Monthly Archives: March 2012

I Heard It Through The Grapevine Gladys Knight and The Pips

Oh what a long strange day it’s been. It started out earlier than usual, with Bill kissing me goodbye in the morning around 6:30. He’s so sweet and gentle and I am just a wolf in bed. An hour later I got out of bed and got myself together. Not enough milk for cereal so it was just coffee and I was out the door.

I do not like the crowds at all and when it is so early in the morning I like them even less. One good thing is the fact that there are a lot more buses and the bus lane is open so I was at the bus terminal in no time at all. It did give me enough time to get an egg sandwich which was not as good as it is on weekends.

Each time I go in there they seem to be trying out a new short order cook. I can’t complain though since the egg sandwich was 25 cents cheaper than it usually is.

I got to the cigar shack which was dark and that meant that Zack wasn’t in yet. I started work almost immediately on getting the cigars back on the shelves now that the painters are done with their work. They did a good job though. Zack did make it in and the two of us were able to get most of the cigars back on the shelves, leaving the rest for myself, Thomas and Bradley to restock the shelves.

And Thomas and Bradley did come in, leaving Bradley to tell me that he wanted Thomas and me to do the rest of the work. We got it done, thanks to some regular customers. I had to run an errand at lunch time which coincided with an errand that needed to be done for the cigar shack.

Some keys needed to be made, and there seemed to be only one locksmith in Manhattan who would be able to do the job. Very special keys that are made in Germany. So I was able to do that, get my own errand done and I came back from lunch about 20 minutes later than usual, but it was excusable since it was cigar shack business.

I came back from lunch, Thomas was then headed to his lunch while Zack and Bradley were sequestered in the office having a very long meeting. The meeting it turned out was about a whole new bunch of rules which was sent out a short time before I was leaving and I was too busy giving Jerry Vale my sales since I achieved my own personal goal.

And I will not read the rules until Monday since I am off both Saturday and Sunday. No I do not do work related things on my time. You’re gonna have to pay me to do such things.

I asked Zack if I could leave at 7:00 instead of 7:30 and when he asked why, all I could say was my body clock is screwed up. It wasn’t good enough of an excuse so I stayed for a very long half hour, giving more sales to Jerry Vale. And right before I left there was Thomas getting a very serious call which made the atmosphere even more bleak than it was earlier.

He needs me to switch a day in April so he could attend some family thing. The catch was I would have to work a five day shift which is killer and no one wants to work a five day shift. I’m sure if I was able to sit in an office most of the day it would be no problem, but I am on my feet for 9 hours a day, so that would make it 45 hours of standing around selling cigars and whatnot.

Still, it is over, I am home and surprised I was able to write this much. Time to chill. Bill is driving to Atlantic City tonight and tomorrow, but at least I will be able to see him tomorrow morning at my leisure and not so wolf like.





01 Feeling Good

I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye

Home again. Another long day. Not all of them are long days, but this one started early. I had to be in the cigar shack by 10:30, a whole hour earlier than usual. I know, right? I was on time as usual. It was me and Zack for the first hour.

We were putting things back on the shelves that were removed last night so some painters could do some work in the walk in humidor. Things were slow most of the day, so far march has not proven to be as successful sales wise as it was in February. The cigar shack isn’t doing so bad but the numbers in February were much more impressive. Still we are meeting our quotas.

Thomas came in at 11:30 as expected and was not hung over like he was the day before. He was pretty funny sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. We were having a discussion on hate crimes and freedom of speech and I wasn’t quite in the mood for it, but Thomas being 25 years old and full of vim and vigor was in the mood.

While a person does have the right to yell fire in a crowded movie theater, that doesn’t mean that they should. Oh it was such a stupid discussion, but I had to laugh when Thomas mentioned that he was called a honky. I’m 25 years older than him and have lived through the times when honky was actually thrown about and never once was I called a honky.

In fact the only times I heard that word was on television, in the 1970’s and it was on Good Times. I don’t think Thomas grew up in some projects in Chicago in the 1970’s. Connecticut in the 1990’s is not the same thing as far as I know.

Thomas did great on sales today but Zack took the largest sales of all. I struggled in third place since no one I dealt with was looking for a humidor. Still, selling $2000 worth of cigars is not such a bad thing and breaking $2000 dollars satisfied my personal goal. Since I stayed later last night, Thomas stayed late tonight.

We took the cigars off the shelves again so the painters could finish their job tonight. I left at 8:30 tonight, leaving Jimmy Seltzer in the man cave with Jerry Vale who once again is doing the overnight shift. I walked down to the bus terminal like I used to, saved a couple of dollars and time which would have been spent waiting on the subway platform.

I figure once the weather gets warmer I will get back to doing that. Not breaking any records like I did last year, though it did take less than 19 minutes to get from point A to point B. I missed Bill at the bus terminal by a few minutes. He texted me from the bus he was on when I was a block away. Still it wasn’t so bad.

Now I am home. Picked out my suit for tomorrow as well as a green and black tie and my shamrock cufflinks. I won’t be working this weekend which is cool with me, and I won’t be heading into Manhattan for St. Patrick’s day, so I figure I will do my green Irish thing tomorrow.

Opening the store tomorrow and leaving earlier, a nice start to the weekend.



03 Move on