THESE are I think about when I am at work.

When I am at work, you would think that I would be thinking about work. I do, to an extent, but my thoughts never go beyond repetitious thoughts reminding myself to get drinks or whatever a customer needs. Beyond that, I really think of the dumbest things. I suppose it is better than thinking on mundane things such as dishes or taking a nap (I wish I could do that) but I just wanted to share some of the random garbage that enters my mind.

I am a slow reader! I've always been aware of it because it takes me forever to finish a book. I wish I was a speed reader but I am not sure if one really "learns" how to do that. My problem is that I tend to daydream as I am reading. It isn't that the book isn't entertaining. Once I realized that this happens, I go back and re-read it. I especially do this during conversations that go on within the book. If it weren't for that, I'd finish books a lot faster.

What the hell ever happened to parents bringing crayons, toy cars, barbies or toy dinosaurs to a restaurant? Whatever happened to a kid having a book to read? Yeah I know. You people don't want your kid coloring on everything and not touching the coloring book, so pay attention to your child to make sure that doesn't happen. You don't want your kids to be loud as they play. So? As long as they aren't screaming then there isn't an issue. You don't want to lug it all in and risk losing a toy. It happens! Bring a bag for the toys. Whatever you do, do not give a child your phone and let them play a game on it. I saw a three year old girl playing Angry Birds and a Dora game on her parent's phone while they were eating. Yeah, she was completely silent (almost hypnotized actually), but I couldn't help but think of how wrong that picture was. Who cares about modern technology and how convenient it is? A child still has to learn how to entertain themselves in a boring situation and how to act in a public situation. Don't stupefy them by shoving a phone or a portable game console in front of them. Yes, my five year old has one, but he also has iron man toys and toy dinosaurs to play with when we are out.

I often wonder what people in the restaurant think when they hear us in the kitchen. There are five tables on the other side of the wall that leads you to the kitchen. We have to call out loudly to the CA (Cook's Assistant) what we need rather than talking to the cooks directly. "I need a baby!" That is a house Caesar salad. "I need a bowl of pot!" It's a bowl of cheesy potato and bacon soup. What are they thinking when they hear us yell those two phrases? Sometimes you will hear other servers ask if we want twins or triplets or if we want a quarter or an ounce. It's all in good fun, but I think most of the people who sit in those tables (who aren't already involved in their own conversations) must think we are potheads. Well, most of the employees in the store are in fact potheads, but they don't know that. I do. "I need a baby! and a bowl of pot stat!"

So I had a Dianna Ross song in my head a while back. I was singing "Keeps Me Hanging On". I walked up to the hostess stand to see if I was cut or was still receiving tables and I said "I have Dianna Ross in my head. Now I can't remember if she had gone solo or if she was still with The Supremes when 'Keeps Me Hanging On' was made." The hostesses and a server all looked at me funny. I asked if they knew who Dianna Ross is. They still gave me a weird look and then shook their heads. I asked "Do you know who Elvis was? (nods) Ok. Do you know who Michael Jackson was? (nods). Well, she is just as famous but she is still alive." Then I found out that the two hostesses were sixteen and the server was nineteen. How do you NOT know who Dianna Ross is? They don't know any musical artist from the year 2000 and prior! The only reason they "know" some 80's songs is because artists are remaking them. They know the song title but they don't know who the original artist was. They've never heard of it or the name of the artist. James, one of the managers, talks to me about this all the time. I may not know all the artists but I know their songs and vice versa. I may not like the artist but I know who they are. My parents listened to oldies as I grew up. My friend, Jacqui, listened to 60's when we were growing up. I love 80's music. I always have. Apparently they don't have the same musical pallet. Some don't know who The Beatles were, who ZZ Top and Elton John are. Really?!? But they know who Justin Bieber is!

One of the servers, Autumn, just found out that she is pregnant. She has 48 more days till she leaves the center she is at. I asked if if she was planning on keeping the baby, and she said yes, so now she is trying to come up with names. She likes exotic names, as I do, but she needs a name that is also going to be somewhat ethnic since her baby will be half black and half white. All day yesterday I was coming up with names. I bet people thought I had gone insane.

