Coffy

"Are you from Mineral Ridge?"
"No, I'm not. Why?"
"People from Mineral Ridge are racists."
"Oh. I see. Well, I'm not from there. So..."

Coffy is a black man and one of the first people to make a serious impression on me at my new temp job at the cheese factory. I've decided to call him Coffy as an homage to Pam Grier and because he chugs an entire thermus of it every morning. Besides, if I'm going to be accused of being a racist, I might as well act the part, at least in jest, and allege that all black people look the same to me anyway. Also, Pan Grier is fierce and I welcome an opportunity to work her into a post. This might be my only real chance to do so. Sucka.



This conversation happened my first week at the cheese factory, probably my second day there. As if being presumed to be a racist from Mineral Ridge wasn't bad enough, just wait - there's more.

"Well, folks from Mineral Ridge are also notorious liars. Two-faced, back-stabbing liars."
"Oh. Ok. I see where this is going, but I'm still not from there."
"How can I be sure? Isn't that what someone from there would say?"
"I guess. I wouldn't know."

So, there it was. I might be a racist, two-faced, back-stabbing liar from Mineral Ridge. In Coffy's eyes, anyway, I was. I couldn't really prove I wasn't and any attempt to do so would just make it all seem that much more likely. To be completely honest, I had to use Google Maps to even figure out where Mineral Ridge is. It's only 10 miles from where I live. I don't think I've ever been there - at least not knowingly or on purpose. I've heard of it, but seriously had no idea it was so close. Also, I find it incredibly hard to believe the entire town is populated by these deceitful bigots. It's funny how prejudice spawns more of the same. In fact, I was beginning to hate the people of Mineral Ridge for doing whatever the hell they did to Coffy to make him hate them so much and misdirect that anger at me.



About a week later, I had a different conversation with Coffy.

"Do you drive a little blue car?"

Immediately, I'm in panic mode. Did he do something to my little blue car or is he making sure he has the right vehicle for when he does do something to my little blue car later?



I'm completely freaked out by this random and incredibly creepy inquiry. I really don't want to answer the question.

"Yes."
"I thought that was you. I saw you getting off exit for East Market Street yesterday."
"Oh. Yeah. I live right there in Warren."
"No kidding. Me, too. Maybe once we get to know each other a little better, we could carpool to work."
"Wow. Maybe."

The carpooling suggestion actually scared me more than the possibility of him sabotaging my vehicle or following me home. I discussed it with Nurse Egg that evening.

"So, he believes me now. I'm not from Mineral Ridge, so I'm probably not a liar or racist either."
"It's not so much that he believes you. Now he has proof."
"Yeah. That's exactly it, actually."

Since proving that I'm not a resident of Mineral Ridge, things with Coffy have been great. He's taken a strange interest in me. He is constantly helping me out at work even though we work on completely seperate lines. We always greet each other - actually, he greets me and I respond. It's strange, but that's typically how things in my life naturally go.

Sort of like a Quentin Tarantino film...



Love Pam Grier.

In case I ever go missing, here's a recent photo.

I was just outside on the deck enjoying some tea and posting until it became too bright to see anything. I'll probably be back later once the sun passes over to the other side of the house. Until then... food, chores, and entertainment while I enjoy the first of two days off this week! Sweet!

9... on a scale of 7 to 13.

Yeppers. That happened. It happened on Thursday. Thanks to my sister, Nurse Egg, (aka Cracked Eggler who is resuming her blogging efforts which is a very delightful surprise) it was an amazing birthday. She bought me the cake pictured here. It is a strawberry cheesequake ice cream cake from Dairy Queen - chunks of cheesecake and strawberry filling frozen inside an ice cream cake. Delicious! She also showered me with gift cards and 36 cups of pudding.

It was also a great day at work, but I'll get to that mess later in a different post.

Since the start of this year and my first temp job, I have now lost 40 pounds. I'm still 20 pounds heavier than I was previous to my whole trucking experiment fiasco, but I'm working it down and will hopefully reduce beyond my previous normal weight. That's the continuing goal, anyway. From March until May I plateaued with my weight-loss efforts, but I've finally found away over, under, or around that wall. I think I can attribute a lot of that to the stress of finding another job after my first temp job imploded. Fortunately, things are going incredibly smoothly now at the second temp job at the cheese factory. But, again, I'll get to that in another post.

I slept in until 0730 this morning. Un-fucking-believable. I can not even begin to express how awesome that is to sleep past 0500 on a Saturday morning. Yes, I have two days off this weekend. I have the entire day today to do whatever the hell I want - which is probably not much at all, but that's also a good thing. I even have all of Sunday to finish doing nothing at all. How bizarre. I mowed the lawn yesterday after work so I don't have my usual chore to squeeze into my time off somewhere. I still have to do laundry, however, but that's requires the least amount of actual effort to complete. I just made some Arnold Palmer half and half Arizona instant iced tea. This is another thing Nurse Egg brought home on my birthday. Now I'm enjoying it on the deck and posting. It's not 90 bloody degrees out yet, so I'm enjoying that as well.

