What’s in a title anyway?

**CROSS POSTED**

I am the worst at figuring out titles for entries. Wittiness is not my forte. Some days I get lucky but most days, I do not.
 
Anyway, I left off last time discussing The Child’s upcoming Karate Tournament. We’d been to one before only as spectators so that she (we) could get an idea of what all is involved in the process. She was still kinda new to karate at the time we went and did not feel confident enough in herself to participate. Boy, what a difference 6+ months can make.
 
We started out the day with me begging my manager, Rachel, to come in 10-15 minutes early to relieve me at work. You see, the tournament started at 9, which meant that registration began at 8:30, which meant that The Child needed to be there at 8:30, to stand in line, get her info of where the rings for her particular competitions were, etc. and to warm up. Of course, the small town the tournament was being held in was a hour and a half away, at best, with making no stops en-route. Yeah, y’all don’t know my bladder. Anyway, Rachel did come in early, I raced home (the whole 4/10 of a mile), peed, grabbed a plain bagel, Monster energy drink and got back in the car in the passenger seat. Of course there was no way I could cat nap because my nerves were high strung … for her, of course. 
 
Side note: Can the state of Kansas be anymore boring to drive through/around in? So far we have drove in from the South, East and West and it never fails to amaze me of how boring the scenery is. Makes for the drive to seem longer than it is. I really hate driving in this state.
 
So, I had put the address on the registration form into my GPS. Guess what? The address was to someone’s house. Yep. Hubby was pissed. Yelled at me with all kinds of colorful words, how it was my responsibility to make sure I had the correct address from our karate instructor, etc and that if we were late & she missed out on being able to compete, I would be walking back home. Then I had to listen to her drama of how upset she’d be if she missed being able to compete. Yeah, exactly what all I needed to hear after working all night and no hope of sleeping anytime in the near future. So after tearfully reminding him of what a fuck up I am, and how I can never do anything right, especially in his eyes, and seeing as how he knows I can’t be trusted to do anything right, he should have gotten the directions the previous night from Master Scott when he took her to practice and he was just as to blame for not following up behind me. Anyway, I called Master Scott, got the directions and we arrived at 9am. Luckily for us, the competition actually started at 9:30.
 
Needless to say, we were all in a piss poor mood at best. I couldn’t stop crying. I mean, seriously, here I had worked all night, had only had 4 hours of sleep in the past 24 hours and had just had a new asshole freshly chewed into my ass by my husband, only to have his sentiments of me reinforced by the child I had pushed out of my vagina. THEY are lucky I didn’t leave their ass stranded at the competition and drive my abused, defeated self back home.
 
Only 4 other students from her karate school showed up for the competition. Normally there would have been more, but there was only a total of 5 of them this day. I kind of stood off to the side by myself because I didn’t want to have to answer questions. I was observing everyone warming up, practicing their forms, chatting with each other, and there was my child, standing next to her father, eating sour gummy’s and drinking Gatorade. The hell? 
 
So I walked over to her and told her, "You need to put the gummy’s down and warm up. You do NOT need to be eating all that sugar right before a competition unless you are trying to make yourself throw up? Where did you get those, by the way?" And because she was still feeling her oats in getting away with adding her negativity towards me, she comes back with, "Daddy bought them for me last night and don’t worry, I’m fine. I don’t need to warm up. I’m all ready warmed up. I’m gonna be just fine." So I turned my back to her, slowly counted to 10, turned back around and with the nastiest, meanest voice I could muster, I replied back to her with, "Mark my words Child, if you do not place at least 3rd in both competitions, I will be seriously pissed! I did not just waste $60 for you to do a half-ass job in your forms. If you fail to place at least 3rd, I will pull you out of karate, out of Girl Scouts, out of Volleyball and you will never, ever do anything that requires money ever again as long as you live under my roof. I’m sick and tired of wasting money on your lazy ass and I am done. We try to be nice and give you a good life, with good things and you want to treat us this way, you want to act like everything is a bother to you, then fine, you can kiss it all goodbye." I then turned around and walked away. 
 
So then Hubby comes over and wants to know what *I* did to upset her. Are you for freakin’ real? So I told him what I said. He then walked back over to her, mumbled a few words, and there she went, to join the others in her school to warm up & practice. 
 
Oh my frggin’ God! Ugh!
 
