Give Me An Attitude Adjustment

Did you know I don't drink soda? Nothing carbonated. Ever. Once, in the 80's, my mom was sitting in the living room drinking what looked like water. I went over and asked, "Is that water?" She suggested, "Try it," and held her glass out to me. So I took the glass, took a sip, and ran into the kitchen to spit out the seltzer. My heart was shattered; why would she do that to me?

As I got older, maybe once every other year or three if I was really nauseous, my parents would encourage me to drink some Coke, and I'd lean against the kitchen counter, pouring half a Dixie cup's worth of Coke back and forth between two cups to get the bubbles out before forcing myself to take three or four sips.

One of the things that I like about living by myself is only having to clean up messes I make, and not any other people make. This philosophy should apply everywhere, don't you think? If you're walking down the street and you drop a piece of paper you've decided you no longer need, you should pick it up. Personal accountability is a beautiful thing.

At work, Turkey came up to my desk in the sunken living room after I got back from lunch to tell me that a Coke can in the refrigerator froze and exploded. "I started to clean it up, but then got some urgent calls I had to return so stopped." Then he asked me to finish cleaning up spilled soda all over the kitchen. You know how your dad would "suggest" you go clean your room? It was like that. Saying no was not an option.

I never, ever use the kitchen. One of the first few days I was temping, the office manager told me Turkey steals people's food if they leave it in the kitchen. So I just never use the kitchen. Because I know me, and me in a rage, will not end well for me who wants to stay employed. Stealing from me is definitely a good way to put me in a rage. So I just never use the kitchen.

It is part of my job to order the sodas. There are six people working there, and they aren't even all full-time. I order four different types of soda. To be honest, the first time I ordered, I fucked up the order. It was like when I was in second grade taking my very first spelling test, and didn't understand that the teacher was saying two different spelling words when she said "book" and then "books." I didn't realize that there was a difference between Diet Coke and Caffeine Free Diet Coke or some shit like that. Maybe it was Diet Zero Coke and Diet Coke? I don't know.

I was a cashier at a supermarket when I was 14, and some of the major foods had codes that you typed into the cash register (that's right, pre-scanners) instead of typing in the price. I'm 34 now, and it kills me that I remember that Coke was code 103 and Pepsi was code 104, but I can't remember which fucking bus to take to get to Crazy Girl and Golden Boy's house. By the way in case you're curious, as a cashier I was able to conclude that although people bought more Pepsi than Coke, when Coke went on sale and was less expensive than the Pepsi, it flew off the shelves. People like Coke better. Or, they did in 1991.

Anyway, I was royally pissed off about being asked to clean up someone else's mess. I'm not a fucking janitor, you know? Turkey is such a liar (he lies ALL the time) that I didn't even believe him about a soda freezing and exploding all by itself. Why would ONE freeze but others, right next to that one on the same shelf, not freeze? Why is the refrigerator freezing anything at all? Nothing else froze. I wouldn't be surprised if Turkey accidentally knocked the can over and it fell onto the floor and then he opened it anyway.

I was so angry that I needed to go calm down. I called Golden Boy and told him. The bitch of it was, I knew I needed to get over myself and just do it. You wanted a job? Here's a job - go clean Coke off the fucking floor and be happy you're getting paid to do it. This is what small firms are all about - having to run to the court house, having to change light bulbs, having to clean soda up.

You know what the turning point was for me? When Golden Boy admitted that it totally sucked. That was all I needed - for someone else to acknowledge the bullshit. We hung up, I futzed around for a few more minutes, and then cleaned up the floor, the counter, and the shelves in the refrigerator. It took less than five minutes.

This is a really shitty job. Today was shittier than most days. I told myself that I would just be amused at the ridiculousness of it all. Whatever wacky shit happened would just be viewed as blog fodder. Today I lost that perspective. It must stay with me, always.