BRAKE!

Oh, Sweet Jesus. I almost had my arms ripped off this morning.

I was minding my own business at the Return desk, managing to not put off the "die die die" vibe.

This woman came in, tried to unplug the entire Seasonal department while getting onto one of the motorized carts (those're starting to be a theme, aren't they? Worse than the hanging baskets of yore) She gave up trying to wrench the orange cord out of the wall, and decided to do it the easy way--she'd just drive off on the thing, and it would unplug on its own.

I manage to get her attention, and tell her that I'll make sure she's unplugged. Problem was, she was already unplugged. BUT she had her overly large purple sweatpanted ass on the cord for the cart next to her.

Without a word, she waited until I was behind the cart she was on, and then tried to speed off.

I say tried, because, well, my body weight works as a brake when the cord your fat ass is sitting on is also wrapped around my arm.

I holler for her to stop. She does. I say, "Ma'am, the cord for the other cart is wrapped around this cart. Please give me one minute..." and she tries to speed off again.

She stops again. I explain that she's SITTING on the plug (the fact that she can't feel it justifies my call her a huge-ass moron now.) I ask her to lean forward so I can remove the plug. She shifts her shoulders. WOW. Big help there, toots. Thanks.

She tries to speed off again, and again, I'm yanked around. Hell, at this point, I'm lucky I'm only being jerked around behind the dammed cart--if I were in front of it, she'd be searching for a manager to ask why there are speed bumps in the entryway.

I finally manage to apply enough pressure on the cord for the plug to pop out from under her enormous ass.

She speeds off, this time for reals. I can only assume no one else was harmed in the making of this post.

Fa La La La La...

There's a reason I hate the holidays. And most of it involves my mother, and her controlling perfectionism. That gets totally swollen and out-of-control starting about....today.

She went to visit my sister last week. She left on Wednesday. On Thursday, I had a 3 hour conversation with her that was mostly her telling me how to do things that didn't involve or effect her anyway. Friday and Saturday, My Sweetie had a 30-45 minute conversation with her each day. On Sunday, the day before she came home, I had a 65 minute conversation with her about....everything we'd already discussed, nothing important, and a repeat of her narrow, rigid, and pissy attitudes and opinions. Yeah, baby.

She got home on Monday. I talked to her for 30 minutes upon her arrival...about all the same shit we'd talked about on Thursday and Sunday. It was like a Reader's Digest Condensed version of the same-old controlling behavior.

Didn't talk to her yesterday, but today, the drain backed up. Luckily, it was small and caught early. But My Sweetie wasn't home to take care of it, and I had crap I had to run around town to get down that absolutely had to be done this morning...because school was letting out an hour early for the holiday break.

She was informed, and off she went to church. Fine.

She showed back up, in time to call Roto-Rooter. He's able to come today, but that means she's crawled right up my ass. If I try to do anything, I'm either going to get told HOW to do it, HOW to do it BETTER, or have to justify doing it at all. Loudly. She's hard of hearing--remarkably enough, her hearing loss is directly proportional to how much control she does NOT have at that moment. (and when that's not an issue, she's deafer if your nerves are jangling from having been subjected to biting your tongue off to keep from bitch-slapping her)

Today, after the drain was cleared, but before My Sweetie got home, and before the Roto-Rooter dude was packed up and paid, she first informed me that the guy (yea, she was THAT specific during this conversation) that died on Monday wasn't a "real Jew." She knows this, because the obit said he died Monday, and there was a viewing, and he wasn't buried IMMEDIATELY.

This, of course, also prompted her to inform me that one of my sister's friends is a "real Jew" and therefore it not only makes my mother (by proxy, apparently) an expert on modern Jewish traditions, it also means that any person who claims to be Jewish but doesn't do EXACTLY as this woman does (or as my mother supposes she does--I mean, she's seen the 10 Commandments starring Charlton Heston, too) is not a "real Jew."

The hell of it is this: Somehow, in her informing me of all her glorious (and OMG flawed) knowledge of Jewish tradition and law, she also began informing me of the sexual orientation status of several people we both know. As if she hasn't A) already informed me of this information at least 2x a year for the last 10 years; and B) I didn't already know well before she began informing me. (I want to add here that if she doesn't like you--and by "you" I mean 99.9% of the population--it means Man=GAY; Woman=WHOOO-ER. She's very much hung up on everyone else's sex life.)

Anyway, what it comes down to is simple: I am not HER, so there's absolutely no way I can ever talk out my ass the way she does.

