Jennifer Hates The Homeless

Jennifer's first few days of 1997 have not been as splendid as mine. I went to see her at the coffee shop around one this afternoon. She had to be there to open at five in the morning so she didn't get to stay up late with me last night drinking wine. I think she went to bed at nine. Anyway when I walked through the side doors of the coffee shop I could tell she was pissed off. Another one of those homeless crazy people shit all over the shop's bathroom floor, only this time whoever did it decided to smear it all over the walls as well as pooping on the floor. She and another girl had to clean it up. In addition to wearing gloves Jennifer got a plastic garbage bag and cut holes in it for her head and arms. She wore the garbage bag like a parka to keep the shit from getting on her clothes. I thought she must have looked hilarious, but I kept that to myself.

While Jennifer was telling me the story of what happened she became more and more angry about it. She repeated saying things like "fucking homeless". I thought it was amusing, but a woman sitting with her young son in the window area was within earshot of our conversation. I noticed she was becoming uncomfortable as Jennifer spoke. After a few moments she got up abruptly with her son and left for the bookstore next door. She had a real uptight look on her face as she handed two coffee mugs to Jennifer and then brushed past me to scurry into the bookstore.

In the meantime, while the two of us were standing there talking, right outside the coffee shop window there was a dirty looking homeless man who was mumbling stuff to himself. He spat at the sidewalk a number of times and then he started tidying up around the tables and chairs in front of the shop's side entrance. He picked up bits of trash and cigarette butts then he carefully placed them on one of the tables. Jennifer leaned close to my ear and told me she suspected this particular vagrant was the bathroom shit-smearer. Another girl working there also thought this man was the culprit. I told them to call the cops on the guy, but they said they already had. The police told the girls there was nothing they could do unless the homeless man attempted to harm someone or exposed himself in public. I offered to go outside to try and make the homeless guy mad at me so she could call the police and say they had a violent bum at the shop, but she didn't want me to do it. I would have had fun with it, if she had let me.

1.1.1997

On Christmas Eve, Jennifer bought hermit crabs. I thought it was sorta strange she wanted hermit crabs for pets but I guess she had some when she was little. It's already a zoo at home with all the fish and cats. Now this. Even more troubling to me was the feeling Jennifer wanted to surround herself with little creatures to love because our relationship is on the rocks. I was angry at having more critters to feed, and I also felt sorry for the hermit crabs. They don't seem too happy in a glass fishtank. They should be out running loose with all their compadres on a beach somewheres...

The three crabs are in a ten gallon fishtank I set up for them. The whole deal was like playing musical fishtanks for a day. I had a 30 gallon tank that my mom gave me for a birthday present a long time ago. I hadn't used it in years so it was real mangy inside. I cleaned the whole tank out and got brand new supplies like gravel, fake plants, and a nice piece of redwood for the future inhabitants to hide in. Then I ran it for weeks with a brand new filter system and had a fish store test the water before I moved Jennifer's fish from the ten gallon tank to their new, much larger home. I wanted to be sure the fish would be okay when I made the transfer. The fish people at the fish store told me the water tested perfectly. I knew what I was doing. When I started to move the fish I used a large plastic cup and a net to herd them into my trap. Then I covered the cup with the net to keep the little shits from jumping out. I didn't want any casualties during the move. At first all the fish were freaked out but after a few minutes in my 30 gallon tank I could tell they were like, hey, this is cool shit. Then they all calmed down and settled in to their own spots. It's funny to watch them stake their claim over territory.

After completely drying out the emptied 10 gallon tank I dumped in new gravel and put a single plastic plant inside. Hermit crabs need stuff to hide under so I gave them a piece of wood to dig around, and sloped the gravel down to one side of the tank. So that's the hermit crabs' new home. They are really low maintenance as far as pets go. All you have to do is put a jar lid full of water into the tank, a little bit of food, and use a desk lamp for a heater and they're good to go. They don't do much. Sometimes at night I catch them roaming around the tank but their eyesight is really good. As soon as I step into the room they see me and hide in their shells. It's got to suck being trapped in a glass box that small. I've been thinking it might be cool to go to the coast and fill up the bottom of a large rubbermaid container with beach sand and bring it home for them to run around in. Maybe I'll do that soon.

