Observations from BRU

As many of you may know, I work a few hours a week at Babies R Us for extra cash. Ireland was expensive, and I am still trying to pay for it. It’s whittling down slowly, but until I make more of a dent in it, I am slaving away in a crap job for crap pay.

Working there, however, I have learned a few things. People can be really stupid sometimes. Like this whole Bumbo recall. Bumbo had to recall their infant seats because stupid parents were leaving their kids unattended and sitting on kitchen counters or tables and the infants were wiggling out of them (they do not have a safety restraint system) and falling off the counter or table or whatnot. One child had actually fractured his skull in the fall. I really don’t see how it is Bumbo’s fault. We had one at the daycare, and I would have never left a child in that seat unattended. It’s not that the seat was faulty; it’s stupid parents not paying attention to their kids!

One of the greatest challenges in working there, however, is watching all of the happy married (and usually now pregnant) couples coming in. Not gonna lie, as I get older, it is getting to be one of the hardest things about the job. When I moved into my apartment in the park, that became one of the very few things I don’t like about living in the area. When I’m feeling down or depressed, watching the happy little couples strolling through the park, holding hand, pushing baby prams, having picnics, etc., just makes me want to sit on my front porch with a BB gun and shoot at them whenever they come near enough.

At the store, it’s even worse. Everyone is so freaking happy and glowing and crap that it makes me want to vomit. But what is the worst is some of the couples that do come in. There are these ladies that are so scary looking that they didn’t just get smacked by the ugly stick, they fell out of the tree and hit every branch on the way down. For example, this one person that came in the other day. From the neck up, this person resembled the late great Rich Mullins, only about 200 pounds heavier and with thinning hair in the front and in the back. From the neck down, this person was several pounds overweight, obese even. My coworker Katie and I had trouble even figuring out whether or not this person was a man or a woman. However, to my shock and dismay, this person was wearing a wedding ring set and carrying a purse (so we decided on female). But the depressing part of this was the realization that not only was she married, but someone had slept with her in order to produce a child.

And yet, I am still single and alone.

Today at church, Pastor Jeff talked about the parable of the vineyard workers (Matthew 20) and how envy can destroy your heart and cause lots of problems in your life. As I was thinking about that today, I can see how envy can be part of my problem. I want that happy life. I want to get married, have children and grow old with someone. How can I not but be envious when I see someone else living the life I so desperately want? I see people dating, getting married and starting families everywhere I go, and they make it seem so easy. It’s hard, especially for someone like me, not to be envious of something like that.

However, although I can admit to the envy part, I wonder if there isn’t something more behind it. I don’t think it’s all just envy. However, I don’t know what the other part of it is. If anyone has any insight into what it might be, let me know, so I can destroy it and move on with my life already!

I have a busy week ahead. Only a three day work week, which is good, yet bad in the sense that I have to get a week’s work done in just three days. I actually went in to work for a couple of hours this morning before hitting the 10:45 service at CHBC.