Caught Up in a Dream
It’s 2:30 in the AM on Saturday morning. I’d have written earlier, but I was basically home long enough to eat before ol’ Tompall (who’s home on leave just in time for his daughter’s birthday party) showed up and asked if I wanted to ride with them back to their house and hang out for a while. I don’t like to miss a chance to hang out with the guy since he’s rarely ever home anymore since the whole army thing, so I agreed. We went to Justin’s grave so TP could finally pay his resepcts, and take some pictures and leave some flowers (and a Cobra Commander action figure for some reason). Problem was, we dicked around in town so long that it was pretty dark by the time we got down there. Ever been in a cemetary at night? How about one out in "the boonies" as some like to say? All you hear are dogs barking somewhere in the distance, crickets, and other things I can’t quite define. I kept expecting to see the eyes of some random animal reflecting our flashlight beam. And yes, Tompall actually managed some decent pictures despite the lack of light. He’s got a pretty awesome camera. Anyway, it wasn’t long before we managed to creep ourselves out and decided to get the heck out of there.
Sow made sure I’d have a shitload of work to do on my last day. She showed up on Thursday and had April go through and take down all the year-old movies from the wall to transfer to the old release section, meaning that any copies beyond the one we’re allowed to keep had to be transferred to sale. So basically all those sale movies were left stacked on the back of the counter. I didn’t touch them. I had other stuff to do. I used the gaps left by the pull to go ahead and set the new release wall for Monday night, as well as do this stupid thing Corporate cooked up involving making an entire freaking bay of "Sci-Fi Channel Recommends" movies from the old release section. I hadn’t already done it because it was stupid. Anyway, I got all that done and went to count my drawer down for the last time. If I had gotten done and counted said drawer in time to leave by five, as I was scheduled to do, I wouldn’t have gotten to speak to Misty before I left. In a weird way I wanted to avoid the situation because I know that she’s been more emotional that anybody about my departure, but in the end I’m glad I was late. I got a hug out of the deal and a near-tearful series of kind words, and I told her that if there was ever a situation where she needed an answer and couldn’t get one from anybody else, to please feel free to call me. Then I clocked out, hung my nametag from the cabinet handle right in the middle of the counter, picked up my lunchbox, and walked out the door for the last time, at least in a working capacity. I’ve basically promised to come back and visit… but if they hadn’t all seemed so insistant I probably wouldn’t be too keen on it.