prompt 27

The safest place in the world for me is my dad’s big bear hugs, very cliché I know, but it’s true. Ever since I was little and I was upset or scared my dad would always be there to give me one of his big, warm, strong hugs and I would know I was safe. When I would have nightmares and go crying to my parents room, or there was a thunder storm that would make me want to hide under the bed.

 When I came home from school one day to see both my parents cars in the driveway even though they were supposed to be at work, and got the news that we had to put our dog down because she couldn’t stand up on her own anymore. The same dog we had had since I was 3 and had a big pink bow tied around her neck, my dad was waiting for me in my room and hugged me until I stopped crying. When my grandmother passed away from a stroke, after years of Alzheimer’s and slowly forgetting who I was. My dad’s mother, the one who would have all the grandkids over Easter morning to decorate Easter baskets and send us on a parade up and down the street to show them off and had a big box of dress up clothes in the basement for us to play with. My dad was there to hug me and make it just a little bit better.

                 No matter where I am or what happens to me I know I will always feel better once my dad gets there and gives me one of his big bear hugs.

theme week 6

The Bangor Public Library was one of my favorite places to go as a child. My mother would drive my sister and me there and park across the street, and then we would get out of the car and enter through the downstairs level directly into the children’s section. Shelves upon shelves stacked with books. Fairy tales, fantasy, the American Girls section that was my favorite spot. None of the shelves, except the ones lining the back wall of the large room that made up the children’s section, were more than four feet tall, so small children had an easier time reaching the books they wanted. Next to the door sat the librarians desk, where she would help kids find books and check them out, occasionally signing them up for their own library card.

 Just around the corner of the desk was the card catalog, where you could look up the book you wanted, old small square wooden drawers full of cards, a mix of new and old, all smelling like that old papery book smell. Shelves created multiple corners all over the room, most with their own child sized arm chair to curl up in and read. A few tables and chairs for adult sized people sat about the room for the parents or reading sessions. And on top of one book case sat an old Mother Goose stuffed animal that never left the children’s section, following it to the temporary location they had to move to while the old building was fixed up, welcoming the children in to read.

theme week 5

An employee goes outside to help load a TV in a customer's car. Once he is done the customer acidently slammed the employees head with the trunk of their car when they tried to close it before he was out of the way. The customer says sorry and then goes home and the employee comes in saying his vision had blacked out for a few seconds. A manager gets on the phone with whoever deals with workplace injuries and sends the employee to the hospital just in case. The manager offers to get the licence plate of the car from the security camera in he parking lot but the employee says no, he keeps saying it was an accident and he does not want to press charges. I would if it had been me, he ended up having a bad cuncussion and had to take a  few days off work because he was slurring his speach and losses his cordination. Best Buy pays for all his hospital bills and meds, still offering to help him contact the customer, but the employee still refuses. His dad wants to sue the customer but the employee still says no.

theme week 3

Standing behind the check out counter at work I watch customers rushing in and out of the store. Mothers trying to calm crying babies. Children in too big winter coats demanding video games, movies, and candy. Young couples shopping for new appliances for their just bought homes. Employees in blue shirts wheel big screen TVs up from out back and take them outside into the snow with no jackets, to load them in to the customers cars. The customers drive home with their new items and the employees come back into the store, happy to get out of the cold.

prompt 25

Doctor Who was described to me as a British sci-fi show about an alien man who traveled through space and time going on adventures. Every synopsis I could find of it online all seemed to be the same, a cheesy sci-fi show with bad effects and ridiculous stories, but I decided to check it out any way. I expected to watch a few episodes and be mildly entertained and then move on to something else. Well I got the cheesy sci-fi stories and bad effects but there was so much more.

Instead of stereotypical aliens and plot lines there were completely imaginative designs for each alien and the stories, although some average, were incredibly complex and forced you to follow each episode to find each clue that would form up the arc for the season. Little things like words spray-painted on the wall in the background of one episode seemed like nothing important, but then turned out to tie the whole season together. Characters that seemed to be one time cameos or minor to the plot turned out to be some of the most important ones in the show. Nothing was as I expected it to be. Instead of generic sci-fi I got an imaginative series that I love and cannot wait to see more of.

20. The battle begins! best buy bills.

At Best Buy customers can pay their credit card bills in store. You can have someone else pay your bill for you if they use cash, but if you want to pay with check you must have a valid photo ID on you or we can’t take it. Last November I had a young woman in her twenties who wanted to pay her mother’s bill with her mother’s check but her mother was not in the store, she was waiting in the car. I told the young women that I was sorry but I could not accept the check unless her mother was present. The woman was upset but went to the car to get her mother, who was very angry about the whole situation and went to a different cashier.

                A month later the same woman came in again to pay for her bill and when the cashier, thankfully not me, asked her for her license she freaked out. She insisted that she did not need to show her ID to pay her bill and demanded to see a manager. Once the manager came over he insisted that we did in fact need an ID so the customer angrily pulled it out, insisting that she would be paying online from now on.

                Now a week or two ago the same woman came in again, apparently deciding not to pay online like she said she would, to pay her bill for the month. She handed me her check and before I could even open my mouth she forcefully stated that an employee told her that she would no longer have to show her ID to pay her bill. I told her that I would have to check with a manager before I could take the check and called on over.

When the manager arrived the woman informed her that she was told she did not need an ID but the manager insisted that she did. The customer got extremely angry and insisted that she had talked to a red haired manager a few weeks before who told her she did not need one. The problem is that we have no red haired managers at best buy, the only red heads we have are employees.

When my manager told the customer this she insisted that it was in fact a manager, and she wanted to speak to him immediately. My manager said again that whoever she had talked to was not a manager so the customer demanded to speak to our general manager instead. He was not in the store at the time and in the end we told her that the GM, named Darin, would call her the next time he was working and took down her phone number. As soon as she heard the name Darin she insisted that he was the manager who had told her she would no longer need an ID, but Darin looks nothing like the original employee she had described to us, and she could not name the employee until we had said Darin’s name. After that the customer paid her bill and left the store. I haven’t seen her since, but I’m sure she will be back soon.

prompt 21, journey to get a puppy

Sitting in the back seat of an old, brown car with brown interior that matched the driver’s hair. A girl with the same brown hair as the man, sitting in the back seat, looking excited, sitting next to a younger girl with blonde hair like the woman in the front passenger seat. Pulling up a long driveway to an old white house with a huge white garage. There is a man in blue jeans standing at the end of the driveway, waiting for the brown haired man to get out and talk to him. The blonde woman gets out of the car and walks to the back door to let the two girls out. Suddenly the man in blue jeans is flinging the door to the garage open and a whole litter of golden retriever puppies comes running out. At least five or six puppies, all with bows tied around their necks, barking excitedly. All of the bows were blue for boys, except one. One puppy had a pink bow tied around its neck, the only girl, jumping around with her brothers just as excited to meet new people. The two men keep talking and the two girls continue to play with the puppies.