Addicted to crack

I have never done drugs.

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(Well, that "one time, at band camp", but I puked and never touched it since)

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but I think I know a little about what being addicted to crack must feel like...

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You see, the (real) reason I've been neglecting this blog, and the reason I've had to cancel barbeques with friends, miss a recent 'girl night out' and become a night owl,

is because I have a big, dark, embarrassing secret.
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Like all addictions, everything starts out very small at first. You tell yourself that you're not hurting anyone , and everything is okay 'in moderation'.

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Gradually, and innocently enough, your intervals between get a little closer, and closer until you start lying to others about how often 'it' happens.

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I have been lying to my husband for about 3 weeks. I am downplaying the symptoms and I am finding ways to hide the fact that I have a problem.

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I've been really struggling with how I could tell you this gently, yet recently, I feel that I need to un-burden myself:

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I am a "in the closet" BIG BROTHER nut ...

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(Yes, the reality show. Stop rolling your eyes!)

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More than just a regular viewer. I am a secret BIG BROTHER fanatic.
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I am absolutly addicted to anything to do with this reality show. I know, I know, you think it's disgusting right?

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But innocent?

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Yeah well, it started out like that.

And then, I went online and started google-ing all things Big Brother. Then, I joint BIG BROTHER chat groups. But the "out of control" started when I found this blog.

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It basically updates me 3 or 4 times a day to what is going on in the big brother house. You see, the author of this blog has the LIVE internet feeds that are on 24 hours a day!

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And she has nothing else to do with her day then to update, me, the reader as to what is happening in that BIG BROTHER house as it happens.

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She even stays awake at night during those long endurance competitions and gives hourly updates. WITH VIDEO, people!!

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Now that is committment, my friends.

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I find myself envious of her resources...

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Never mind that I would probably have to quit my job just so I could stay at home and watch the live feeds all day.

I think that would probably push me further in the downward spiral than I already am..

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But I've realized I had a problem towards the end of last week. I had started to suspect it for a few days, ever since I've been 'mis-counting' the times I frequented this blog, when JP asked...

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He knows I am online ALL the time reading about it, but he gives me the benefit of the doubt. When he asked how many times, I said TWO.

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(in reality, you'd have to add another zero to that digit, and that would probably be more of an accurate description of my past time)

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I tried to stop and I can't.

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There are no self help groups out there available for BIG BROTHER fanatics, I already looked.

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Just more weirdos like me, who encourage this behaviour. I have a whole new group of 'friends' who I discuss the BIG BROTHER show and strategy at length with, every evening.

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Each move of the houseguest gets scrutinized and then taken apart by us geeks.

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Oh yeah, it's THAT disturbing. (are you cringing?)

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More than once I've logged on after JP went to bed, in the bathroom, to find out what is going on....

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DON'T JUDGE ME, it's a sickness!!

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I figure since the finale is on April 27th, and the live feeds will abruptly stop after that point, I need to find a way to wean myself off slowly.

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But what will I do with all that extra spare time?

I'll have to go out again...and see things.

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I'll talk to real live people, not only chat group Big Brother weirdos. Will I have anything in common with 'normal' people?

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I'll even have time for sex again....the possibilities are endless.

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I guess, in order to move forward, like with all good programs, you have to admit that you have a problem. Apparantly after that, it all takes care of itself.

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And they'll never let me watch another reality show again.

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*Sigh*

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Okay, here it goes:

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My name is Michelle and I addicted to BIG BROTHER.

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Now if I could just find a sponsor....

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You will never believe what I've done... I am shocked at my behavior ... just shocked!!

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I went out and bought ... another journal. And have been writing in it...with a pen.

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Yes, writing on it with a pen...blaspheme...or blogspheme!

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And I have noticed something. My handwriting is horrific, I can't read a damn word I wrote. Well, that isn't entirely true. I can read a it a bit, but I noticed I have this annoying habbit of skipping letters then going back and filling them in badly.

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I'm embarrassed by my penmanship, and I didn't realize how badly it's gotten...certainly a case of losing something not used!

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Come to think of it, I just realized I haven't written a letter (and mailed it out) in almost a decade. It's always email, text, phone, or msn.

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The only time I ever handwrite anymore is on excuse notes for my kids' school. And even then, I ask my kids to write them and I just sign the dotted line.

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Just curious, is there anyone left reading this blog, after I've abandoned it for 3 weeks?

