THEN WE TAKE BERLIN
Busy day!
Aunt Bonnie and Frank dropped by Savers and we went to Subway for lunch. Shortly after I got back to the store, somebody peed all over one of the fitting rooms! Hooray for pee. My favorite. But then I retreated into the jewelry room and spent the last four hours of my shift getting stuff ready in advance for next week's silent auction, since I won't actually be there next week to set it up. A whole pile of good stuff was waiting for me, which is definitely an improvement over the last crapshoot. There's a big "Barbie and Stacey sleep'n keep" travel box from the late '60s packed with vintage clothes and a horde of grubby vintage barbies, as well as a slightly less abused (empty) Skipper travel case. I spent a while making sure the Sony Minidisc walkman worked (quality control, gotta check...for at least fifteen minutes...), which was entertaining to figure out. I've never encountered minidiscs before. They sort look like something a government agent would clandestinely hand off to a mustachioed man with a thick accent in a nondescript coffee shop just outside the pentagon or something. You know, like how they did with CDs and microfilm in '80s spy flicks. You know what I mean. Except I don't think foreign insurgents and rogue CIA agents are very interested in discs with "Weezer" and "Fountains of Wayne" written on them. OR MAYBE THAT'S THE TRICK? And there's an old typewriter and a rambo-style knife with a pommel compass that unscrews to reveal the little survival kit in the hilt and everything. There's actually nothing in this auction that I think is stupid this time, which is amazing. I forgot to take my last break and ended up leaving a half hour late, but I don't mind, on the grounds that perusing old crap in the jewelery room is stuff I would probably do in my free time if given the opportunity.
As I was walking to the light rail after work, I saw a man and a woman come storming out the doors, screaming an throwing punches at one another. DRUNK FIGHT! I'm not really good at reacting to things like that. All the right elements have to be present for me to quickly figure out an appropriate course of action. For example, if it was night, I would probably run like hell back to the liquor store and suggest they call the cops while I hide out until it blows over. That sounds reasonable to me. Or if there were a handful of bystanders I could stand with them and look very concerned, I can do that pretty well. But this was broad, sunny daylight and there was not another soul in sight, and they were directly in my path to the light rail. Um.
Basically my default reaction is to not react at all, so pretty much I'll just nonchalantly walk past with my headphones on and my hands in my pockets like it's nothing. I can nonchalantly stroll past pretty much anything. If I ever came across Abraham Lincoln swinging a baseball bat at a pack of chainsaw-wielding penguins, I wouldn't even quicken my step. Doo-dee-doo. Walkin' on by.
This time I suprised myself. I think it must have been because he was hitting her more than she was hitting back.
"Hey!"
He pointed at me. "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!"
"ok!"
Right then an angry black woman came charging across the street, and then thirty seconds later the cops came, so to my relief I found myself walking through the doors and up the stairs to the rail platform. Nonchalantly.
Doo dee doo.
Aunt Bonnie and Frank dropped by Savers and we went to Subway for lunch. Shortly after I got back to the store, somebody peed all over one of the fitting rooms! Hooray for pee. My favorite. But then I retreated into the jewelry room and spent the last four hours of my shift getting stuff ready in advance for next week's silent auction, since I won't actually be there next week to set it up. A whole pile of good stuff was waiting for me, which is definitely an improvement over the last crapshoot. There's a big "Barbie and Stacey sleep'n keep" travel box from the late '60s packed with vintage clothes and a horde of grubby vintage barbies, as well as a slightly less abused (empty) Skipper travel case. I spent a while making sure the Sony Minidisc walkman worked (quality control, gotta check...for at least fifteen minutes...), which was entertaining to figure out. I've never encountered minidiscs before. They sort look like something a government agent would clandestinely hand off to a mustachioed man with a thick accent in a nondescript coffee shop just outside the pentagon or something. You know, like how they did with CDs and microfilm in '80s spy flicks. You know what I mean. Except I don't think foreign insurgents and rogue CIA agents are very interested in discs with "Weezer" and "Fountains of Wayne" written on them. OR MAYBE THAT'S THE TRICK? And there's an old typewriter and a rambo-style knife with a pommel compass that unscrews to reveal the little survival kit in the hilt and everything. There's actually nothing in this auction that I think is stupid this time, which is amazing. I forgot to take my last break and ended up leaving a half hour late, but I don't mind, on the grounds that perusing old crap in the jewelery room is stuff I would probably do in my free time if given the opportunity.
As I was walking to the light rail after work, I saw a man and a woman come storming out the doors, screaming an throwing punches at one another. DRUNK FIGHT! I'm not really good at reacting to things like that. All the right elements have to be present for me to quickly figure out an appropriate course of action. For example, if it was night, I would probably run like hell back to the liquor store and suggest they call the cops while I hide out until it blows over. That sounds reasonable to me. Or if there were a handful of bystanders I could stand with them and look very concerned, I can do that pretty well. But this was broad, sunny daylight and there was not another soul in sight, and they were directly in my path to the light rail. Um.
Basically my default reaction is to not react at all, so pretty much I'll just nonchalantly walk past with my headphones on and my hands in my pockets like it's nothing. I can nonchalantly stroll past pretty much anything. If I ever came across Abraham Lincoln swinging a baseball bat at a pack of chainsaw-wielding penguins, I wouldn't even quicken my step. Doo-dee-doo. Walkin' on by.
This time I suprised myself. I think it must have been because he was hitting her more than she was hitting back.
"Hey!"
He pointed at me. "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!"
"ok!"
Right then an angry black woman came charging across the street, and then thirty seconds later the cops came, so to my relief I found myself walking through the doors and up the stairs to the rail platform. Nonchalantly.
Doo dee doo.
posted by Betsi at 6:14 PM
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