Tourists!

Yes, more about the random oddities I encounter at work. Recently, one of my co-workers told the story about a caller wanting the phone number for a local grocery store...the caller, deciding that it was too much of a bother to look the number up for herself, called our store wanting us to look it up for her.

I can beat that.

A few weeks ago, I watched as a dopey looking woman came in the doors, plunked herself into one of the motorized carts, and drove off. She came back a short while later, parked the cart she was using up against the entry doors, and began unplugging the extention cords that power all the Christmas crap in the Seasonal department. When I asked if I could help her find something, she said she needed one of those carts that worked. I had to practically pry the 4 foot cords away from her. Why she was gathering the extention cords (she was looping them over her shoulder to take them with her) I don't even want to know.

Last night, I took a transferred-to-me call during which the customer, when asked how I could help him, said, "I don't know. They just sent me to you." I had to actually ask three times "What were they helping you with?" for him to tell me repeatedly, "I don't know." After ping-ponging the call back and forth, we were finally able to get him what he needed...and then he wanted to know if we could deliver his crap to him on Thanksgiving day. "I understand you're not open on Thanksgiving, but it'd be better for me if you could deliver that day anyway."

The evening progressed to the hyperactive men who couldn't just answer my easy questions (Is it broken? and Do you have your receipt with you today?) They each had to give me an entire purchase history...one even asked me, as I handed him the receipt he needed to sign, "Doncha have sumpin' for me to sign?" As he signed it, he added his address, phone number, and various minutia about himself. In case he ever ended up as a Trivial Pursuit answer I'd be prepared, I guess.

Finally, the absolute bestest ever asked me, "Have you ever been to the Falls?"

I answered, "I'm sorry?"

"You know, Niagara Falls."

"uh, years ago, yes."

"Do you know if they're still running the boats? The schedule for the boats, I mean."

Yes, folks, I'm not only supposed to know why you call into my store, every detail of your life in the 10 years since my store opened, phone numbers and hours for random area businesses, I'm also supposed to know the tourist attractions and their schedules in CANADA.

The Lesser of Two Evils

That's me. HAH!

Last night, yet again, I was at the Hell desk. Yet again, I was confronted with crap I didn't even know existed, let alone that we did in Retail Hell.

In a lull (after one ass-kicking storm) I asked my department manager, "Why do you hate me so much?"

And basically, her response was that she didn't hate me. She'd just rather work with me behind that desk than her other options. Considering the mutual dislike and the spiteful working together history we have, this is absolutely astounding.

That other option? That's Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy makes the Laziest Woman in the tri-county area look ambitious. They're both hags, although Miss Piggy is closer to my age than the other one is. But Miss Piggy loves to wear her muffintop so everyone can see it...and she's always saying "What?" whenever she hears something that means she might have to actually do her job.

Most recently, my dealing with her involved my having to repeat myself seventeen times for her to explain to me "There's 4 registers out there. Can't you just get tape from one of them?" I repeatedly told her that I'd already checked, before I called her, and there was no tape to be had, unless she brought it.

Last night, she thought that a customer should wait 40 minutes until the guy who does the grunt work got back from his lunch hour. Or, that I should do her paging/calling for someone else for her.

Nope. Not gonna happen.

Sorry, Piggs, but I've already done the thing where I do someone else's job for 'em, and all it gets me is a helluva lot of extra stress I don't need. Yer on yer own.

So, between Miss Piggy and me, I'm the lesser of two evils. HAH!

The Stand

Elementary School morning drop off = NIGHTMARE.

That, right there, could be the entire post, but I feel the need to be more specific.

Way back when the Howler was in Kindergarten, morning drop off was a free-for-all. Parking in the drive/drop off lane, no adult supervision any where near the drop off area....the cleaning out of car trunks while a thousand other people tried to unload the children in their morning care.

Things improved...if you call 10% less stress and the addition of 2 aides to supervise unloading an improvement. I did.

When the aides actually DO supervise and AIDE the unloading, it's not nearly as bad as it was just a few years ago.

But what we have now is the same 2 aides, obviously very much over the AIDE part of their jobs. I thank God every morning that my daughter does not have contact with either of these two women during her school day.

When it's arctic cold, they huddle in the doorway. When it's not so arctic cold, they stand, chatting with each other (my paranoia says that they're actually talking about those families currently dropping off children) and ignoring the stupidity that could be avoided. If there were actually AIDING going on during unloading.

Today's particular rant is inspired by the fact that once I finally get into the drop off lane, I'm waiting....and waiting....and waiting to pull forward.

