Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

So, before I started working at auto zone, I was pretty typical American and very overweight from working a desk job for about ten years. After two years of walking for eight hours a day, I’m down to a healthy weight and average shape for my age. Which is nice!

But while I was heavy, I got asked pretty frequently if I was pregnant. And it honestly used to make me really mad in the moment, but then I’d get over it and laugh about it like a week later. So, big deal but also not? People usually mean well, and it was always men asking in a thoughtless way, not ever other women being passive aggressive.

And while thoughtless harm is just as damaging as intentional harm, it’s (for me at least) a lot easier to forgive. I’ve caused a lot of thoughtless harm that I’ve had to apologize for over the years, so I definitely get accidentally hurting someone, and being genuinely sorry, willing to never do that thing again, and still not being forgiven. (No one owes you anything, ever, and when you forgive someone, you do it for yourself, not for them…just because you forgive doesn’t mean you forget, and saying sorry, genuinely, doesn’t mean you automatically get to have forgiveness)

So anyway, I lost a lot of weight (like more than 100 lbs, what with drinking water and walking 8 hours a day) and the pregnancy assumptions dropped right off.

But I’ve had this one deaf driver from another store (he picks shipments up from us) always scolding me about smoking and I finally figured out why. He thought I was pregnant or nursing (because of the shape and age of my body as a woman) and he’s not wrong but also my specific medical history is very clearly out of his wheelhouse.

It’s so odd to run into such a nice man, who means well…he spent about six months (seeing me three times a week) trying to lecture me about smoking…and again, this man is deaf, so our communication is all gestures and hand signals, and he’s one of the deaf that doesn’t care about what you think of his voice or vocalizing.

He does care about whatever food we have on display (my sister brought in banana bread and cookies on two separate occasions and he made sure he got his nummy yummies…Tbf my sis is a bamf when it comes to baking and she uses my employee discount as payment…)plus other opportunities where baked goods and yummy stuff was available for everyone. Always asks for a second helping to get him over the road, which…valid and fair.

Anyway, he’s been hassling me about smoking because he thinks I’m pregnant or have any children at all whatsoever. Which, I know what I look like, that’s not an unfair assumption, it’s just been two years since anyone made that assumption. So it surprised me.

All of this was figured out with very simple gestures and written notes, it was honestly bizarre to realize that he thought I was a physical mom the entire time and I’m just sitting here like “my work kids give me joy”

Farming is always going to be an interesting balance between making money, caring for your animals (ie giving them quality of life, not just food and water in an enclosed environment) and making sure that others understand what you are doing.

Random customer; hey, sorry but I gotta stink up your store.

Me; what I heard was Stick Up Your Store so my head whipped around really fast

And I’m thinking I’m going to be confronted with a gun but what is in front of me is a black man smelling his weed that he just bought from the dispensary.

So, as I’m dying of laughter and he’s showing me his mason card, and we’re both honestly having a good time on top of me apologizing for being a bit racist,

My actual favorite gas station attendant: cocks a .32 under the register and nods towards the parking lot

She started her day with finding out that the entire (billion dollar) company did not renew the registration stickers. The thing cops pull you over for.

Also, it’s really windy in our state. So windy that I’m absolutely terrified of the giant steel door, and poor work mom got everything blown across the parking lot. Literally totes strewn across the blacktop.

Then, there’s a giant accident on the major highway she uses. And she’s sympathetic, but also the accident makes her an hour and a half late. To every single delivery she’s ever had.

Mamma is having a bad fucking day.

So, she comes back to what she thinks is a good store. This is incorrect. We are, in fact, the laziest store she has ever seen. Which is fine, because honestly who fed her last? No seriously, someone needs to run to McDonald’s right the fuck now.

So we get mama fed. And honestly, we are talking about the hardest working person I have ever met. But I swear on my life, on every single thing I could possibly find holy….you get a little bit of food into a woman and it is a game changer.

