Rant, Fear and Theft

A friend of mine is doing this 31 questions in March blogging writing challenge (https://marquessamatthews.com/2021/02/10/want-to-join-me-for-a-writing-challenge-alexandrafranzen/). I don't know if I'll manage to do the whole month. 

March 10 – Have you ever been genuinely afraid for your physical safety?

March 11 – Have you ever stolen anything? (Money, candy, hearts, time?)

I missed yesterday by the hour. Whoops. It was a messed up day. A certain company doesn't know to hire smart people to install a wireless network. So my husband had off because there isn't work to do without the computers. But the new building certainly looks clean and shiny! (Also, the lights are all motion sensor. So if you 🚽 use the toilet for more than 3 minutes 💩 you'll be pooping in total darkness.) The computers require Internet to work. So it's a good thing the new warehouse is the middle of nowhere (it's still a corn field 🌽 on Google maps) where there's no functioning wifi or high-speed Internet access or even a decent cell tower. ("Can you hear me now?" One bar.) Yeah. Planning is obviously the strong suit. 🤦‍♀️

Okay. Back to the questions.

Yup. 

I have been in survival  situations more than once. Would you like to hear about the armed druggie on the porch when I was 9? How about either stalker when I was a teen? The time a knife was held to my neck? Or the day at work that I unknowingly inhaled a chemical that forever damaged my lungs? Maybe the time I turned blue at the doctor? Or when the code team was called because I wasn't breathing?

Sadly, I can go on. That isn't a complete list. That's the surface. 

I'm excellent at surviving. I don't know why. I have no idea why I'm still here half the time. Maybe there will be a reason for it someday. I don't know.

As for stealing...

What a fabulous idea! Admit to a crime in writing on a public place. What's the statute of limitations for this situation?

🤔

I'll admit to this:

When I worked at the dollar store, I went from stock person to keyholder in under a month, and then to assistant manager 4 months later. I didn't intend for that to be a real job. It was supposed to be money between classes at college while I moved back home to make lying to me more difficult... I mean, to be with my family who were dropping like flies and lying about it. 😑 Never mind.

Anyway. So I became the only person with a key. Which means I had to be in the store from 6am to Midnight every day. That's 6 hours off- minus 1 for driving. I had 5 hours a day to sleep, shower, do laundry (I was only permitted to own 3 company shirts- required to be worn), and make food.

So you bet your ass I stole a mug and a box of tea and sat there having a cup every morning. And I stole a cup-of-soup every day for lunch. I wasn't allowed to go across the damn street for Mc freaking Donalds or Taco damn Bell. 

Do I feel guilty? DO YOU KNOW HOW LITTLE I GOT PAID? No. I do not. They left me to run 18 hour shifts without a day off for 3 weeks straight. 

And why was I alone with keys? Because they fired two people with years of experience. For what? GETTING ROBBED.

That's right. If you were held at gunpoint, you got fired. One was my best friend at the time. She got me the job. And then got held up. And then fired for it. 

Dollar stores, by the way, get robbed a lot. People also steal from dollar stores all the time. Mostly toothpaste, toothbrushes, and socks. We caught several 20-somethings who stole these things and resold them on the street (for more than a dollar, so how dumb are your customers).

Would I have stolen if I could leave to buy food? No. Could I have used my ten cent employee discount to buy the sodium-laced soup? Sure. But honestly, I felt a one dollar meal was the LEAST they could do for me. Especially because I had been to HQ, where they get a fresh spread of food twice a day every day that people there can help themselves to. My $1 soup is way less than your bagels and fruit bowls. So 🖕