The Webs We Weave: A Halloween Soap Opera

I have just gotten through what may be the longest day of my entire life. It wasn't due to job stress or crazy co-workers or even overbearing boss... no it was due to the drama. My job has turned into one ginormous soap opera with all the drama coming at me from every possible angle. We can't do anything without there being some form of drama and for the next couple of paragraphs, I will confuse you with a number of plot twists, rip your heart out with tear-jerking sadness and give the story no real good ending because every good soap opera never truly ends. It just continues on an endless cycle of insanity. I've changed all the names to protect my butt but it's also a lot of fun.

It all started one week ago when my district manager, named Francisco, went to Wisconsin because his uncle died of cancer. We weren't really sure what we were doing yet with the whole store situation but we extended our condolences and let Francisco leave in peace. We chose not to bother him during his time of grief and turned our many hundred questions to his boss, whom we shall call Jane Lynch.

Now Jane Lynch is a very formidable character. She requires everything to be done a certain way and will not give any room for variation and does not keep an open door policy. You may give her your ideas but I can guarantee you that Jane Lynch will never listen. So Jane Lynch gave us very strict direction on what needed to be done and sent in another district manager to help cover for Francisco.

The other district manager immediately saw our stores were in a total state of disarray. He came in and immediately got us going on the right track.  None of us had any idea what we were doing in terms of hanging up merchandise, putting together elaborate halloween displays or even hanging up the snap walls correctly. This started poor Francisco on a long road the would ultimately lead to his untimely doom.

Now fast forward to last Thursday, when Francisco returns from Wisconsin and meets with us all to see our progress. By this point, we are all exhausted and my store manager, named Pierre the Frenchman, was at his wits end. Pierre was super sick but still came in to work because Jane Lynch told him he couldn't miss a day of work until after the store was ready to open. But Pierre's condition was made worse by the fact that he wasn't working on his store. Oh no... Pierre had spent countless hours coaching, building and repairing another manager's store because Francisco hadn't been around to pick up the keys of Pierre's store. And Pierre was ticked and it was obvious.

With Francisco back at the helm and the other district manager driving 3 long hours back to his region, we continued our hurried effort to open the store. Pierre went home early on Thursday to catch up on sleep and prepare for his long battle the next morning at his own store. Friday was very uneventful because all I and the other people did was hang merchandise.

There were whispers among us that the co-manager at Pierre's (my) store, named Zeida, was being transferred to a new store in the wonderful world of Skokie. But Francisco could neither confirm nor deny this because he was AWOL. Poor Francisco suffered further heart break when his own father, just days after the loss of a beloved uncle, went into the hospital only to discover he had a cancerous tumor.

While my Friday was considerably boring, Pierre (who was still very ill) got hit in the head with a box and had to unload 3 enormous semi trailers full of merchandise. Pierre had enough of all this and wrote quitely simply on a piece of printer paper, "To Spirit- I quit!! Pierre the Frenchman." He left Zeida a voicemail telling her the Schaumburg store was now hers and she would no longer hear from him.

In the beautiful village of Buffalo Grove, everything came to a shattering halt with the news that our beloved Pierre the Frenchman had raised his white flag. Everyone was in shock. We must have sat around for 15 minutes just talking about how Pierre could have betrayed us all.

Zeida thought it was a conspiracy. Francisco had wanted to rid himself of Pierre the Frenchman forever. She knew that Francisco and Pierre did not get along and were constantly fighting for control of the troops. But I became worried. My store was supposed to have 2 managers and 2 assistants. We were down 1 manager and the other assistant still hadn't been named. Would I be thrown into the position of power? Would I ascend to Pierre's throne of managerdom? Only time would tell.

But Francisco was in no shape to celebrate his glory because as far as we knew, he was at the hospital. Unfortunately no one had heard from him. He wouldn't return phone calls or text messages. Jane Lynch came bounding back into the picture and introduced us to Hogan, the incredible Hulk. Hogan is a short, fat man with no sense of humor and whose language would make even the filthiest sailor blush.

I never met Hogan until about 4:30 p.m. today. Zeida, me and another sales associate met at Schaumburg to take over the long list Pierre never completed. We had an easy day with Zeida. We painted and put together some merchandise racks. THEN came the dreaded phone call none of us saw coming.

