Work

I am reclaiming this blog as a way for me to deal with the aches and pains of what I do day in and day out. I never bring up in conversation what happens at work, because frankly nobody wants to hear about an old obese woman that is so lazy, she refuses to wipe her own ass. So this is my outlet, my soapbox, my therapist, my whipping boy. This is my way of putting out into the open the things I can never say aloud, even if I am just talking to myself.

One of the biggest sources of stress is a lady I will refer to from here on, as Mrs. Sweets. Mrs. Sweets is a picture of health as far as mobility is concerned. She exercises everyday, she eats regularly (if you a part of the medical community you'll know how astounding it is to hear about someone in their 90's), and is determined to do whatever she can phisically still perform. Her issue is that she is legally blind and has a terrible attitude about life. Her MR says she is also hard of hearing but I personally think that she is selectively hard of hearing. I've yelled things into her ear that she will still ask me to repeat, but then she will hear me mumble something under my breath. She acts as if she is the last of her clan (for all I know she could be) with a "woe is me" hallo she wears in every expression. This is the underlying problem. The problem I tend to have with her is that she is incapible of understanding that I am not a servant. I have twenty or so other people I have to care for, I don't have time to set her alarm clock, or hang her drapes, or sit in her room and listen to her weep about how she can't find the angel figurine you bought for three dollars at target. She is legally blind, and on top of that a pack rat. This combination is very disruptive to me, because whenever anything comes up missing, it has been stolen. Never mind that the thought of stealing an empty antique bottle of Canadian Mist is laughable, someone had to have taken it.

She is always coming back from a junk store like big lots with bags of shit. New clocks, new fake plants, more easy storage containers to further complicate and convolute her living space. Everything has a place, everything has a story. Even if the item is so far removed from the actual memory, it has sentimental value. The worst I was witness to was when she was convinced that someone had stolen her"Giving Angel" figure. This is the same figure I mentioned above. The story (condensed, this story in its full elaborated form took twenty minutes of my valuable time) was about how her son had found an old car for a friend of the family and gave it to him. So she got the angel as a token to stand next to his picture. That's it. A mass manufactured piece of plastic and polyester. The damn thing wasn't even a traditional piece, she bought it this past year. But to hear her moan and cry about it, you would think that the tiny guardian contained the memory itself.

I suspect that most of the hoarding stems from loosing her husband about two years back. This coupled with the loss of her son has left her a bit suicidal. Not normal suicidal, catholic suicidal. Let me explain: you still want to die, but for one you would actually do anything about it, and two instead of saying "Gee I want to kill myself" you say an equally damning statement such as "I don't know why The Lord doesn't go a head and take me home".