You know what? I don't have to justify myself. This is my blog. Yeah.
Anyway...
So, the cold. Al's clearly wimpy immune system got taken down by a crappy cold that sapped his strength, gave him a runny nose, a sore throat, a cough, and a sad tendency to talk in the third person. Actually the last one might be a sign of madness. Who knows. It was rubbish having the cold, especially in the sunshine, and even more so at work, but it's never a walk in the park, is it? It's my cold season anyway. Every year I get at least one, normally around thing time. Given to me by one of the zillions of people I come into contact every day (okay, an exaggeration, but you know what I mean). Enough about that.
Work wanted to squeeze every last drop out of a swell guy like me during the last days of employment, especially with the upcoming food holiday. I worked hard and I worked long. There were drama-queen customers, mysterious oil-spills, and other crazy goings-on that just aren't interesting enough to get blog-space. I guess it was a good experience to work in a food store in the land of food before the festival of food that is Thanksgiving. So many turkeys died and were frozen and wrapped in plastic for this day of feasts. Pies, cranberries, sweet potatoes, marshmallows, whipping cream, ice cream, green beans, potatoes, squash, and corn all piled through the tills day in, day out. Recipes, family stories, and plans were shared between all and sundry.
My last day of work was today (the 26th November), the day before turkey day. It was crazy. Start to finish nearly all tills were going, and even then the lines were backing up. Two members of our dedicated team were no-shows. I hope they had good reason. Another didn't come in due to being drunk. This meant that I was the sole bagger for multiple tills (starting at 6 and ending at 3) for two hours. I did my best (and was on form), but I can't be everywhere.
It was raining. For my first of 3 hours collecting carts it rained the whole time. A medium drizzle is what I'd rate it, but the Southern Californians seemed to think that it was a torrential downpour. I bet El Nino would only be considered a wet weekend in Scotland (I'm sorry, I shouldn't joke about events that can have such devastating consequences).
The rain, the birthday of a fellow bagger (including a humorous cake that turned had her blushing furiously [tasty looking it was, too]), and the general madness of the day meant that my leaving was very low key to my relief. Most people didn't know - I kept it close to my chest - and so I explained myself a lot when there were opportunities for them to enquire. Some of the managers took a minute to thank me for my work and say how they'd miss me and my hard-working nature. I blushed. I'm never good at receiving such flattering comments. Might just be a new experience (kidding people - I do get compliments from time to time, believe it or not. Never for my writing though, but you knew that). My final act as a Ralphs courtesy clerk was to strike the American flag and take in to the manager. For real.
It had been out in the rain (bad) and the dark without proper lighting (very bad). I probably shouldn't bring attention to that. Pretty much the only way to make it worse would be to rub it on the ground, run it up upside-down, and burn it whilst singing anti-America, anti-Christian, Communist songs. I'm sure there are some. I enjoy the respect Americans have for their flag and their country. But they haven't been fighting each other since the dawn of time like the countries in the United Kingdom. And the Union Jack isn't as nice as the Stars and the Stripes. The Saltire is good though. Anyone seen the ideas for the new, more inclusive Union Jack? They will haunt my dreams for years to come.
I apologise for my wandering, mostly incoherent rambling in this post. I'm weary and have the attention span of a peanut. I know that the previous statement is a senseless mish-mash of the cliches 'the attention span of a goldfish' and 'a brain the size of a peanut', but it's what I like to say, so let me be. It's harmless.
That little tangent just proved that I should probably just abandon attempts at a post that anyone can follow. It doesn't even have pictures for those 'put off reading by reading for their degree'. You know who you are. Go and feel shame. Then be free!
To sum all this up: I had a cold, I worked, I finished work, it rained. Happy? I am.
Finally, happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is reading this on the day (which is pretty much everybody - there's only an hour left to the date as I write this). I hope you fill your bellies and are thankful for all that is true and good in this world. I've stuck a wee picture of the last Thanksgiving I have any photos from for a bit of pictorial relief. Have a good one!
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