Everybody hurts....sometimes

Ouch. I hate to put on a swimsuit (I could end that sentence right there) and look like a ghost. Hate it. I hate to wear any summer attire and look white as a ghost. At the same time, I hate the idea of frying my skin. But vanity always wins out.

Roatan is just over a month away, so I figured a few tanning bed sessions would have me ready for the beach.

For some reason, here in the heart of Redneck Ville, there are not many tanning salons. So of the 3 listed in the phone book, I went to the closest one to my house. They were offering an introductory special - 4 visits for $8. I was going to see how it goes and then sign up for more.

I told the lady at the desk that I had not been in the sun since last summer and had not been in a tanning bed for about 10 years. She said "You should probably start at about 10-12 minutes". Being the ignoramus that I am, I said "Ok. 10 is fine."

WRONG!

I am a Crispy Critter. 10 minutes!! What was that bitch thinking? Should have been more like 5. My back, my chest and my neck are beet red. HURTS! I don't know if I'm going back, but if I do I am going to give her a piece of my mind. I am just in misery right now.

So tomorrow is Waverly. The Ghost Hunters episode was pretty good and they did record some "evidence" of paranormal activity. And also had many personal encounters that they do not count as evidence. (because they can't show it to anybody) But the bottom line is - the place is haunted. Still not sure if I believe in such things, but by golly I am going to go and find out.

We are going to borrow my mother's Civic to drive down to Lousyville. Better gas mileage. The trade-off is no satellite radio. Road trips suck without satellite radio. What did we ever do without Sirius and TiVo? I for one, could not go on if they were taken away from me now.

So anyway, if I get any good pictures, I will post them on here.

I am at the real estate office now. Answering phones. This is when I get all my good blogging done. Have to do something right?

Red beans and rice didn't miss her

I am counting points again. (Weight Watchers) I knew this day would come. Not that it's a bad thing. It's just a habit I have to re-learn. See, I have maintained the same weight since August, without really doing any "maintenance". But I told myself -"If my weight Ever goes up, I am going to start counting again." The past few days I have felt different. I have felt FAT. Now this could be because of a certain visitor...but no matter. Fat is fat. I did not get on a scale though...until this morning. Dum dum dum. I have gained 3 pounds. Now that may sound silly, but it puts me at 170. My goal weight is 150. I have been happy for the past 6-7 months hovering at 167-168 without any effort. But I Cannot and Will Not climb back up that chart.

I started counting points Monday, before I got on the scale, because I knew something was different. I am going to try and see if I can get to 160 before leaving for Roatan on May 6. That would be nice. 170 is not bad and it is certainly a Hell of A Lot better than where I started at 210. And I still fit in my size 10s, but an 8 is my goal. I have not been a single digit size since college.

In other news - Waverly is a go for Saturday. Matthew is not too jazzed about it. He is scared of being scared. I am looking forward to it and hope something happens. I am also looking forward to the GhostHunters episode tonight featuring Waverly. Hopefully it will not make me change my mind about going down there.

I have to work tonight at 5pm. I don't really feel like it (so what else is new) but ...whatcha gonna do?

We had cable installed at my mother's house last week. She is now watching TV on the little 12 inch in the kitchen because she can't figure out how the cable works. She is also mad at me for having it installed in the first place. I am trying to make your life better!!! If you are going to be stuck in the house for the majority of your time, you should at least have something to watch. And a clear picture that won't hurt your eyes. I try to be patient with her and show her how it works, but you know me and patience.

With their beady little eyes and flappin' heads so full of lies

Canada's seal hunt started yesterday. Until Friday, I did not know that this was still even being done! I thought it had stopped back in the late 80s. Apparently, it had just slowed down. Until 1995, when the hunt resumed in full force. My ignorance of the news is a good thing sometimes. I spent at least 2 hours Friday morning crying over this. Seriously bawling. Matthew didn't know quite what to do. He is torn between his love of animals and the cruelty of the hunt and his understanding (belief) that seal populations should not get out of hand. 6 million seals is quite alot, but so is 6.5 billion people that currently inhabit this earth. I don't see any "human culls" going on. Well....maybe it does, but not nearly enough.

