Today was one of those days where my mind & body was on overload. I had to work a 10 hour shift. I work in retail & it’s the final countdown until Christmas. One can only imagine the madness of working with all of the  happy holiday shoppers who are approaching panic mode. All day long the phone was ringing off the hook. People were calling the store wanting to know if we still had any of the bath towels available that were advertised in our sales ad. I had to paste on my phony smile & answer the phone with my phony pleasant work voice. I let the callers know that we have several in stock & I doubted that we would be running out anytime soon. In reality, I wanted to respond by saying that we had about 10,000 towels in the store & I didn’t think we would be running out anytime soon.

People were racing  & ramming their carts into each other to get in line at the check out lane. It was pure mayhem! I thought for sure I was going to have to stop a cat fight as two women clawed their way to my checkout lane. Then, I had to run outside without my coat on in the sub zero temperatures to bring in all the carts that were scattered in the parking lot. Some woman came inches from running me over with her car. I couldn’t help but to think that I wasn’t being paid enough to be dealing with such madness. Then I snapped back to reality & realized that with the high unemployment rate I really am fortunate to have a job at all. I managed to finish out my shift and couldn’t wait to get home to a hot meal & a nice hot bubble bath.

 As I was walking to my car, my cell phone rang. I was no longer on the clock & not only took off my tricked out name tag but, also wiped that phony smile off my face. I was exhausted!!! It was my boyfriend calling to ask what I was planning on cooking for dinner. He’s been off work since last Thursday because his job has slowed down. My only response to him was “you have to be joking”. He wasn’t joking, he really thought I was coming home to cook dinner after I had just spent the past 10 hours working in what I would consider to be hell on earth. He spent the entire day laying on the couch watching cartoons & napping. Through out the day, somewhere in my thoughts I had a fantasy that I would come home to find a steaming hot bubble bath waiting for me. I thought I would walk in the door to the smell of a nice warm meal cooking. I would have been happy with a frozen dinner. As my boyfriend & I continued to argue over who was cooking dinner I rolled down the car window & chucked my cell phone out the window. I have to admit that a strong feeling of peace ran through my body as I felt the cell phone slip out of my hand,