Real_AirCooledGirl

Since I rarely drink, an Arnold Palmer. The rare occasion I do drink, mead or dark beers such as Guinness.

She and I met at a Halloween party four years ago. I went as a hippie that night. She was Spidergirl. She moved around due to her work as a traveling occupational therapist at the time (her current school has since directly hired her), while I was a blue-haired, tatted-up woman behind the counter at a pharmacy in a small town in Slower Lower DE. The whole time wifey was moving around, we kept in touch. We reconnected after she moved back east two years ago. And we began dating last year. We did a courthouse wedding right after 4/20, then had a big ceremony with friends and family in June.

I used to work in restaurants. I didn't leave that scene so I could go back to it! And the second Rite Aid store I worked at was so low-volume (it was in a small town in DE) that the pharmacy hours were 9 to 6 on weekdays and closed on weekends. My wife works in a special needs school as an OT and works similar hours. Good luck getting that kind of work-life balance in a restaurant! I worked at three restaurants back in Delaware and they all closed after I left, while Rite Aid and a bookstore that I worked in long before that both closed while I was still there. Between when that bookstore closed in 2008 and my starting at Rite Aid in January 2022, I tried off and on to get out of the restaurant business. But for the longest time, nobody wanted to hire me. It's like they looked at my work history and said, "Oh, you worked most of your life in restaurants? FUCK YOU! STAY THERE!" They might as well have shoved their middle fingers right in my face! It made me feel like I wasn't allowed to do anything else. And eventually, you begin to believe it. Rite Aid was a lucky break for me, since they needed all the help they could get during COVID. By the time I started there, the vaccines were already available to ages 12 and up for several months. And it was also the first job I ever held where everybody there only knew me as my true self, not someone masquerading as some guy-looking person. Since you asked, I've mainly been looking on Indeed. Corporate announced a second bankruptcy (they went bankrupt before in 2023 because of opioid lawsuits) on Cinco de Mayo/Revenge of the Fifth. I already saw it coming by that point. Probably all of us Rite Aid people did. And toward the end, my boss had fucked off back to Thailand and retired. I still have her contact info, though, so she can give me a reference if needed. Ditto the other pharmacists and front-end staff I worked with. Funny thing about the weed part: Rite Aid stopped testing for weed during COVID. And we had two techs who would work stoned AND still be effective at their jobs. And this was in Delaware, where recreational bud has been legal for two years now. It was only this past August that they actually started recreational adult use sales, though. Meanwhile, it's been legal in D.C. and Maryland for several years now. Virginia, too, for the last two years, though they're still pussyfooting around with starting recreational sales. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised how many others among us rank-and-file staff were stoned on duty toward the end.

Smoke some weed and do whatever you want. It's YOUR day, YOUR spirit formation journey anniversary.

Out of the 30+ jobs I've applied to so far, one was at a museum in D.C., where my wife and I moved to. Like all the other job listings, they ghosted me. Been so frustrating trying to find a new job since Rite Aid went out of business. My store's last day was in June. Does nobody want to hire an ex-pharmacy tech? And it's not just pharmacy jobs I've applied to. Receptionist jobs, a paraprofessional gig at a special needs school, even a bookstore. They all ghosted me. And on top of that, everywhere I ever worked has closed. I often joke to my wife that I should get some low-level government job just so it closes.

Yeah, I kept my room generally clean when I was his age. And that smell would turn off ANYBODY.

From back in June of this year. I got married! We did a courthouse wedding in April, then had our big ceremony in June. And for our honeymoon, we spent the first half of August visiting Chicago (she has family out that way), Milwaukee, and St. Louis.

I made some pork tacos for my wife and I.