Dunno what's happening, and I'm too far back to see. Finally, one of the unaides moves forward a few steps. She stops and the vehicle--with it's passenger side door still hanging wide open, is pulling forward.

I pull forward far enough to unload the Howler--remarkably enough, not late yet--and as I drive away, that car door is still wide open, Mom is on the passenger side with her child....and the unaides are still just standing there. The vehicle in question is still mostly in the lane, and those leaving have to swerve into the already narrow path of those incoming.

Am I being ridiculous to think that A) if you're old enough to have a driver's license and a school-age child, you're old enough to know that driving any distance with a child in the seat next to the wide-open door is flat-out a Darwin Award looking to happen and B) any adult being paid to actually HELP families unload their urchins should actually be HELPING. Even if it means moving quickly enough to get that door closed, and have the idiot driving pull into an actual parking space.

I want so badly to let the school know that their unaides are part of the morning drop off problem, but I've already had to complain about ceiling tiles in the Howler's classroom becoming water logged and falling...

Somehow, I think I hear "off the deep end" being spoken in my near future.

Snooty Susie, The Church Lady

Years ago, I left the church in my hometown. There were reasons, not the least of which is that I had, apparently, outlived my usefulness to them. Of course, my "bad attitude" and questioning of their motives for certain decisions was probably part of it. At first, they refused to allow the Toad to move forward away from being a little boy in his role during services; by the end, they were actively pursuing ways to condemn and chastise me (making some of the shit up, and yes, I could prove it) and to humiliate and repress him.

While there were some who didn't want to see us go (and whom I missed seeing weekly) there were others who, I'm fairly certain, did the Happy Dance when they heard that we'd left.

Snooty Susie was probably one of them. She & I didn't have problems, it was more of a low-level general mutual dislike.

This year at the Diocesan convention dinner, My Sweetie & I sat with my first Sunday School teachers from the local church and Snooty Susie. When we sat down, Snoots asked me how well I knew our Bishop. Since he's only been our Bishop 3 years, and their last priest really didn't like him (and most of those parishioners parroted whatever their attention whore priest said) she said it like she fully expected me to have nothing good to say about our Bishop.

Okay, so it's not just that, I don't generally like people much. And clergy get no special exemption in my graces, either.

I asked her what she meant by "know well" and she said, "Well, does he know your name?" as if there's no way he would (the prior Bishop didn't know my name, but he knew my face--and he always looked at me like he'd just stepped in something nasty when he saw me. No lie.)

I told her how many ways I'd met the current Bishop, and that he'd been to my house. My Sweetie confirms that, no, I wasn't being snooty or holier than her about it. I was simply telling a story about how I knew the man. Snoots looked like I'd slapped her.

HAH! Score one for me--I was being a grown up.

Clash of the Titans

So, you want the Easter Egg story? Wooo boy. You're a brave one.

We're now up to March, 2002. The Howler, as she became known, had arrived on Monday. It's now Thursday evening, and on top of being exhausted, we're also excited--it's EASTER! Yay! And we may have finally gotten the baby girl's days and nights unmixed...so there may actually be sleep in our near future (at least, sleep in shifts.)

The Gator, if you hadn't noticed, is a control freak. Queen of the Control Freaks. And she has, due to prior Christmas rants, and limited, though varied contact with my Sweetie, become convinced that HE is easy going enough to allow her to steam roll over him (and me, by proxy.)

Ahhhh. She has not yet noticed that the winds have shifted. Let's watch as the Gator gets her wake up call from the Clue Phone:

Thursday afternoon, Holy Week, 2002. Mumple kitchen. Eggs for coloring on Friday are boiling. The phone rings, and big shocker, it's the Gator. "Whatcha doin'?"

My Sweetie tells her, "Boiling the eggs so we can color them tomorrow."

Apparently, this is the wrong answer. And having had similar conversations with the Gator before, I can honestly tell you, without having heard it myself, how this went.

Gator: WHAT?! You can't do that!

My Sweetie: Yes. My mom has ALWAYS boiled them the day before. They color better when they're cold.

Gator: They don't color AT ALL when they're cold. You've ruined them.

My Sweetie: My mom's always colored just fine, so why don't we wait and see?

Gator: You've RUINED Easter for the Boy! *sob* *cough* *shriek of pain* You ruined the eggs I bought, and you've RUINED Easter. (yes, the Gator not only over reacts, she does a really mean rendition of Confessions of a Drama Queen)

My Sweetie: It even says in the instructions on the color kit box to boil them, cool them, and dry them. "Cool completely" it says.