Francisco was schedule to meet with Jane Lynch, Hogan and the other district manager this morning to discuss what his situation was. But he never showed up. Instead, he went to the Jewish bakery next door to the intended meeting place and called Jane Lynch. To her, this was completely unacceptable and went next door to the Bakery to tell him he was fired.

When Jane Lynch called Zeida, we knew something had gone down. There was talk of firing the Buffalo Grove store manager, who goes by Franz, because apparently Hogan didn't like him. The third and final store in our region was completely shut down due to fire code violations and that store manager, named Betty Boop, was shipped off to somewhere far, far away. Jane Lynch said it was only a miracle that kept Betty Boop was getting the same phone call as Francisco.

So Jane Lynch informs us that Hogan is now our district manager and he will arrive later the afternoon to check on the status of the store. In the meantime, we are supposed to keep working to make sure we can get the store open by this Saturday. We haven't even finished constructing the store yet.

By this point Zeida was beyond ticked, she was hungry and super thirsty because she was broke. We were supposed to get paid on Friday BUT the FedEx man who was supposed to deliver our checks didn't show. Someone called FedEx and they said Saturday. Well, FedEx man drives past the building and attempts to look into the building from his truck. Not seeing any signs of occupancy, he drives off assuming the store was abandoned. Had he taken the time to get out of the truck, he would met Jane Lynch and a very perturbed Zeida.

So FedEx says Monday between 9-11. Monday came... no FedEx. So Zeida calls Hogan, who calls FedEx and spends the next 10 minutes cursing at the lady on the other end. The lady calls the courier and 5 minutes later we have our paychecks. Hogan tells us not to worry any more because he is the Incredible Hulk and will turn green, ugly and mean when things go wrong.

Hogan also tells us that he was in this situation two years ago when he took over another store and fired the manager and 2 assistants the first day. I looked at him and cowered in fear. He may be shorter and fatter than me but he is one man I do not want to cross. The whole turning green thing creeps me out.

Then Hogan discovers that neither me or my manager have been trained and immediately ships us off to be trained tomorrow on everything. Tomorrow I have the pleasure of working with M.J., also known as Mary Jane or Peter Parker's girlfriend.

Hogan also informed me quite abruptly that in no way during this lifetime would I become store manager. He only wanted one store manager and was going to do everything in his power to make it stayed that way. And that was perfectly fine with me. After all the drama of the last week, I will stay an assistant.

Hogan also told us that if we didn't have fun and we were automatically fired. And he was seriously... deadly serious. He said he once fired all the employees from a store because they weren't having enough fun. I hard core believe him. Anyone who turns ugly and green is someone you should totally believe.

So that my friends is the beginning of the unending saga, the Webs We Weave: A Halloween Soap Opera. All the events listed in my story are fact even in the names are false. I hope you're satisifyingly confused... because I know I am. Boy, I love my job!!!!!

My Regret

As I scanned her Facebook, I took note of the pictures of her new life. The toothy smiles of her and four friends as they showed off their matching Paul McCartney t-shirts. I imagined myself behind the camera telling the four laughing friends to hold still long enough so I could get a decent picture.

Isn't it funny how people just move on without you? It's sad to believe that you are the center of their universe but I guess that's the selfishness of the words, “You're my best friend.”

I still have the note she gave me the last day of high school. The one ripped out of the corner of her Math notebook with little smiley faces and her contact info. Her e-mail the title of a Beatles song followed by her birth year. So unoriginal but so originally Cindy.

The Beatles to Cindy was like God to the Pope. She never had a conversation without quoting them and never dared mention the name of the creature that tore their world apart, Yoko Ono. I knew one Beatles song when I started up the music conversation with Cindy during gym class one day. By the end of the school year, I knew the words to every song Paul McCartney wrote and that the Nixon administration tried to deport John Lennon in 1971.

Maybe I could get the FBI to deport the girls in this picture. Names like Tessie, Bessie and Jessie with their perfect brunette hair and sickeningly small noses. Why would Cindy hang out with them? I had frizzy brunette hair and a rather larger nose but that shouldn't exclude me from the smiles in these photos.

I knew I had no one to blame but me. I never used the e-mail she gave me. I didn't even put it in my address book. I went off to college and left Cindy behind to be teased by those stupid, idiot jerks who took one look at her large glasses and imperfect teeth and sneered.