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Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

However weird you are, this is weirder

So, I'm googling Scientology.

Why? Because it's wednesday night and I've got nothing better to do. (that's not really the point here)

Well, of course I immediatly wonder if, I too, could become a couch-jumping wacko. So I dig a little deeper. Ah, a questionaire. Perfect. (These are actual questions from the Church of Scientology 's "Sec Whole Track" questionaire. No lying.)

1. Have you ever driven anyone insane? Most likely. Ask my husband. Or my mother.

2. Have you ever killed the wrong person? Um, it's ok if I killed the right person?

3. Is anybody looking for you? Nobody good.

4. Have you ever set a poor example? Nope. I only teach my kids to hit when no one is looking.

5. Did you come to earth for evil purposes? Um, did you?

6. Are you in hiding? Usually.

7. Have you systematically set up mysteries? Yes. It's always a mystery to me how I never have any money left over.

8. Have you ever made a practice of confusing people? Do I count?

9. Have you ever gone crazy? Gone? I'm still there...I can't find my way back.

10. Have you ever sought to persuade someone of your insanity? Actually yes. Back in the day, I had quite a few admirers who could not take no for an answer. So I tried to act even crazier than I am, to scare them off. But the crazier I acted, the more they wanted me. Go figure.

11. Have you ever deserted or betrayed a great leader? Well, we haven't had one in a while, so I"ll go with ...no.

12. Have you ever smothered a baby? No. Never even thought about it. My kids are awesome.

13. Do you deserve to have any friends? Of course I do. I'm super fun.

14. Have you ever castrated anyone? Not yet. But I've thought about castrating some of the boys in question 10.

15. Do you deserve to be enslaved? Um, no. Oh wait, will it be by one of my A-List guys?

16. Have you ever tried to make the physical universe less real? Huh? I don't get this one. Oh, are you talking about drinking, cause in that case, yes.

17. Have you ever zapped anyone? No. I have no zapper gun thing-y. Can I get one of those from you?

18. Have you ever had a body with a veneral disease? As far as I know this is the only body I've had, and it's clean.

SO...you think I can get in? Well, if not, there's always Kaballah.

Good samaritans or suckers?

Have you ever had something happen to you that was so ridiculous that the only logical thought in your head was "I'm so blogging this!"

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Last weekend started out like any other. In fact, we thought it would be better than most, since some family friends of ours called us and told us that they've decided to buy new furniture and are getting rid of their gently used leather couch, loveseat and lazychair. Would we want them?

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Since we've been looking to update our couch, and their leather couch had a

hide-a-bed in it, we said "HELL YA!"

We've been meaning to update our furniture, and had agreed on buying a couch with a hide-a-bed next time. It seemed that our friends offer was our lucky day.

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Alas, it's wasn't that simple. These people lived about an hour away and we'd need to rent a moving truck to fit it all in. After doing the math, we came to the conclusion that it'd be worth paying for the rental in order to receive such quality furniture for free.

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At the rental place the employee pissed me off right away. He took all my I.D's, along with a strand of my hair for DNA and a urine sample. Then he proceeded to 'authorize' my credit card for $300... (rental was just $100!) in case I got a speeding ticket while I had the truck.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I get a speeding ticket in someone else's truck, I am still the one paying for the ticket, not the owner of the truck. I tried to argue this point and some lady behind me in line who really wanted to get on my last nerve, butt in and said 'they're just doing their job, it's their policy to authorize for that".

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I thanked her for being so helpful and jumping in. My eyes must have told a different story 'cause she backed right up.

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Then, the employee of the month, takes his clipboard and starts going outside with it. He inspects the truck announces that there are no damages to it and that it'll be inspected again upon it's return. So, I went outside and started taking pictures of all the dents and scratches with my cellphone.

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Dude's got a clipboard, and looked all official, so I figured I could take pictures, while loudly announcing each scratch I found.

(Ya don't think that was childish of me, do ya?)

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The cow, I mean the helpful lady inside, was rolling her eyes at me through the glass.

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We made it to our destination, where the leather gifts were already neatly stacked outside. I was so exited, they were a beautiful hunter green colour. We backed up in the driveway, and I hopped out.

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Good thing I was holding on to the back door as I jumped out or I would've fallen on my ass right there.

It was like a bad movie...All I could say is "no no no" and shake my head.

JP followed me and I just stared and pointed.
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I am not going to pretend that I am not a snob, because I most certainly am. I like nice things. I don't put crap in my house.