Gator: The HELL IT DOES! YOU'VE RUINED EVERYTHING! EVER! You hate me, you hate the Boy... *slams phone down*

My Sweetie, because it's still early yet, calls her back. She answers: YOU'VE RUINED IT! I SPENT $3 ON THOSE EGGS AND YOU'VE RUINED THEM!

My Sweetie responds: Really? Why don't we wait and see?

Gator (realizing she's already losing this battle, 'cuz her opponent hasn't even squeaked a sqwak yet): Fine. Just fine. You've ruined everything anyway. The Boy LOVES coloring eggs, and you two assholes have ruined his fun!

My Sweetie: How? We're coloring the eggs tomorrow. On Friday. Tomorrow.

Gator: The Boy dearly LOVES coloring eggs. Every part of it! And by doing this today, you've taken away HIS FAVORITE PART!

My Sweetie: Uhm, What?!

Gator: You've done his favorite part of coloring the eggs without him! You two assholes ruined HIS Easter, and MINE!

My Sweetie: You want me to believe that the Boy's favorite part of Easter is watching the eggs boil? Are you serious?

Gator: YES! YES! Yes, you asshole.

My Sweetie: Do you even hear yourself speaking? Watching water boil is one of his favorite things? I find that hard to believe.

Gator: That's because, what? Well, you've ruined MY EGGS. I paid for those eggs and there's no way they'll be edible now. GARBAGE! That's all they are.

My Sweetie proceeds to blow that little "inedible" theory out of the water, by telling her that unless she eats the shells, the eggs will be juuuuuuuuuuuuust fine.

Gator shrieks more insanity. Finally, My Sweetie loses his temper. He tells her HE will throw out the eggs, and go buy more. Then it will be HIS eggs that she won't be eating. She tried to convince him to "wait and see" and he said, NO, he wouldn't want to take the chance on an egg that was boiled on Thursday, colored on Friday, and eaten on Saturday or Sunday poisoning someone. They're garbage, so OUT OUT OUT they will go.

Then he proceeds to do just exactly that. He also informs the Boy that he will be WATCHING EGGS BOIL in the morning, and he'd be better giggling like a loon when he does it. And if he doesn't like it, he can take it up with his grandmother.

The moral of the story: Pick an irrational arguement with My Sweetie, and he will best you at it. The bonus moral of the story: Even almost 9 years later, the Toad does NOT appreciate it when you call him to the kitchen to watch water boil. (yeah, we still do that sometimes.)

He's a Keeper

And here's why:

First, the back story.

My mother desperately loves Christmas. She wants everything "perfect"...and of course, this is impossible. Because she tried too hard, I grew to loathe Christmas. Okay, loathe is probably overboard, because there are parts of it that I love. But in general? I hate it. I don't care. Let me have the parts I like, and screw the rest.

My mother, in 1999, saw those gawd-awful spiral trees and bought one. For the Toad. (of course, way back when, he was "the Boy") If you don't know what they are, they are basically a cheapass piece of curvy plastic that is suspended, ala fishing line, from a cheapass pole. The Boy couldn't have cared less whether or not we owned, let alone put up that fucking tree. You'd have thought it was the 2nd coming the way she talked about it.

Flash forward to 2000. Shortly after we started dating, it was the Christmas season. That meant decorating...and that we had to put out the lighted spiral tree she bought for the Boy. She had called and asked if we put it out--and he had no clue what she was talking about. But that wasn't hint enough for her. Of course not.

One Sunday night early in the Christmas season, my brother suddenly appeared at My Sweetie's house. We were getting ready for supper at My Sweetie's house, and the Boy was blissfully unaware, zoned on a video game. My Sweetie--the guy whom my mother had yet to formally meet. Did I say we were at his house?

Anyway, my brother shows up, to warn us that the Gator is on the warpath. Now, by "warpath" I mean, she was looking for a fight, and by God, she's going to have one. And she chose her favorite target--me. Over her favorite subject--the Toad. The issue of the minute was that spiral tree.

She had driven past my house, and there, brightly lit, was every other outdoor decoration we owned...except that tree. Unfortunately, it was freezing rain, and that tree had, in it's cheapass way, decided to blow a bulb and not light. Or whatever.

The Gator shows up at My Sweetie's house--remember? The guy she's never met. And she bursts into his home, and proceeds to rant and rave, spitting and frothing at the mouth. Like a lunatic.

