The Short, Short Version #2

Week ending 10/27/2013.

Fear:  I can't sleep between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.  Why?  Night Terrors.  Often, outright hallucinations, usually about clothing, towels, and curtains.  Patterns turn into faces, people in pictures move, a crumpled pair of jeans is really a demon.  The truth is, for that hour, I watch the clock like a fucking maniac, because at 5:00 I will be safe again.  Nothing can get me at 5:00 a.m.

Disgust:  A frequent customer (who...does not have a rockin' body) came out of the fitting room on Tuesday wearing only her sweatshirt, her underwear, and a pair of cowboy boots she was trying on.  She wanted to try other sizes in the boots.  So she bent over to read box sizes and exchange between the sizes.  Pink granny panties, FYI.

Sadness:  A teenager called me middle-aged.  She was talking to me and two other ladies.  We are 34, 31, and 49 years old.  The teenager was talking about technology, and said, "Middle-aged people like you all just didn't grow up with it like we did."  I...don't want to be one of those women who can't face her age, but sometimes reminders creep up on me that I'm not exactly young anymore and that I need to get going with my life.

Anger:  I have a plane ticket from Seattle to home.  Not one from home to Seattle, though.  Because at the time when I had just enough money for one ticket, the flights there numbered twenty and the flights back numbered five.  I thought, I'd better secure a seat on one of those five planes and I'll have the money for one of the outgoing planes soon.  Nope!  That was June.  Every time I have the money something happens.  Is it a sign?  I've never been on a vacation, not really, especially one on my own.  I want this so badly.

Happiness:  A real phone!  With texting!  I was tired of all these people around me, who have no jobs, who steal and sell other people's possessions for drug money, having phones worth hundreds of dollars while I had a five-year-old flip phone.  So, I sucked it up and got a Smartphone.  It isn't the greatest one out there, but it will do and it will do everything theirs will do without the hefty $600 or so price.  How do they even get these phones?  Whatever, it doesn't matter because now I have a real phone, too!

Surprise:  The cat lady asked me to babysit her cats again while she's on vacation for a week.  She pays well.  This is at a time when I'm a little stretched, monetarily, and her offer was just amazing timing.  She...always seems to make these offers at the exact time I need a little extra cash.  It gives me pause.

Random Fact:  If you want to kill me, lock me in a room with only canned food and an electric can opener.  I do not understand how to work them.  My mother once threw away all the manual can openers and that night we had to go buy a new one so I could open cans when no one else was home.