i have found her. she works at big lots on south obt. granted, she is not a child, having children of her own - more about them in a minute - but i have never seen such a perfect example of why you should keep some things to yourself.
i went to big lots for one thing and one thing only: an inexpensive speaker dock for my ipod at school. I ended up also buying some bbq chips and a coke. 3 items; all i had were 3 items. there was only one register open, so i resigned myself to waiting my turn behind the woman with the overflowing shopping cart. this proved to be more tedious than the 38 cans of cat food and 24 boxes of mac and cheese warranted. (seriously, are you running a day care center for 4 year olds and cats?)
as she scanned the (many, many) items, the check-out woman (hereafter known as TMI) began talking to the woman in front of me (hereafter known as cheesy-cat lady). as far as i could tell, the women only knew each other from the store; presumably, TMI had rung up cheesy-cat lady on more than one occasion. cheesy-cat lady asked TMI how things were going. this was a mistake of epic and tragic proportions. several times during this (mostly one-sided) discussion i wondered if cheesy-cat lady regretted her polite question. i know i did.
i now know more about some random worker at big lots than i do about some of my closer friends. i don't even know where to start. hmmm.... let's start with employment, though it was somewhere in the middle of the diatribe. TMI only works part time at big lots, and it's a good thing she does because she just got layed off from her full time job. and now that she's been laid off, her jerk of an ex-boyfriend thinks she'll take him back because she has three children - 3 boys, aged 13, 19, and 21 - and two of them still live at home and need to be supported. she and the ex have known each other since grammar school, and dated when they were in high school. she's very disappointed he turned out this way, since he used to be such a good person. she broke up with him because he was getting controlling and wanted her to cut ties with her children ("he's only 13 - i'm not gonna put him on the street"). he called the cops on her for allegedly walking around naked in the house to purposely distract the neighbors and attract attention to herself. (trust me, it would not have been GOOD attention.) he was planning to try to take her house and/or sell it for his own profit. when she broke up with him before he could do this - "i had to burn him before he could burn me, you know?" - he threatened to sue her. he is now calling her up repeatedly and telling her that she can't do any better than him and should take him back before she makes any more mistakes. now that she only has a part time job, he thinks she will have to take him back to make ends meet. she can't believe this is the same guy she once knew and dated. he's such a jerk. she doesn't want to be alone, but she's had enough jerks in her life, and is afraid she'll just attract another one. that's her life, her horrible life. but it's not so bad anymore because she's on zoloft and that's making her feel better even though she doesn't have any answers or any ideas on how to fix things.
seriously? at this point, the mantra in my head is, "i only have 3 items, please don't continue talking, i only have 3 items, please don't continue talking..." for the love of mike, people. take your disfunctional life and visit jerry springer. he and his trashy audience would LOVE to hear your story; your customers at big lots DO NOT. luckily, she simply rang up my things - apparently my scant amount of items did not allow for further explanations or play-by-play. what makes people feel the need to tell virtual strangers the most intimate details of their lives? i don't always want to hear these things, even from my best friends. there's just no need. demasi's probably the only one who would know these sorts of things about me, but he only knows a few - why should he be burdened with and/or bored by my inner thoughts and issues?
lady, seriously, buy a diary. i'm sure you can get one at big lots for a dollar, and you can put all your thoughts and feelings in there instead of spewing them out willy nilly all over unsuspecting customers...
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