“You retard!”
3 minute read
March 12, 2004, 2:14 AM
Yes, when I came back up to the Service Desk after my lunch break, before I could even say hello to anyone, I’m greeted with a familiar voice saying, “You retard!”
It was Sis.
And returning a printer cartridge that I bought two weeks ago. Seems I bought the wrong one. I just followed the list that Dad gave me. So it’s not my fault.
Still, it was amusing to see Sis and her friends (Matt and Ben, both of whom I also like) at the Service Desk as I came back. And amusing is what my coworker asked of Sis: “Is he as hyper at home as he is at work?” She answered, “Worse!” All in all, I was amused. Plus I got to find out about their trip to New York, which I couldn’t partake in due to work.
Plus this was the first time Sis got to see me in my vest, since the last time she was at our store while I was working, I was on lunch and carrying it in my hand as I was ringing up my food on the self-checkout.
Still, amusing.
Continue reading…We went to Virginia Tech today, and so that was fun…
6 minute read
February 7, 2004, 12:03 AM
On my day off of work today, Mom and I went to Virginia Tech to visit Sis. Fun time it was. We did the typical visit-me-at-JMU thing from when I lived in Potomac Hall. We drive down. That’s different from the JMU part, because unlike going to JMU, where it’s a 30-40 minute drive, it’s two hours to Tech. This also makes it a much less frequent visit than it is for going to JMU.
But anyway, first we picked up Sis at her dorm. Mind you, her dorm is Lee Hall at Tech. The side of Lee Hall that faces the road is significantly lower than the road. So water pooled (about an inch or so deep, so this was a considerable amount of water) on the sidewalk in front of Lee. Yecch. And we find out how little that my sister has gotten to know the people she lives with. I’m waiting in the lobby for her, and these other girls pass through the lobby who presumably live there. This is also about the time I’m starting to wonder what’s taking her so long. I ask the girls, “Have you seen Ann Schumin anywhere?” Blank stares. Then Sis comes in before they left the room. I tell them, “That’s Ann Schumin!” They tell me they’ve never seen her before, and Sis tells me that they don’t live on her floor. To me, that’s no excuse. When I lived in a dorm, particularly freshman year, I was a little social butterfly. I got to know a lot of people in the dorm.
So anyway, the two of us waded through that puddle in front of her dorm, and then we get to the car, and go to the bookstore. Now the entire valley had a big ice storm with both sleet and freezing rain. So Tech was a bit icy. We go to Tech’s bookstore, which, as you’d expect, was filled with cheesy overpriced Tech merchandise. And Mom couldn’t find a “VT MOM” shirt. Meanwhile, Sis and I explored upstairs, to the “next upstairs”, which is a little convenience store, and then the “next next upstairs” where they sell the textbooks. Also highly overpriced. Sis showed me samples of some of the books she bought for this semester. Heavy. Also, the textbook area is a bit of a hazard, with it being “stepped”, and steps and ramps and dropoffs without railings in places. Can we say “lawsuit” if someone ever got hurt in there?
Categories: Family
It is VERY cold today!
< 1 minute read
January 10, 2004, 8:25 PM
According to Weatherbug, it is only seven degrees Fahrenheit (7°F) outside right now. What does that mean? COLD AS HELL.
And would you believe that at the beginning of this week, it was actually 70°F outside? Now it’s 7°F. Amazing.
And you can really tell the difference between a mere freezing point of 32°F and the cold of 7°F. One is just really cold. The other is cold AS HELL. Trust me. Putting the hell in it makes a difference. Now when someone says that they heated the hell out of it, you know what they mean.
Reminds me of my grandmother and her husband Bill. Grandma’s complaining that the cards weren’t very well shuffled. Bill, a retired marine, says, “I shuffled the hell out of them!” So Grandma says, “Well, the hell must have come back, dear.”
“Your little interviews make me want to shove my purse so far down your throat that it can only be retrieved with a really long hook.”
< 1 minute read
December 23, 2003, 12:50 AM
That’s what my sister says about those little “interviews” I do with Big Mavica. And all this time I thought that they were fun. It turns out that they think that it’s more like pulling teeth sans anesthesia.
And all this time I thought that they enjoyed them. After all, Mom enjoyed seeing herself say, “People will think you just got out of the home” on one from November 2002.
Meanwhile, remember how I said that Wal-Mart was a full-contact sport? Yeah, it still is, and it drove the point home when I accidentally hit myself in the head with the stick end of one of those horsie sticks. Thankfully, it was a plastic stick.
Giving the gift of cash…
2 minute read
December 22, 2003, 1:36 AM
And another thing… what has Christmas come to in our house? For me, at least, Christmas is really all about cash. Actually, reverse gifts to be more specific. I’m going shopping for my own gifts this year, getting them wrapped, and then getting reimbursed for them by the gift-giver. My parents don’t know specifically what they ended up getting me for Christmas, but I’ve taken it upon myself to act surprised nonetheless when I unwrap the gift that they bought me (by way of me).
Then my sister already knew what I wanted, that being a long-sleeved shirt from Wal-Mart. So since I work there, she said I can go get my gift and provide a receipt. I went and bought the shirt. And I’m still getting it gift-wrapped, though more on principle than anything else.
Speaking of gift-wrapping, when I bought my gift from Mom and Dad in Roanoke on Thursday and then had it gift wrapped at Valley View Mall and asked for a receipt, I got some very strange looks from the people working the gift-wrap station when I said I needed a receipt for the wrapping. The girl who was taking care of me said, “It’s cash-only,” to which I replied, “I still need a receipt.” They produced a receipt.
