Woohoo, this is the 300th post on this blog!

We win!

pideykcn. Exactly the word I needed to express my exuberance.

Edit:

If you would like to view the most current entries on this blog, please visit www.becconingamberlance.blogspot.com. Thank you for your patronage. ppynicu and wpebk

"Excuse me. Excuse me. Yes, you, hello. Do you see this cookie? Do you see how brown it is? Here's another one, see how light it is? They're all supposed to be this light. This one's hard, this one's soft. This one's brown...do you see how light it is? Is there any possible way I could have a cookie that is not burnt? Oh, you don't have any. What a shame. Well, can I have a different kind of cookie? Okay. Because look at it, it's burnt. Feel it, it's hard. And it's for my son, and he won't eat it if it's hard, because that's just disgusting. Does that make sense? Okay, I want an oatmeal raisin cookie. Okay. And I would like a bag with that. Alright, you can have the burnt one we didn't eat. Don't forget your cookie, hahaha!...

...It's too bad you're out of those strawberry cheesecake pastries. Oh, you're out? What, you say you don't sell them? Of course you sell them! I used to come in here and buy them all the time! Well, I know that you sell them. I used to come in here and buy them ALL THE TIME. Excuse me, I know it was here. That's just really, really weird. I know they sell them here. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about - they had strawberries in them, and they were pastries...Are you sure you don't sell them?"

This was a customer from yesterday. I had just walked in and he was sitting at a table, eating his sandwich with his daughter. He wouldn't stop talking and repeating himself; it was SO annoying. And then this strawberry cheesecake pastry thing...I mean, gosh, I think I would know whether or not we sold them. I kept saying, "I'm sure you're right, but we have not sold anything like that for the time I've been working here." "Oh, when did you start working here?" "September." "Oh, I've been here way longer than you've been here." He really was just trying to ruin my day.

In contrast, I had a really lovely customer the other day. She and her husband were ordering, and she answered all of my questions as they came, but her husband did the whole "ordering the vegetables while we're on the bread" thing. You know, while I'm trying to juggle the meat, cheese, bread, and sizes of two sandwiches, he throws in "and I want everything except jalopenos, green peppers, cucumbers, and a LOT of pickles and no tomatos either, and do you have honey mustard?" And his wife chastised him. "Sweetheart, look - the vegetables and the sauces are way down there, and she's still working up here. I'm sure she'll ask us what vegetables you want when she's ready!" He just grinned at me. They were adorable, and she was sweet, and she understood my viewpoint. Turned out she'd worked in customer service before. You know, I think everyone should be required to have a customer service job so they will respect people who do that work more.

cldcg (something like that, but I typed it wrong because the font was impossible to read)
vklvkw

Edit: Oh, I forgot to tell you a story of a customer I had the other day. I sneezed twice as I was making his sandwich. Both times I turned all the way around to do it. Because, if you think about it, I don't have a lot of options when I'm making a sandwich and I have to sneeze. A lot of people seem to think I'm just a mechanical sandwich maker and they have to speak slowly and clearly as if I am a voice recognition system that takes orders, and I'm not really human so I don't have to sneeze. Really, all I can do is turn around, perform the sneeze, and say "Excuse me" or "I'm sorry" afterward.

This guy, after the second sneeze, informed me, "You know, turning around doesn't help." I was kind of in shock because he hadn't really said anything until that point and I wasn't sure waht he was talking about. "What?" "Turning around when you sneeze doesn't help. The germs still spread." My jaw kind of dropped open. Did he think I didn't know that germs spread? I wanted to say something like "Well, would you prefer I didn't turn, and sneezed directly on your sandwich? I have two directions to sneeze, and I kindly chose the one that was NOT in your face. You could at least thank me." Instead I meekly said, "I'm sorry. I can't help it." Idiot. Okay, I'm done. uqhjim

I have been having so many dreams lately! But they aren't really individual dreams. Each night I dream the entire night, and if I was able to write out everything that happened in each dream I'd have a novel by morning. I'm serious!

These dreams are annoying, mainly because I wake up many times during the night from something I dreamed that was frightening or startling. Also, I don't know anything about levels of sleep, but I suspect I'm not getting very deep sleep. I'm receiving the hours I need, but I'm starting to fall back into my "required nap-a-day" pattern. Last night was particularly bad. I just woke up from it.

It's 9:21 now, and I went to bed last night at 10:30. So, I've had...uh, a LOT of sleep. But I was awake from 4 am to 5 am.

I hate "mindless task" dreams, like in Phantom Tollbooth, where they each had a mission. One person's job was to move an entire mountain of sand to another spot, using tweezers, and only moving one grain at a time. Another had to move a well of water using only an eye dropper. There was another, but I can't remember. They were in this valley of horrible creatures and things, and I remember the main thing in this valley was that nothing ever got resolved. The dog, Tock I think his name was, constantly barked at things that weren't there. Another creature made a pun out of everything Milo said so he couldn't really say anything.

I need to read that again.

