Yes indeed, I'm an old fart with old fart mentality and morals though those can be questionable at times. I believe in God and my country and think that people who complain and yet do nothing to change things should have a nice cup of shut up and get off their tale ends and do something. Its like the election; if you didn't vote then shut up. If you voted, great for you. It doesn't matter if your guy or the other guy won, it matters that you cared enough to get involved and vote, period. Granted I may wish you voted one way vs. the other (look for more rants later) but at least you took the time to vote. Good for you.
So some more background. I'm 55 years old, overweight, have a bad back and knees and at present have joined the ranks of the unemployed. Yes after 19 years of working for a major retail chain they decided to let me go. Why? Well since things haven't settled yet I'll just say it's none of your business. Suffice to say that the store I worked in will remain there for the time being but have a few more snags since they're a bit short handed. Me? I'm doing fine at the moment.
I've found that since losing my job I can sleep better at night. I don't have the stress and worry that I did before. Where before I might have trouble getting to sleep at all and then wake up worrying what would happen next, now I relax and trust in the words that others have told me since this happened: God always has a reason for the way things happen.
That's another thing that's been good for me since it happened. I no longer have to work on Sundays so I can actually go to church. I stopped going to the one I belonged too because I saw it as a place where people went for social status as opposed to sharing a belief in God. I witnessed that in the way they treated someone that actually got my family and me to go back to church (another long story that I'll share along the way some time since this is after all a place to rant and rave). Talking with someone I knew one day they said "hey you should come to our church. The guy in charge thinks like us, he's not keen on religion but he is on God". So I went and tried it and this weekend will make week four there. It feels right.
The best thing about not working in retail right now though is family. I actually have time to spend with family and that has always been important to me. My wife and I have time to spend together and more often than not do so in front of the TV. Yes we have some favorite shows we watch (hey that could be another post!) and we enjoy the time we have together. But it's not just in this house that I mean family.
No I mean my entire family, the one where hers and mine come together. On her side I got to go to a nephew's birthday one night where before I would probably have been working the shift the manager didn't want to. My sister-in-law and her husband are members of the church I now go to. I got to hear my great neice sing with such a tremendous voice that it is simply amazing. I even got to spend some time visiting her and her family that I wouldn't have had the time for before. I got to go to lunch with my wife's sisters one day and spend time talking and laughing. And all this is just on her side of the family!
On my side the first major thing was Thanksgiving. For the first time in 19 years I actually got to spend a Thanksgiving day where I didn't either show up late or have to go leave early to either go to work or get sleep to deal with the Black Friday crowds. Instead I got to enjoy the day, make and take two loaves of beer bread and a gorgeous fruit pizza seen here:
We ate, got stuffed and while the rest of the family read over the ads to see exactly where they wanted to go shopping at the most God awful hours of the night, I took a nap. I had decided to be a part of this madness known as Black Friday...or is it now Threatening Thursday? It seems that the sale madness has grown to such a state that stores are beginning earlier and earlier each year. It went from normal shopping hours with specials on Friday to early early shopping like 6 AM. That changed a year or so ago when stores started opening at 4AM. Now they've said hell with it and start on Thursday night.
Anyway, when I got up from my nap they all headed to the local Wal Mart and K Mart stores to shop while I got ready. Once they finished, we headed for Ft. Wayne to shop. Not me of course. Hey, I already explained, bad back and bad knees. No, I had decided I would be their chauffeur. My mother has back/leg problems as well so I became the designated driver. An easy choice. While they would shop, I would sit and read, a favorite past time. That's what I did. I dropped them at the door to Target and waited.
What my sister told me later was astounding. The line in Target was well organized but she said it wound through each of the shelf sections (we called them gondolas where I worked even though it had nothing to do with Venice, Italy). Up and down and back again through over 20 sections of shelving. I guess that's one way to see everything in the store. It took some time and while I was reading I had the window cracked (I figured if I would do it for a dog I might as well do it for me) and I could hear people complaining that the store didn't have the advertised item they were looking for, at least in a good natured way. All I could think of was "you idiots! Did you really think that when you got here three hours into the sale that the single item you came looking for would be sitting there wrapped up ready and waiting for you?". Apparently some people just don't know how to shop. After 19 years of never doing this even I knew enough that if you want something special get your tail there first thing.
Next was the mall, Glenbrook in this case. It was packed and while I'd always heard about what was going on out there in the wild world while I was working this day I was surprised. There were no parking places between the front doors all the way out to the main road in front of the mall. Fortunately for those on our particular quest that night they had that chauffeur. Curb service baby! Three hours later everyone was hungry again so we hit IHOP, or for those unfamiliar with the term The International House of Pancakes. You can tell it's international because waiting at the table was not one single flavor of syrup but four, count them, four flavors! I expected a sommelier to show up and discuss the various vintages of syrup but instead we got a regular waitress. I guess he was busy that night.
Yes the IHOP was packed as well. What would you expect at 3AM? If I owned a restaurant or fast food place in Ft. Wayne I would have been open all night. I would have contacted my home office and begged them to be open. There were all sorts of crazy shoppers out there so why wouldn't I want to be open to make money? But as it stood our options were limited. I think it boiled down to IHOP, Cracker Barrel or Steak 'n Shake. I heard last year's visit to Steak 'n Shake had been less than satisfactory so we decided to wait the 25 minutes for a table and then enjoyed a wonderful meal/breakfast at 3AM at IHOP. From there everyone went to catch a nap before hitting the stores once again at 6AM for other special sales.
Me? I went home. As I passed the Wal Mart I noticed that the crowd had disappeared. Good thing because there were a few regular everyday items I needed to pick up. I got to see that the local store had cleaned up pretty good after the rush and it took me know time to go through a line where I think I was the only person.
The thing about the whole adventure wasn't that it was about shopping though. It was about family and having the time to spend with them. Far too often I think family is something we all take for granted and that's sad. It's sad because we rarely take the time to think that one day not all those family members are going to be there for us to spend time with. We all say that we'll make time eventually but we never really get around to it. What about the person who's family member was killed in an auto accident? Or how about serving over seas? How about the person that got on a flight that crashed or who simply dropped dead in their tracks from a heart attack? Those chances to spend time with that person disappear in an instant and can never be retrieved. Sure it sound maudlin to think about but the fact is it's the truth. So take some time folks, make sure you don't miss out on that family time you always mean to get to but never do.
I've been very fortunate and count this time as a blessing. It's a blessing because I've been able to see and hear and laugh and share time with the people who mean the most to me over these past few weeks. I went to a nephew's play. I heard two great great nieces sing. I had dinner with my folks. We went out for mine and my wife's birthday. And in all of those gatherings I would sit back and look around the table and realize just how fortunate I was to be able to just sit and be with those people who meant the most to me. I may not be working at the moment and it may sound like a line from a TV-movie, but the fact it that I was able to have the greatest treasure of all. That was time spent with my family.
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