Last day last day, ho-rah-rah

Precursor: I spent this week in a fog of sickness as the result from Dane dane's most epic bachelorette party on Saturday. It's not so much that I was hung over as that I stopped sleeping, I slept 1 hour Saturday night, 3 hours the next and 4 hours the next. It as wretched and I just kind of sat in a daze at work with a pulsing headache and feelings of imminent vomit.

Story: Today was my last day and it was glorious (we don't think about how I'll be working there next summer...). Every moment was better than the last with the sweet feelings of being closer to the final minutes of my life as an assembly line worker approaching. Leslie gave me a huge hug and invited me and Amanda to her wedding to the guy from prison next summer when he's out (I think I'm going to have to go just to witness such an odd event, but I'm going to need a bodyguard so I don't get kidnapped, molested, drugged or any many of other horrifying possibilities that seem to accompany this woman). Then the day ended and we ran out of there, into the locker room where we hugged all the ladies because they love us and we tasted the sweet sweet freedom of the outdoors and a future where I never have to enter that monotonous place again.

Dana monopolized me

I actually have a legitimate excuse as to why I have been so lacking in updates:

1. Dana's bachelorette and bridal shower was last weekend and I came home from work every day last week to an email from her, her mom and Jenna the other bridesmaid that needed attention and then I had all the crafty things to finish which I had procrastinated (shocker). So I was on super get wedding stuff done mode.

2. I'm working on the Jensen line with my favorite ginger so there really is barely anything of note because there aren't a bunch of crazy people running around and I've been so stressed that I spent most of my days zoning out or hashing out creative wedding ideas with Amanda or having her calm me down that it would all turn out ok.

***THE PAST 2 1/2 WEEKS***

Essentially what has become of me is that I have lost my bloody mind, but so has Amanda so I don't feel so freakish in my fall to madness. This resulted in us bursting into fits of hysterical laughter over the ridiculous things we would dream up, example:

I decided (with your encouragement mandy man) that my life in Point would be made significantly easier if I knew how to ride a bicycle so I decided to ask my friend Becky to show me how. Well when I told the ginger about this she got really excited and started imaginary a scenario to which I voiced my concerns that I would fall over and die. She then said that the worst that could happen was I run into a tree branch, poke my eye out and have to wear an eye patch (one guy working on the line this week has an eye patch). This mental image set us both off into delirious laughter and the tears started rolling down my cheeks and then Leslie wiped them away while shaking her head in confusion.

Another particular occasion when I was getting really excited last Friday about Dana's impending bachelorette party and started singing 'Bad Romance' and dancing around during the last hour when we were broken for 15 minutes. Then Leslie yelled at me to stop dancing and put the leg of my table back on and I said I didn't know how and what does she expect out of me I'm not a mechanic (sidenote: me and Leslie have a relationship where she will pretend to yell at me to do something to which I petulantly refuse, then we glare at each other and then burst into laughter and make faces at each other. don't judge me). Then she yells "Just stick it in and screw it!" to which I respond "That's what she said" and fall to the floor giggling. Then eye-patchy says, "She probably never been screwed like that before" which caused me to laugh even harder and blush and get the same reaction from Amanda. It was ridiculous.

That's pretty much it-I've gone insane. Done and done.

so much can happen in 15 minutes

Today Amanda left on her break and left me to work next to Leslie, who began a lengthy story about how her grandson was in the hospital with an allergic reaction to some mosquito bites. Then who comes over but Juan aka the 30-something-guy she told to ask me out and starts talking to her. When he walked away I was ready for her to make me feel awkward as hell but shocker, she started right back into the story where she left off so I thought I was home free from further awkwardness. Foolish me. A few minutes later he came back. They chatty-chatted for a bit then he left and she turned to me and said "You missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime" I was like "Leslie, he's really too old for me" and she said "Hmmm well see that's what great about Juan he doesn't care about age (sidenote: oh really the older man doesn't care how young the girl is, well duh) or size, he cares about what's inside." Then she went on to tell me her entire relationship history.

The awkwardness continued later on when she came over to me and Amanda and said "So guess what Ray (her fiance in jail for drugdealing) and me were talking about last night, he wants to have a kid when he gets out of jail. God damn I'm 47 years old and I'm fixed so I'd have to get unfixed and I told him hell no." Amanda responded with "and your kid would probably have down syndrome" and I nodded and advised against it. Ok I kind of loved how uncomfortable this was to hear.

the rest of the week

last catching up past...

Tuesday nothing happened of note.

