Hi!  It’s me!  Lily!  Lily the worker!!!

I went back to work today!  When I arrived the owner took me back to his office.  Well, it’s just a little cubbyhole with a bunch of papers and a computer, but it’s semi-private.  He told me he was happy to see me again and gave me a check!  It’s not a lot, but it’s mine!!!  Yay!!!  Now I have to go open an account and do all those adulty things that Sabby was telling me about!  Maybe Dave will help!  Insurance is expensive, though…  I guess we’ll see what happens.  Anyway, he gave me a check, and told me that if anything like that happens again, that I should defend myself and he’ll back me up, but please don’t do any more damage than absolutely necessary, either to his store or other people.

That’s fair!

But I hope it doesn’t happen again!  The owner said he’s never had that happen before, and he’s owned that store for years, so maybe it’s just a bad apple!  Or I’m just that cute!  Nah.  Bad apple.  I’m cute but he owns that.

I told him what I found out about knowing martial arts.  He shook his head.  “Lily,” he said, “you’re one of a kind.”

I grinned.  “I sure hope so. I’m not sure the world could take two of me!”

He laughed.  “I’m not sure the police department could take two of you, you’re sure keeping them busy!  Back to work, we’ve got customers.”

So I spent the day doot dooting on the cash register, and putting horrifically unhealthy stuff up on racks for people to guzzle down, and you know, I didn’t mind at all.  Maybe someday I’ll do something more interesting, but it’s a good job to start with, and I like it.  Dave tells me it pays astonishingly well too, I guess this is a good time to be entering the work force.  In some ways, anyway.

The customers are mostly nice too!  A couple of karens here and there, but my strategy of just pretending they didn’t say anything seems to work, and the owner steps in if they get too far out of line.  His attitude is “You get the respect you give”.  So while I’m supposed to be respectful first, if someone gets out of line, he just boots them.  He thinks I’m worth more than that customer.  He’s sooooo nice!!!  He expects a lot, but that’s fair.  He gives a lot, so I don’t mind.

If they say “I want to speak to your manager” (and one did today) I just think to myself “are you suuuuuuuuure?  Okay then!”  And boy, do they regret it!!!  Sometimes I catch him side-eyeing me when he’s dealing with a difficult customer.  But I know what he’s thinking.  “She could take that karen, should I let her?”  Haha!!

Oh and I told Sabby I wanted to give them something for taking care of me.  I think that’s the first time she’s ever yelled at me.  It was scary but so nice too!  She was offended that I’d want to give her money!  She said that she adopted me, and I’m her daughter, and hell will freeze over and politicians will do smart things before she takes one red cent from me, and don’t I forget it!  She was ranting like Claire Huxtable.  Then she hugged me and told me that being a daughter means that they take care of me.  I couldn’t help it!  I had to wipe tears away!  I love her so much!  I’m supposed to spend it on the car and driving school and a license and maybe even a pumpkin spice latte from the mermaid place!  I think I’ll at least buy her one of those and I don’t care if she’s offended!  I’ll tell her it’s a gift because I love her and to just drink it!  I bet she’d grumble and drink it and hug me with one of those big Sabby hugs.

Time to sleep!  School tomorrow!!!  And we’re learning so much!!!

Love you all!!! ❤️