Lots of stuff...

-First things first...mega, huge, colossal congratulations to the lovely and talented miss Abby Bollenbacher for being named Miss Northwestern Ohio over the weekend! Congrats, my dear friend, and if anyone I knew was going to be representing my entire geographic area at Miss Ohio, I definitely would choose you. Way to go!

(Wanna read more about it? Gotcha covered.)

-Okay, you take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both, and there you have, the facts of life. So, I've been working every day since Wednesday, with shifts as short as 5 hours, and as long as my double on Friday, lasting about 12 or so. You work that long, things start to wear on you. But, the pain goes away on payday, right? Well not exactly...

First of all, the remodeling at the place is almost finished, and now there are new display screens at the box office for the movie times, plus a plasma screen TV in the middle to show stuff on. Problem number one, on the first day they used them, they were showing trailers. As in, YEAR OLD trailers. "Elf," "Something's Gotta Give," "Timeline," "Mona Lisa Smile," etc. Then, they decided to just show a movie on there, so they put on A Bug's Life. And played it continuously all weekend. Now, this didn't bother me so much, as it's Pixar, and I love Pixar, and up front the sound was off, so it didn't affect my transactions too much, and it was a cool new touch.

The big problem was the cash in my drawer. Now, I've prided myself on always being one of the best people at money - my drawer is almost always dead-on or very close. But starting on Thursday, something weird started happening with my cash counts. I ended up being way off - like 15 bucks or so - cumulatively for the whole day. Now, I'd been having some bizarre computer problems during the day, as well, so I ascribed it to that, but I was still emotionally shaken up. (I take my work seriously - too seriously, I admit.) The next day, another long shift, and another big discrepancy in my drawer...this time, $10 over. I'm getting seriously worried.

Then comes Saturday, and the fit hits the shan. I pick up my nice-sized paycheck from the previous week, and order the Strong Bad e-mail set, as I've been waiting to do. Then comes my shift, a relatively short one from 4-10:30. The day, all told, is looking up. Then the hammer falls - my store's head manager does my drawer, and tells me I'm $100 dollars under.

This breaks me. I tell her I have no explanation. I have no idea how to deal with this. Without elaboration, I'll just say that my manager's words to me didn't exactly make me want to go out and dance a jig. The whole encounter leaves me very upset, wondering if I'm gonna lose my job. I go home, on the way calling Jeanine and Mel, talking to them about everything and trying to reason out what's happening, and how to deal with it when I go into work the next morning, for another grueling shift, 10 hours. I sit at home and spend the night an emotional wreck. I cannot lose my job. I cannot have that kind of black mark on me, especially not while I'm looking for something better.

So I go in at 10, ready for anything from working a full shift to being fired. I go up to two of my managers and ask them what happened with my report. Neither of them seems to have any idea. Finally, one of them goes back and looks at the previous day's reports and tells me that it turns out that another cashier was $100 over. Guess they swapped some cash for change and I didn't get the money back. So, everything was okay.

I'm still a little upset. I spent a night fussing over an issue which was settled pretty much by the time I got home. I just wish someone would have called me...

The next day, BTW, I had a nearly-perfect drawer once again. So there. :)

-Matt's excited about Frasier: the Final Season coming out on DVD tomorrow. I'm excited because tomorrow is Metal Gear Solid 3 day, though I'm not sure if I'll pick it up tomorrow or wait for the weekend (I have an order I wanna place with the MST3K info club, which would run about as much, so I'm waffling). For the Adult Swim folks, there's also the Aqua Teen Hunger Force's third set.

-Saw a commercial hyping the Seinfeld DVD sets as "the most anticipated DVD of all time." Uh-huh. Sure. You bet. Betcha the Star Wars geeks are all over them for that one.

-Hoping to head to Heather's place to watch the TNA PPV with her mom tomorrow. (Diane's a big fan of Kevin Nash, one of the few things about the woman which I don't love unconditionally.) Mark arrives on Wednesday, so I figure the place will be plenty hectic that day even without me around (not that being there would be much of a possibility anyway, what with the current "no car" situation). Not gonna lie and say that his arrival doesn't hurt a little, but I am happy for Heather, and I am glad to know that this whole waiting situation will finally be over for her. And really, I'm feeling fine. My emotional state is a far cry from a year ago, when nothing seemed to be right with me. I'm not good yet, but I'm on track, and getting better. Good enough to know that my best friend is about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, and that ultimately, I'll always be there to cheer for her, no matter what. Have fun, mi amiga, and never hesitate to tell that guy that I think he's the luckiest b*stard alive.

Or, if you have given him this URL and he reads me, I just told him myself. :)