My mom and I made veggie stuff. Mom had a shit ton of veggies come out of her garden, so today we mane ratatouille and zucchini meatloaf.

All of it tasted amazing, but did not look great. Also it was paleo chicken zucchini lasagna, but definitely vegan friendly. Just like. Omit the chicken. And cheese. But there is A Lot of it, so protein is kinda necessary? It makes an entire goddamn pan, unless you’re using it as a side for teenagers, add protein.

Also, when using zucchini as a substitute for noodles…noodles absorb moisture, zucchini says “bet, bitch” and proceeds to produce more moisture than you think you can handle.

My point is boil down the sauce a lot more than you think it needs.

So my mom and I get together about every week and cook together, which is great fun. Not great success, but but fun was had and the food might not be pretty but it was fun hanging out and cooking and chatting.

Here is a picture of the ratatouille, the paleo chicken zucchini lasagna got put in the oven before I snapped anything. We literally just watch one or three videos and try cooking them, it’s pretty fun.

My learning experience from making ratatouille is that all of the vegetables give off an immense amount of water, so the sauce that goes in the bottom of the dish needs to be pretty thick or the dish needs to be uncovered so that the water in the vegetables can bake off.

Zucchini lasagna was very good but honestly, again, these vegetables create a lot of water when cooked…it’s not a bad thing, you just need to be aware.

We added the excess sauce/liquid to the “harvest soup” my mom had going on the back burner the whole time. (Harvest soup in my family just means “I dumped all the veggies I didn’t know what to do with into a giant pot with some chicken stock and not nearly enough garlic” and it’s usually pretty good but again, not nearly enough garlic or onions…) usually you take the immersion blender or food processor to the cooled soup, but sometimes chunks are nice, especially if it’s thin and chunky at the same time….and needs some lentils or rice.

So we have an absolute grandma that is a part time driver at our store. She’s in her 60s, brings in donuts or homemade cookies/candy every other week or so, and is just a delight to work with. She’s friendly, kind, patient, will get up in someone’s face if they are being bad at their job.

And my absolute favorite joke is to go up to a person I think will get a kick out of it, holding my fist out. And usually I have to preface the joke with “it’s not a bug, or trash” after they realize I don’t want a fist bump. Then I stick my middle finger into the palm of their hand and tell them “it’s my last fuck to give. Use it wisely.”

This usually gets a laugh and “I’m dead” or “get outta here” or “goddamn it” or some variation.

Our grandma driver straight up pulls me into a hug and tells me “what a precious gift, honey, thank you so much!”

Me: *has a weird ass dream about my store manager roller blading through my neighborhood…feel the need to tell this poor man about said dream immediately upon arrival*

My poor boss: …was I at least good at roller blading?

Me: Yeah, you were doing the fancy spinning tricks, it was pretty dope. Or, well, I guess the kids say gas now? Maybe cooked. I’m not sure. Hey, Sam, sweetie, you’re 18, what do the kids say when they think something is cool?

Sam, who has worked with me for almost 2 years: …I’m not telling you, because you take the slang and deliberately use it wrong just to see us get mad.

Me: …yeah, valid. But that’s not a good attitude for getting free food from me, so…*makes the cough it up hand gesture*

Sam: …cooked. Where did you hide your chips?

Me: Under the desk in Hub, it’s cheddar and sour cream. Do not eat the entire bag in one sitting, you can have three handfuls!

Sam: *gives me the teenage boy I heard you wave as he walks away*

My gay as fuck boss: This science experiment is getting thrown away! (Tosses an old Tupperware into the trash as he continues to clean the fridge)

Me: wait, it’s actually a nice Tupperware, we can rinse it out and disinfect it.

This is actually really interesting and I honestly wish I had one that was English to Spanish…like Spanish has WAY MORE accents and turns of phrases, idioms, and whatnot than English depending on what part of the continent the person is from.

