Fragile

June 7

Let me start by saying this: there is one employee at LC’s who gets VERY stressed and yells a lot. I think that’s just how she is, but I don’t respond well to yelling. It’s hard for me to not take it personally. I have found that when I have worked with her, I have gotten very overwhelmed.

She was there. I was trying to steer clear of her, but she seemed quite happy. I was making pizzas (the first time they trusted me to do it) and she was putting toppings on. She was really talkative and told me she was high so she wanted to have a deep conversation. We talked about people. It was good.

I got to talk about Casa Hogar Mama Paulita with the manager.

Then we did a food trade with McDonalds. Such a fun idea. We gave McDonalds free food and they gave us food. So I got ice cream! at work. so fun.

Then the dinner rush started.

The LC promise is to serve every customer within thirty seconds. It sounds great on paper, but it doesn’t really work in real life. There is a rack of pepperoni, and a rack of cheese pizzas ready to be put in the oven. There is also a hot box in the front, which usually has a FEW of each kind of pizza in it ready to be sold. When you sell a pizza, you yell back to the people working in that back what you sold, so they can put it in the oven and replace what you sold out of the hot box. That way, the pizzas not only stay hot, but freshly cooked too. The oven is a conveyor belt. Sometimes, there will be a bunch of pizzas in the oven at once. Someone needs to be at the other end of the oven ready to grab the cooked pizzas and box them up. Sometimes though, (MOST of the time) it’s just me up there, trying to run the counter and box the pizzas. So sometimes, the pizzas get stacked up in the oven and they burn. So in theory, you sell a pepperoni pizza, you scream “ONE PEP” to the back, and the girls in the back put one pep in the oven, and there are always enough pizzas in the hot box. What actually happens though, is you have five cars in the drive through, and two people in the store, and one of them orders three cheese and four pep. People seem to get confused and think that every pizza in the store is hot and ready. If someone orders all the pizzas in the box, the following customers have to wait. When the drive through line is wrapping around the building, and people are inside, it gets really stressful really fast.

I usually get yelled at when I don’t yell for help. So I went to the back of the store and told the girls that I needed help. They just looked at me. ok. I tried. There were a ton of pizzas coming out of the oven, but I couldn’t get to them, because there were so many customers. But the customers needed those pizzas. Quite a few customers got angry. One woman in the drive through wanted a pepperoni pizza, and I told her she would have to wait five minutes. Then I asked her if she would mind (I shouldn’t have said mind.) driving through the drive through again, because people behind her where also waiting for things. I think it’s a stupid idea too, but I’m just the messenger, and that’s what they tell me to do. She snapped, “yes actually, I do mind.” So I said ok, and smiled, and shut the window. I don’t care if the people behind her all have to wait. But she pulled up to the front and came in the store and demanded her money back because she didn’t have time to wait. (Five minutes?! Most fast food places don’t have your food ready exactly when you walk in the door. It just disgusts me, the want for instant gratification.) I had to go to the back and find the stressing co-worker to get the woman her money back. When she got there, we’ll call her M, she yelled at me in front of the customers, telling me I can’t make them wait. But I had TOLD her I needed help. I didn’t have any pizzas out yet. It wasn’t my fault. I explained to the woman that people buy all of our pizzas and then we have to cook fresh ones. “Well I don’t have time to wait.” Ok. Sorry. But it’s not my fault. So M went back and yelled and threw pizzas around and I tiptoed around trying to appease angry, impatient customers.

Later, when it had mostly calmed down, I asked her what I should have done differently. Because somehow, every time I work with her, this happens. She said, “Oh, you did everything right. Don’t let it make you feel shitty about it. Some people just need someone to get mad at. Don’t take it personally.” REALLY?! THEN WHY DID YOU YELL AT ME?!!?? So either she yelled to make the customer feel better, or she doesn’t know what I should have done differently. So how am I supposed to learn to fix it?

A few other customers snapped at me, there were a few creepy guys, and then we ran out of pizzas. But that happens a lot.