According to the US Humane Society, 26,719 seals have been killed since the hunt started Saturday morning at 6am. They have a quota of 325,000 seals. The hunt can last anywhere from 3 - 10 days.

I am just sickened by the whole thing. This has renewed my interest in the Humane Society and the work that they do. I used to be a passive member and donate money occasionally, but I am going to step that up now.

This is the HSUS statement issued Saturday morning:

"Starting at dawn today, boats carrying hundreds of seal hunters converged in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Over the past few days, the Protect Seals team has searched the entire Gulf for the harp seal nursery, but failed to find it. The few seal pups we've seen cling to the scattered, tiny pans of ice that remain across the ocean. Scientists fear many of the harp seals born this year would have drowned as the ice cover melted from under them before they were old enough to swim proficiently.

Now, the few surviving baby seals we've watched for the last several days are being killed as Canada's gruesome seal hunt begins again. Over the next few weeks, sealers will attempt to locate, club and shoot to death thousands more baby seals - totaling well over 300,000 if they get their way.

The hunt is inhumane and cruel. Veterinary studies have shown that humane killing guidelines are not enforced and in many cases seals are skinned while conscious. Each year, parliamentarians, journalists and animal welfare observers report incredible cruelty at the hunt, including dragging conscious seals across the ice with boathooks, shooting seals and leaving them to suffer in agony and skinning seals alive."

I am doing my part by banning any and every thing to do with Canada. I don't eat seafood, but my husband does and he has at least agreed to not eat Canadian seafood anymore. We rarely ate at Red Lobster in the past, but now it is definitely on our shit-list because they are huge buyers of Canadian seafood. Along with Joe's Crab Shack, Long John Silver's and Outback. We prefer Longhorn to Outback so that is not a problem. Joe's will be tough for Matthew and LJS will be tough for me. But I don't need to eat that greasy crap anyway.

I was considering going to Whistler for our ski trip next year. But not now. It will be Denver. I guess I will also never see Niagara Falls. I know I can see them from NY, but I have been told the Canadian side is better. Oh well.

I have been upset about this all weekend. Among other things of course.

Money for one. We have so many expenses and not enough income. I guess I am going to have to go back to work full-time. At least for awhile. Granted, these are not life or death expenses. A dive watch/ computer. New furniture. (we haven't bought furniture yet, but we need it) Paying for the dive trip in May. The boat. All of those things we could do without, but don't want to. So if it means I have to work to have them - then so be it.

But right now I must mourn the seals and hate Canada.

They're not even a real country anyway

Let it snow let it snow let it snow

Well there it is. 2+ inches of snow out my back door. Bijoux is not thrilled. The first snow of the season she loves, but she is pretty much over it by now. Also she seems to be having a bad reaction to the rabies shot she received yesterday. Some muscle soreness it seems. She cries when you touch her back legs. If it keeps up much longer I will call the vet.

For now, all I have to worry about for today is calling off for phone duty. Not sure how that will go over. People that answer the phone usually feel that if they are there, you should be there. But not in Matthew's Found On Road Dead truck. Nope. Ain't happenin'. The bed is weighted down with concrete blocks, but the back end still slides around under normal conditions. 

There's a reason for your sad life

It's almost 4 am. I have been up for about an hour. Are we going to start this again? I go through these phases of not sleeping. It will last for 3 or 4 days and then go away. What's up with that? I was reading a dive magazine before I went to sleep and was having a very pleasant dream of diving in Belize. Nothing traumatic happened during the dive, it was peaceful and beautiful. When it was over, I woke up. Dive over! Time to get up now! Damn.

My friend's comment in my previous post got me thinking about one of my most humiliating moments. When I was 16, for some bizarre reason, my mother decided to read the lyrics written on the album cover of Berlin's "Pleasure Victim". She particularly enjoyed the "Sex (I'm a...)" lyrics. I'm sure she was convinced that is what lead me down the path of slutty behaviour.

