Autumn chose to come to work with me yet again, so we met what was left of the crew at the shop this morning. Everyone but the newbies had taken the day off, so I met Ben, Greg, and Josh at the high school to load laptops into the trailer. They hauled everything out so quickly that I actually lost count, and ended up shorting them by one box of 20 laptops, so I’ll probably have Heather come pick those up later. I’m done doing all of this extra work for no good reason or appreciation.
The guys were meeting some old coworkers from Service Plus at Linh, so I convinced Autumn to try it out, and we picked up Ben from the shop. After lunch, we went back to the shop to pick up a bunch of old model laptops that were pulled from the junior high and took them to the high school. We stopped for some happy hour drinks from Sonic along the way, and though my Red Bull Summer Edition Slush was good, I did not necessarily feel like it gave me wings.
The afternoon was much more relaxed, and we eventually started sifting through laptops we had set aside with what I considered to be heavier damage. Fortunately most of those are actually just cosmetic damage that we can ship back to Lenovo without any additional service.
We ran back by the shop after work so I could sign my contract for the next school year, but everyone had already left the auditorium. I had mentioned the Bargain Barn to Autumn earlier, so we decided to stop in to see what they were about. Allen told me about them and mentioned that they had good snacks. I had no idea. It just seemed like a normal little thrift shop from the front, but then we walked through a door in the back of the room and it was like walking into some kind of slumlord Willy Wonka shop. We picked up a couple things, including a giant tin of butter cookies to take to Summer. Then we went home until dinner.
Since Eaddie was staying with her grandparents another night, Autumn and I decided to go to Cici’s for dinner to try and catch the Corona again. They had plastic wrap all around the front of the buffet so they could serve you cafeteria-style. It was pretty empty, but the drive-through looked busy. All the pizza on the bar was pretty dry and gross from the lack of traffic, so I asked them to make me one with everything. It was absolutely Zen.
When we left, Autumn wanted to go Bowling, but somehow I convinced her to go shop with me at Lowe’s instead. We wandered around for a bit just chatting along until I stumbled upon a big 48-inch Kobalt garage cabinet that had been marked down to half price due to some damage. I figure with just a very little bit of work, I could get the thing back into nearly new condition.
I spoke to a manager, took Autumn back to my house, then went to Allen’s to borrow his truck. The trip back into Lowe’s was a little more chaotic just because of how busy they were, but eventually I got someone to help me check out and load the cabinet into the truck. I only had to adjust it once, just because the cabinet door wouldn’t lock shut, and the wall-mount straps on the back were blowing around and hitting the glass.
Autumn helped me unload the cabinet and I walked it into the garage, then I went back to Allen’s and chatted with him and Charlotte for a few minutes. Eventually I made it back home, and I watched some random stuff on TV with Autumn until Summer got home from her late night bowling teambuilder. Then I put on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 until everyone got bored, and we went to bed.
Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of out-of-date confections.