Over the fucking tree.

She accuses me of leaving the Boy at our house, in the dark (never mind that at 11-almost 12 years old he's certainly old enough to turn on a light by himself) and then she begins about the fucking tree.

At some point, she had me by the shirt, near my collar. Basically by the throat, spewing all sorts of enraged, insane accusations.

I pry her fists from my shirt, and she begins to calm down. My Sweetie is going about getting supper actually on the table, and at some point, the Boy becomes unzoned and says, "Hi Grammy. When did you get here?" That may have been what calmed her down.

Supper is on the table, and, in an effort to not appear totally certifiable, she introduces herself to My Sweetie, with a slam on me.

God love him, he simply said, "Nice to meet you, I guess."

After supper (she's gone by now) we head up to my house so that My Sweetie, the Keeper, can try to fix the fucking tree. First, he tries, out in the freezing rain no less, to figure out which bulb is burned out. When his fingers are close to shattering from the cold, he drags the fucking tree inside. It's the fuse. He changes the fuse, lights the tree, sets it back up outside...

And likes me anyway! And he stays. And he comes back. And he still likes me! And I see as much, if not more of him. And he still likes me! And he laughs at how insane my mother is.

Even my sister, who always takes the Gator's side, upon hearing the story of the Fucking Tree, remarks, "You're not gonna let this one get away, are you?"

Yeppers. He's a Keeper. Wait 'til I tell you about the Easter Eggs.

And Another Thing

It's one thing when I make fun of my age. And it's the same thing when someone close to my age makes fun of my age. I earned these gray hairs (and the money I use to buy the hair color to cover them)

I understand that due to many cultural factors, these puke kids don't respect their moms much. I also remember the lack of respect I had, when 20 years younger, I had for people who were then the age I am now. Was I this obnoxious? I hope not, and if I was, I humbly apologize now.

My rant today centers on Special Ed and the wrongness that is Retail Hell. For 10 years I have been the only person with my first name in the place. I was singular. Unique. Now, they go and hire someone with the same first name for exactly the same department. It's just not right.

What makes it more not right, is that Special Ed decided yesterday that it is too confusing for everyone else when we're both (me and the new one) working at the same time--especially since yesterday, we were on the front line. Everyone else is coming up with ways to be sure to not confuse us (although there wasn't that much of a problem when there were 9 Ashleys and 42 Tiffanys all at the same time.) As if confusing me with anyone else would be possible.

Special Ed announces that the new one could have "New" added to her name, and I could have "Old" added to mine.

I tell him--as only I can--that she can very well be "New" but I am not to be designated "Old" EVER. He continues, much like the Howler when she's in her think out loud phases, to explain all the situations in which it would be OK to refer to me as "Old."

I continue to repeat myself. He continues to ignore me.

Finally, I tell him: "Under NO circumstances EVER will the word "old" be added to my name. No how, now way. NOT EVER." Apparently my tone communicated better than the words themselves.

Special Ed

Where I work, it is getting harder and harder to find "good help." Partly because only those who are insane or desperate willingly work retail, and partly because this younger generation is basically lazy and stupid.

Seriously. I spawned one, and am currently coming to terms with the fact that he ain't never, and I mean NEVER moving out, so I am very well versed in Pukedom when I see it.

The current Puke at work is kinda creepy, kinda dull, and kinda stupid. Now, by dull and stupid, I mean he makes Smiley look like a genius.

Today, I was on the front line, and I watched (while still running a register, no less) the Puke take 3 times as long for each and every transaction as I did. I kid you not--I dealt with 3-5 separate customers with shitloads of merchandise in their carts, while he would deal with one--ONE--freaking customer. Even when he was to the point where the customer was handing him money, it still took him 5 full minutes before he was done with that transaction. God help me, Smiley is faster. She can handle 1.5 customers for each of my 4.

He also has the hideous "Rebel without a Clue" thing going on. He thinks he's sooooooo very much above the rest of us--whether it's in intellect (HAH! I so very much doubt that, you turd) or gender. He's a scruffy little fluffball, and yet again, I say, "If I wanted to babysit, or put up with this kind of asshole teenager, I'd stay HOME with my own children. At least I can beat them when the need arises." So far, I've seen nothing that would lead me to believe he's anything special, except for maybe Special Ed.

At the end of my shift today, he sez, "Well, Mumple, it's about time...go ahead, turn off your light, and go."

