Effing Work

Blah! Not a real entry. (Are any of them, really?) But I have to get this off my chest.

My manager is, in a lot of respects, really great. However, when she is in a bad mood she likes to go on power trips. Today, for example, I was going through a box of toys and I threw away this little plastic Jack in the Box mascot toy. (I don't know where the owner got it. Does Jack in the Box even do toys? They're not like McDonald's.)  Anyway, you know how it looks. White face, blue eyes, pointed noise, black suit.

It was grimy and dirty and gross (like actual dirty and there was a dent in its head), so I chucked it. Of course at that second, Linda comes around the corner and sees my misdeed. Then she launches into a twenty minute lecture about how we can't afford to be throwing away perfectly good toys. The toys are all 25 cents as it is. Chill Linda.

Worse than that, she actually stood over me and watched me clean it off and put it back in the box. I have to wet a rag with this solution of rubbing alcohol and something else and it smells terrible. All the while I had to look at the ugly face of that toy and it just made me so mad.

But what really pissed me off is, well, I didn't just throw it was because it was gnarled and nasty. I have this phobia. Linda knows about it. So I'd hoped she'd understand why I chucked it. Not that she should be yelling at me anyway. She's so cheap.

It's just, when I saw it, I couldn't help it. I mean, it's hard. It's just. I don't like- well- don't judge me okay. For some people it's clowns. For some people it's spiders or snakes or heights or even dogs.

For me it's people in business suits.

I have a crippling fear of people in really nice, black suits. Everything from the gleaming tie clips down to the polished black shoes sends me into a panic attack.

. . . crazy, I know, but what else is new?