She's Sherrie

Belle Belle.  Clearly, her mom and dad must have named her Belle because of the Southern Belle old time beauty ideals.  And she probably was stunning if you scraped 30 layers of makeup off of her face.  She had that thick pancake makeup look.  She wore false eyelashes that looked like butterflies on her eyelids.  They mesmerized me.  She could almost hypnotize me with them.  Blink, blink, nod.  Her hair was leftover from the era of Laugh-In, if you know what that was.  It was teased high on her head and then smoothed into what they used to call French Curls.  She looked a lot like JoAnne Worley from Laugh-In. She was married and had no kids.  On her desk was a very expensive oil portrait from Olan Mills. The top photographer in Dallas.  The portrait was of her dog.  Really.  Having gone through a bad marriage, I guess would rather have a picture of a dog on my desk in preference to my husband.  It was a cute dog, one of those little yapping kinds of dogs, not big enough

Peggenstein The person named Peggy was absolutely the most vile person in our office.  She could have been retired but wanted to squeeze as much money into her retirement as she possibly could.   She was married to an old codger that appeared to be a clone of herself.  I guess that was why they were married.  They had no kids, no pets, just the 2 of them. Peggy was a tightwad, a cheapskate, and a selfish person.  She was the main troublemaker.  She had a big mouth and said whatever she wanted to say.  Her justification was that she had worked at the company so long that they wouldn’t dare fire her because they would have to pay too much termination pay to get rid of her.  So she got away with murder. Her job was sorting the mail.  Big whoop, the easiest job in the office.  She probably couldn’t or wouldn’t work where she had to actually use her brain.  You would have thought that her job as Chief Executive Officer the way she talked to people and bossed them around.  And

It's hard for me to write my normal type of post today.  I can't concentrate on the past.  The slaughter in Orlando, Florida, yesterday is in my head.  Reading and hearing the typical bullshit about "guns don't kill people" enrages me every time I hear it.  I am so sick and tired of the arguments about gun control.  It shouldn't even be an argument.  Our country is a cesspool of guns and nuts that want to use them or irresponsible people who think if you tell a child, a gun is bad or not touch them, they won't.  That isn't being responsible.  And being irresponsible and having death or severe injury resulting from a child getting access to a gun makes you an accessory to manslaughter or attempted manslaughter.  Why are we the only civilized country in the world to have lax gun control laws? Fool that I am, I thought that the young children's massacre at Sandy Hook might encourage people to rethink our gun laws.  We tried, but the powerful, money-

Plain Jane 1974!!!  Happy New Year!  I was going to make this a great year for myself and my kids.  I wasn't expecting miracles, I wasn't asking for help from anyone, I wasn't looking for sympathy from anyone, I wasn't asking for advice.  I was just going to do this single mom thing the best that I could.  All I needed to do was work through January, and I could escape to my own place.  My very own place where it would be quieter, where I would not have anyone undermining my authority with the kids, I wouldn't be answering to anyone, we could do whatever I wanted when I wanted.  I had waited for this escape for a while, and I had earned it in tears and bruises and bad memories. But there were those awful people that I worked with.  I was just going to have to make the best of it.  One of the worst people in the office sat right behind me.  She was a short, overweight, unattractive, old maid with a whiskey voice.  I could feel her eyes on me all day long.  We h

On December 27. 1973, I started working for Southwestern Bell.  Your hiring date or your "Service Date," the phone company term, is significant.  Basically, your seniority date and almost every option you have afforded to you are done by that date.  Vacation election, lunch and break selection, overtime, transferring to another department and layoffs, are all awarded by seniority.  If you don't know anything else, you will know that date. I showed up for work the first day about 30 minutes early, something that I have done ever since beginning work on that day.  I went up to the floor I was reporting to and entered the office, and nobody was there.  There were two chairs in the front part of the office, a reception area, so I sat there and waited for the supervisor.  People started drifting in the door, each one eyeballing me and each one ignoring me.  At about 7:50, the receptionist showed up and asked me who I was.  Gee, it was nice to be expected.  She said the s

Strong Women Soon, it would be the end of 1973.  I was recuperating from my surgery at my mom's place and going crazy.  Turmoil was the name of the game at her place.  She and my brother talked loud; even if you ssshd them, the volume level would still be louder than a normal person's speaking voice.  And my brother talked incessantly, as in he never shut his mouth.  You couldn't watch television and know what was going on because of the blabbering.  I'm surprised that my eyes didn't stay rolled up in my head permanently.  Add the voices of two toddlers fighting over toys or just fighting.  And the dog barking.  There is no other way to say it; it just sucked being there. I was getting disability insurance from my employer while I was off.  They were nice enough to keep me on the payroll so that the insurance would pay for my time off.  I had six weeks of coverage, and then they would take me off the payroll.  I didn't tell anyone that I was getting th

Mike came to the hospital the next day.  I had plenty of time to think about things, and I had made my decision.  When he sat down, he asked me if I was mad at him.  He wasn't going to get the best of me; he wasn't going to come there and ditch me like he thought he was going to do.  I asked him if he had talked to anyone from my job.  He said he had and then told me about my job.  I told him that I didn't care; I had other things to worry about.  I told him I would be getting out of the hospital in a few days and that when I did that, I would not be going back home.  I told him to pack all of the kid's things and mine and take them to my mom's house before I was released.  I told him that I would get my uncle to help him if he needed it.  His mouth was just hanging open, and his face was red, and his eyes were watery.  Was he acting like he cared?  Probably just acting; more than likely, he was just upset that I was the one who got to give the breakup speech.  I to