I don't remember how I ended up in the car, but I do remember sitting in the parking lot at Zayre*s, crying and telling my mother I was not going into the store with her. She was yelling all sorts of crazy things about how Zayre*s should not be selling such smut, let alone to teenagers! And that I should act like an adult and go in there and tell them I want my money back for this filth! But mom...I don't have a problem with it. You do. And it's Terri Nunn's fucked up vision - not mine! I just enjoy the music.

She finally left me in the car and went in. I wish I knew what all was said in the store, but I do know she raised holy hell with them. Now remember, this is about a year before that crazy biznotch, Tipper Gore, started her fascist music censorship PMRC bull-dooky. (Thank god my mom never read any Prince lyrics)

Well Zayre*s stood their ground and refused to take the album back. My mom came out of the store - fuming. When she saw me looking at her and realised that I had sort of "won" because she still had the album in her hand, she took it out, broke it in half and threw it in the garbage can. I lost my album, but I still had a secret smirk, because I knew the people in the store thought she was certifiable and hopefully told her so.

Needless to say, I ended up with another Pleasure Victim album. I don't remember when or how, so I don't know how long I went without it. Most likely I bought a replacement the following weekend at the mall. I was nothing if not defiant as a child. In fact, if it had existed back then, I'm sure I would have been labeled as having ODD. Well of course it existed, we just didn't have a label for it. Now we have to label everything.

Oh how I miss the good old days of non-medicated kids and metal chain swings.

I am going to try to get some sleep now and wait for the snow. It's the 2nd day of spring and they are predicting anywhere from 1 to 2000 inches of snow. I will believe it when I see more than dust out there. I am ready for spring, but I can enjoy one more day of being "snowed in". I love it. I have phones from 1-3, but if the weather is truly bad, Matthew will be taking the Jeep to work and I don't feel safe driving his old pick-up truck in the snow and ice, so I will be staying home. Snow day!

I just checked the weather channel web page and it looks like the snow is on top of us now. I don't see anything outside though.

I was on a Paris train

I am so tired today. I have been tired for the past 2 days. I still have not recovered from my 2 days of working at 7am. Waking up at the ungodly hour of 5am sure takes a lot out of a girl!

But working in the cash office wasn't so bad. Kind of like riding a bike. I still remembered most all of the processes and it will be a nice change for awhile. Working only 2 days a week will also be a nice change. I am enjoying that!

This coming week I won't be working in the cash office though. I will be putting in 2 grueling 4 hour days in customer service. :) Can I handle it.

I have phones at the real estate office alot this week. Which really becomes a chore after awhile. But it is time for me to catch up on my reading. And writing in my blog! Which is what I am doing now, while waiting for the phone to ring.

Boy, writing in this blog will be alot less exciting without any LP stories to tell. I could tell you about my mother's insanity. For example, she is convinced that an ant has crawled into her eye and has been living there for about 3 days now.

I think about Paris a lot. Especially when I am hearing "ant in the eye" stories. We had such a great time there. With the Wee! That was the best part. I just love Europe. I love traveling in general. Is it May yet??

That's it. I got nothing else for today.

Get rhythm when you get the blues

Tomorrow I have to be at work at 7am. My first day in the cash office. I'm sure it will be just the same as it was last year. I just have to re-memorize all the codes and processes. Whoopee.

Last night Matthew and I went to see "Walk the Line" at the Ghetto Theatre aka- The Dollar Saver. Only $1 on Tuesdays. I knew very little about Johnny Cash before seeing this movie, so it was all new to me. All I knew about him was he sang rather disturbing country songs (more disturbing than most anyway), wore black and was a drug addict. Well, yeah...that's pretty much what the movie was about. So I guess I knew all there was to know. But Joaquin Phoenix and Resse Witherspoon did exceptional jobs and deserved their Oscar nominations. The Dollar Saver theatre is pretty gross though, and I can't say I recommend taking a date there.

Today was meeting and tour day at the real estate office. I have to say I hate that place more and more every week. I hate to have such bitter feelings, but it is just so frustrating and disappointing. I am the only person who has been there over a year and is still in the loser group. The Loser Group (as I like to call it) is those unfortunate folk who have not had 2 sales or 1 listing and only get to take "partial" phone time. (half the amount of the non-losers) Well the catch is - we rely on phone time to get business! So how can we get business if we are denied phone time? The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I would love to put my license in escrow right now, but we will be selling this condo at some point this year and I would like to at least do that.

