It has come to my attention over the last week that...wait for it...I am not as young as I once was.
I know. I'm shocked, too.
When last I worked a retail position, the year was 1999. When last I worked a retail position that required huge inputs of energy and constant running hither and yon, it was 1995. Fifteen ytears ago, I was 31 years old, and tired at the end of a big shift, but nothing like the bone-crushing exhaustion I have been feeling recently.
On Sunday, the Village was hosting its last Day Out With Thomas. Thomas the Tank Engine, that is. On Mother's day, I saw more toddlers and strollers than a place with lots of toddlers and strollers. I rang up sales, and ran for price checks, and put out more stock, and cleaned the floors, and just generally moved at high speed from noon until 4 p.m., when I got to go home early because it was slowing down, and I am a mom, and it was Mother's Day, after all.
I came home, got changed into clothes that did NOT say STAFF in huge yellow letters, and crashed for a few hours. Fortunately, I had thawed some spaghetti sauce earlier, so a spaghetti dinner was thrown together by my son(!), and I crashed again soon after.
Yesterday, I got a call from my boss. It was raining pretty hard, and was supposed to all day, which meant that Village traffic would be very low. It also meant that all the field trips that were scheduled, dozens of them, would be relocated to the museum. The museum has two stores; the big one with all the glass and pottery and some books, and kids' stuff, and the Genius at Play store, actually inside the museum, much smaller, but LOADED with stuff that kids love, from old-fashioned rock candy to retro toys to all the souvenir stuff you would expect. (Side note: I just figured out the french origins of the word "souvenir." Aren't you proud? I'm not sharing it here, because it sounds sexual. You'll just have to look it up yourself.)
That's where they needed me yesterday, so of course the store manager went to the sedate side of the store, and left me in charge of the whacky side and I never stepped away from the register, but rang up sales for two-and-a-half hours straight. I got a fifteen minute break, then went back at it for the last two-and-a-half hours. At least for the last thirty minutes, I was able to work on recovery. Not my own, mind you, recovering the stock from the onslaught of hundreds of kids, picking up everything and playing with it, then putting it back, heaven-knows-where, usually the closest horizontal surface.
This is not a problem. The more they play, the more they buy, it just adds to the running around bit, and the eroding of my terribly old behind-side.
What do you suppose I did when I got home? I threw a Costco quiche in the oven, then reclined until it was done. Wrapped it up to keep it warm for Bud, and crashed again.
I'm a little worried, because I am scheduled to work Thursday AND Friday this week, with no day-off between for recovery. So I will try to use some time this afternoon to prep posts for those two days, because I should be completely incoherent (as opposed to my normal state of "somewhat incoherent") by the end of Friday.
That's all I got right now. I already need a nap.
Oh wait! I have decided to stop referring to myself as middle-aged-woman when I comment. I have been reliably advised that having a name that matches my blog name would make me easier to find. Henceforth, I will be "unmitigated me." There will be a transition period, during which, I will add (m.a.w.), so that the threes of people who know me that way will be less confused than usual.