Daylan says that couponing/shopping with coupons is now an addiction. Not an obsession but in fact an addiction. He says I need an intervention. They need to send me to rehab. He says I go to Walgreens to buy stuff we already own. What does he think having my own mini stockpile means? I get one of everything? No I get enough of a few items I use to last me a while just in case something happens. I am working on laundry detergent, conditioner, body wash, pads, tampons and disposable razors. He also thought it was funny when I didn't get coupons in the Sunday Paper. I was talking to his cousin on the phone and I said something along the lines of "Not everyone celebrates Easter. Even if they do, not everyone could celebrate it. They took the coupons out to 'promote family time'. You have the entire day to do that and you spend every day with your family. It takes ten minutes to clip coupons, unless you are nuts about it. I really don't think it is going to hinder 'family time'. I mean hell, Jesus died how many effin years ago? He only died once and he only rose once. He doesn't do it every Easter so give me my damn coupons." Well I gladly read yesterday that most areas in the Unites States will be making up for this fact by having six coupon inserts in this Sunday's paper. I really do hope my area is one of the areas that will get blessed. I want a bunch of super cool coupons to make up for last Sunday. Besides, my shopping trips sucked because nothing was on sale either. Supposedly the 4th of July won't have coupons either. Are they afraid they will catch the couponer on fire or something?!? Gimme my coopins!

One of my favorite servers quit. I really liked her and I got along with her well. She quit for a few reasons. Earlier last week I told her that another server was talking crap about her. I told her she needed to be careful who she talked to and what information she shared. I just wouldn't tell her who it was because of two reasons: it was told to me out of confidence and I also didn't want the two of them fighting at work. Enough people were arguing. Look, if I know someone is talking crap about someone, it's their right to know. I don't care if it is true or not. One doesn't need to be nice to the other if this is going on. They should be civil, yes, but don't go out of your way to talk to the other. Well, the server got mad at me. If I was the one making this up, why would I tell her directly? Towards the end of the night I told her who it was. By that time, it was quitting time so there wasn't going to be a fight during business hours. The rumors was that she was kissing other servers, had cheated on her husband with a different person in the store and didn't shower (which is why she wore so much perfume). She just didn't want to smell like cigarettes.

It turns out that it was true. Another server was using the girls phone to text her boyfriend. Well the one I liked continued to text (well she was texting the other server's boyfriend's cousin-who was using this phone so his wife wouldn't find out) and was saying things that she shouldn't have been saying to anyone except her husband. Apparently she has been out with quite a few guys, drunk, and says she did what she did because she was fucked up. Look, it's all heresy but if it is in fact true, then you should only be drunk when your husband is around...or get a divorce. She also didn't show up for a shift she volunteered for and a shift she was scheduled for. Supposedly for two days she said that tables were leaving without paying her. Not that many people walk out like that, so she owes the store $179. She isn't going to get her paychecks until she pays the store back, but I doubt she will pick up her checks. She didn't make that much anyway. Most server's don't. Essentially she quit because she was not hiding her personal life and we became aware of it. It's a shame; I really liked her.

I would continue, but I have an hour to get ready for work. I need to put on makeup, eat and iron my uniform.

We may be getting a roommate

I wasn't supposed to be working a double today, but the manager asked if I would mind picking up the shift. I figured I made $53 this morning (which is the second morning shift since I started a month and a half ago where I made more than $30), so why not? I was sitting outside with Autumn as she was smoking a cigarette when one of the servers came up to us in tears. She was having issues with her parents. She's 21. I felt so horrible for her because I remembered exactly what it was like living with my mom. Everything she said just reminded me of my mom. I felt horrible, and I decided that I wanted to talk to Daylan about the idea of having this girl move in with us.

I guess what started it was that she was drinking a beer and her dad got on to her. He noticed the button to her pants was broken and assumed that a man had broken it off. She says that he is tired of her whoring around and asked her why she didn't get home until after midnight. He didn't even bother looking at her clock in sheet and said "This can end one of two ways. Either you move out or I break your teeth in". She was wiping tears away as she told us this. I guess her parents think that because she is living there free of charge that she isn't allowed to close and she isn't allowed to leave the house unless she is at work.

Daylan and I agreed that IF she decides to move in with us, that there will be only a few rules: no having friends over all the time or at all hours of the night, don't keep us up late, replace what you use, clean up after yourself/help with dishes and pay $150 a month. That would cover the cable/internet. If she wants anything specific to eat, she can pay for that herself. We don't care if she has friends over, but we rarely have people at our house. Who cares if she goes out? She can work two jobs, I don't care. As long as she pays her $150, doesn't make a mess or steal, who cares where she goes or what she does.

