The Wind Had Teeth

It’s Wednesday. I woke up around 4 am, slightly chilly, and crawled under then weighted blanket. Mal was cuddly and talkative. My alarm went off at 5:30 am as usual; too early, always too early.

Yesterday’s shift was steady until mid afternoon when the winds from Isaias’s started to really pick up. I went to lunch around 3:30 pm, and the wind slammed the dumpster around outside. I punched in at 4 pm and told StressedRPh it sounded like a freight train outside. At 4:08 pm, the power went out. We tried to busy ourselves with things to bide our time; we can never tell how long an outage will last.

The power was out until about 6:40 pm – 20 minutes before close. We packed the fridge with ice packs to keep things cool. One of our regular asshole customers came in right after the power returned and expected his stuff to be done, annoyed that we couldn’t do it while the power had been out. On top of that, the label printer wasn’t immediately working, and the fix for that involves a very particular sequence of turning off and unplugging machines, then repeating the whole sequence in reverse. Since it was pointless to attempt to do anything by then, I agreed to come in an hour early today.

I spent the rest of the night breaking down more Lego. I sent out four sets yesterday morning. If I’m lucky, I may have another four to ship out tomorrow, but there will be at least two. After we both have dinner, I call Shawshank and put him on speakerphone while I disassemble everything. Sometimes I feel bad about that, like I’m punishing him by making him listen to the destruction of his things.

This morning, I came downstairs, got dressed, and started the morning routine. Unfortunately, that routine had the added task of sweeping up a bunch of shark teeth that the wind had blown off a tabletop.

Maybe today will be better? Maybe.