Under New Management

Spent most of today at work; will be spending most of tomorrow and Saturday at work, too. More than a quarter of our staff took off this week to use their last days of vacation before our cycle starts over on May 1st. I had 7 hours today and will have 8 1/2 hours tomorrow and Saturday.

Today was...boring. Boring as all get-out. There wasn't even any candy to put away. It was dead for almost the entire day. It didn't really start to pick up until the usual 4-6 rush hour, by which time I was almost done.

I did get to leave the register for a while, though. We just got a new manager. His name is Pete. He was a small, slender man with a mustache who seemed nice enough. We saw a video and greeted Pete.

Bought Smart Ones ice cream cups when I finally finished and headed home. I got lucky. It was cloudy, windy, and cooler when I went to work this morning. It apparently did rain in the afternoon, but the storms that destroyed parts of the South mostly passed us by. When I finally got out at 10 after 5, it was just cloudy again, and a little less windy than before.

After I got home, I changed and went for a walk. I needed milk. Besides, I doubt I'm going to get a walk in tomorrow. Maybe not Saturday, either. As I headed to WaWa, the clouds started gathering again. Thank goodness they waited until long after I had gotten home to start raining. (And that didn't last long, either. At press time, it's just cloudy again.)

Ran Three Jacks and a Beanstalk during dinner. The original toddler version of Rugrats did two spoofs of fairy tales in its later seasons. This was one of them. The kiddies imagine they're a orphans being raised by a very sassy but loving cow. Having spent her milk and tired of sharing one bed between seven kids, they all wish for a larger home for their family. They get their wish when a beanstalk grows in their backyard! Susie the Fairy tells them they can have the key to the castle in the clouds...if they can get three things from the castle's current owner, the greedy Giant Angelica, who doesn't know how to share.

If you know anything about Rugrats, this is kind of fun. I really could have done without the bodily function humor, however, not to mention the five hundred udder jokes. On the other hand, the idea of combining the characters of Jack's mother and the cow that runs out of milk surprisingly works well; "Aunt Moo" is tough enough to arm wrestle an ogre (a crack at Shrek?), but sweet enough to handle a bawling Angelica's tears. I also liked the nice ending, which has the kids earn the key through kindness instead of knocking the giant off the beanstalk.