The Night of Ring Day

Dinner tonight was quiet.  Ruth is gone and Elizabeth didn't show up, so it was sort of a smaller group than usual.  Jenny talked a bit about her first hangover and Claire and her struck up a conversation talking about Scottish slang. 
Preadad came over to sit with us again tonight.  I really don't like her, and I wish, honestly, she wouldn't talk to me, because I hate making the effort to be nice to her.  It sounds terrible, but I sort of like it when I and someone else decide we don't like each other, and since there aren't many circumstances in which we have to talk to one other, we simply avoid each other, and thus avoid confrontation.  I especially like this because it allows me to avoid trying to be better natured than I truly am. 
It was all big news that we were going out tonight to celebrate Rachel getting a new job.  I found myself wondering how much I should put into my appearance.  I really don't want to make an effort tonight, and honestly if this wasn't for Rachel, I wouldn't go out at all and just stay in and watch a movie. 
Nina asked me to buy toilet paper, and since I was running low on shampoo, in between dinner and going out I went to get some.  Pharmacies around here are shabby, and this one was no different, with the computer freezing up as I tried to check out. 
I finally got home, and put on the lightest bit of makeup, and then went downstairs.  On the way down, I ran into Mimi.  She gave me this strange speech about when one should press the button on the elevator.  "Wait five seconds before you press it." 
"Okay," I said.  I continued saying that, even though she didn't really wait for me to confirm I was listening, just talked about how you have to wait, counting it out for me in demonstration.  It's not as if it matters: the door closes when it is ready to; pressing the button at one second or another doesn't make a difference; you still end up at the same place at the same time.  But everyone sort of humors Mimi because she seems to be at least a little bit mad. 
Downstairs we had a ring day celebration.  This is some strange game Elizabeth made up to celebrate achievements of various kinds.  The last time was for Rebecca, and for whatever reason I missed it.  (Had I gone out that even with Mikey?  I can't recall.)  Anyway, this was my first ring day, so I didn't know exactly what to expect, though Elizabeth had explained it to me once. 
Basically, Elizabeth brought this giant hula hoop, covered with ribbons, and she told Rachel she had to walk through it.  Several people took pictures as Rachel crawled through in in slow motion.  (She even said the word "slow motion" as slowly as possible.) 
Then Elizabeth gave Rachel this ring, which I was really surprised to say looked really nice.  It was sort of knot set with green stones.  Then everyone had to twist the ring around Rachel's ring going towards the pinkie finger.  "Don't go the other way or she'll be a nun," Elizabeth insisted.  I honestly don't know if that's true or not, but I really don't know much about how nuns are made other than to say they are married to God and whatnot. 
There were other people sort of milling about and you could tell they thought we were barking mad, and they were sort of laughing at our escapades.  I hate to say it, but adults are always making up little games, even if they don't talk about it.  (Especially if they don't talk about.) 
Lola was there, and I was sort of surprised to see her.  I don't remember her being as pretty as she was today.  Maybe I am appreciating her now that I don't see her on a regular basis and she doesn't have a chance to annoy me twice a day. 
We went out to the bar then.  When we got there, we had a bit of trouble.  The woman wouldn't let us sit down at a table.  The girls prefer this bar because they let us sit down.  I realized if we were here an hour later it probably wouldn't be a problem. 
Amanda made the comment that "the customer is always right," and that service jobs are all about giving people what they want.  She's right, of course, but it is one of the things that I am not good at, even when I remind myself.  I am just naturally not inclined towards other people. 
I think what was sort of irritating was that Rachel had actually made reservations before hand, and they were giving her trouble now. 
After a bit of trouble, they let us sit down.  I tried to be super gracious.  I'd been to this bar before and I had never seen the young woman in question, which makes me wonder if she is new. 
We had the same waiter we had a couple of weeks ago when I went out with the girls.  A bunch of them ordered margaritas.  I noticed a listening for a spiked Arnold Palmer, so I ordered that. 
It was horrible.  Like, really rank.  I actually have not been impressed by this place in terms of drinks.  Long Island Ice Teas and Captain and Cokes are also really bad at this place.  And I'm not a fan of margaritas. 
Meanwhile, I chatted with the girls.  Lola sat on the other side of the table, so I didn't really mind her at all tonight.  I sat with Jenny and Claire.  Jenny and I complained a lot about various mutual enemies.  We sort of filled Claire in on how Jenny has become Mimi's friend, though Jenny really hates her.  Everyone enjoyed my story of the latest run-in with Mimi on the elevator.
Jenny also knew somethings about Mimi I didn't.  According to Jenny, Mimi has four sisters, and all of them are married and normal.  Mimi was apparently showing Jenny a family album and she had all these pictures of her nephews and nieces, and none of them were smiling in any of them. 
"That's because they were with Mimi," Jenny explained.   