On the other hand, it points out what I/we sound like to the world. Compared to Britain, American accents slur quite a bit, and we don’t really think about how and why it happens. We’re 50 countries stacked in a trench coat, we can’t understand each other 50% of the time.

Me, sweeping up exactly three dead crickets with their legs ripped off and one dead moth with its wings clearly chewed on: honestly this is pretty tame.

Youngest sibling: NO! I want my furry baby to STOP bringing DEAD THINGS into my ROOM!!!!

Me:…you adopted a feral cat, that still has access to the outside, and expect her to NOT bring you presents? Just so we’re clear here.

Youngest sibling: I expect to not have live mice in my room that my baby is STILL HUNTING.

Me: child, you have a very drastic misconception of how feral cats like. Operate. In general.

Youngest sibling: Make. The DEAD ANIMALS. Stop. Happening.

Me: …YOU. Adopted. A feral fucking cat. She’s literally bringing you leftovers because she ate too much. She’s a prey animal, she’s going to toy with her food, you can’t fault her for being what she is. You remember when our family cat Norman (tbf to sib, cat was named after Norman Bates, and the name was apt) ate one of your chickens and you cried for about a week but dad and I told you to get over it? This is exactly like that. Cats are predators and they like to bring their kills home.

Youngest sibling; ok but dead mice in my closet, thats a thing.

Cooking with my mom is…an Experience. She can follow a recipe, I can follow a recipe…but when we’re together, joking around and goofing off, under the guise of baking…recipes do not get followed.

So the night started out with my mom having a shit ton of pumpkin from her garden to use, and we swung by the grocery store to get actual dairy products (she only keeps dairy products in the house for my dad) because cream cheese and pumpkin are symbiotic. My aunt/mom’s sister had given a really good recipe book specifically for pumpkin shit. We picked out three recipes, went shopping…we thought we were prepared.

First of all, it really helps if you read the entire directions before you start mixing ingredients. Especially when the recipe calls to mix eggs sugar and butter FIRST. Instead of assembling all of the dry and wet ingredients separately. Like we did. And then just dumping the pumpkin butter egg mixture into the flour and sugar and setting the mixer on mid.

We did sift the flour first. We understood and completed that step. And we understood that eggs can get tired if they are over beaten. So.

The cookie’s ended up being more like pancakes because I read the entire recipe out and forgot the flour because we were giggling about my siblings new kitten scratching the hell out of my neck (Zelda puppy came around the stairs too fast and little fur baby booked it over my shoulder like she was a bat at an Ozzy concert) and we were too impatient to actually let things cool down so the pumpkin bread fell apart on us completely.

My mom’s pumpkin cream cheese bunt cake was very much saved, because that was the thing that needed to go to the church group, and she layered the salvageable cookies into used whipped cream containers.

Me: *buys a family size bag of chicken nuggets and just…throws that whole ass bag in my lunch box for the day, because we have an air fryer in the break room*

Around the third hour of my shift, I’m hungry so I carefully space exactly 9 nuggets in the work air fryer (I washed it as best I could) and go try to help the next few customers while I wait for deliciousness to happen. I get my name shouted down the line, from the register closest to the break room. “Hey, your food is burning!”

So I have to literally tell the customer “I need to deal with the potential fire, I’ll be right back.”

Turns out it’s just something else (probably cheese, very distinct burnt smell) burning in the air fryer and stinking up half the store, my chikkie nugggies are perfectly cooked and tasty. I do not share them because I didn’t have time to wash brake pad dust off my hands and was just shoving them into my mouth while they were too hot and doing the mouth cooling breathing thing that makes you look like an idiot.

Anyway. After about 6 hours into my shift that I was asked to come in early for and stay late for…The customers finally stop piling in like it’s their last chance at to see Garth Brooks live, and we get a calm moment where I can go make some more chicken nuggets. Because I’m starving again and now there are 2 teenagers and a manager who legit hasn’t had a break in a while. So I pile some nuggies into the air fryer, walk away to help a few people, then wander back up the line with my clean napkin and clean hands.