part one

[pauraque_bk]

I am voluntarily not doing anything for Thanksgiving. My dad is off gallivanting somewhere today, and my brother is going to go hang out with him for the rest of the weekend, but of course I will be at work for Black Friday and all that crap. (My boss loves to use the lamest possible retail terminology like "Black Friday", I think it makes her feel cool.)

As I pointed out to my brother, neither of us even likes Thanksgiving-y food that much anyway, so we might as well just eat whatever we want and enjoy our day off. (He said "Good plan", which coming from him = "This is the best idea I've ever heard".)

So about a week and a half ago I had a dream where I gave my boss a hug. It wasn't the only thing in the dream but it was the only thing I remembered because it was such a strange thing and stuck out. I could not imagine any circumstances under which I would hug this person.

I'm not generally one for prescient dreams, but on Saturday this happened.

I was not actually supposed to come in on Saturday, but was convinced to come in for an hour so that my boss could give one of her minions a talking-to about how she never does anything right. Well really she was supposed to talk to her about how she overcharged a customer, but when my boss tries to give a disciplinary talk it does end up "you never do anything right". I pointed this out to her and further mentioned that talking this way to people makes them feel intimidated and anxious, and will likely cause them to make more mistakes rather than fewer.

She didn't like that, but I used the Dr Phil tactic and asked whether the way she currently talked to people "worked" -- did it resolve the problem, defuse the tension, and cause fewer mistakes? She admitted that it didn't, and agreed to try talking to her minion differently.

She probably did try, but Rome wasn't built in a day and in the end her minion left in tears, and my boss was upset and flustered too.

Then of course a customer wanted to do a return, but she didn't have the credit card she used, and OMG she'd already tried to return it before but was told she needed a manager and she couldn't wait the 5 minutes for one to come back from lunch, and YOU (pauraque) were the one who told me I could return it, but OMG you should have told me there were all these CONDITIONS on the return!

(Because nowhere else needs a manager and the original credit card to do a return. It's just us.)

After we got rid of her, it was way past the time I was supposed to leave (I was only supposed to stay for an hour, remember), and then my boss wanted me to stay so she could go to the bank. Because she couldn't have gone to the bank at any other point during the day and waited until I came in on my day off? I probably would have just left except she looked so upset by then, I felt sorry for her, so I stayed, but told her to hurry.

While she was at the bank I get this call: "Tell her to call her brother back right away." Very dark and unmistakeable tone.

And so I stood there ringing people up, knowing that someone in my boss's family was in the hospital at the very least, and waiting for her.

When she came back she was smiling and said, "See, I hurried! I didn't even make change!"

So I gave her the message and she said, "My brother? He never calls me..."

And she went in the back to call him, and the door was closed but it's a small store, so I and the two customers in front of me heard her let out a wail of agony and burst into tears.

When she came out after a few minutes I had just decided to peek in, so I was standing at the door, and she said in almost childlike disbelief, "My mom died!"

I did not consciously decide to do it, but I hugged her, exactly as it was in my dream.


And after that happened I had to go fight a giant robot, and as I told _hannelore as I was walking home, it was guaranteed that we'd beat him because my day needed to be as much of an emotional rollercoaster as humanly possible.

Yeah.



Not much help from me, as my character got owned four times DURING the fight. One soulstone, two combat rezzes, one noob priest.

Also, this is compressing things that didn't all happen on the same day, but there was a giant fish. Which I mention largely because I think it has the best name of any boss in the game.



And it was thiiiiiiiis big.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's a day for ya. (To use a lame phrase myself.)

[bowdlerized.livejournal.com]

Whoa! That's really intense about the dream hug thing.

Also: xoxo happy belated Thanksgiving to you! It makes me really happy to see your LJ entries again. :D

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

Somewhere under the very thick exterior of her need to be a total raging lunatic, she'll remember that hug. Or at least her subconscious will.



I think your brother thinks you very cool (and dynamic).