I had to go to work today. This isn't overly interesting normally, but there's a lot of goes on there that's kind of interesting. I'll pick it up at 5:15 when I had been there for roughly 45 minutes. It's 5:15, and I had said something about a customer that he didn't like, so he was talking to a manager with me in earshot. Enjoy. "Let me tell you what I don't like about the young people you have working here. This is as good an example as I can give to show you that young people just hate everyone but themselves." (Okay, in my defense...I'm 20...not a "young person") "I was here today putting bottles in the machine, glass bottles that are commonly filled with some sort of beer. And I had, right now, I've got forty...there are $40 worth of bottles in carts here, and I've got $20 worth of bottle slips in my hand! So this punk comes out here and says that I can't return all of these at once unless it's for a bottle drive!" (It wasn't, I asked him, he was just a crazy nut with nothing better to do then return what seemed like his nine year collection of beer bottles...either that or they were from one weekend and he's just a raging alcoholic) "So I go into the back behind the double doors, and he's talking about some of the people who returned bottles today. Would you like to know what he said? He said that it's sad that there's nothing better for these obviously boring people to do then come in here and turn in all these bottles! Sir, the last thing that I am, is boring! That's why I'm in here at 5:00 instead of 1:30, or 2:30! I have things to do that matter to a LOT of people! I am...the...the last thing that I would be described as is boring! There's not one day where I don't do anything!" And he won't shut up about it. So I decide this isn't worth it, go into the dairy cooler and catch about an inning of the Tigers game, and come back outside, to the customer and his apparent "booming social life". "I mean, that is another example of these young people, and I'm including you," (the manager) "in this, have about old people! It was my wife Jean who came up with the idea for me to return these bottles today! She said to just get them out of the garage! We didn't need them in here! I didn't come here because I didn't have anything better to do! I'm the kind of person that ANYONE would want to be seen with just to make themselves look better! And I am! There's not one person who doesn't like me! Not one! Not one person on my street can say they don't like me!" Well this was getting a little redundant. I went into the back and moved some of the bins around for when it got busier later in the day. One of the people from produce was back there smoking a cigarette, so I talked to him for a little bit. So I go back over to the bottle machines, and my apparent vicious attack on the man's ability to socialize with people. "He could have asked me first! He could have asked me! He could have said, 'Hey, I see you're returning bottles, don't you have anything better to do?'" Leave for a little bit longer, get a Pepsi from the pop machine in the break room, read the paper and find the sports section. Lakers are having a pretty rough off-season, so I laugh at that for a little bit. Back to the old guy, which to listen to him, was teased and mocked and called unpopular by me, who he has referred to as "vicious with a captial v"...which apparently means I'm extremely vicious. "In this country for the soul of integrity, it has been more and more clear that these young people, who think they know more and are smarter then any old people, can't be trusted! Can't be counted on! My gosh, if these young people who are out there doing whatever they want are protected from anybody but me to say what's true, and are so wrong about how great my day is in terms of talking to people, is it any wonder this country is going horribly wrong, and the only people who notice it is me, a natural-born truth detector?" Eventually old man river shut the hell up and left the store after he bought what he came for, a 24-pack of budweiser, a newspaper, a four bags of bacon-flavored pork rinds. Because he returned so many bottles (he didn't return the other $40 of bottles since the manager told him that I was RIGHT), we ended up paying him $9.13 to buy what he needed, even though I think that they paid him his $9.13 just to get the hell out of the store after he called a woman in one of those electric carts you drive around the store, "too damn fat to walk, but you were probably too goddamn lazy to walk before, which is why you're like that now!" and if course, this was something that happened because of a young person more then likely. Anyway, just thought I'd share that bit of insanity from a store that basically has maybe 2 people who are completely sane that shop or work there. JEFF: You always laugh at me for stupid stuff that I do, and I'm sick of it! Like yesterday you laughed at me when I chipped my tooth on the toilet! What the hell was so funny about that? JOSH: It was a BACK TOOTH! *mumbling* Still have no clue how you did THAT one. --DORM LIFE