I ended up working today. Usually, we’re off, but it was part of the agreement the company made with the business we are supporting.
I worked one store and was asked to work another. The part-timer working that one had a family emergency. No problem.
Well, there was a problem. I was able to work about two hours at the other store, and then the power went out.
There was an accident several miles up the road. The power was out for about five miles when I was heading home.
And that sets the scene.
Instead of leaving right away, I called the boss and asked what he wanted me to do. Iβve worked inside Walmart several times when the power was out, but they have skylights, the stores do not. You canβt get a whole lot done in the dark, not at work anyway.
As I was waiting, I stood at one of the doors with the employees to tell people the store was closed; you canβt come in, no the gas pumps donβt work, no they canβt tell you anything, etc.
People talk about preparation for disasters all the time. They tell you to get food and water. They tell you to get things you will need during a disaster. They tell you to be able to defend yourself.
Some excellent advice is to learn to speak to people. Get some manners. Be amiable.
There are going to be things you want and need should we ever have a societal collapse. There are going to be people you can’t take from by force. There is going to be a need to be civil and barter for things you desperately need.
I got told to go F myself several times while nicely telling folk that the store was closed.
Sweet little old ladies shouldn’t use language like that.
My friend Claudia posted this and I thought I would share it here.
I have shown this picture to my children. Their guesses were:
P.O. Box
Filing Cabinet
Recipe Box
Roll the decks (not a typo)
Etc.
I explained to them that back in the day when we went into the library we had to chant and incantation over a slaughtered goat that we had offered up to the great Dewey.
We were decimasciples of the deep magic.
This is really short tonight but it made me laugh, and I miss those days.
And then Iβm going to curl up later with a new Koontz book, In The Heart Of Fire (Nameless: Season One Book 1). I have never been disappointed in any of Koontzβ books.
I’m picking this one up under my Kindle Unlimited account, and it also came with the audiobook. Bonus!
Work went well today. I actually bragged on the associate handling that store. I was wrong about what I thought I was walking into.
The store was, as far as what we are responsible for, pristine. It’s a very nice surprise to see someone taking such pride in their work.
I took the day off today to have a day. I was going to kick back, watch some TV and have my time. The same plan I had last Wednesday that went awry.
It was a nice day weather-wise.
My wife has a meeting on Wednesday mornings, and she overslept, so I offered to take our son to school. That way, she wouldnβt have to drop him off and my daughter off, and she would make it to work on time for her meeting.
That was at 8:15.
Sure enough 10 oβclock rolled around, and I got a phone call.
βMr. Seegars, your son has been identified as a close contact with a child who has Covid. You will need to come to pick him up.β
Now, weβre not getting overexcited about all this. It doesnβt mean that he has Covid. The way they test here itβs completely plausible that the other kid doesnβt have Covid either.
Now, the reason Iβm writing about this, not just because itβs about my day, no it’s about the total circus that I had to go through to pick up my child from school.
I arrived at the school with my mask on (wear the damned mask) and walked into the office. There’s this large plexiglass shield so that the covid won’t get directly on anyone, and I had to yell at the unmasked secretary to get her to pay attention to the fact that someone was standing directly in front of her. She was too busy on her phone.
You’re a school district employee sitting in front of a tax payer on yourphone. Wise up.
She was sufficiently put off about having to do her job.
Then I was told Iβd have to go back to the lobby. Again, no one in the office is wearing a mask. Is it for Covid reasons? No. It’s for security reasons. The doors are badged and secured so not just anyone can walk in. What if someone dangerous walked through the door?
Well, guess what? I can be considered someone dangerous, trained by Uncle Sam to be dangerous. Not that I would ever do anything to endanger the lives of anyone around me. But the very reason those doors are there made me kind of laugh. They are not taking security seriously, it’s no joking matter. I take the safety and security of our children in this day and age very seriously. What if the wrong person does walk through those doors?
While I was waiting on my son, I needed to talk to the school nurse. I needed to ask if my daughter who is in high school, would have to quarantine as well because she’s in constant contact with my son.
Here we go again. The secretary isn’t on her phone this time; she’s talking to a coworker. They were close enough to kiss. I knocked on the window, and they both looked at me and then continued to talk.
And so I made my presence known. By loudly banging on the window.
βI need to talk to the nurse please.β
βSheβs on the phone.β
βWill you please let her know I need to talk to her.β
βAfter she gets off the phone. Please sit down.β
She did not let the nurse know. I remained standing because I do what I want.
My son came out, and I had to tell him to go back and get his drum kit from the band room. He walks back through the office past the unmasked folk and goes back to the band room to get his drum kit. Wouldn’t it have been safer, given the situation, for one of the folks from the office to get said kit so that my possibly infected son decreased the amount of contact with anyone else in the school? I guess not.
We sat another ten minutes waiting for the nurse, at which time I had to ask again to talk to the nurse.