But one day, I am going to explode, kindly, at a customer. Human beings run that place, not robots. So forgive me if I’m not perfect. I’m sorry if you’ve had a bad day, but you have no right to yell at me if you have to wait a few minutes. They’re not my rules. I’m a person too. I’M A PERSON TOO. I know Jesus would never explode. (That’s in a random spot, I know, but I was thinking about it while I was trying to calm down.)

It’s funny, in a sad way, that if I were another customer, if I passed these angry people on the sidewalk, they would be kind. But the minute I put on that black t-shirt and stand behind that counter, I lose my personality, I lose my humanness, I lose my feelings. I become part of the company. That’s it. Just someone to go through to get some greasy food. Some of them ask me how I am. When did “how are you?” replace hello? They don’t care how I am. I usually don’t answer, because usually there is not time to answer between the question and them telling me what they want.

I am left feeling so fragile. I can’t not take it personally. Who doesn’t want to be treated with kindness and respect? I don’t know how to change the system from behind the counter.

I refuse to accept this system as normal. I’m a person too. Treat me like one. PLEASE.

grease

The more things happen, the more people here scoff at the idea of wanting to be there, the more I want to be there. With the people there.

this job eats me alive. Always the same. boring black clothes, hair up in a knot, the same stress, the same pizzas, the same customers wanting the same things.

When I listen at night, I feel like crying. During the day, dancing.

mostly I miss dancing. and people I did not think I would miss at all.

I drank caffeine at 11. My legs are tired, but my brain is awake. slightly hungry.

Last night I dreamed of a dog friend who is no longer living. He was talking to me, but not with words. But I knew what he was saying. We were baking. Pizza, of course. It was burning.

I have superpowers. I can pick up hot things. (This is not true. It was said of me, but the girl did not pick up those pans. She did not know they were not hot.) (They were not hot.)

Tomorrow (today) I will be in that store until Sunday comes. And then I will walk home in the coolish darkness.

My hands are so vain-ey.

guard your heart. wellspring of life. I guard mine like... I don't even have a simile strong enough. Too much guarding.

I smell like grease. If I sat outside I would attract raccoons and possums and coyotes and feral cats, and all the deer would run the other way. My stench would pollute the soft smell of honeysuckle.

I got home and drank my dr. pepper and ate a cookie and finished the book I started this morning. Lost and Found. about a woman and her friends, and a dog. good book.

And now, if I am anything smart, I will shut this machine down and go to bed. Because it is late.

But I must add, God is way cooler than I could ever imagine. Today I got mad at Him, stupid reason. I had no right. Not even by American standards. But I did. But He still helped me an awful lot.

Goodnight my friends. Thanks for reading my heart-thoughts. I hope you have a beautiful day, wherever you are.

~P

old

Listen to this. (if you have 6 minutes) It's one of those songs that reminds me of older times. One of those songs that stirs up so much emotion, I think I might cry. (A lot of songs are powerful to me, but seldom do they make me want to cry.) One of those songs that doesn't get old, the melodies don't settle. Each time I hear it, the music takes a backseat and nostalgia comes washing up. Piano, strings, percussion. It makes me want to dance, to spin, to frolic, to laugh, to to to... All these things of stories, that I am too afraid to do in this century.

A heart song. My heart hears it and wants to leap, and is pulled back. I always pull back.

Sometimes I see glimpses of places I've never been. I don't know if there are such places on this earth. But I keep imagining them. For years and years, I have remembered the same places, have longed to be in these places.

How sweet He is to me, to give me the imagination He did, the music to hear... How sweet He is to me and I am not so sweet back. Usually I am not even polite.

And then I become exhausted. My nose starts to run and then stuff up, and I wonder if anyone even wants to hear about my imagination. And I wonder if anyone needs to hear it. And I wonder when I'll start. And my brain starts to slow down and all the emotion seems to start to boil but the steam can't get out, and the effort is too much and I just want to stop, because I do not know what else to say to make anyone understand. I have no English words for it. No words at all, it's just this exploding swirl in my heart. And all at once it is both invigorating and incredibly exhausting. And the exhaustion wins. And I push it back until the next time He sends me something beautiful.

Sometimes beautiful things make me sad. I know why, but again, I have no words for you.