Wednesday I wanted to grab Crystal by the throat and shake her voice box right out of her so she could never ask again what batch we were on. By 7.30am she had asked about it 3 times, because she was told at the beginning of the shift we were supposed to have a short day. My manager is a fool. Doesn't he understand that by telling her something of this import that she would never stop pestering every damn person she saw about when exactly we were leaving? Fool. Literally the rest of the day she bitched about how they kept adding extra batches and the guy running didn't help by lying to her that we had way more to do than we actually did just to piss her off. And as if this was not annoying enough, it was hotter than the pit of hell and we were short employees so on the line it was just me, her and Jason. Jason rant: this fucker is the laziest shit I've ever met, he never stands up, constantly fucks up, falls asleep, doesn't talk so never warns us when shit is happening, doesn't do things my way aka the quickest way and basically just gets in my way. Asshole. Oh and we didn't have a short day. It was really satisfying to see Crystal infuriated that they lied to her.

Thursday: everything was going along in it's usual horrid with spots of joking around with Andrew and Jerry until the end of the day when I look over at the bank of windows that face our parking lot and see a pillar of black smoke. Just as I'm about to raise a cry of alarm I see five guys run over to see it, which I then followed in suit to see a garbage truck on fire next to our parking lot. It was insane, then the firemen showed up and all was well.

Friday the certo line wasn't running so I got to work with Amanda. We talked solid for 8 hours, it made my throat hurt.

Monday gets its own post

still catching up-Monday of this past week

Monday began with a whole lot of sitting around because the guy running the line called in so they were scrambling to find someone to run it so they sent us down to what is called the re-work room. This delightful little space is a giant empty room with an industrial sink and some palettes where they put the products that get messed up and need to be reboxed/remelted/just fixed because the ingredients or machine fucked it up and people get sent there to do it when they have nothing else to do aka us. So we walk into the rework room and our job is thus, there are 100 boxes full of packets of dairy queen's hot fudge that need to be opened and squeezed into barrels and then the boxes crushed. Super fun.

This went on for an hour in which I heard Jason actually speak and found him to be just as dull as I had already stereotyped him to be, really just further proving that being judgmental isn't always so wrong. Here is how the conversation went that revealed his blandness:

andrew "so jason when does your radio show start?" (sidenote: yes the silent and sweaty boy is a disc-jockey. shocking and a waste of a radio spot)

jason "the first week of school"

andrew "do you talk about sports or like what do you talk about?"

jason "no they do the sports on the sports show before me and i try to talk as little possible"

*me trying to stifle my laughter and hide behind andrew so jason won't see me-i mean i don't want to hurt his feelings and andrew looking at me trying to hide his laughter*

they go on to talk about the sports at their schools and were talking about stupid football players and

then I said "yeah bros are the worst"

jason who hadn't heard me said "what are the worst?"

me "bros, you know *insert stupid man voice* 'dude i went to a kegger last night and it was awesome'"

*both andrew and jason look at me in utter confusion and frankly if you don't know what a bro is you probably are one*

at this point i feared having to actually talk to jason so i mentally checked out of the conversation and tried to avoid andrew and crystal getting hot fudge all over me-andrew because he's a weirdo and likes to throw things at me and crystal is just fucking messy.

Finally the line starts so we go back to work without Jason luckily and the rest of the day passed uneventfully.

mortification

still catching up, last week:

I was taken away from all joy and thrust unceremoniously back onto the certo line aka the soul sucking monotony that is slowly driving me to a point of hysteria that borders on insanity, where the heat steals my motivation and replaces it with unreal levels of sweat and despair. The only thing keeping me alive is Andrew who has taken a shocking turn in from the douche bag of last summer to the kinda still a douche bag this summer, but sometimes cool to my best friend/savior this week. Me and Amanda even went and hung out at his house with his roomies on Wednesday and it was shockingly not awkward and completely fun.

So besides realizing that Andrew is actually a really nice guy, this week was completely devoid of any moments to write about.

Except for Thursday (to really express my mortification I'm going to reveal probably more than I should about myself, but otherwise it wouldn't be the same): in a seemingly wonderful twist of fate, I was taken to the Jensen line to be with Amanda for the day and everything was going delightfully until it happened. I let my joy overshadow my judgement and in an honest moment I revealed to Leslie (the lady running the line) when she asked, that no in fact I did not have a boyfriend or have ever had one.

This completely appalled her and resulted in two things. The first being that she decided clearly I had no idea how to flirt and spend 20 minutes explaining it to me. Naturally this was awkward because she is in her 50s and is engaged to a man who is in jail for drug dealing and I was blushing the whole time, needless to say I was sufficiently uncomfortable.

The second thing happened an hour later when she came over to tell me that she is going to find me a man. My reaction-oh good just what I need because naturally not having a boyfriend means I am seeking one, it couldn't possibly be that I am perfectly happy being single-I have enough friends, family, school and organizing to take care of thank you. This of course occured only in my mind and on the outside I joked with her and Amanda about it. yeah.