If she does move in, I won't have to worry about finding rides to or from work. That could always be an advantage. I just hope she doesn't mind the living arrangement. The only door, inside the house, is to the bathroom. Her room isn't big, and there are a wall of blinds. The bathroom is small. Perhaps it will be what she needs to just save her stuff up and have the money to get her own place. I'm sure she will be at work tomorrow and I can ask her. I wonder if I will be able to be patient enough or if I'll just call up at the store and ask her. For some reason, I am excited about asking her. Even if she says no, I'm excited to give her the option to say no.

Still, extra money is extra money. Well, technically it would be extra money for Daylan but hey :) I just want to be able to do something good for her. It was the first though I had when she was crying to us. I haven't said anything to her yet because I didn't want to get her hopes up and then have Daylan say no. "Did you really think I would say no?" I was so happy when Daylan said that. We were talking about one of his co-workers moving in last summer, even though we knew it would be a bad idea, because he was having issues with his parents (Thank god it didn't happen). I didn't think he'd have an issue with it, but he's made it clear that if her parents come to our door to start shit, he will pull a gun on them.

Hey, whatever.

Messenger

I just saw a commercial on tv that reminded me of something that had happened the other night.

Daylan was playing COD Black Ops (surprise surprise) when he said out loud "How the hell do they know exactly where I'm at?" I think I said "Because either they are psychic or you just suck. If you suck, you deserve to be shot at." He then called his sister, who is 1000 miles away, to tell her to tell me that he is no longer speaking to me. I'm in the kitchen laughing at him. He said "Kaydee, you are on speaker phone. You go and tell her." I hear from the phone "Cass, Daylan no longer is speaking to you." I'm pretty much dying. He is thirty or so feet away from me, reclining, and he is playing messenger? He really had to call and bother his sister?

Geez, I am engaged to a child but at least this was funny.

Trying to pinpoint the moment

When did I become an adult? I know when I became a parent and when I turned 18. I certainly wasn't an adult then. I remember when I turned 21. I still don't think I felt like one then. Did it occur sometime between the ages of 21 and 25? All I know is sometimes I am doing the most mundane thing and suddenly I stop dead in my tracks and think "Wow, this feels very adult-like" or "How did I end up here?" Of course I don't mean here as in location.

I can be pushing a shopping cart full of groceries to the back of Daylan's car with him and get that feeling. Other times I am turning off a lamp in the living room. It feels so weird to me. Other times I wake up in the middle of the night, to use the restroom, and I see him sleeping next to me. It's not a feeling of shock or uncertainty; it's a feeling of lost time. When did I get here? How did I get here?

I can be doing the dishes and I peek out the small window to see the greenery outside. It doesn't feel new or unfamiliar. I've seen those trees, those rocks, and that background for a year. It's not like the bluff shifted in the middle of the night and I'm in a new environment. It's not like I'm in a new grocery store or I am turning off a brand new lamp in a new home. It's the same things I've been doing. In three days I will have been here a year. Even during this year I've been struck with this feeling. My mind knows I'm an adult but my heart wonders when the hell that happened.

When the hell did I turn 27? In a month and a half I'll be 28. Maybe I keep feeling this way because I figured I should have gone farther in my life. By 28, I should have been happily married, with more than one child, with a college degree, a career, a house and a car that was almost paid off. None of that has happened, with the exception of one child. No career. No house (that I've bought). My car isn't paid off, but it should be in a year? I haven't even accomplished two consecutive years at college before I had to take a break. (Divorcing and moving into an apartment put a damper on paying for my books and classes out of pocket). It's the only thing I can think of that would account for the sudden feeling of lost time. It's not like I'm partying or doing things I'm not supposed to do. It's not like I am going through life acting like a child.

Even as I am typing this, I am trying to think of the moment when all this happened.

The best part of waking up...

Discretion is advised...and recommended

Facebook is the cause of a lot of bad things in this world. While I partake in the whole status update thing, I don't feel the need to air my dirty laundry or post my every move. "I'm about to take a shower". "Man, I'm out of toilet paper, do I shake?" " Where does belly button lint come from?" These are not the kinds of things that I want to be reading. It's funny but I really don't want to read about such issues that they are having. I also don't want to read about how their boyfriend was so drunk that he made out with his friend's girlfriend, how you just got in a fight with your best friend, how woke up to your period or how bad your "silent but deadly" fart smelled.  Not everything is worth being said. I will post random things and I will post something funny but you will rarely see me post anything really personal in my life. I rarely post about Gabriel or Daylan. I usually don't go into rants about a certain topic. I will post something for a discussion. I also don't like having fights where people can see it. It drives me crazy when people will use my posts or my wall as the location for their epic battle.