Ricky Rockanova's Episodes

Ricky Rockanova is in deep poop. He's going to jail for child molestation! That's right. I just found out about all of this. Ricky was having sex with a 14 year old girl for months. The girl's mother put a restraining order on him, but he managed to continue to see the girl anyway. Dave mentioned a few times this little girl would roller skate over to their place to see Ricky all the time. I asked if the girl was hot or something, like if she looked older than 14 with makeup on but both Dave and Shawn said she looked like a normal plain-jane little girl and there wasn't anything stunning or attractive about her.

Because Ricky feared the girl's mother was going to turn him in to the cops for child molestation charges, he decided to turn himself in to the police. Now what you have to understand is, recently there was a high profile kidnapping/molestation/murder of a little girl in the small town that Ricky lives in. The case attracted nationwide media attention and the cops in that town are totally off the hook thirsty for vengeance. I have no doubt the local police were frowning down upon Ricky when he turned himself in and told them what his crimes were. The best part is, they made him write a confession which apparently was fifteen pages long. He wrote a detailed report for the cops about each and every sex act with the girl including sodomizing her. What a stupid bastard. Now he's gonna have to register as a sex offender no matter where he moves in the States, and for the time being he's on house arrest while they continue to investigate his case. Dave and Shawn wouldn't let Ricky do the house arrest thing at their place so they kicked him out. They're both happy to finally be rid of him. I warned Dave not to let that fuckup move into their house.

Dave told me about the months leading up to Ricky's confession to the police, and his daily "episodes" that began in the livingroom. Well, that's what Dave called them anyway, "episodes". Each Ricky Rockanova episode would begin with either Dave or Shawn minding their own business in the livingroom drinking beers and hanging out. Ricky would come out of his bedroom and go into the livingroom. Once there he would stand in front of the guys, become emotional, and freak the fuck out in front of them. Ricky would yell all sorts of goofy self pity shit and then break his possessions to bits while Dave and Shawn would watch. He snapped his music CDs in half, smashed up small appliances and electronics, then do things like destroy his Sony Playstation games. While all this was going on Dave thought to himself Ricky was the biggest pussy he'd ever seen. Shawn told me it was plain funny.

During the last episode before Ricky moved out, Dave got so fed up with hearing Ricky whine about committing suicide that he marched Ricky out of the house and down the road to a bridge over a nearby river. He told him if he wanted to die, then hurry up and get it overwith as Dave was sick and tired of hearing about it. I guess from the story Dave told me he got Ricky standing up on the railing of the bridge, but he wouldn't jump. Good thing I wasn't there drinking beers with Dave at the time. I most certainly would have pushed Ricky off the railing and called it suicide anyway.

Lately Ricky has been telling people his name is Ricky Rockanova, or some other ridiculous shit like his real name is Desi Sinatra. He's trying to hide the fact he's a lowlife child molester. I hope people find out the truth about him regardless of the stupid aliases he's using and run him out of the county.

12.19.1996

Man, work bites my dick. I hate all those scumbags on dayshift. Lately they've been complaining about stuff that doesn't concern them at all. It's none of their business. They have been complaining in meetings and to management that I'm working too much overtime, they don't like me working on other production lines when our area is slow, and they are angry I come in late enough in the afternoon that they never see me. In general all this petty shit annoys the fuck out of me.

When our area is slow it's always a good idea to loan yourself out to another line that might be slammed. You end up learning more about our products that way which makes you valuable as an employee. Cross training in multiple areas has served me well over the years here. Most importantly you get networked with more people and different management teams. By helping them out in a time of their need you can frequently call in an important favor when you need it the most. Many people here haven't caught on to that concept. We are all part of the same team so there isn't any reason not to help other areas when we don't have any work to do. I think the real reason my dayshift group doesn't like me working in other production lines when we are slow is because maybe our boss will realize that's a great idea. He will make them go work in busy areas instead of letting them sit around and bullshit all day. The last thing those idiots want to lose is their eight hours of paid sit around and do nothing break time.

Now it looks like Squirmy is going to eliminate swing shift thanks to all of dayshift's crying. That means I'm going to have to get up early in the morning every god damned day again and see those stupid fuckers Monday through Friday. The worst part of it won't be the fact that I'll be losing my shift differential hence losing 10% of my pay. The worst part will be having to listen to them whine all day long, because that's all they do. I'm starting to really dislike being back at Bill and Dave's. I don't understand why our managers tolerate these chronic non-performing employees. There's no reason for it.

The Drunk is hardly ever around anymore, which is very cool with me. I think she is being groomed for some important R&D lab management job for a new product platform. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping like hell that rumor is true. I can't wait to be rid of her. She's one of the all time worst supervisors I have ever run across here.