If that crap is being given away for free, it's still crap and I don't want it.

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No wonder they left the shit outside.

They probably had it out there the entire winter and nobody took it.
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The couches were dirty, scratched, dis-colored, and just all around nasty. I couldn't believe my eyes. Where the hell did these people think I lived, in the ghetto of suburbia? I wouldn't be caught dead with those pieces in my house.

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So now, we're an hour away from home, with an empty rental truck and items we don't want in front of us. JP suggests we just load them in, and talk about it on the way home. So, he loaded them in by himself as I cussed like a sailor and we drove back.
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Once we got home, we moved our couch out of the way, and figured we'd at least try to bring the one couch in (with the hide-a-bed) and see if it would look better once inside. We unloaded the stuff, and once out of the truck, that same wave of disgust came over me when I saw it. No way am I putting this in my house.

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Jp loaded it all back in the truck and we put our old couch back. Now we had to go get rid of these items somewhere. We went to a couple of thrift stores. One was not accepting donations on sunday, the other was full. At this point we're just driving around looking for someone who'll take them.

(bare in mind we're being charged by the kilometer as we're driving)
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Never one to be classy and composed in situations like this, I cursed and swore the entire time. (Oh, yeah, I'm a treat to hang out with when things don't go my way)

We decide we should go to the dump and 'recycle' this garbage. We go in, we wait in line, we pay an arm and a leg (they charge by weight) and then we leave. Of course, JP unloaded the entire truck alone

again, while I took pictures documenting this catastrophy for you guys.

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these pictures don't truly show the awful state of the rips and tears, in fact they look ok in the photos.
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By this point we've spent over $150 (including milage, gas, truck rental and 'recycling fee') and 5 hours of our sunday afternoon taking out other people's trash.

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Once we got back into our own vehicle, after the rental truck was returned, we looked at each other and laughed.

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Somehow, it's hard not to feel like total suckers.

Dumb ways to make money

Last night there was a hockey game in town and some joker who got called out of the crowd had his dream come true. There was a contest, and he had 25 seconds on the clock, to shoot the puck in the net a minimum 15 out of 20 times (further away for each shot).

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Joker-boy apparantly is a secret NHL wannabe, because he scored the required shots on net and for his 25 seconds got himself not only a brand new 2008 vehicle, but also, (are you ready for this?)

$1,000000 !!!

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That is 6 zeros people!

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1 Million dollars for doing fuck-all.

How do I sign up for that? Do I need to go on unemployment insurance and play street hockey in the back of my house all day? Would that help?

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Perhaps I need to go and buy a coffee at the Tim Horton's down the street. They are having a millionaire contest too. All you have to do is "Roll up the Rim to Win" ~(name of actual contest)~ You drink, you roll up the rim of your paper cup and voila, you can win the riches of your dreams.

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Since when does it take no skill or effort to become rich? Oh yeah, I know, they have that skill testing question : How much is 19 + 5? Calculator included.

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Seriously though. I'm really tired of people becoming rich (or famous for that matter) for nothing at all.

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Let Paris Hilton lead the way!

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We're enabling people every day to be lazy and reward them for it too. Damn squeegee kids at every red light with last night's dirty bathwater.

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"Hey miss - want me to clean your windows ?" No you freak, step away from my car.

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Clearly, I must have a stick stuck up my you know what, I know. But I hate this type of behaviour.

You know what else I hate? Giving money to young people in designer sneakers holding up signs that say:

"Homeless and hungry".

How are you homeless? Didn't you just get out of that soccer mom's van over there?

What the hell is wrong with you!

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When I walk the streets of Vancouver (In a totally non-hooker type of way) I realize that we have used every excuse in the book not to work.

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People have signs that say "Will work for food", but then turn up their noses at my mystery meat sandwhich.

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One lady, who did in fact look homeless, had a thousand piercings in her face. It was hot outside and she was begging for money for food as well. I think someone offered her some water, but it just spilled out of all the holes and she was right back at square one.

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Last weekend there was a bum with a sign that read: "Stranded here from planet Zuxlu. Need money to fix my spaceship. Please help"

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Well, I did give to him.

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Dude was stuck here.

GREAT NEWS

I got it!!

*doing happy snoopy dance*

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I got the job I was hoping for. I'm so excited, the new boss called me today and even offered the compensation that I asked for. It's 8 minutes away from my house, and the hours are great. Whoot!