Categories: Bedroom remodel, Christmas, Family, Retail
And one last thing
< 1 minute read
November 28, 2003, 2:30 AM
It is up to my sister to come up with a better picture than my November 2003 picture for the splash page. She said, upon seeing it, “What are you doing to that poor dresser?” I will admit – after being told what it looks like, it does look like I’m humping the dresser, but I swear it was totally innocent. Ask Kathleen from LPCM, who took the picture, and she’ll tell you that it was innocent, too.
So my sister is in charge of December’s picture. She needs a little coaching on what I want in a picture. She wants to find a premade image of a buff guy totally naked except for a Santa hat covering his you-know-what, and photoshop my head onto it. I rejected it out of hand. No way on that one.
She still has to come up with something, and it had better be better than that last idea. I’m interested to see, myself…
Categories: Family, LPCM, Schumin Web meta
Thank goodness for calculators…
< 1 minute read
November 28, 2003, 2:09 AM
Many of you know that math is one of my weak points (and if you didn’t know that, you do now). So I always enjoy having a calculator along when I need to do a calculation. At Wal-Mart, it calculates change, and then I give it to the customer in the largest denominations that I can, if available. Makes life easier for them, plus it makes the smaller denominations in my till last longer.
My sister told me about what the screen said when she went to the FCUK (that’s “French Connection UK”) store at Pentagon City Mall near DC. Not only did these machines tell you how much change to give, but it also said how to give the change to the customer, stating like for $5.72 in change, to give one $5 bill, two quarters, two dimes, and two pennies. I found learning about this quite amusing, since I pride myself in giving out sensible, accurate change.
One random retail tip, though. Don’t put your fingers under the drawer just as it’s about to come out. I learned through personal experience that it hurts when that drawer pops open and your fingers are under it.
There are GIRLS in this house…
< 1 minute read
October 11, 2003, 11:04 PM
That’s right, there are GIRLS living here, and as such, my bathroom, which I’ve made into something truly manly, being completely functional in nature and nothing too artsy in there, has now been attacked by a fleet of girls, specifically my sister, and her roommate Megan. Now, all of a sudden, the hair and skin care inventory has expanded dramatically, from a single hairbrush (which I use to neaten my hair in the morning) to hair brushes, weird sprays, creams… all kinds of stuff. And that’s just the counter.
In my shower, there’s all order of weird poofy things, body wash (an expensive way to say “soap”), and razors. A razor, eh? I don’t trust myself around razors (thus why I use an electric), but there were no accidents.
The whole thing ends tomorrow, though, as the two of them go back to Virginia Tech. Let’s admit it, the two of them are great friends, and Sis and Megan are great people, but when they infringe on my bathroom, that’s pushing it.
However, to Megan’s credit, she did find my fire alarms quite interesting, though she didn’t recognize the fire alarm like the ones in her own dorm, since mine was mounted to a strobe plate, and the dorm’s are not.
Categories: Family
And he kept his hands off of it…
< 1 minute read
September 19, 2003, 6:13 PM
My father did keep his hands out of my camera. However, we found out that it does have to go back to the manufacturer to get fixed. Well, Big Mavica still works just fine, and that’s going to be a bit pricey to fix. But we’re going to do it, because it is a darn handy camera to have, and Dad uses it a lot for Autocross and such.
It is now time to place your bets
< 1 minute read
September 19, 2003, 12:33 PM
My father has asked for the manual for my small Mavica, in attempts to figure out what’s wrong with it. He says he might take the back off the camera.
Uh-oh.
Now I told him that since it’s my camera and he doesn’t know much about how digital cameras work inside, that he was prohibited from taking the back off of the thing, since I’d rather take it somewhere to get fixed by someone who knows what they are doing. But my father is my father. I think he’ll do what he wants.
So, that said, how long do you wager it will take before he opens it up?
Note: Bets will not be honored.
The joys of fortune cookies…
< 1 minute read
September 13, 2003, 12:33 AM
My sister came up from Virginia Tech for the weekend, and so we all went out for Chinese food at this place in Staunton. This restaurant is like the fourth place to be in that particular building – maybe this one will last.
Anyways, though, the restaurant was so-so, but the fortune cookies were fun. Usually when we have Chinese food, the joke always comes from Mom: “Drop the guy you’re with and meet me by the wonton.” This time, though, I started something different at the table that I learned at LPCM a few years ago.
My fortune was, “You will win success in whatever calling you adopt.”
The way I read it was, “You will win success in whatever calling you adopt in bed.”
Everyone else – Mom, Dad, and Sis, all read their fortunes that way. Made for some very amusing fortunes, needless to say. I’m amazed that the rest of the family went along with it, but it was fun.
Categories: Family
My computer, the Internet kiosk
< 1 minute read
July 30, 2003, 6:13 PM
Ever get that feeling that your computer is more like a public terminal? That’s how it seems my family takes my computer. It’s their little place to use the Internet, it seems. They even doodle on whatever paper I have laying around. So I’ll have something on my desk that I need to refer to or something, and then I’ll come back and find the phone number to someone I don’t even know scrawled on it.
All the more reason to finish college and move out…
The fun never ends…
< 1 minute read
July 26, 2003, 10:33 AM
The fun never ends when Mom’s college roommates are in town for the weekend. They came over for dinner last night, and everyone had lots of fun, but then while Sis and I were inside talking, the rest of them are outside, and are looking at the swing we have outside.
Little did anyone know it had deteriorated so much, because once someone sat on it, that was the end of the swing, as they soon were sitting on the ground because the swing gave way. Oops. No one was hurt, thankfully.
Still, that was an interesting evening, to say the least, since everyone took it humorously, as we all noted that the swing gave out much earlier than it should have (but then again, we have had a LOT of rain this summer).
Categories: Family