Cars Have Owners, Pets Have Perents

The walk to PetSmart is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It's roughly the same distance from my apartment as CVS from my old house, which was the half way point of one of my walks. There are a few things different this time. First, there are very few sidewalks between here and Gratiot. That wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much ice and mud. I have to walk across two of the most heavily used expressway onramps in the area. That's a little nerve wracking because people around here drive like morons. Gratiot is easier to cross, but not much, especially since I'm far too impatient to use the cross signal.

Then there's the matter of my shoes. When Emma first told me I'd need a pair of black shoes and khakis I went to the Salvation Army because I didn't really have any money at the time. I ended up with a pair of what seem to be bowling shoes and really seemed to fit when I tried them. Of course, after walking around in them for 7 hours they started rubbing my toes raw and left a huge blister on my left ankle. As I tried to avoid putting pressure on my ankle I think I hurt my leg and misaligned my back or something. And don't even get me started about the mud.

Today wasn't really all that interesting. I signed a dozen papers that I'm not supposed to talk about because of the silly nondisclosure agreement. There's a workbook of about 70 pages that I've been working on. It asks some of the most ridiculous questions such as "What Advanced brand dog food would you suggest for the owner of a rottweiler with joint problems," and I don't know the dog foods off the top of my head, so I have to search all 38 brands of dog food that have a joint health formula. There were a few cat and small animal questions in there too, but the main focus is defiantly dog care.

Those 70 pages are just the basics. The girl training to be a cashier (Michelle) can stop at that. I can't because I'm going to be a pet care specialist. I have 6 more books to go through before I'm qualified to help anyone. Then they want to cross train me to do different stuff, which will take more studying and searching. But as long as they're paying me for studying, I guess I can't really complain that much. Also, I got to bag crickets today, which was an interesting experience.

Benefits. Even as a part time employee I'm eligible for them. The problem is that they'd be taking money out of my check and I can't really afford that at this point. I already (voluntarily) donate $1 of each check to needy animals. I know it's not that much and it's for a really good cause, but that's $52 a year that I could be buying things with. Like shoes so my feet don't hurt as much or a microphone so I can actually do something about becoming a filmmaker.

I do think I'll really enjoy the job once I get past training, though.