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I gave 2 weeks notice today and my boss' jaw dropped. He didn't see it coming. He kept saying that if it doesn't work out I could come back, bla bla bla. Too late buddy, get used to it.

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So, today I found out my girlfriend and her husband want to vacation with JP and I next January. We have fun with them, they are good couple friends of ours, but on holidays together?

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How does that work?
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I think we're now officially old, if we're considering vacationing with another couple. I can just see it now, me and the other mrs. scrapbooking while the men play the wii.

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What kind of vacationing is that? How about the hot vacation sex? You can't have any hanky panky when you know your friends are reading the bible in the next room!

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(they're the good church going kind of couple that JP and I just aren't)

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And I'm sure they won't want to see us skinny dipping in the pool at night. Or watch us rent dirty movies at night.

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Sigh.

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So much to consider.

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Then, comes the decision of finding somewhere where 4 people agree to go to. Jp and I like the sun, so we'll go anywhere with hot climate. We're beach whores.

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However our friends are more the 'let's go for an all day hike' type of people. We love them, but we get tired just looking at them.

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I suppose it's nice they asked. Gosh darn it, people like us.

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I don't know about you all but we take being on vacation pretty seriously. We do mostly nothing. And we like it that way.

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We sleep in, eat breakfast in bed, scratch a little, then get tired again.

Oh yeah, we're a hoot to hang with. Do we really want to subject our friends to that?

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There go our game nights when we get back home.

Job hunting

I have been on my blog a few times, ready to write and just too exhausted to do so.

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My grandpa died on Feb 12 and i've been doing family stuff. The kids were confused and I had to answer a hundred questions about death and what happens after. I wasn't properly prepared for it all, and all of a sudden I've been wondering if I should go back to church.

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We'll see.

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Other than that, for the past few weeks I've been job hunting. I've had 4 interviews, 2 job offers and 1 second follow up interview set up for next week as well. I'm tired. Tired of getting dressed up, of pawning my kids off to my mother's so I can go to the interviews, tired of answering 20 questions, tired of waiting and most tired of being 'on'.

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You see, my lovely 6 year old pain-in-the-butt of a daughter got sick. I mean the 'so sick we have to go to the hospital' type sick. I took 2 days off work. (I called in sick) I told my boss we were at the hospital with my daughter and I had to stay with her.

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Once I did return to work (Jp had to book time off as well, since I could not be taking any more days off from my work) my boss took me into the office and bluntly asked if I plan on working there any longer. It was like a ton of bricks just hit me. I said "yes" and asked why.
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He said he could not accept my 2 days off as "sick days" as it was not me that was sick, it was my child. (As he so elequantly put it, he does not give sick days for someone's children) So I should've lied then I guess...

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Anyway, I told him he could take from my vacation days. Bastard turned to me and said 'you need to give me notice to take vacation days'.

Asshole.
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So after that little fiasco, I threw my hands up in the end and said "cut me some slack". But he didn't. He told me I could choose to hand in my resignation or choose to stay but "promise it won't happen again." I didn't need to think about it. I looked him straight in the eye and said

"i have 2 small children, I guarantee that it'll happen again".

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I walked out of his office, shaken up and angry. I am still angry, even though it happened almost 2 weeks ago. Since then, he's talked to me again (no, not apologized, since that would mean he'd have to admit he was wrong) and said he just wanted to show me how important I was to his organization, that he needs me to run the joint and since I was gone for 2 days, that means there is no one there to take care of things.

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He told me it was a good thing, and to look at it as meaning I was a valuable memeber of his team.

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Well, it didn't work. I didn't take it like that. Ever since that day, I've been actively searching for new work. I've had a few interviews. Some were not enough money, some were not the hours I'm looking for, and so on. I got a great job offer at the police station down the road, but I had to turn in down because every second rotation would have been afternoon shift

(i want to be with my kids after 4pm so that didn't work for me)

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I know I sound picky, and I really don't think I am being that way. I am totally going to take a pay cut , I am prepared to, but I still want it to be something that I can be happy at not just any old job.
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So now you know, there you have it, that's what I've been doing since last time I blogged.

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Jp suggested staying where I'm at til the kids get sick again, and then just quit then. It would be smart of me, the hours are great for me (7am -3pm) and great money... but my damn pride won't let me.

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I can't back down.

I hate being in that office now and all I can think of is getting out of there.