Not often can I use a B movie title pun for a title of my blog, But when I can, I use it proudly! It was a bad day yesterday. Along with my depression, I can get bouts of extreme social anxiety. When I have something to focus on, like work, I can focus my mind and get moving. Other days when I can’t keep my mind focused, I can lay in bed and never move. Most days I can handle it, or it doesn’t bother me, but yesterday was a bad day.

I am an introvert by nature. I can stay at home and not go out and be happy as clam. This of course does not fit a man who has a wife, who is a stay at home mom and deserves to get out of the house, two kids who need to socialize, and friends who want to know you are alive. I had a precious day off yesterday and was relaxing from the madness of retail. I had a wonderful birthday girl who needed to spend her money. The family starts to get ready and I am being lazy (or so I thought) by being the last one to start. As I am getting dressed (jeans, hoodie, awesome fuzzy eared hat) I feel my body start to rebel against me. One of the ways I can fight it is by being as outgoing as possible and wearing something really cool (for affirmation) or something weird (like my awesome hat) for a laugh.

This time it doesn’t work.

While walking to the car, I ask my wife to drive as I am feeling dizzy. I get in my van, take off my hat and sunglasses, and pull the hood over my eyes.

And I suffer.

If you have never had an attack such as this, it is hard to describe. I wish I could just say your bones ache or they feel like razor blades under your skin but its more than that. Imagine that you are naked in front of a crowd of strangers with all the embarrassment and shame that can bring, and you just said the wrong thing and they are judging you because you are not saying the right words to a speech you thought you memorized. Take that feeling and combine it with the stress and worry of taking a test that you have about a life or death decision you have to make tomorrow and you still have another 20 hours to sit and think about it in a quite empty room. Now, with both those  things affecting your mind, your body starts a bone cramp, where it feels like you bones themselves are trying to tear themselves apart. You actually start shaking because your body is in pain that you cannot stop, quantify, or even believe could be real, but it is because  you are feeling it right now. Lets talk about how you have symptoms like a migraine where sound and light are also physically painful but you can’t block it out no matter how hard you try. Your stomach is queasy from the butterflies dancing in your core, just like you telling your childhood crush that you like them and you are waiting for the response. Add a dash of you being told you are a complete and utter failure and will never succeed at life by everyone you have ever loved or who believed in you. Now imagine ALL those hitting you at once.

Times 10.

That is as close as I can get to describing it. Even reading back through this, it sounds lame in my mind to what it actually feels like. There is pain and suffering like nothing I have been through except the previous times I have been through it. Even knowing how bad it is does not prepare me for it.

You want to cry, vomit, scream, vent, die all at the same time, just so it will end.

And the worse part is, and this is the kicker for me personally, you know somewhere in the maelstrom of despot and despair, you have a resolute thought embedded in rock. This thought.

I shouldn’t feel this, this is not right, there is nothing wrong with me, and I shouldn’t be feeling this way.

But you do feel this way.

And there is nothing you can do about it.

And it is my fault I can’t change myself.

You drown in guilt, and pain, and acid. You are lost and hopeless. You have nothing left.

And that is a glimpse of what an anxiety attack is.

This all happens in the matter of minutes. It feels like two forevers and a day, but in reality its not long. The fall to the bottom is not that far but when you are in air it is an eternity. I wish I could say, I fought through it. You don’t. All you can do is survive. You can come out swinging, fighting with all of your being. It doesn’t work. You come out the other side as best you can and pick up what is left of your soul. You put the pieces back, clean up what you can move on. You learn and move on. You find things to help you next time. A blanket, a song, or a TV show.

Or a plush pony.

Even with my little Fluttershy, it was a bad day. I clutched at my totem against this wave of darkness with all my might. Some days you cannot fight it. You survive.

And hopefully that is enough.

Hug a pony my friends.

I have a lot to write about but I have someone important to me having a birthday. My youngest daughter is turning 5 today. I am feeling my age, just a bit. I am happy to say I have introduced to her My Little Pony. In fact, we are waiting for the last 2 MLP Christmas ornaments to come in to complete our Mane 6 on the tree. Everyone, have a good day, and hug a pony.

I hate thieves. I hate people who prey on others, be it companies or people. Stealing is something that disgusts me. I loss my cool when I see, hear, talk about thieves. I am having trouble writing this as I type.

I had 2 people steal over 500 hundred dollars of stuff from my store this weekend. I found out today. I have them on camera. I have their drivers license info. I have their email address for crying out loud. I have their whole life. I have them on camera.

Idiots man.

They came in while we are busy with the holidays. They came to do business, like a normal customer. They wait for a employee on register and walk around the store. Its about 4:30 pm. Looking back on it now, I can see them scoping out the store. They look at a few items and position themselves behind a wall and grab an item, like they are looking at it. They wait for the employee to look away and they casually walk away zipping up the coveralls that the guy is wearing. They leave soon after and end up selling the stuff back at a sister store down the street.

But wait there’s more.

They come back in at 5:30. They know we are busy and say they want to sell some stuff to us. They are very cautious and almost skittish because we are keeping a close eye on them. They wait for the employees to walk away as they wait by an item they were looking at earlier. The moment the employee’s back is turned they are using a Alpha Key (a special device with a magnet in it, used as theft prevention) they have acquired from somewhere and 2 more items are taken. The girl stuffs them in her jacket and hurries out the door. We finish the trade with the guy and he leaves soon after.  10 minutes later they are selling the stuff down the road. The brashness is overwhelming.