My phone has been misbehaving a lot lately. I get texts several hours later. It doesn't ring when I receive calls. I get only some of my voicemails. My battery life is a few hours if I'm lucky. I have to keep it plugged in at all times for it to even maybe work. I might look into having the battery replaced if I didn't hate the thing even when it is working properly and don't have very serious plans to upgrade and switch carriers in the near future. I would have done it for my birthday, but there are certain scenarios in play which require that I still be reachable by several involved parties. I am definitely planning on changing my phone number when I switch providers and upgrade, but that must wait until this whole mess is resolved. I'd rather not discuss the situation, but it's terrible and I can't wait for it to end. I sincerely hope it goes quietly into that good night. It's one of very few sources of conflict and stress in my life at the moment and I'm just not interested in prolonging or antagonizing it any further.

I've been taking a lot of surveys lately. Everyone seems incredibly interested in my opinion. I'm fine with obliging until they demand I explain my opinions in detail.

"The thing I find most appealing about expressing my personal opinions/feelings is, that being such, I'm not required to explain/defend/justify them to anyone for any reason. These are my personal opinions/feelings and they are not negotiable/debatable. Take them or leave them, because you'll never change them and I won't tolerate any attempts in that effort."

Probably not the response they were expecting. Too bad. Obviously, they should re-evaluate their expectations or bother someone else. I'm also slightly annoyed by rating scales that are not designed in multiples of 5 or 10. 6 point rating scale? Seriously? What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Who rates anything in degrees of 17%? I am 34% pleased with this product or service. No. I don't think so. It reminds me of a comment I made once to someone who wanted me to rate their performance.

"Don't worry. You're definitely a 9... on a scale of 7 to 13."

I realize this is in direct violation of what I've just said about rating scales, but it's still incredibly hilarious.

Numbers

Of course I worked today. Of course. I'll eventually get to posting more about work in general, but for now I'll just say it's interesting and exhausting most of the time. Thanks to the weekly mandatory full day of overtime, I am paying debts off left and right. It's the best feeling ever. If this keeps up, I'll be nearly debt-free by the end of the year. Hurray for that. Can't even wait.

I might even get money back from the government next year when I file my taxes instead of having to pay for using unemployment benefits. I can't wait to find out. I might start doing the math now and see.

I actually just did based on my anticipated income (not accounting for my potential quarterly pay increases based on job performance) and current federal withholding allowances. Yeah, I'm that guy. I enjoy math. I like how orderly and precise it is. Also, it's useful - essential even. Anyway... Yes, I'll be getting money back next year when I do my taxes. I won't be getting a lot back, because my current federal withholding allowances are appropriate, but at least I won't have to pay in. In case you're interested in following my geeky example, TurboTax has an amazing tax calculator (which I have just used and completely recommend) you can use online for free to determine your own potential income tax result. It's awesome and easy to use. Of course, you will still be required to estimate your gross income, percentage of federal tax withholding, blah blah blah. That's the fun part for me, but you might not agree. Keep in mind, however, that this is only an estimate and that estimate is based on this year's tax protocols and not the updated tax codes we'll be faced with next year. Still, it's pretty awesome and what else are you going to do on a Saturday night? Anyway... I don't think there was an actual point to any of this other than to entertain myself, but... Whatever. Yay, math!

Speaking of numbers, my birthday is next week. This anniversary would be more appropriately referred to as my agingday. Blah. It's the big one, people. 30. Oh, wow. Yeah. I don't even know what else to say about that. This happens Thursday.

I am not permanent, but nothing is.

The Saturday I posted "Half a post" is when my raise went into effect and at time and a half for the entire day of overtime. Very, very exciting. I realized I had gotten my raise when I went to pay bills online and my account balance was far too high compared to what I was expecting it to be. My raise increase was nearly $4/hr. I can expect another $5/hr. raise spaced out over the next 18 months or so. In the meantime, this is quite a substantial increase already and incredibly helpful financially.

Really glad I didn't take that job in management that I haven't even told you about being offered and immediately rejecting. Same for the job for the old school Italian who keeps the baseball bat behind his desk that I did tell you about being offered and rejecting shortly after being hired at the cheese factory. The management job was a recent offer - I got the call on Friday when I was sick as hell. The pay versus the hours I'd have to commit and the additional stress of managing people and things again makes it a far less tempting offer than the situation I'm currently very happy and satisfied with. I don't want that, possibly ever again. At the very least, I don't want that right now. Maybe eventually I'll want it again. I seriously doubt it, though. I'm making more as a temp than I've ever made doing anything else. It's hilarious. Sort of.

Yes, I'm still technically a temp. This is only aggravating whenever I need to get into the building at the cheese factory. I can't. I have to wait around until someone else comes along either headed in or out of the building themselves and piggy-back off their magnetic security key card swipe. I don't understand this at all. It completely defies all logic, especially after working there for over a month. I had a magnetic time clock key card after the first few days, so why not give me access to the building I work in to use said time clock and perform my job functions?! I don't know. It's ridiculous. I really hope I don't have to continue relying on other employees to get me in the building for the next 18 months. That would be beyond absurd. I would find a way to either hack the magnetic strip reader or clone a functional security key card of another employee if this continues for even another month or two. There is no telling how long it will take them to consider making me an official, permanent employee. Some people work there for a whole year before they are offered employment with the actual cheese factory. Except for the building access problem, I'm totally fine with that possibility.

For the first time since Thanksgiving 2010, I feel like there's a chance in hell of me actually getting my shit together and having a quality of life again that isn't miserable, depressing, and entirely marginalized. I feel like I'm living again, not just surviving more bullshit and waiting for something to change. Things are good now. Finally. They really are.