I just watched 2 episodes of Ghost Hunters. Was that a face in the window behind me just now? Jeez. Not that the show is that scary, it just makes you think about things. I heard that the March 29 episode of the show is going to show them investigating the Waverly Hills Sanitorium.I have been wanting to visit that place for over a year now. I'm sure once it's on Ghost Hunters and now that the movie is out, the place will turn into a cheesy tourist attraction. But I have always been fascinated by abandoned buildings - especially hospitals. More fun of course is the mental hospital! I'm sick I know. I am going to try to get down there next week. Just to say I've been there.

My posts tend to be too long. So I'm going to end now.

Lovin' the greenie

And cleanin' those teefs!

 

Maybe next time, but not this time.

A day off. How nice. And what did I do today? A whole lotta nuttin'. Well...other than a couple loads of laundry and cleaning the bathroom. I thought of a project to start, but it is quite overwhelming. I have tons of digital pictures stored on my desk monster and the laptop. What if one or both were to crash? Might be a good idea to back those up on CDs. First I have to organise them into folders - and there starts my project. I got the folder part done, now I have to decide how orderly I want them to be and if I want to take the time to add captions to each picture.

That's terribly boring.

Have you tried the new Parmesan Garlic sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings? It's awesome. That was lunch and dinner today. Around 3:30 this afternoon, I realised I hadn't eaten anything all day and told Matthew to stop for some wings on his way home from work. Yes the poor boy had to work on a Sunday - but Sunday differential pay is very nice.

We ate wings and caught up on all the TiVo'd shows from this past week. The 2 hour "24" was tough, but we got through it. I don't know, I just find that show terribly draining to watch.

Bijoux is back to her normal beautiful self. With the added bonus of no bad breath! I still feel guilty for neglecting her for so long, I just really couldn't believe she could have bad teeth at age 3. Anyway, she is back to eating lots of bones and barking and kissing. Matthew tried to show me where her missing teeth were, but I couldn't tell.

I have no idea what we are going to do tomorrow. It's nice to not have to worry about going to work. I think I could get used to this "not working" thing. (again) Matthew is off for the next 2 days, so I'm sure we will think of something. Tuesday we are having our carpet cleaned. It really needs it. We have this bad habit of taking Bijoux out the back door instead of through the hall. So we drag in all sorts of dirt directly onto the carpet.

For the past 2 hours, Matthew has been sitting on the floor with a big can of pennies, hoping to find one worth a million dollars. I don't know how people have the patience for doing stuff like that. Just so boring. Guess how many pennies are in this pile....



If you said 2,700, you would be right. Congratulations.

I am listening to Eminem telling me to shake my ass. Is there a more ridiculous song? I used to have a weird sort of admiration for him after watching "8 Mile", and yeah this song has a good beat - but "I'm looking for a girl who will do whatever the fuck I say" and "I get more ass than a toilet seat". How old is he now? 15?

That's enough for now. I am trying to stick to my old theme of using song lyrics for entry titles, but I can't think of one right now. Well...actually after writing that, I just did. 

For what it's worth, it was worth all the while

I brought my computer to work today because really, there is no reason for me to be here. This is our (mine and Carol’s) last day in LP. We have been here all week in case something happened and the new guys needed help with paperwork. So far that has not happened with Recon. Edgar had an arrest a few days ago and didn’t enjoy all the paperwork he had to do. He also got sick from the monitors spinning. Yeah…I can see this crew working out real well.

I have been thinking a lot lately about whether or not I want to get back into this in May. I still love the job, but I don’t really like the way the Security Company runs things. Maybe it would be different though if I were here. And if Tackleberry were my partner. We could go back to doing things the way we used to. We got things done and turned this office around.