Then she comes out and asked why I was leaving without talking to her first.
One, they rushed me out.
Two, I couldn’t get permission from Her Majesty over there to speak to you.
Three, I don’t know the protocol. It’s my first time.
Hell, itβs yβallβs fiftieth time and y’all don’t know what the protocol is.
My daughter doesn’t have to quarantine, which is fine. It makes absolutely no sense at all. But this is fine.
OK, so I am not anti-mask. There is a time and place still for that. Itβs a personal choice. I have to wear one at work. All our schools are seeing increases in Covid cases. It would make sense to me that if any of these adults are around a child who is suspected even of having Covid that they would put on a mask. This is not the case. Again, itβs a personal choice. There is no mandate in South Carolina. To me itβs common sense.
The fact that my son was allowed to walk back-and-forth through the school while being suspected of having close contact with someone with Covid bothers me. Iβm there to take him home to quarantine him for two weeks, why are you letting him walk back-and-forth through the school?
The security thing is a whole other issue. Public education often gets worse because the people who are running things have public educations. But these are people who were raised in a time when they taught you something you needed to know in schoolβthings like common sense. Which it is said cannot be taught, but you can be taught to mimic it.
Iβm going to end my little rant here. I pray that my son is okay. I pray that the other child, his friend, is okay.
On the educational side, Iβm not worried about him not being at school. Heβs brighter than most of the kids I meet anyway. He has his moments where he is nothing but a dumb kid. But heβs clever, quick, and heβs going to do alright no matter what.
If I were going to give the school district a letter grade today, it would be an F-. only because I think thatβs as low as you can go.
This is a recycled post from an older blog I had. I liked it so Iβm sharing it again.
I have returned to the scene of the crime.
My mother first brought me here when I was four. She had me reading then. By five, I was joining in on the readers’ contests here. The VFW meets here now. It smells clean, sterile; Pine-sol permeates the air. Itβs no longer a library.
That has been moved to a newer, βbetterβ building here in town.
That new building doesnβt have the smell of paper, ink, and binding glue. It doesnβt have decades of βshhhhhβ embedded in its walls. The floor doesnβt creak as old wood floors do.
Itβs not a place I enjoy going to.
Now, they are allowed to talk in the library. They donβt have the reverence they should to enter a temple of knowledge in order to worship at itβs altar.
I am a worshipper in a strange church, and the librarians of old are preachers without pulpits.
I want it back.
Since I first wrote this, they’ve moved the library again. The structure pictured is up for sale. I can’t afford the price of the building, but if I could, I most definitely would.
It doesnβt take long to stop and enjoy what you happen to enjoy in life. Itβs really only stopping for five minutes and taking in whatβs around you. I donβt take my camera out of the bag enough; Iβm guilty of looking straight down the road and only focusing on the destination as of late when I should be taking time to enjoy the journey.
Thereβs so much to see and I forget sometimes that I have to work for a living; I am a husband and father, and those come first. And I like my job and love my family.
But what I do, not best and not what I enjoy most, whatβs at my core and gives me peace and alone time is this:
Just wandering and exploring and watching the revival of this and destruction of that. Iβm an observer; I keep the record so that others might see what we were and what we are to become.
This came up in my memories on Facebook today. It was an interesting conversation that blew my mind. I don’t think like that. My son will never. Neither will my daughter.
This post may seem outdated with all that’s going on, but it is what popped up today, and this is what I’m writing about tonight.
Welcome to my blog.
Teach your children well.
Iβm in a local group on Facebook (yeah yeah, I don’t care), and a conversation started that could have turned into argument. The lady I was going back and forth with is thirty-five; Iβm fifty-three. This was a whole βurge men to not commit sexual assaultβ thing.
She stated that men should be told not to assault women sexually.
I responded that no one should ever have to have that conversation with anyone. Really. What world are we living in?
Iβve removed her name from my response after I asked (politely) her age.
ββββ-
Iβm 53. I think not by much, but a slight generational gap of seventeen years has done a number on the male/female back and forth.
Seriously, no one should ever have that conversation with anyone. Or have to rather.
I have never treated any female any way she has not invited me to.
I think a large part of this, and it sounds like an excuse so whatever, is that a lot of males really donβt have a man to teach them how to be a man through action and not word.
My father never acted like that, so I knew it without it being spoken.
We are built to protect, treasure, and adore yβall. And a lot of us are ugly and rough.
And I have to say, and this might set you off, yβall are built pretty and softer to complement what we absolutely lack, the beauty in this world.
Now a younger generation not shown how to act and taught that itβs okay to just do what they want (talking about males edit to add: females as well in 2021) donβt have the emotional and mental training (discipline) to differentiate the signals in their minds.
Is that way over complicated? Probably. But thatβs where Iβm at and how Iβm wired. ββββ Action and not word.
I know Iβm preaching to the choir with the men I surround myself with both online and in real life.