Now it is finally time for the tournament to start. We tell The Child to go to her first ring and get ready. She doesn’t want to go because no one else is going to the ring. I reminded her what Master Scott is always telling the students, "It is your responsibility to be prepared. Don’t wait for others to do the job for you, do it yourself. A black belt is a white belt that never quit." So after a few more minutes of procrastinating, she went and sat in her ready position. 
 
The judges enter the ring, call everyone’s name that is in that age group to make sure they are present and then informs them of how they will be doing the judging, etc. They then take their seats and the first group is called up. The Child is the only one in that group. Wait, what? Apparently they were doing the specific groups by school and she was the only one from our school. Which was strange because there was a 9 year old girl from our school doing the same form as The Child but she ended up going to a different ring for that particular form/competition so that just left The Child to compete on her own. 
 
She won 1st place. And not by default either. She scored 9.95, 9.99 and 9.99. So yeah, go ahead with your bad-ass self kid! Not bad for being the very first person, of all 4 rings, to compete, for the very first competition.
 
After that, we rooted for the other’s in their competitions, while I took pictures. I tried to get shots of everyone from our school since I had my big camera with me. Although, I am disappointed in the pictures. There was so much white (all but one school had solid white uniforms. The other school had solid black. Our school’s uniform is 3/4 white) that when I used the flash, the pictures turned out funky. So since there was enough light inthe building, I opted to turn the flash off. Which was fine. But you have to have a steady hand. And my hand was not always steady between the lack of sleep, the nerves, and the over all emotional roller coaster I had been on all morning. I’m sure the energy drink didn’t help any either lol. But for the most part, the pictures turned out well.
 
After she had won the 1st competition, and I could finally wrestle my phone back from Hubby, I went outside for a quick smoke to calm my nerves and to send texts & to update Facebook. Hubby came out there telling me I needed to hurry up, that they had just called for the next group, the group The Child was in. So I go rushing back in to get my camera ready & give him my phone to video her form. And proceeded to wait for 15 minutes. ::sigh::
 
They finally start the last competition, the one The Child was in. Each school is called to do their thing. Trophies and medals are given out. Then it is down to our school and 1 other. The other school had four 9 year old’s and pulled our 9 year old in to compete. She won 2nd place. Talk about a sore loser? I had never been so embarrassed for her family! She was a total brat about winning "only 2nd place". Then The Child and the other school’s 11 year old are the last 2 to compete. She goes first and scores 9.98, 9.98 & 9.98. So in my greedy little "my kid is better than your kid" mind I had going on, I knew all that The Child needed was one 9.99 to win 1st place. She did her thing and then her scores were revealed … 9.99, 9.99 & 9.99. Our school was there to watch & cheer her on and even though we had the least amount of people total, we were the loudest! Except of course for the 9 year old from our school who went into a meltdown because, "It’s not fair! I did the same form as her (The Child) so I should have got 1st place too! I hate this stupid tournament. It’s not fair! Why does she get 1st place and I only get 2nd place!!?" and on and on and on she went. At one point, I turned around and told her if she didn’t want the 2nd place trophy that I would take it because I’m sure The Child would love to have a 2nd place trophy also. Talk about eat-shit-and-die looks? 9 yr. old little girl had me dead in so many ways lol. At least she shut up about it. Or was that because I walked away from her area? lol 
 
So let’s recap – The Child was the very first one to compete in the very first competition with a 1st place win and she was the very last one to compete in the very last competition with a 1st place win. 
 
Guess she showed me. lol
 
I ended up falling asleep on the way home and once home, I crawled into bed, clothes and all and slept till 9 pm. The Child wanted to go out to celebrate, and I wanted that too, but unfortunately, I had to sleep for work and promised her we’d go out the next night. Which we did, to her favorite Chinese buffet place.
 