Lefty Loosey

A young girl and a mother came in.  They asked if I had anything with just Taylor Lautner and not the rest of the Twilight cast.  "No, we don't," I answered.  And then the young girl and I talked about how cute Lautner is.
This actually happens a lot.  Someone will come in asking for something, and it'll occur to me that "Oh, hey, we should sell that." 
I also broke one of the rules about work and called Dan.  Dan hates texting, which I really don't understand.  I don't text people I know who can't get texts or have to pay for them, but neither of these is true with Dan.
"I didn't think you were going to call my bluff," he said on the phone. 
"Yeah, well, I'm not suppose to be doing this.  If I have to put this down for a moment, that's why." 
Dan went into one of rants about why texting is a terrible medium for communication.  He carried on for a bit, complaining about how you can't get the timber of someone's voice. 
He brought up some good points, but the thing that hung in the back of my mind as he was talking was how much of my communication is written.  I'm a writer, so, duh, of course my communication often takes place in written form.  But even disregarding that, I spend a lot of time writing to people.  Obviously, I write on this blog.  I write emails and keep correspondences up with several friends (Ashley, Robert, Josie, Caryn and Jennifer as of right now.)  I even use instant messaging to talk to people, particularly Christine.  And then I texted about twenty-five people within the last week.  If I could only use my voice to communicate, I'd be cut off from a lot more people.  And I would miss them.  (And in some cases, would have trouble getting things done, since some of those communications are work-related and not just making small chat about lip piercings, made-up words, and homework.)  I didn't really get to making this argument back to him. 
A couple of customers kept asking me questions (which I didn't mind, because that's what I'm there for, dur.)  This ticked Dan off, and he hung up on me, which of course ticked me off.
I know that I explained where I was and how I was breaking the rules for him, I thought to myself.  But then I decided to carry on.  I can't let this kind of stuff bother me.  I've clearly got a full plate of drama.
Later on in the evening, a woman was asking me about a particular model we had out for people to try out.  It runs on batteries, and I noticed a small amount of liquid around that area.  My breath sort of held.  It looked like pop, but maybe I was wrong.  I told her it just needed new batteries. 
It took me a few minutes to take off the lid, just because it didn't adhere to the whole "righty tighty, lefty loosey" concept.  But even as I was trying to work it off, more liquid was coming out and all I could think was "Eww."
Midway through my battery incident, I turned around, an older woman was standing there.  I had one of those scare moments, but she just had a question. 
I finally opened it up, and indeed, there was a nasty oil over everything.  Great.  Someone had left these batteries in here so long they leaked out.  I picked them each out and discovered only one of them was spilling out, which I guess I should have been grateful for.  I picked up the two good ones and threw them into the recycling batteries bin.  I went to the back to get papertowel and lifted the bad, leaky battery.  And then used more paper towel to clean the rest of the mess up. 
Then I nearly face palmed over how stupid I was.  I was treating this like what happened when batteries exploded with white Manganese.  This wasn't that, and maybe I was doing something unsafe or unsanitary. 
I wasn't sure what to do then.  Who among my friends would possibly know what to do?  And then I realized the only answer: Dan. 
So I texted Dan, even though I know he hates texting.  I asked him what to do.  And then I waited.  About a half and hour later he texted me back, recommending baking soda.  Oh, bloody hell, I thought.  We can't even get enough room for our stock.  I sure as hell don't have baking soda, and of course, I'm working alone, so I can't even leave to try to find some nearby.
Maybe this is like one of those things where I can substitute something, like in baking.  So I texted him back asking if there was something else I could use.  He told me no.  Frak. 
So I ended up just doing what I had done and then leaving the model out for an extra half an hour to make sure it dried out.  And then I put new batteries in it and it worked, no problem. 
Speaking of batteries, this woman came in and demanded that I sell her batteries.  We don't sell batteries, but we use them in our models.  And we have gone weeks without them, because the boss hasn't purchased any.  So I didn't sell her any, and boy, did she let me know how much she disapproved of that.  A part of me felt like I should just sell her the batteries for an ungodly sum and pocket the money, but that would be dishonest. 
I've been closing a lot at work lately.  I think I would prefer to open, just because it involves less work.  I also wonder if my brain's just too tired to make things work, because after a shift of six or seven hours, it feels like I'm moving really slowly and in that sluggish way that signifies nothing good.  
It's also so cold where I work.  We're suppose to have the door open, and I try to keep it open for as long as possible.  Even after I put on a sweater I find myself shivering.  The good and bad thing about shutting the door is I think it makes some people think we're closed even though the lights are clearly on.