I am trying to contain my anger as I am typing this. I have stopped several times to collect myself. Why? Why do people think its right to steal. They are not just stealing an item. They are stealing my time, the company’s time, the police’s time, my money (yay no bonus…), and who knows the other ramifications. This is not a victim-less crime. This hurts so many people. The amount of time and energy and effort wasted on these two scumbags is staggering.

But wait, there is more.

I found out they have been doing this for months. I sent the pictures of them to my district manager and he sent them to the region. I soon got an email from another DM saying the have been working their way north for months and have hit MANY store along the way. This is a way of life for these people.

Now, I get it. Times can be tough and yes there are times when stealing seems the “only” way. I have been there. Times when I was tempted to take a roll of toilet paper from work because I knew I was out at home, and could not buy it for another 2 days. Do the math, four people live with me, two days. Ramon is a staple at my house at times. Paycheck to paycheck is the normal, much to my regret. I just wrote a piece about my car and van issues. I know poor. I know what it is like to see the last can of food. I know the times when you have to beg family and friends for money to just make it one more week. I have been very blessed and am beyond grateful for the help people have provided for me. I have been on the receiving end of a church gift for a needy family. I have given to them but never thought I would have received one.

I know pain, I know sorrow, and I know poor. Yet in all that time, I didn’t steal. I know how hard times can be. I know it all too well. I feel for these people. I really do. One day it will catch up with them. I am sorry they did it. I now need to go calm myself down and hug a pony.

Life is fickle. It loves to play with me. I sometimes feel like a ball of yarn for a cat to play with. Life wouldn’t be life without a few curve balls but it sometimes just feel like it comes out of left field.

From a another stadium.

Both my cars are on the knife’s edge. It started off slow with my van’s tires needing replacing. They had just been replaced earlier this year so something else was wrong. I took it to get an alignment checked and lo and behold, more trouble. The front mounts are shot and need replacing. About a grand to replace. The van has over 215,000 miles on it so it becomes tricky because putting money into isn’t the best long term option.

Well, this makes life fun.

So I decide to take my car to get the alignment checked because of a bad shaking in the rear axle. I take it up there and SURPRISE more bad news. The back tires are bald and the alignment is off. They try and fix it, and once again it is never that simple. The rear mounts are bent and need replacing. Those only cost another 300 bucks to get replaced, then new tires, and another alignment. So because I like to live dangerously, I declined service because I am not made of money.

Now I am more than grateful as the van was given to me, and the car has kept my wife safe in 2 different accidents. I know and count my blessings. I have a job, a wonderful family who loves me. I have been hit with a lot of death this year, work troubles, and other personal events (just read this blog to find out about those). But through all this I have tried to push through with things to help me (PONIES!). I just feel failure because it doesn’t seem like I can keep all the balls in the air. I have been told I am a master juggler with things. Truth be told, I don’t know how it all stays up.

So with this, I have no hopeful ending. No triumph or happiness to end this post. Just me hugging ponies. I am my own worst critic and will drive myself to be the very best (Pokemon!). I always end up disappointing myself.

Hug a pony, my friends. I know I will.

Very few times at my job am I able to be vindicated in a conversation with a customer. I usually end up apologizing to them and doing what they ask and pray they don’t get mad. I have very little power in retail so I use what I have as best as I can.

I Had a husband and wife come in looking for an item for their daughter and knew exactly what they wanted. Their daughter gave them a list and they came prepared. Or so they thought.

The item they wanted doesn’t exist.

It was a combination of two items that are separate and where, at one time, together all in one system but was an original model that overheated and they stopped making them. The wife insisted that the newer model still did the job of 2 machines when in fact it did not. I explained to the customer that what they wanted did not exist and that I had the original model that did all that they wanted but the slimmer model was not able to do the work. Big surprise, they argued.

A lot.

They said they were sure that their daughter and her man (husband, boyfriend, guy friend?) knew what they were talking about and was I sure  I knew what I was talking about. I assured them that yes I knew what they wanted and that in fact I knew specifically that the model does not exist and yes I know their daughter was smart, but she is mistaken.

They called the daughter.

Through hushed whisper on the phone, they asked her if she was sure. She told them, yes she was right. She told them to go to a different store because I didn’t know what I was talking about. She claimed to have the newer model system that did everything she wanted and she wanted another.  Through the side of the phone conversation I heard, I could practically hear the “He is an idiot and doesn’t know anything” conversation happening.

Its OK, I am used to it.

They finally decided that they would bring in the system to show me that I was wrong and they were right. This is after thirty minutes of talking.

In a retail environment.

Half an hour, and they were going to take another 15 minutes to come up and prove me wrong.

I sighed.

So we wait for them to come in. I help other customers, make a phone call or two just to make sure I wasn’t forgetting to do some weird wild circumstance that I missed. I was agreed with on all fronts. Finally they come in. I check the system serial number and the settings and do my checks. I then check the system function that was in question.

Surprise, surprise, I was right.

The daughter and the guy were flabbergasted. How was I right? They were sure they checked the system. How was I right? Did I do it correctly? Was I sure? This was impossible. In all this the father broke in the conversation. He asked her to stop questioning me and that I was right to the fullest amount, and she needed to apologize to me.

Shocking, no?

The daughter mumbled something and they left without buying anything. The mom and dad came by, thanked me for my time and patience. They shock my hand and left.

I get very few wins in retail. I get even fewer apologizes. I chalk this up to a win.

Hug a pony my friends.