An observation about (Nigerian) vs. (American) culture.

Last month when I worked nightshift, the ongoing downfall of a local politician came up in conversation between me and my one (big built) (Nigerian) coworker who typically works nightshift.

"I wonder if he will commit suicide," she was like.

Then, she was like, "Probably no, if he is guilty, he will go to jail and come back," and then she said that in Nigeria, people fear jail, but not here, people go to jail all the time and come back all the time like it's normal, but in Nigeria, people do not want to go to jail.

"Are jails bad, or do you mean shame, like there's no shame to it?", I was like.

"Eh-heeeeeeeh," she was like, doing that (West African) affirmation sound that you hear sometimes. "Yes, exactly, there's no shame."

How did I never notice this etymology until now?

 "Lieutenant" = "Place-holder."

A work mystery, almost immediately resolved.

Last month I worked two days in a row at the apartment of my one assisted living client with disabilities's, and on the first day I had to shred up a bunch of papers and then do general cleaning like sweeping.

Then, when I started the shift the next day, there was a few big strips of paper right out in the middle of the floor, so as soon as I saw them, I was all like, "WTF."

I had just started to wonder about that, too, and then I look up to the desk where I had left the box full of shredded paper, and right on there is a post-it note that says:

DON'T PANIC!

[my client's cat's name] Did NOT 

climb up & get out

strips of paper!

I took a few out for

her. She loves to

play with them <3

. . .

A Very Odd Dream related to the Current Labor Market.

In the last month or two I dreamnt -

I'm somehow present at a conversation between two (younger) (college-age) males, and one is maybe (Hispanic) and the other is maybe (white), and the (Hispanic) guy is saying something about planning out his coursework, and I somehow know it's part of a larger strategy to be one of those people who dress up in costumes and hold up signs out on the street nearby seasonal places that will go and do your taxes for you.

And then, I woke up.

. . .

Another resthome treat.

This one resident at the resthome who is always going off on little tangents asked me the other week if I liked her candy bowl, and I said I did, but I missed the Jolly Ranchers that she used to have there.

"But they always get sticky in that bowl," she was like. "It's so odd!"

"They do," I was like, agreably.

Then, like a shift or two later, I got a call to go up to her room, and it turns out that she had bought a bag of Jolly Ranchers for me with her shopping that she had ordered.

"Take them with you!", she was like.

"But I like having them here!", I was like, "So  I can get one every time I come up here."

"Okay," she was like, and then she suggested that I keep them in her refrigerator, so I went and put them on the top shelf of her refrigerator door.

Root beer floats.

I have never gotten the appeal of root beer floats.

The flavor of the root beer and the flavor of the vanilla don't really go together, and then there's the texture of the melting ice cream, as it just sits out in the middle of the soda and bubbles float up and pop all around it.

It's just like this profoundly weird thing to even have as a food item.

A subway trip like over a month ago:

1) Coming up at night onto the subway platform near work, there’s so many little blots of what looks like spilled cherry Slurpee all over the platform near the like little booth-like shelter, and a (tall) (stringy) (older) (white) (goateed) (very gay) guy comes up a bit later and starts looking at it, and I start talking with him and he says it’s blood, and then he goes down to talk to the station attendant and then when he comes back up he tells me that, yes, they know, and there’s some down by the vending machine in the station, too.

2) The ride itself home is quiet, except for a hunched-over (old) (black) guy with a cap on down at the far end of the car, who every once in a while raises his arms up spasmodically, and a (very short) (kind of macho) (Mexican) guy who has his phone out and is listening to some (Mexican) music very loudly on it, and who after a while I notice has a baseball cap on that says “CAT DAD,” under his pulled-up hoodie.

3) When I get off at my station, there’s a (very tall) (very thin) (young) (black) guy with a moustache and a short beard and some (long) dreads with (blonde) tinges on them, and he staggers out of the next car up and then swings around and kind of staggers back to like a foot away from it like he might re-enter and re-board it, but then he just stands there as the doors shut and the train leaves, and then as I slow my walk to wait and see what he’s doing, he walks over to the far side of the platform and just stands there right at the edge of it with his toes over into the cavernous space area where the train runs, and as I walk up farther I can suddenly see a (younger) (apple-shaped) (very normal-looking) (black) woman sitting on a bench, and her eyes are just all big and you can tell that she’s looking at him from out of the corner of them.

Elizabeth Taylor.

The older I get, the weirder it seems that Elizabeth Taylor was married 8 times, and twice to the same person.

When I was younger, it was just something in the tabloids, but the older I get, the more that I realize that it's just an incredibly odd thing to have happen.