond hair and infinite skill

Both witty and musical - oh such a thrill
So I shyly struck up a conversation and figured "can't hurt"

In an instant I knew that this girl was the best
She had style, pizzazz, and put up with my quirks

She ran distance, played violin, and aced all of her tests
With a friend like her we kept ourselves from the jerks

At 16 she was given a great surprise
An old Camry, named Gary, and from her parents several instructions

To never turn left off of a main road - or die
But with right turns we managed to drive all over without any obstruction

Through high school and college we survived on diet coke and runs to 7-11
And named stop signs after the times we had accentually run through

Miss Meg's been a life-saver since my ninth grade youth
So, Happy Birthday dear Meg, hope you get a little slice of Heaven!

That one time I studied in Paris

I've been having fun lately revisiting some of my old photos and reminiscing about stories from yesteryear.  

I spent winter semester of 2006 in Paris on a study abroad.  I lived in the 11th on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir with my roommate Brooke (on the left in the first picture) at the home of Madame des Mazery and her balding dog, Igloo.

Igloo was some type of ancient miniature poodle who was losing all his hair.  I still remember learning the word for fur.  When Madame introduced us, she said "Le chien est Igloo.  Il perd ses poils."  And there I had it.  This is Igloo.  He's going bald.  It remains one of my favorite introductions of all time.

Igloo had various coats and sweaters for the damp Paris weather.  He had a Burberry rain coat and a puffy black down vest.  He was very stylish for a pup missing half his fur.

Madame des Mazery's first name was Claude.  I thought I'd misheard her for a few minutes because isn't Claude only a man's name?  Meh. Apparently not.  She was about 5 feet tall and probably 80 pounds, with frizzy hair to match Igloo's.  She cooked dinner for us three days a week, offered us ketchup with absolutely everything, and spoke no English whatsoever (I'm thinking this may just have been a ruse to get us to speak more French...).  

Brooke spoke one semester's worth of French (which is to say, none at all), so dinner conversations wore me out on a regular basis and went something like this: 

"Vous voulez du ketchup?" Would you like some ketchup.

Brooke, looking skeptically down at the salmon we've been served.  "No, merci Madame."

"Et que faisait vous aujourd'hui?"  What did you girls do today?

Me, trying desperately to describe a Ferris wheel without any of the necessary vocabulary, but lots of hand motions and sound effects.  "Uhhhhh, uhhhh,  nous....nous..." and lots of awkward pauses followed by an awkward use of tu/toi in a vous situation and maybe a time or two of calling my dog a bitch instead of a dog.  Perfect dinner table language, of course.  Sigh.  I would pay anything to go back and be a fly on the wall for those dinners.  

At least it forced me into learning how to speak real French.

I also learned a lot about French current events.  Madame spent most of her day watching the news.  She'd sit in front of the TV with her headphones on, glued to the screen for hours at a time.  We were there during some of the car-burning riots and she was riveted to the updates.  One day we came home to eat dinner with her and she could do nothing but sit at the table looking exhausted.  We asked her what was wrong and she explained that she was much too tired to eat because she'd been watching the news all day long without a break. 

Gotcha.  The news can be very tiring.

Anyhow.  Aside from school and awkward dinners with Madame des Mazery, I spent my time gallivanting around the city with my friends.  I spent the majority of my time with a group of five or six other students, and we had what will go down in history as the best semester of all time.  We ate baguettes and chocolate for breakfast, baguettes and cheese for lunch, and crepes for dinner.  We explored the latin quarter, went to underground jazz clubs, sang to Jim Morrison at his grave, got stuck in the metro doors, accidentally went to a topless ballet, made multiple daily trips to the pastry shop, met crazy people on the night trains, and generally kept ourselves quite entertained.  

I'm ready to go back for round two.  Who wants to join me?

Grandma names and why I don't write rhymes

Way back in the day in a house that was pink

Lived seven college girls that were just young things

They got into mischief and teased all the boys

And stayed up till all hours having parties - the noise!

All seven were characters, yes, through and through

But they laughed all the time until they turned blue

Oh such shenanigans they pulled and all the crazy first dates

Its a small miracle that each of them survived with good grades

One day all seven of them had their imaginations spark

So they gave each other grandma names on a lark

Ashton was Mildred, we called her Mildred Dahling, my dear

Was it Alpha or Meg who was Gertrude? ... It's unclear

I was Olive - see below on my face

And for Jenny and Erin? My feeble mind is erased!

Sweet Rachel was Mabel as I recall

She now has baby Mabel - don't that beat all?

These grannies in name were young in vigor and mind

They had daily dance parties and never wasted time

It's been seven long years since they last all were together

But all seven can say that life's only gotten better

Thank goodness for email and unlimited minutes

And blogs and instagram, e-games and pinterest

Thank goodness for friends who remain tried and true

Mildred Dahling, a mostest Happy Birthday to you!