“Leash me alone, you little moppets!”

OK, this is a very specific complaint. And I’m yelling it now, the way I yelled it (in my car) right after the whole thing happened.

If you’re going to bring eight children, who are all young enough to be under four feet tall, to a SMALL produce market, and let them run free to knock over plants and bite into apples, and shriek, and hit me in the back and hip (yes: HIT — not bump) as they run by, then be prepared to hear me yell. They scared me. They came up behind me and scared me. One of them smacked me in the back, and the other hit my hip. No, it didn’t hurt. They’re little enough to be fairly harmless, smacking-wise. But it scared me. They came up behind me. I HEARD them, but never thought they’d hit me!

And when I turned around, startled, and yelled, YOU, the parents/caregivers/whatevers, told me to go to hell.

Don’t do that.

I mean it. Your rugrats asked for it.

Your little anklebiters are lucky they hit me and not someone who hits back.

Next time, how about trying leashes?

Workplace No-No’s

Going to settle “the particulars” today, but as of now, things look like this: I’ll be working part-time, from tomorrow until the end of May.

I USED to work for a big company, in a pretty snazzy job (well, not when I started there, but later). I had my own suite of conference rooms and offices, etc. In my office, when the door was closed, I could do lots of things that aren’t socially acceptable behavior. You know? But when I walked out of my office or if the door was open, I had to behave myself, so I never quite relaxed my “standards.”  However, when I lost my job, I discovered the joys of “living free.”  And, over the course of eleven years, I’ve become accustomed to behaving that way.

Last night I realized that I need to stop doing a few things:

No more blowing my nose so hard that my teeth rattle.
No more joyfully burping and then giggling afterwards.
No more walking around in scuzzy, ripped clothing.
No more screaming at the TV news people.
No more ignoring the $&*#ing phone when it rings.
No more flinging great flying buttresses of colorful &#*@ing swear words and epithets into the air. And then congratulating myself on the originality they exhibit.
No more stopping whatever I’m doing, to hug my cat or to go outside and watch turkey buzzards wheel around the sky.
No more complaining to the Gods of Gas about the amount of time it takes to digest various kinds of fiber.
No more talking to my lunch.
No more talking to myself.

These losses will be balanced by good things, I know. But some of them are habits that will be hard to break. Don’t you feel sorry for the other people in that office? Yikes.

And a hearty lol. See you later!