But you should listen to that song. Maybe you'll understand.

air

My parents have chosen to not have air conditioning. They have chosen instead to use our big attic fan, and open the windows at night and shut the house in the day. They have chosen to plant lots of trees that mostly shade the house all day.

I used to hate not having air conditioning. I waited for the day when I could get my own place and have it. It gets really hot in the evening, and at night, and some nights it never cools down much so the house is too warm all day. Little bugs come through the screens, Some days, cooling down is impossible. Some nights, we lay sweating on top of our sheets and wait for the temperature to hit 80 or 75, or for a breeze. The humidity seeps in, nothing dries, no sweat stays away.

But I've grown to love our natural air. I imagine the old days, when my house was young. (built in 1906, we think.) I imagine the lives of those in Africa, the Middle East, India, the places where people don't have big buildings with mechanized cold air circulation. Our natural air connects me somehow to those people. To most people. Night here, sitting, sweating in my room, the fan sucking warm air out and the trees pushing cool air in, and somewhere it is day, and hot. Someone is walking, someone is clinging to shade. The dogs retreat into the shadows, can't you see it? We're connected, somehow, through the air.

I have grown to love it. The smell of sweat, the stickiness, just from living. The smell of honeysuckle. The preciousness of a breeze. The sounds of insects and leaves. Sitting at night next to an open window. Drinking water all day. Sitting outside after dark, soaking in the cool. The sound of rain. The simplicity of it. The remembering, the imagining, the connecting.

Why I do not like Personality Tests

(focusing on Meyers-Briggs, but I feel this way about them all)

I used to think they were fun. Figuring myself out. A puzzle. I know they are meant to be more than just something fun to take. I know they are supposed to give you a hint of why you are the way you are, show you why you might lean towards certain tendencies. I know – everyone knows- your personality is not necessarily going to stay the same all the time. I think the Meyers-Briggs people know that too. So I know that test is not a once and for all thing.

But I do not like them. I do not like being pegged. I like to think I am more dynamic than four letters. My name has eighteen; at least let me have that many. My Meyers-Briggs test says I am extroverted. A lot of people question that. I think it is because I am quiet. It’s true, I am. I also write a lot, and I love to read. Those are mostly solitary activities. I need my alone time to think and process and write. But too much alone time, and I get incredibly lonely. Given the choice, mostly, I would choose to be with people. Just because I don’t talk a whole lot, doesn’t mean I don’t like being with people. (And I do talk, when I have something to say.) But yes, sometimes I do like being alone.

And though my letters generally fit me, I don’t want to box myself into four letters. I refuse. Jesus gives me a way cooler, more fitting identity.

People are forever trying to fit into identities. Personality tests, astrological signs, labels, cliques.

I am so much more than four letters.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” –Walt Whitman

Because Because!

Because some days, you just feel, lovely.

Because you're writing your second novel.

Because you had the day off and got to see a good friend.

-----

Today, I didn't wash my hair. And I felt so lovely.

:)

hahaha!

It is so funny, that for seven hours, I forgot I had to pee. I forgot my legs were tired. I forgot I was thirsty. Then I got home. and BAM! I had to pee, my legs started aching, and I drank about a gallon of water.

Tonight was INTENSE.

why title this post with laughter? I prayed for joy on the walk to the store. He gave it to me, and He gave it abundantly. I was happy the whole night. I had one line of a hillsong song stuck in my head the whole 7 hours. I was fine. We were SUPER busy. The morning crew didn't make enough dough so we completely ran out of pizza when the manager was off delivering special pizzas. There were TONS of people in the drive through and they were getting mad waiting and some people drove off and some people wanted refunds, it was stressful. There were only two of us there trying to do everything and it was impossible. literally. The other girl has been working at that store for a long time, and she was super stressed. She called the other manager and cried and basically gave up. When the manager working with us finally got back about an hour later, she stormed out. The customers didn't stop coming though. It was really awful for a long time. We had to make every pizza individually... and ran out of bread and it was just bad. But I was happy! It was mostly not my fault so it was alllll right! She came back to help us clean up, which took an hour because we were so busy before. Then she threw up. (She's really really stressed about a lot of things and got too hot and is probably exhausted too.)

So. got through it. woopa woopa so intense.

But I was happy! :)