Cindy's bright personality was often overshadowed by her timidity. She didn't like playing any sport with balls or swimming or any action that involved moving. She hated gym class and our teacher but I did my best to make it bearable for her. I remember making up a game that involved a whiffle ball and two ping pong paddles and lying on the ground. Cindy had the time of her life but my gym teacher yelled at me for “sitting on my lazy rear end.” It kept Cindy out of the spotlight and prevented me from having to beat up the stupid, idiot jerks in my class.

I did almost beat up some punk at lunch for openly mocking her outfit. So she decided to wear pajamas? I asked him how it differed from his football sweatshirt and basketball shorts. Good thing he didn't answer, stupid prick may have had twice my muscle mass but he was short and I had a lethal weapon attached to my hip.

Perhaps high school wasn't as bad for Cindy as I imagined but I couldn't fight off this overwhelming sense of hopelessness. She once told me I was her best friend and I took the gift of friendship and tossed it of the tallest building without one glance back.

I keep debating whether or not to contact Cindy. Maybe she'll toss my apology back in my face and tell me to shove off. But I think I'm more afraid she'll forgive me and begin to talk incessantly about the Beatles again. Because how can I live with her forgiveness when I can't begin to forgive myself for not putting heyjude90@gmail.com in my address book?

Maybe one day I will be brave enough to message her but for now I can only, as the great John Lennon so eloquently sings, imagine.

It Gets Better!

I'm going to rant because I'm angry and I really want to go to bed but I can't until I get this off my chest. Now normally at this point I would call my boyfriend and yell to him for several minutes. But I can't. He's in the middle of a Call of Duty mission talking about the chances of the Illini winning tomorrow.

Tonight was the season premiere of my favorite show, Supernatural. The episode rocked, like they always do, and left me aching for the next episode. Then the news came on. Normally, I try to avoid the news because a lot of the stories are depressing but tonight one story caught my attention.

This group of teenagers created this video to combat cyber bullying and held a press conference to talk about the awful effects  after a 14 year old boy committed suicide last week. The boy, from Buffalo, NY, posted a video on Youtube in support of Ellen DeGeneres' 'It Gets Better' campaign against homophobia. He was tormented for four months before he took his life. 

What I'm about to say will probably ruffle a lot of feathers but I'm done caring. Hearing about the poor kid taking his life made me sick to my stomach. Enough is enough! I'm ashamed to be apart of any group/organization that teaches our kids that this kind of behavior is acceptable. There are Christians out there who are teaching their kids that just because someone is gay, they are immoral and need to be treated like the immoral heathens they are. And that sickens me.

Immoral or not, no body deserves to be treated like an immoral heathen. No one on this planet deserves to be put down so low they see no end to the darkness except taking their lives. I was taught to treat everyone equally... from my perspective we're all the same. Gay, straight, black, white, one leg, two legs... they're just labels. I spent my entire childhood fighting the disability label hanging over my head. So I think I have a right to think labels are the most idiotic man-made notion ever to cross some stupid person's mind.

But you wanna know where I stand? I'm torn between the whole choice/gene thing. Church is telling me it's a choice but science is telling me it's in the genes. As a teen, I believed it was a choice but now I'm not so sure. One of my best friends is gay and he is one of the best people I know. So do I support him? Yes, I do. Got a problem with that? Tough.

The day everyone was supposed to wear purple to support the fight against homophobia, I didn't because I didn't know about it until after. But I would have. It shouldn't matter whether you think being gay is a sin or not. They are human beings that bleed the same color as me. They have the same body parts, internal organs and oh and guess what? They have feelings that get hurt too.

It hurts me to the core that they see no way out but suicide. All their potential, their future, every good contribution they could have made to the world... is gone. Because someone stood by and let it happen. Some body told their child that gay = wrong and they should be persecuted for it.

Honestly, I don't care where you stand on the issue. I'm tired of turning on the news and listening to another report of some poor kid committing suicide because they were harassed about their sexual orientation. As a Christian, I'm horrified that we may be the root cause of this. Our actions may be causing these kids to die. And I'm done just standing by and letting it happen. This has to change and soon. So let me say in all caps just to get the point across:

WE ARE ALL HUMANS!!!!!!! BEING TERRIBLE TO OTHERS BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS DISCRIMINATION AND ALWAYS WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

If this makes you think that I now need to be treated like an immoral heathen, then I'm just going to say what I'm thinking... you're an idiot. I won't hate you or stop talking to you... just know that I think it's stupid. Look, you don't have to agree or even like it but we're all human and we all deserve to be treated fairly, equally and respectfully. That's all I want.