But I have dreams like that all the time! I have a job to do, and when I wake up I can't quite remember what the job is. But the job is always something very specific, and by the time I finish it, someone's saying, "No, you did it all wrong. We wanted the one with the yellow stripe, not the blue." And I have to start all over, and by the time i finish that they say "No, this won't do. We need something different." Wasted effort, over and over and over and over again. In The Phantom Tollbooth, Milo and the other creatures did their tasks for thousands of years without realizing what was going on. I never understood that. Why didn't they stop during the first five minutes? Didn't they see how futile this was? And then suddenly they stopped and said, "What are we doing? Gosh, we're idiots. Let's get out of here." Then they rescue the princesses. (I know this sounds like another weird dream of mine, and The Phantom Tollbooth is kind of like somebody's weird dream, but it's a wonderful book.)

When I wake up from a "wasted effort" dream, I feel completely drained and tired. I haven't had a true nightmare for a couple years. But this kind of dream is the absolute worst. Does anyone else have dreams like this?

Last night I worked slightly over three hours and I made over 6 dollars in tips. That's not amazing for someone who does waitressing, but for me it's like, I made 2 dollars per hour more last night than normally. I work today, too. For eight hours. But I have two hours of free time before then.

Better get moving!

wtmyydt
gbxbgba (because the first time I left the window open too long and the word changed)

From now on, whenever somebody does a post on here (i.e. me or becca) or whenever someone leaves a comment, (i.e. everybody else including us), or anytime anyone does anything requiring word verification, type the letters you get into your post or comment. For example, here is a sample entry of mine (may have some parts made up).

Good morning! I had lots of dreams about outer space last night. I'm drinking tea right now. It's good. I had half a bagel for breakfast. I have a paper to write today. Well, I guess that's all for now. Bye now!

Word Verification: scltvpu

Hi! I'm eating Italian Foccacia bread right now. I've had it once before. I just went to Safeway and picked some up there. Why was I at Safeway? I was bored!

Let me start at the beginning. Last night my train came in and I got back to the dorms around 10 or so. I quickly discovered that the "i" key on my keyboard is sticky now, so I constantly have to backspace and since I hate backspacing on blogger because of the lag (I really should just type in notepad and paste here), I eventually might not backspace anymore. So, if you get a sentence that says "Yesterday went to the store and t was really annoyng because ddn't have any money", fll in the 's.

This morning I slept in till 9:00. I showered and got ready for the day, which was absolutely sunny and beautiful. I read for American Literature and went to lunch. Lunch was really good. I mean, I was REALLY hungry. I'd told myself I'd go to lunch at 12, because I wanted to get as much reading done as possible before then. So I was super hungry, which caused me to love lunch and eat a lot very quickly, which is my favorite way to eat. I felt very content after that and ready for all two of my classes today.

My first class was only 1/2 hour long.

My second class was canceled.

It's so sunny out today, I really wanted to go for a hike. So, I asked everybody I could find and made a bunch of phone calls. But nobody was available! So, finally, I walked to Subway to pick up my check and walked to Safeway to pick up bagels and milk. It was fun talking to my coworker Karen, whom i love dearly but never get to see because I don't work weekdays during the day and she doesn't work weekends at all. Sarah quit, and I'm really sad about that because she and I were having some really good conversations and I felt like I was getting to know her better.

This morning I called work to find out what time I work tomorrow (ugh! Of all the keys to get stuck, why dd it have to be a VOWEL?) and my boss answered. Well, it's kind of confusing. I don't really know who my boss is. I have a manager, Aaron, aka assistant manager or something like that. Then I have a manager, Heather, who is my real boss, and the real manager, or the head manager, or somethng like that. Then there's the store owner, Todd, who I met once but couldn't pick him out in a crowd. Technically I am in his employment, but most people who work there never even see him.

So, today I called, like I was saying, and Todd answered: "Subway, this is Todd". I said, "Hi Todd, this is Amber Mull, I'm one of your employees." He was like, "Oh, hi." I asked him, but the schedule wasn't up yet. I hope I didn't offend him. I didn't even think about it till afterward, but I didn't think he'd know who I was.

I almost didn't really put my last name up in the last paragraph. I always hesitate before putting t up online, but I think it's up plenty of other places. Yeah, people could find me, but I pretty much don't communicate with hardly anyone over the internet at all anymore - I mean, people I've met online. There's a few, but I hardly even get on msn messenger at all anymore. Anyway (I keep getting sidetracked!) I almost said "amber mooo" instead, but I thought that might be distracting and confusing. Wouldn't it be funny if that were my last name? Amber Mooo.

I bought Italian Focaccia bread at Safeway. I assume it's pronounced "foh-KAY-shee-yuh" but who knows, it might be "foh-kuh-SEE-yuh" or "foh-KAK-ee-yuh" or, at the suggestion of my roommate "foh-kah-CHEE-yah". Becca, which one is it?

I'm going to get ready for Bible study. And eat more focaccia bread. Is focaccia a kind of bread? Is it redundant to say "focaccia bread"? I'm go ing to have some more focaccia.