No bees were harmed in the making of this blog!

I’ve mentioned this before, so obviously, I’m trying to get a point across. I hate to sweep. I do think it is a necessary evil and I like the way swept floors look, but I hate doing it. I think it makes a nice punishment, and come to think of it, I remember, some of the times I was being punished during basketball practice in high school, instead of running, I faintly recall having to push that long broom up and down the court, as it teetered and tottered sideways, impossible with that dirty thing to really establish any kind of level of cleanliness. Basically it was a form of torture…and it worked, because I hate it to this day.

Also, Starbucks is beginning to spoil me as far as cleaning is going. For example, as far as sweeping, the dustpan is attached to a long handle, so that we don’t even have to bend down to pick up the dust and trash. I love that, and I want one for my house now. At home, I get all the dust into a neat, little pile, ready to be picked up, and I just stand there and stare at my short-handled, sorry-excuse-for-a-dustpan…and it’s like a game of chicken, me looking back and forth between the pile of dust and dustpan…a standoff…until I finally give in and bend over to pick it up. I hate losing, but I hate having dirty floors more!

The other thing Starbucks has is premixed water and soap, so that when we’re washing dishes, we just fill the sink with the water and the soap is already in it. It’s like that for the mop bucket, the sanitizer sink, and a lot of the other cleaning supplies. I decided it would be amazing if my shower was like that and all I had to do was push a little button to dispense shampoo, conditioner, or body wash in small increments into the spray of the water. Anyway, just an idea for another invention, for those of you keeping track, that’s three inventions so far in the process of my whole blog. Three inventions and two book ideas. I need to quit my day job and start patenting this stuff.

So, I had class the other night after work. It was amazing and interesting, and I can already tell it’s going to be a great semester. I’ll write more about that later.

The last couple days that I have worked, a problem has occurred. The presence of bees. I tried my best to think of them as fuzzy little pollenaters. I even tried remembering that little bee character that Tom Hanks voiced in the cartoon. But, try as I might, all I could picture was this swarm of stinging, angry, aggressive killers of Macaulay Culkin from My Girl. The bees are everywhere, around the trash cans, around the door, around the outdoor tables… And let me say something about bees- they aren’t one of those animals that your parents tell you, “They are more scared of you than you are of them…” Because these bees sure weren’t scared of me. These bees just attack harder when I swung my arms and legs wildly. I found what works best is to yell. I think the sound waves shake them up, because when I was screaming (as I was being mauled from every direction), they dissipated immediately. So, of course, I was left standing there, screaming at nothing with my arms and legs flailing…officially weird, and definitely not a great “welcome” sight for people walking up to come get coffee.

The funny part of this story is that when a guy noticed me doing this crazy dance screaming and yelling, he came over and started jumping around, too. Haha. I looked at him and said, “okay, funny guy, there WERE like 400 bees over here flying around…” (well, maybe not 400 but those 3 bees were flying really fast, so it looked like there were more…) and then another, older guy that was sitting at a nearby table said, “I remember once, a movie about a boy that was killed by bees because he was allergic…” and I told him, “You’re thinking of My Girl…” and the younger guy said, “That was a great soundtrack…” and I said, “yeah…” and we all stared off into space, remembering what a great soundtrack that was…until a bee landed on the arm of the younger guy and he started screaming like a girl…

Well, hopefully, on my days off, someone else takes care of the bees and I won’t have to deal with them when I get back. Alls well that ends well.