I wouldn't wish my worse enemy to be discriminated against. It's a terrible feeling and no one deserves that.

So if you're gay, questioning or straight, I love you. I don't care what you are or choose to be. You are important. You have a purpose and I promise that it gets better.

Dedicated to Zack

Ok, I need to preface this blog with an apology to all men in the world. I spent a lot of my short life being a man-hater. There's no particular male in my past that is the cause of this hatred, it was my own naivety and preconceived notions.

Here's my biggest problem with the Christian sexual education I got. I kept hearing that all men are pigs and all they ever think about is sex. I had to avoid all guys because all they wanted was to have sex with me. But I was so conflicted because I found some boys my age to be attractive. What was I supposed to do? I liked them but I shouldn't because all they wanted was sex. And sex was bad.

So in a nutshell I learned, Sex=bad, Men=sex so Men=bad (how's that for a bit of geometric proofs for ya?)

Now granted, it may not be what my youth pastor intended me to get out of this but it's so hard when you're told every year around Valentine's Day that a man has a sexual thought every 4 seconds. But the topic of sex ed (Christian and Secular) just makes me so mad that I'm going to stop before I start ranting.

So I believed guys were shallow and I didn't think any of them could look past my leg. And I wanted nothing to do with that. The easiest thing for me to do what just refuse any guy who ever asked me out. That didn't work out so well with Zack.

I met Zack my sophomore year of college at a speed dating event in my hall and by this point, I saw no good use for men at all. I was a feminist to the extreme! Sometimes I fell asleep trying to think of ways to rid the world of the male species all together. I could do anything a guy could do better (still can... just saying) and I didn't even need to be paid as much because I was the better than them. If you're thinking that I discriminated based on gender, you are so correct.

I couldn't escape Zack because our friend groups clicked and I was hanging out with him every weekend. And I can tell you the exact night he won me over. We had decided to go bowling but I didn't have enough money to pay for it. Zack (who was trying to win me over at this point) offered to pay for my game. After some forceful peer pressure I caved. We went bowling, had a fantastic time and at the end of night we found out that Zack had paid for EVERYONE! He paid for all 8 or 9 of us for both games. God knew it was time for me to get off my man hater battleship and he sunk me hard and fast.

Zack asked me out for our first date two weeks later and I couldn't say no. I think it was one of those God moments when you feel so strongly about something you can't ignore it. And if I  had said no, I think my friends would have killed me and sunk my body to the bottom of Lake Charleston. Apparently everyone else could see Zack was crazy about me and we were perfect for each other, but I chose not to see it. Then I was forced to see it when my dear Beth called me out after spring break.

And it turns out (shock of my life)... guys don't think about sex all the time! Zack has proved that to me a thousand times over and after 3.5 years, still remains the perfect gentleman. I wake up every morning and thank God for bringing Zack into my life. I believe God has funny ways for showing us how wrong we are. And blowing up my man hatred battleship at the height of my war plans without any warning is the perfect example.

I known I've come really far with my man hatred but Zack has to remind me at times that men are not the root of all evil. I used to tell Zack that "I hate all men but you." Then he'd tell me, "Ok, so according to you I'm not a man anymore. What am I then?" Honestly, I think it's funny that when I'm really in a man hater mood, he's the first person I call/text.

Needless to say, I love Zack very much. He's the kindest, sweetest man I know and so charming that it's impossible not to like him. And he can read me like a friggin' book. He can tell from the way I say hello when he calls if something is bothering me. There's no hiding emotions from Zack because he's not afraid to call me out and will pester me until I talk to him. It's annoying but I usually feel 20 times better afterwards. Our relationship if far from perfect

God blessed with me the greatest family and the greatest friends. And for some unknown reason, God blessed me with Zack. I once told Zack that I didn't deserve him and he told me simply, "Yes, you do." Funny thing is... he's never told me that he didn't deserve me, he just tells me everyday he's the luckiest man alive. He probably is but I bet you he's going to try and spend the rest of his life trying to show me why I do deserve him.

And he just signed back on to Skype. So I'm going to go talk to him for the rest of the afternoon! Yay!

50 years and counting!

