"Never, never, never, give up" said Winston Churchill. However, if you never give up there will come a point where you will fall over or freak out or something. The reason why I am admitting to the behavour you are about to hear me admit to is what The Hub and I call "Duck Syndrome". I, apparently, suffer from "Duck Syndrome" in a big way. It is the condition that occurs ( more frequently in women than in men) when a person appears to glide through life effortlessly - no project too difficult, no customer to nasty, no deadline too tight, no pain too much to bear - like a duck gliding over the surface of the water. But, like the duck, below the surface of the water where nobody can see, she is paddeling like hell just to stay afloat.

Even those closest to sufferers of "Duck Syndrome" are taken in by the glide. They may know, perfectly well, in their minds that the Winged Creature in question has large, wide, webbed feet....but the image of the gliding, unruffled fowl is what they want most for their family member/friend. It's just too hard to remember all that churning, churning, churning going on when it's not visable.....

9:00 yesterday morning found me at the C.B.'s fighting with the oxygen tank again: this time no problems. At 2:00 still there, in spite of the fact that I attempted to "block" the afternoon for the purpose of going through my photos to look for ones that may be worthy of the gallery show the CMPG is doing in October. 3:00 was my banking and a very quick trip to a competitor grocery store for no other reason than that we desperately needed groceries and that market is right next to the bank. 4:00 found me tossing perishables into the freezer while making rice on the stove in order to have something to eat, and running in and out of the office typing in last minute Avon orders.

5:00, right on time, I was reporting for duty in my bright orange smock. "Did you notice your schedule changed? You're working tomorrow night"

We have 2 "Junior Miss" floor supervisors who are very competant at most aspects of their job. It's not easy to go to collge and work that kind of job, even if they are still living "at home". Hell, being a floor supervisor in a market is an even crappier job than cashiering at any age, and I respect that. What I think is happening is that, because they are both pretty girls, they have so far had to "be tough" so people won't stand there and argue with them all day just for fun, and therefore they wind up accidentally speaking to me like I am something they found stuck to the bottom of their shoe.

"Let me see what I can do to accomodate that change in schedule. Let me write down my telephone number for you again, so that if anyone needs to ask me to switch my day off, I can get a phone call on it....that'll help me stay flexable for the store...."

The poor young lady opened her mouth to say something imperious- I recognised that stance having used it myself with varying degrees of success through my '20's. - but I just plowed on, "....because, I know you all are very reasonable here and you don't expect me to change my schedule without any notice at all. I'll be able to let you know about this after I make a few phone calls on my break. M'kay?"

The satisfying part of THAT was I could see her file all of it under "reference: saying f*** off without actually being a bitch." And she did realize that I hadn't exactly told her no. I was just engaging in a little scheduling brinkmanship in order to get Wed night off for the the CMPG meeting, which I'd forgotten to ask for ( and they'd have forgotten to give me anyway.) There was no polite way to tell her that if she had said, "Hey, Tea, come look at this schedule for a minute. We are in this huge bind for Tuesday night and it would save us if you could work til midnight that day. Can you?" I'd have probably done it and just sent my photos to the Guild meeting via The Hub. I'm thinking she'll learn that part later though. She's a tough cookie, plus a ginger red-head like me.

Then it turned out that THEY WEREN'T KIDDING ABOUT HAVING TO BRING YOUR OWN PEN FROM HOME! It's a written policy!!! So, you know me, you regular readers. You know what's coming. It's gonna be one of those light up flamingo pens, or one that's fuzzy, or feathered, or some such thing nobody will DARE to steal. ( they stole all three of my pens PLUS my extra bags last night and that was just on a 15 minute break!!) I mean I'm going to go on a quest for the worlds weirdest ballpoint pen and see how long it takes them to go back to supplying basic tools for the job to cashiers, or else writing a policy on pens. I'm sorry, but when confronted with an absurdity, I get a little absurd myself.

At 7:00 something clicked in my back and I lobbed the "Tuesday for Wednesday schedule swap" ball back over the customer service desk. That volley eventually involved The Nazi Store manager - that's what EVERYONE there calls him behind his back, not me. I call him by his first name to his face, which is even more scandelous. But why shouldn't I? He doesn't call me "Mrs. Winged Creature" I'm not kidding, if anybody says anything about it I'm going to tell them arbitrary titles are against my religion, which, in fact, they are.

Can you tell I'm in a lot of pain, even now, as I'm writing this? I'm so crankey.

I did get the day off I wanted, and another pen. But something was happening to both my legs at the same time and by the end of the shift I could neither bend nor sit nor bend my knees. My feet felt like they were on fire. It was 11:00 at night, I still had to finish my Avon orders and when I got home, The Hub was trying to re-install the printer and complaining about the computer. I rushed in and fixed it, printing his final bill for his latest customer.

I picked up the novel I'm reading while the computer went through it's machinations and he said, "Don't you have any time to even talk to me?"

Lacking the lung capacity to scream, I went out into the back yard, where no one was within 50 feet of me, banged my fists on the carport (ouch!) overturned two deck chairs and the bird bath then proceeded to whack the hell out of the oak tree with a potting bench. Of course, I have almost no upper body streangth so I damaged nothing, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Pain often, about once a week, makes me feel so frustrated, so worn, so exhausted that I have the urge to clear the desk top or overturn my chair (it's wicker) But I never do. I very rarely even cry and almost never when anyone else is around. And, believe it or not, all the whining and complaining I do, I do here on my blog, since I don't have time to do this AND my journal anymore.

The Hub thought I had done lost my mind - and I sure said some things to him I'm not proud of, but it was SO out of charecter he took it as "the pain is talking. I'm sorry, I didn't know". He dug up an old perscription only-for-emegency pain pill out of the back of the linen closet and eventually I went to bed.

Luckily I can walk today, but I've got to meet that schedule tonight. Wish me luck.

Quack.