It totally sucks that I have to work night shift on the weekends. Totally. But, it works best for us as a family unit. Because of the stupid with-in 2.5 mile state law, my child can’t ride the bus home from school so I have to be available to pick her up at 3pm each day – on the days she doesn’t stay an extra 30 minutes for band practice. She will NOT walk 1.5 miles on a busy 4 lane road with no sidewalks and cross over a major Hwy with no crosswalk or crossing guard. Then, because she has karate practice twice a week, plus Girl Scouts every other week, plus volleyball practice twice a week (for the time being), we can’t always depend on Hubby not having to work overtime to be able to take her, so working 3-11 is pretty much out of the question for me also. I’m sure we could make it work out, especially with Mrs. Joleen from work offering to take her/pick her up to help us out (which I dearly appreciate the offer because we aren’t family and she doesn’t have to offer!!) but at the end of the day, I really don’t want to miss out on all of her activities. One day she will be grown and gone and I want to have all these memories to look back on. Obviously working 7am – 3pm would be the most ideal shift for us, if I could work it at the hotel I work at, but I can’t. So I am stuck working 11pm – 7am on Fri, Sat & Sun nights so that I can be available during the weekday afternoons/evenings for her and so that I can attended her volleyball games on Sat and the occasional Sat karate tournament. Yes, I could work night shift during the week but I would not be able to get enough sleep and I don’t want to risk falling asleep on the clock. Since this is now the slow season (I haven’t answered a phone call in 3 weeks now), it is too boring around there to keep me awake, and the weekends are the busier shifts! LOL 
 
I’ve been playing around with the idea of looking for another job at another hotel, one that could offer me 1st shift so that I could get more hours on a paycheck, because honestly, 24 hours at minimum wage is not helping us out, at all. But then I remind myself that the holidays are right around the corner and as it stands right now, I am off for Thanksgiving & Christmas. As far as work is concerned, we are going out of town for Thanksgiving (which we are thinking of going to Wichita for 2 nights & possibly spending it with my cousin who lives there – but he is a Pastor & Hubby is worried that he’d slip up & cuss and stuff in front of Chris and someway offend Chris lol). Since Shelia (the other night auditor) has 2 small kids (2 & 5), I feel for her with having to work Christmas Eve and then come back in and work Christmas night. However A) I spent 20 of my husband’s 22 year Military career with him being gone for holidays, birthdays and/or anniversaries and when he wasn’t gone he was the one working them because 1- before The Child, he was the one who didn’t have kids and then 2- he only had one kid versus the many his counterparts had. I did my time. I now have the chance to enjoy us being a family for holidays and birthdays and anniversaries and I don’t want to give that up. B) We have no family, no friends, no loved ones here. We are all that we have, just the 3 of us. We are the only ones to cheer The Child on in her activities. We don’t have the luxury of calling up a family member asking for them to watch her for us, or them offering for her to come spend the night with them. We aren’t able to wake up and go to someone’s house to spend the holiday with. If we don’t spend it together, who do we spend it with? C) My job is just a job, not a career. My paycheck doesn’t do much to help us out, if at all. Hubby’s job is more important so if push came to shove, my job would be the first to go when it comes to my family. 
 
Which these are all points I just had to remind people of at work …
 
It started with Shelia and my asking her to trade nights so I could have Oct. 5 off for The Child’s 12th birthday & her slumber party. She finally agreed. But damn if she didn’t make me sweat it out lol. Of course it was during that talk that she asked me to work Thanksgiving & Christmas. Ha! I did agree to work Christmas night (not Christmas Eve) so that she could enjoythe morning with her Hubby & kids, the afternoon with her family and the evening with her Hubby’s family, all without having to worry about getting sleep to come back in Christmas night. See, I do have a heart, I can be nice. Then I had to remind others at work, when it was mentioned that I may be getting special treatment because of my child and working the shift I want to work and that work is working around my needs. Pffftttttt. Run that by me again?
 
Short story – Nikki lost custody of her 3 kids. She now gets her kids on Sat night and if all goes well with that, she will get full custody of them back. In the meantime, they are wards of the state. So because of that, she can’t work night shift because DSS would look at it as she couldn’t spend time with them if she has to sleep during the day. Now she can’t work Sat because she gets them at noon on Sat & they are picked up at noon on Sun so she can’t work 7-3 on Sun. Ruth was being nice and working the 7-3 shift on Sun to help Nikki out because she needed Nikki to work for her when she had track meets for her college. Ruth has determined that the getting off at 11pm on Sat & coming back in at 7 on Sun is too hard (DUH! I did it for 2 months!) & has told Nikki that she can’t do it for her anymore. Nikki told Ruth "Oh well. I have my kids, I can’t, so you figure it out." WTF???? Uhm, Nikki, shouldn’t you be telling Rachel, the manager, that? Especially when the schedule clearly says YOU work 7 – 3 on Sun and Ruth works 3 – 11? How are you just going to take Ruth’s 3 – 11 shift away from her without her agreeing to it? That’s when it was mentioned that if they can work around my special needs for my kid, then they can work around her needs for her kids.
 