So very early tomorrow morning, I leave for what is one of my favorite weekends of the year: Family Reunion! Labor Day weekend has always been a time of great joy and fun for me. I get to go spend 72 hours with some of the craziest and coolest people I know.

The McBride/Jones family reunion started 50 years ago this year and for some reason, God saw me fit to be apart of such a great family tradition. I come from the McBride side of the family. My grandmother's maiden name was McBride. Although I don't carry the McBride last name, I've always found myself closer to the McBrides than the Burges. I never got to know my grandfather Burge's side of the family very well.

Now I don't know the whole family history and I apologize, but from what I can gather, one of my great grandfather's siblings married a Jones and began an adventure that would span generations. I don't think any of them realized it would grow to this magnitude but I'm fully certain that they would be proud of what we've made it.

For me, family reunion has always been a celebration. We've lost many family members along the way but I believe we honor their memory by getting together just one weekend a year as a family. There are always new additions to the family every year. And it's cool to watch the generations progress since my generation (the great grandchildren) are getting married and having kids.

We get together every year at a church campground about 10 miles outside of Columbia, IN. We sleep in old cabins with uncomfortable mattresses and shower in water that smells like rotten eggs. But for the most part, none of us really care. We're all smelly, dirty and gross by the end of the weekend but it's the memories we create that count.

Some of my greatest childhood memories were made at family reunion, countless games of Mau and canoe trips to the "waterfall". Throwing people off the raft in the lake (King of the Raft was the best game ever) and then pouting when the raft got taken away. We built sand villages (castles don't even come close to what we built), played flash light tag, and after the mess hall renovation, extreme ping pong. Extreme ping pong was my favorite. It was me, my 4 cousins and running around a small rec room trying to keep the ping pong ball going.

We've also had talent shows galore, a disco night (another favorite of mine), hoe downs and an all-male wedding. I don't remember the all-male wedding but I've heard stories and it just sounds epic. We've had Mexican fiestas, carnivals, Halloween, and even the epic battle at the lake with water balloons and flour bombs!

I remember one year we did a carnival and my cousin Layke set up a kissing booth. He was probably 12 or 13 and it was adorable. I don't know if he made much money doing it but I will always remember him trying to sweet talk every female family member that walked by.

There was also the game where you could pay .10 cents and send whoever you wanted to jail for 5 minutes. It was very popular.

When I was really young, I remember a contest with rubber ducks. I was like 4 and I still have my rubber duckies. They are prized possessions of mine and I will never part with them!

It's funny to me that even at 23, I experience a child-like excitement when I go to Bear Lake Camp. In my mind, I step back in time and become a kid again. I play games and swing to see how I can go.The summer days seem endless and the nights bring camp fires and s'mores.

Our parents regale us with stories of rivalry between the McBrides/Jones. When I was a kid, the McBrides got together and made shirts that said Mac's Pack as a sign of humorous solidarity. The rivalry doesn't exist anymore but it's funny to imagine our parents going head to head to see which part of the family was better.

For the longest time, our parents wouldn't tell us what happened during their family reunions. They kept talking about being mischievous and getting into trouble. As it was the 70s, my cousins and I always assumed they ran off and smoked pot or something. Turns out, they would just run off with canoes, climb bluffs, and then jump off the top. To be honest, it was kind of disappointing. I kind of wanted our well-behaved, mature parents to be hooligans. So maybe wanting the parents to be hooligans who smoked illegal drugs is extreme but as far as I can tell, they were just normal, crazy teenagers. And that's kind of boring.

I mean it's not like we could do the same thing, there weren't any bluffs to climb at the new campground. And the smoking thing never appealed to us anyway. So I'm super excited for this weekend. As it is the 50th, there will be lots of people who haven't been in  years. People will ask me how I'm related and then realize that I've grown up some.


But the best thing about family reunion is that just for one weekend, we leave everything behind. We forget the differences, the distances, and the drama. At the end of the day we're family and 5 generations of McBrides/Jones have ingrained that in our souls. There isn't any stronger bond than family and I believe that's really what our great grandparents wanted us to remember.

And anyone who steps foot on Bear Lake Camp this weekend is family. Automatically. We'll pull you up a chair, offer you some molasses cookies or pie (which I HAVE GOT to get the recipe for) no questions asked.

I love my family beyond anything in the world and I'm so excited to see them all again. So here's to another 50 years of memory-filled McBride/Jones reunions!