We did have quite a gross week in LP. Tackleberry and Recon found a bag on the floor in the middle of the aisle. It had a pair of underpants in it and a receipt. They thought somebody dropped it and they were going to take it up to Lost and Found. Recon stuck his hand in there to see exactly what it was and found that the underpants were not new. Yikes. Someone must have had an accident in their drawers and bought a replacement pair. How the dirty ones ended up on the floor, we have no idea.

A couple days later, an associate picked up a pile of clothes off the fitting room floor and they were wet. It was only after she picked them up that she noticed the smell. It was not water. Somebody either tinkled on the floor and covered it up with the clothes, or tinkled on the clothes. Either way – gross.

And finally…a lady was sitting at the Lancome make-up counter getting a makeover. When she got up, the associate noticed stains on the chair. Apparently the lady had a case of the runs and instead of stopping the makeover and going to the bathroom, she figured that was as good a place as any.

I don’t understand people at all. You have to wonder what their house looks like.

I have 2 hours left here. I wish I had stayed home with the Wee. We took her to the vet yesterday to have her teeth cleaned. She’s only 3 years old and I didn’t think she should have to go through that already. But Matthew has been bugging about it for a year or so now. I know Poodles have bad teeth, but I didn’t think hers were that bad. In fact, the last time she was at the vet, the vet said they had some tartar build-up but it wasn’t that bad. Well….when she had her teeth cleaned yesterday 2 teeth fell out and the front ones are loose. The vet said they might fall out on her next cleaning. I can’t believe this. I am so upset, I feel like a bad parent. But I didn’t know they were that bad. She is so young! Probably by the time she is 15, she will be toothless. My grandma’s poodle was like that. He lived to be about 20 and didn’t have a tooth in his mouth. He would still try to bite you though.

We got our taxes back from the accountant yesterday. It’s only about half as much as I was hoping for. But it’s better than having to pay. And it will make a bit of a dent in the debt – just not as much as I had hoped. I am about $1200 short on the balance of our dive trip. Good news though – Matthew is going to refinance his student loan and they are offering a 2% cash rebate for refinancing. That’s about $700. He wanted to put it right back on the loan, but I think I am going to use it to pay for the trip. I know that is probably not the wisest thing to do, but I have a plan. Once we get the house debt paid off, I will put all that money I have been using for those payments to make extra payments on the student loan. It just seems so pointless. I don’t see that loan ever being paid off. Unless we inherit money or somebody decides to just give us $35,000. And I don’t see that happening!

I am still going to work 1 or 2 days a week in the cash office. That will give me about $100 a week to put towards the trip. It’s not that we can’t afford to travel on just Matthew’s salary, but I try to use every bit of extra money to pay off the debt from the damn house in Georgia. Once that is gone, we will be fine, but I still want to put as much on the student loan as possible. We have been paying on that thing for too long. It needs to be gone.

So anyway – this is it. My loss prevention career is about to end. Maybe forever, maybe just for a couple months. I worry about the future of LP in this store. OH! Let me tell you about yesterday. 2 guys went into the fitting room with a white and blue Ecko t-shirt, 2 pairs of jeans and long sleeve button-up shirt. They came out with just the jeans and the long sleeve shirt. I had an associate check the fitting room to see if the t-shirt was in there. All he found was a hanger. I had Recon stop them when they got outside. Instead of taking them to the manager’s office (as we usually do), he brought them back to the men’s department! They told him they put the shirt down. I watched them every step of the way from the minute they left the fitting room. They didn’t put it down. Recon asks me to come out there. I shouldn’t have, but I did. When I get out there, he asks them to lift up their shirts and pant legs. We didn’t find the shirt. It was probably stuffed in their pants. The whole thing was not handled properly. Recon needs some more training. But hey! Not my problem anymore. They should have been taken to the manager’s office and if they didn’t cooperate, threaten to call the police. I bet the shirt would have appeared then. I didn’t push the issue because I figured the Almighty Security Company has their own way of doing things and it’s not my place to criticize their methods.

My friend Dan called this afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to a gay club called Adonis with him tonight. I told him I would pass. I need to stay home with Bijoux tonight. And watch all the shows that have been building up on my TiVo. What a life…I know.