Yeah, that was a fun moment when I was informed of that. 
 
"Bitch please! First, it is not our fault you lost custody of your 3 kids. Second, can you work the audit shift on the weekends? No you can’t, so shut the fuck up. Can Ruth work the audit shift on weekends? No she can’t because she has to work the 3 – 11 shift. She is a full time college student who is also on her college track team. SHE can only work 3-11, only Fri – Mon, which means, *I* can’t work that shift to accommodate my family. Shelia can’t work the audit shift on the weekends because I can’t work it during the week. I am the only one who can work the audit shift on the weekends so shut.the.fuck.up. Third,  I spent 20 of my husband’s 22 year Military career with him being gone for holidays, birthdays & anniversaries and when he wasn’t gone he was the one working them because 1- before The Child, he was the one who didn’t have kids and then 2- he only had one kid versus the many his counterparts had. I did my time. I’m sacrificing family time with them now by working the night shift on weekends since my husband is only off on Sat & Sun & it is our only family time. We are trying to make the crappiest situation work for us and we don’t need no damn 24 year old immature bitch telling us about special treatment. We have no family, no friends, no loved ones here. We are all that we have, just the 3 of us. We don’t have the luxury of calling up a family member asking for them to watch her for us, or them offering for her to come spend the night with them. We have no one to help us out. At all. So please, don’t come whining to me about your needs, with your kids, especially when YOU are the one who made your bed." 
 
Yes, I was just just a wee bit pissed. But now they know. And they know that my minimum wage job, working the crappiest shift known to any work, is not worth being in a pissing contest over. They know I will walk out in a heartbeat. There are plenty more minimum wage, crappy shift jobs in this po-dunk town. I understand that Ruth & Nikki have seniority over me because they have been there longer (Nikki by just 6 days) than I have so that is why I don’t make waves about it. I look at what is left, after they have their say-so in the schedule availability and try to make what’s left work, not just for myself (after all I can get plenty of sleep when I am dead), but what works best for my family. If Nikki can’t arrange childcare now, for just one day, how is she going to manage it for 4 days when she gets full custody of them back? Rachel works 6 days a week as it is, so she isn’t going to work 7 – 3 on Sundays. Ruth is already working the 3 – 11 shift on Sat & Sun, I work the 11 – 7 shift on Sat & Sun so that just leaves Shelia and since she already works 4 nights a week and Nikki "needs" 4 days, she’s all that is left to work 7 – 3 on Sun. 
 
Of course, I am just ranting for no particular reason because Nikki has gotten herself fired. Or at least that was the word on Sat. morning before I left. Between her stunt with sleeping with the married guest, and her lack of greeting guests as the enter the lobby, her penchant for visiting other websites other than Facebook on the company computers, after numerous times of being told Facebook ONLY, and then when IE was disabled so that she could no longer visit said websites, she went and installed Google Chrome so that she could visit said websites AND job hunt. Oh and apparently she was helping herself to food in the fridge that was not hers. But both Joleen and I begged Rachel to hire someone first & get them trained before firing Nikki. Seems like she is going that route.
 
Look, I can get along with anyone. Don’t step on my toes, don’t throw me under a fictional bus that exists only in your head, don’t lie to me, don’t steal from me, and we will get along just fine. Otherwise, it is every bitch for herself, sink or swim, do or die. And don’t expect me to do your job for you when you are getting paid to do it yourself. I do my job, you do your job, and everyone will be happy. It really is that simple.
 
So, I think I am going to write a book.
 
Stop laughing! Seriously. I’ve been playing around with the idea for a while. I’ve had this "story line" stuck in my head even longer. I was bored one night at work and decided to write it down (or type it out more specifically lol) and damn if it didn’t kill a couple of hours.
 
Of course, since I am clueless and have no idea what so ever of "how" to write a book, I’m not exactly sure what the hell I am doing lol. I just am writing as if I was writing a diary entry and going from there. So even though it may not look or read like an actual book, I’m getting it out of my head. And no, I have no plans, ever, of anyone actually reading it lol.
 
Well, I’m guessing I should have titled this entry, "A plethora of things really … Chapter 2" lol Once I get going, it is so hard to shut up and call it quits. Sorry for my ramblings. Guess this is as good a place to stop as any.

 
Till next time … 

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