A bit later this guy, Juan, who always walks by this line went by (sidenote: I know Juan because when my oldest brother Justin worked at the factory when he was in college they became really good friends and hung out for years but have lost touch recently, but me and Juan have never talked or anything) and well let's just be honest he is a really attractive older man (he's in his 30's) and she sighs and goes "oo sexy" and saw that I saw her I smiled and nodded and we laughed about it. Ok. Then she went over and talked to him like she usually does so I didn't think anything of it. So I was caught completely off guard when she then came over to me and Amanda and said to me "so what would you do if Juan asked you out? I told him about our talk earlier and that you are shy and he's willing so you guys could go to dinner, no strings attached and just test the waters" my reaction: I blushed so bad I could feel the heat radiating off my skin, my mind went blank with shock that quickly turned to horror with each passing second because 1. he's over 10yrs older than me 2. Leslie asked him to ask me out (explanation: this is literally one of my greatest fears ever since when I was in middle school and saw all those 90's movies like 'She's All That' where the guy gets paid to ask the girl out and it's really awful and embarrassing) 3. he's my brothers friend (sidenote: it would be hilarious to see my brothers reaction though-I think his brain would explode) and basically I just can't believe this happened to me, this can't be real life, it just can't. This is the point where I look over at Amanda who looks just as shocked as me, is blushing in sympathy and then bursts out laughing so hard she can't even stand up. Now it's been a few minutes of me standing utterly speechless shaking my head so Leslie wanders away chuckling and Amanda finally says "I have never seen you look so horrified in my life, what are you going to do?" to which I had no response since I was busy burying myself deep in denial and trying to stop blushing. This is mortification at it's peak. All I wanted to do was crawl into my own skin and die right there. Why do these things happen to me? Do I just look so desperate and are these people so bored that they feel they must try and set me up? Who wants that? Anyway after about a half hour I calmed myself down and then the last hour of the day Leslie came back over to me and I told her "you are making my day very embarrassing Leslie. You are meddling just like a mom and this is why I never tell my mom anything" and she just laughed and I blushed some more and then the day ended, oh but not without Amanda first telling Andrew all about it when we got ice cream together. During which I started blushing all over again (damn this pale skin of mine) and Andrew thought that was hilarious. Oh awkward life, but I was back on certo the next day so hopefully it will all just blow over like it never happened.

i miss my ginger

To begin with, clearly I am far behind in my posting and this is due to the fact that I've been out of town/busy seeing friends (yay for social time outside of this hell whole of a job)/doing wedding stuff for dane dane/just plain exhausted. So I'm going to play catch up and jump way back in time to the two days I had to work the chocolate line without my favorite work person/one of my three ginger friends Amanda.

2 weeks ago Thursday: I walked onto the line without Amanda and it was a sad sad thing because the chocolate line is just not fast enough to keep me occupied without someone to talk to. I was optimistic as first however, because I found out that Leslie the lady who runs the line was robbed the previous day so she wasn't coming in so the younger guy, Dan, who works third shift was going to stay till 10am and I've heard he is really funny so I thought-yay someone to talk to! Alas my hopes were dashed when I discovered he is painfully shy and wouldn't talk to me at all until I got a "bye" and a smile from him on his way out. This is where the day takes a more eventful turn, Crystal aka one of the other line workers had to leave so we had to run the line with 3 people so one person works alone part of the day and it's just harder when things go badly since there are less people. Then the guy who came in to run the line for Dan hadn't run it in years and the wrappers kept ripping/opening and resulted in there being multiple times when they stopped the line and had 4 men staring confusedly at the wrapping machine until someone knowledgeable could get there. This clear display of their ineptitude made them all a bit cranky, which I can understand their pride and masculinity was called into serious question/bashed into nonexistence. Then the day ended-thank god. I literally talked for 5 minutes all day. On break. 8 hours of silence isn't good for me.

Friday aka the next day: I was very bleak going into work thinking I would be experiencing a repeat of the day before. As this job so often does, my expectations were obliterated-thankfully in this case. Dan actually talked to me and the rumors are true, he is very funny and we had a nice chat. A bit awkward because after I go through the whole "where do I go to school, what's my major, what do I want to do with it, how did I get the job here, blah blah" there isn't a lot else to talk about and all I want to ask is "why the hell is a guy barely older than me and from what I can tell intelligent, doing at this awful job?" and that would be rude. But really I'll take anything over silence, so I told random happenings of my times on certo and I learned about his tattoos. Fun times. Then we got done early so I didn't have to work with the inept guy, which was good but I didn't get paid which was bad.

To sum up: chocolate line = barely tolerable without a ginger to keep you laughing. To better express my feelings I wrote an Ode to a Ginger, in my head on Thursday and but I can't remember it now.