The Calliope Crashed to the Ground

So yeah….wow. I have wanted to post for several days now. But I always think of a reason not to. Like right now. I came in here about 2.5 hours ago to start writing this. But instead, I browsed on Ebay, check my neglected Yahoo e-mail, downloaded some songs and watched Cops. Such is my life on a Saturday night. I forgot to mention that I am doing all this in bed. Yep…this girl put her PJs on at 7:30pm and hopped into bed. Pathetic eh? Now it’s almost 10pm and I feel like it’s too late to write all this. So I am still downloading songs. It took me a half hour just to write this one paragraph.

Anyway. It’s been quite a week. We will start with Tuesday. I worked with Tackleberry again. We had a gang of thieves come in the store that afternoon. I noticed about 5 guys walking around the Polo department. They were acting like they weren’t together, but come on. You ain’t foolin’ me. One guy picked up an armful of big & tall Polo shirts that cost about $75 a pop. He pretends to look at some other shirts on a rack and then turns around and picks up another armful of Polo shirts. So all together he’s got about 8. He walks behind a rounder and dumps them on the floor. I should mention I sent Tackleberry out to the floor as soon as he picked up the first armful. I should have called the police right away, but I didn’t. Don’t ask me why. Stupid stupid I know. So I am watching this guy and his friend. I thought for sure the friend was going to go pick up the goods. I didn’t see the tall guy dressed in black, until he was walking away with a big black garbage bag. Fortunately, Tackleberry was standing by the door and I told him the dude was coming with the bag. Before Garbage Bag Dude (GBD) even walked out the door, Tackleberry said “Yo man, what’s in the bag?” GBD ignored him and kept walking towards the door. Tackleberry followed, repeatedly asking him to stop and open the bag. GBD finally turned around and said, “Back off, I bought this stuff at another store.” GBD kept walking faster with Tackleberry in pursuit. I was trying to keep an eye on the 2 guys still in the store. Until Tackleberry told me he was outside. I had no idea he had gotten that far. I forgot to mention, our 2 way radios are crap. I missed several of his transmissions about following the guy outside. The whole thing was just bad. Bottom line – they got away. I could just imagine them all meeting up at their car “Yeah man…shit. Did you see that little white boy tryin’ ta stop me? Shit. Don’t know who he think he is.” We were both kicking ourselves after that. For about 30 minutes.

Then we notice more dudes in the store. This time they are over in the “Urban Wear” area. The Bald Dude walks into the fitting room with nothing to try on. Weird right? Yeah…I send Tackleberry to check it out. Bald dude leaves the fitting room and walks to a different fitting room in the rear of the store. Again he goes in with nothing and looks around. In the first fitting room, Tackleberry finds a HUGE bag stuffed with clothes. Bald Dude must not have been very smart because he totally missed it. So Bald Dude is walking around trying to get a signal on his cell phone (which is nearly impossible in our store) to call the Stasher and find out where he hid the stuff. Meanwhile, Tackleberry walks right past him with the bag full of the clothes. The look on Bald Dude’s face was priceless, especially when Tackleberry turned back around to smirk at him. So that was a nice $826 recovery.

After that most exciting day, I was even more depressed about giving up my job. Tackleberry said when he called the Security Company to find out about his new schedule he was going to tell the SCM about me and how terrible it would be to lose me and my mad skillz. I thought a lot about it too. It would be a detriment to the Security Company’s client to let me go. Test or no test, I am a good LPO.

Thursday, I called the SCM myself. (Tackleberry had talked to him the day before and sang my praises) I asked if there was anyway around this test BS. There has to be! He said he thought about it and tried to figure out a way, but if he were to hire me with my horrendous score, his boss would have his ass. I know it’s my own damn fault, but damn. It’s just not right. SCM told me to hang on until May when I can retake the test. He said he can work out the schedule to give me some hours, he really wants me in there and so does my current boss at the store. So I guess I just have to wait. There’s nothing I can do.