Seriously? Like you, you little Sped, are the boss of me? Because you know, due to being older, wiser, more experienced, and mostly just by virtue of being smarter than the bag of hammers you come close to resembling, I'm not taking orders from you.

Shazaam!

It's come to my attention over the past year that I have actually become the woman I wanted to be 20 years ago.

And I hate it.

I spent the first 10 of that 20 miserably trying too hard. Then, I figured what the hell, and just let it go--stopped trying and decided that I would just be happy the way I was. So I spent the next 10 just doing the best I could, and ignoring the assholes who didn't like it. And saying a lot of the stuff that I thought anyway. Why wait 'til I'm old and senile? Just say it now and get over it.

I actually came to enjoy not having to bother much with all the trappings and crap of being a woman--especially the time consuming uninteresting parts. I especially came to glory in being unexpected.

My Sweetie helped immensely in a lot of that. He's a far better person than I am, and he talked me down from many a bell tower in the beginning. Those bell towers are fewer and farther between now, and I've most recently discovered that the bottomless pit of anger and bitterness not only had a bottom, but it's also run very nearly dry.

I know you're thinking, "Sure, that was all fine and sometimes it was dandy, but isn't it better now? To realize you've actually become the person you wanted to be..."

Well, that's easy enough for you to say, 'cuz you haven't just spent 20 freaking years gouging a place for yourself where you're comfortable and happy, just to discover that it was a whole lot of time spent for, what amounts to being, nothing. To realize that I am about 15 years too late to my own life.

Frustrating and discouraging. To counter that awesome feeling, I'm working on adjusting my perspective to believe that it wasn't really ME, it's the rest of the world that is just finally catching up to me. 15 freaking years late.

No wonder 80's fashion is back in style.

Rescue Me

Tonight I was in lumber. Ugh. I hate it down there- it's dark, and dingy, and well, the customers are often times, believe it or not, bigger assholes than they are anywhere else in the store.

Anyway, Nub, aka the Gnome, was in rare form. I ask a simple "yes" or "no" question and his utter inability to answer it led him to complain that I wouldn't go away. How hard is this math? Sheesh. One of these days, I'm gonna step on him like he's a little, moustached, bespectacled bug (which he is, but that's not the point.)

I have decided that I'm throwing insanity pheromones because a chubby, gray haired old biker dude decided to chat with me, for 20 minutes at least, about the state of the union, and Santa Claus.

Now, sure, lots of these people want me to agree with them on politics. And don't even get me started about the God Squadders. But Santa Claus? Seriously?

Oh, yeah. It's gotta be a pheromone. Please tell me it's a pheromone.

A Slippery Slope

I've struggled with depression for most of my adult life. It sucks. My entire history of it is long, and boring, and filled with stories of ridiculous reactions to medications--side effects ranging from hair loss (Sasquatch showered at my house) to a terrifying loss of words (I couldn't answer the question, "So what does your husband do for a living?") Most recently, the Cymbalta for the fibromyalgia gave me insomnia for the first 10 days, then, when that wore off, I couldn't find the door to take my daughter to school (and yet, I got behind the wheel of my vehicle and took her to school.)

I've spent the better part of the last 18 months struggling to not get lost in the depression. It's occasionally made me weird, and the accompanying mood swings have been dizzying.

Mostly, the past 6 months or so have been a roller coaster, all inside my head. I'm sure the people I work with have enjoyed it--the preoccupation with keeping the crazy contained has kept me about 80% quiet and moderately subdued at work. I'm sure they'll agree that it's been a blessing.

The worst part of the past 6 months is that I hadn't realized I was worse than I was. And unfortunately, I kept it pretty well hidden--even from myself. That sucks, too, because, well, I got sucker-punched and I reacted very very badly. A lot in Old Mumple Character, and not so much in who I really am now. It was abundantly clear, though, when the Doc was really really serious when she said it was time to consider trying yet another antidepressant. Which, of course, being the stubborn thing I am, I refused. (Yeah, it certainly helped my "I'm OK" when I started crying in the office.)

It was then that I realized I was on that Slippery Slope, and seriously headed for an all-out attack of Crazy.

It bothers me that I let myself get to that point, and it bothers me that I didn't realize how much I was sucking at being a decent, self-aware person. I was being a self-involved spaz. I want to cower behind the depression, and the fact that, depression aside, I've never been very good at self-censoring what I say.

I'm not going to cower. I'm going to eat crow, and be the kind of person who says, "I was an ass. I'm sorry." Thank God the majority of those who deserve the apologies are still speaking to me.