Heads up that this is going to be quite lengthy. Sorry for the wall of text, but, as you'll read, I had to get this out of my system.
Last night's / this morning's episode of, "Welcome To The Shitshow!" was entitled, "Welp... That Escalated Quickly."
So on my way to my housekeeping job - which I go to every evening before my overnight store job - I decided that since I left my place in time to catch the bus, and since I already had a day pass for going to my weekly therapy session yesterday morning, I might as well, since it'd be quicker than walking on foot to my friend's place.
Well, it's a damn good thing I was on that bus. Let this be proof that things happen for a reason. I got on my bus, took my seat at the front, since I'd just be getting off 2 stops down, at the other end of the street. The bus started moving when a guy, in suit and tie, walking in front of me was headed toward the back of the bus, to take his seat. The bus suddenly stopped, and the guy walking in front of where I was seated suddenly slipped and fell backward, and landed with a very loud thud on the bus floor. There was no time to react - his fall was instantaneous. I saw that he could barely move and called 911 from my smartphone immediately. He had said that his lower back was in major pain, but with a fall that loud and that hard, I wouldn't be surprised if doctors found that he had a moderate to major concussion.
Being an eyewitness to a horrible accident like this right in front of me, you can imagine that inside my head, I'm more than a little shaken about it. There was no way I could have known this was going to happen. His fall was instantaneous - the only way somebody could have prevented the man from falling backwards and hitting his back and head on the floor was to be standing immediately behind him, within personal space range, and catch him as he slid, thus breaking his fall. I was already sitting down in my bus seat to the man's left, as he walked down the center aisle.
After the bus driver signaled to his dispatch about what had just transpired, within 45 seconds of the accident, I immediately get on my cell and call 911 for help. The bus driver took written statements from myself and the 5 or 6 other people towards the back of the bus. I continue to remain seated until the ambulance got there. Sincere thanks to the Dallas EMTs who came. After seeing that the EMTs could take it from there, I got off the bus, so as not to be in the EMTs' way. I silently prayed to the stars above that this man would be OK. And then, I headed to my friends' place for my housekeeping job on foot, anyway.
I've been trying to tell myself all night that I really did do everything I could have possibly done to help him. I really hope he's going to be OK.
>> So then, I get to my store, after housekeeping. Turns out, they had a guest pharmacist from a sister store location come over and do last night's evening shift. She was an older African woman in her 50s. Well, after she got off at 10pm, and went out to her car, parked between us and the chicken restaurant next to us. Somebody had broken in the driver's side window and vandalized the car. So the police had to be called to the store. And it was her daughter's car that she'd borrowed to get to work in. I hope they catch the lowlife who did that.
>> So during the 3am or 4am hours, a regular who used to be work at my store came by, and was shopping. A separate, unrelated guy who is a semi-regular came by. The semi-regular is quite a troublesome guy - he has no social boundaries with other people. Once he starts talking to you, he doesn't stop. And any attempt by you to pull away from him, he interprets as rudeness - he doesn't get it that he's crossed another person's rightful social boundary, that they either want to stop listening to him, or just don't want to talk to him at all - which is their right to do so. He truly doesn't comprehend that interpersonal boundary with other people, and it comes across as either harassing, just plain creepy, or both.
After my overnight manager tells him to quit harassing the regular - that the other guy doesn't want to talk to him, and has the right not to - he starts getting belligerent and getting in my manager's face. Tensions escalate. I come over to see what was going on. I got sick of hearing him argue with my boss, so I say, "You know what? I think you should probably leave. Now." Then, he starts in on both me AND my manager. I turn around, walk off, and call 911 again on my smartphone, and they send a cop over. Unfortunately, he left before the cop got there, so we couldn't criminally "No Trespass" him. But he's now banned from our store, day or night. If he walks in, call the laws.
Compound all of that with a busy Saturday night in just customer foot traffic alone, my boss working out as much of the truck shipment from yesterday as he could at the back half of the store. I'm at the front of the store, taking care of customers, watching out for shoplifters, and
changing out every sale price tag in the store except for the cosmetics dept., because they handle their own, and it's ad change over night - the ending of last week's ad, and the start of this next week's ad.
What a night. It is nights like last night/this morning, that make me realize how badly I need a boyfriend - someone to come home to, to escape the horridness I see, sometimes.