I was ready to enjoy my final 3 days as LPO Extraordinaire. Surprise! I have to train one of my replacements on Friday. Edgar. (not his real name. I call him that because he reminds me of Edgar on 24. Not looks really, but his voice. If you were to close your eyes you would think you were talking to Edgar. Sort of thick tongue, slight NY accent…the whole works.) Edgar is pretty cool. He talks a lot, so him and Tackleberry should get on fine. He is Puerto Rican, but looks Caucasian, which is good in this business cuz the Mexicans will try to get over on you and play like they don’t speak English. And Edgar is HUGE. Seriously a force to be reckoned with. People were probably stealing us blind Friday because it is kinda hard to train someone and be effective at watching people at the same time. But I think Edgar will work out well.

Today I had another surprise. Training my other replacement. It’s gonna take me a minute to think of a nickname for this guy. He is an ex-cop from New Jersey and he’s about 5 ft. 6 – yeah you should know where this is going. He’s nice enough, but a bit on the hard-core side. He has one of those dorky ass haircuts that Marines and cops sometimes have. They shave their head except for this fat looking short spiked Mohawk on top. It’s not even a proper Mohawk because it doesn’t go all the way down the back, it stops right at the crown. Do they know how ridiculous that looks? So we’ll just call him Recon.

I have only been at this job for 6 months, but I am proud to say that during that 6 months, I have never - Repeat NEVER , made a bad stop. I always make 200% sure that someone has concealed something before we make a stop. I am terrified of falsely accusing someone. Today while I am training Recon on the cameras we see this sorta shady looking guy walking around. He wasn’t doing anything suspicious, he just looked like he had the potential to. He was carrying a shirt and browsing the racks. A guy with a blue bandanna around his head (straight out of the 80s) and carrying a suit bag, walks up to Shady and hands him something. Shady looks at it and puts it in his pocket. To me, it looked like a piece of paper or cardboard. It was purple with silver stars on it. At least that’s what it looked like to me. But it was unusual for someone to just walk up to a stranger and hand them something in the middle of a department store. Recon thinks it’s a Dooney & Bourke wallet. Say what? It’s not even 1mm thick. I was zoomed in on it – it was paper!

Also working today was one of my usual Security Guards. (god another nickname) Greg. Original right? Anyway, Greg and Recon go out to watch the guy. He gets in line to buy the shirt he has been carrying around. He keeps looking over at Greg and Recon because they are standing about 10 feet away staring at him. I was not happy about this. I am not fond of harassing customers who haven’t done anything wrong. Greg doesn’t usually act like that, but I guess he was under the influence of Recon the ex-cop. Shady paid for his shirt and walked toward the door. I watched him leave. Next thing I know, Recon and Greg are out the door behind him! I called on the radio a couple times “What are you guys doing?” No answer. After a few minutes, they came back in. I asked again, “What is going on?” Recon says “It’s drug related.” WHAT? I said “Can you guys come back here please.” Me: “What the hell were you guys doing?” Recon: “I thought he had a wallet.” I asked what it was in his pocket and Greg said it was directions to a rave. A rave? What is this? 1990? Do people still do that? Me: “Where do the drugs come in?” Recon: “The paper could have had acid on it.” Hold on hold on. We are not the police. We are not narcs. This is not our job. We are here to prevent retail theft. What is going on here? I was pissed. You can’t just stop innocent people like that!! I asked Greg how it went down. He said he told the guy a sensor alarm went off when he left the store and asked to see what was in his pocket. (oh god) The guy showed him the paper and said he didn’t know the guy that gave it to him.

A while later I saw Blue Bandanna guy walking around again and he handed another of those papers to an associate working in the Juniors department. I called her and asked her what it was. She said the guy was a promoter and the card was an invite to an event at a nightclub called Purgatory. The guy shouldn’t have been soliciting in the store, but still. The innocent Shady looking guy shouldn’t have been stopped. He didn’t do anything.

So today was a frustrating day. I have Recon and Tackleberry with me tomorrow. I also found out that I get to spend one more week in LP, to train Recon and Edgar. Recon is going to be tough. After next week I will be working a day or two a week in the cash office. It’s an accounting job that appeals to my anal retentive nature. Isn’t it ironic though? The Security Company won’t hire me to sit in a room and monitor cameras, but the department store will allow me to sit in a room with a safe containing about $15,000 at any one time.