Yes, this is funny but this is just an example of how nothing seems to be private anymore. I would have just deleted the first comment the guy made and called it a day. Their stupidity is my entertainment, but I really don't think a fight over their sexual history is something that needs to be posted all over facebook. The fact that they are probably seventeen year olds really is besides the point. Facebook really just needs an "I Don't Care" button.

It's all starting to catch up now...

Ok everyone, I'm not even 30 yet so I know I'm not old but I certainly am starting to feel it. My 28th birthday is in June and I haven't actually had a birthday celebration in years. It hasn't bothered me, at all really, but it does raise a few red flags in my head that hey I'm heading closer to that direction of "old". Here are some things that I have been noticing.

1. Working longer shifts is killing me. I am use to my back hurting. It's been hurting since I was pregnant. Maybe my spine has been out of line or something but I've just learned to take an aspirin and the pain goes away. However it makes me feel older than I am when I start wobbling or walking funny because my whole body hurts. I sit down for twenty minutes when I get home and my whole body is stiff. It hurts something awful. A good nights rest doesn't help because I am still stiff in the morning.
2. My hands are starting to hurt again. Maybe I have a mild form of arthritis? It was really bad the last time I worked at Sonic. My knuckles got swollen and I couldn't use my hands, literally, for a whole month. It didn't help that my power steering went out so Daylan had to drive me everywhere, open all the doors for me (like a gentleman should be doing anyway), open stuff for me (cans, doors, zippers, the button for my pants/shirts etc). It ended up going away. I'm noticing that my hands are hurting every day at Cheddars, but I realize that it has to do with working with the ice scoop and filling the ice bins. Still, I'm not even 28 yet. Why are my knuckles, and sometimes wrists, hurting everyday?
3. Six hours of sleep just doesn't cut it anymore. Shoot, eight hours sometimes isn't enough. Nine is about right. Any more than that and I'll be groggy. Whatever happened to the days when I could function, properly, with five hours of sleep? Now if I get less than eight, I feel like I am going to die and that I will fall asleep walking.
4. Yes, I've found three stray gray hairs since I've been in Texas. What garbage is that?!? I shouldn't be getting those till I'm closer to my 50's.
5. Wrinkles. Once again, I shouldn't be getting crow's feet around my eyes till I'm closer to my 50's. Not only that, I don't tan. I wear sunscreen. I don't smoke anymore (July 24th will be two years) and I barely drink anymore. I just know my mom hasn't been aging gracefully but I shouldn't be starting this young.
6. Apparently there is language and slang that is just beyond me now. "Text spelling" has always annoyed me, because if you can't take the time to type out what you are saying in proper spelling and grammar then don't bother typing it. Now there is a new slang and I'm often asking the younger kids at work (and facebook) what something means. Why do I even bother?
7. I haven't been to a club in years. The thought of doing it now makes me groan. I use to LOVE going to clubs, drinking and dancing. How many years ago did I stop going and when did I start to hate it? 
8. Shows like Jersey Shore, which is popular with the younger crowd, gives me a headache. I just turn that garbage off.
9. Drinking, even once or twice a month (if that) is getting to be difficult for me now. If I am drinking a shot, my goodness I gag. I even get "hangovers" now. Not traditional hangovers, mind you, but hangovers none the less. When I was 21, I could drink to the point of puking, drink some more and still wake up fine. A little groggy but fine. Now if I have a few glasses of wine or beer, I wake up with a headache.
10. Now that I am mentioning wine, when the hell did I start to enjoy that? For years I couldn't stand it. I still can't stand merlot, but I can drink some wine now. I even have a beer I love now (Shiners). 
11. I'm in that in-between stage of clothes. I don't want to have my butt hanging out, my stomach showing or my boobs out, so I am outgrown that stage. I'm also not into middle aged clothes either. I wear a lot of solid color elbow length shirts with tank tops under it. My wardrobe use to be bold and exciting. Now it's bright and colorful but still boring. I also don't want to spend $5000 on a whole new wardrobe that is more age appropriate because, frankly, I don't have that kind of money to blow on clothes.
12. Overhearing people at work talk about how they smoke pot in their downtime just annoys the crap out of me. 

Yeah, I'm just getting old.