Can you cut their heads off? That’s all I want to know.

Well, I wound up getting into work. Yay. Refused to drive — for which several of the other drivers started harassing me. That’s fine – part of the job – and I smirked at them when they came back from their runs complaining about how many times they’d spun out.

Actually, working inside was good for a few reasons. First, given the snow, we were very slow – which was a little surprising. Second, tips sucked. I don’t understand why people will order a pizza, commiserate with the driver “Wow, roads suck, you’re so brave to come out on a night like this!”, and then tip a dollar. All I’ll say is, it’s probably a good thing that Maryland has a very strict prohibition about carrying concealed weapons, because that’s enough to push someone to the brink of moider.

As the rush drivers and insiders got clocked out, Greg went on the road as the late driver, leaving just me and good ole’ Ogre inside. Ogre has been training to be a shift manager for the last two months. Let me tell you something: if you have half a brain cell, you can be trained for that position in a a week, but I guess no one has bothered to explain to Ogre that he’s just not cut out for the job. Whatever. Anyway, as Greg is on his way out the door, he tells us both that I’m in charge. This pisses Ogre off to no end – I’m just a worthless driver, after all, he’s the MIT-in-training.

MIT-in-training is his own phrase. MIT is how the company refers to all managers who are not general managers. You’ve probably figured out by now that it stands for ‘manager in training.’ So he’s a ‘manager-in-training-in-training.’

“Why are you in charge, Bomber?” Ogre asks.

Ogre thinks my nickname is Bomber. Actually, Greg’s nickname for me is Dahmer, because he thinks that one day I’m going to snap and walk into the store with a high powered rifle and shoot everyone. I know, it’s not quite how the real Dahmer did it, but serial killers are serial killers. It’s actually a subject of amusement between us – one night we were talking about creative ways I could kill people. “I should drown someone in the sauce bucket,” I said.

Anyway, after asking me why I’m in charge, I then tell him the usual story: was a manager at a Papa John’s in Hampden for eight months, and while there aquired a great many pizza-wonderous skills, including the ability to tell a customer to ‘go fuck yourself’ without either using the word ‘fuck’ or offending them. He sort of nodded to himself, as if to say, ‘Yes, that makes sense’ and then lumbered off.

And then, on my way out the door at the end of the shift, Greg handed me twenty bucks. So not only did I make as much money as most of the drivers did, I also made more than the insiders. Sweeeet.

Phil loves the snow. I love the snow, too, title aside. It isn’t the snow I hate.

I hate working in the snow.

But don’t you make a lot of money?

Yes, but I’m sliding around in the snow, I’m cold, wet, tired, on-edge, and that sixteen year old in daddy’s brand new SUV? He hasn’t learned that just because its an SUV doesn’t mean you can follow a car six inches off its rear bumper.

Zap almost got stuck on Highland Ridge. That road is a pain in the ass in nice weather, in snow its impossible. You’ve got to go up this huge hill — and then head down the other side of the hill — to get to most of the houses. Zap couldn’t get back up the hill when he was trying to leave, so he had to back all the way down, then give it as much gas as he could – then he had to be able to slow down before he spun out of control coming down the other side of the hill. “Not fun, not fun at all,” I can remember him muttering as he stomped through the back door of the shop.

A big F.Y. to the Hunt Valley Animal Hospital. Zero tip. Thanks guys, tell you what, I know we’re right across the street from you, so instead of making me drive to you, how about you guys walk over and just pick it up, since you’re too cheap to tip? Thanks.

Most people today were super cool, even when their food was (in one case) over two hours late. Things really improved as the plows started to do their thing, but the fact of the matter is, it’s going to be dark in about an hour and a half, the roads are going to be treacherous, and there’s just no way in hell I’m even going to try to get to my other job tonight. I called up Steve, the manager, and he got angry with me – “You’re the closing driver, that’s a difficult shift to cover. What’re you worried about anyway?, it stopped snowing.” Yes, and now the roads will magically be cleared and dry. Not. Hell, up along 152, most of the side streets — King’s Arm, Derby, Haddon Hurst, etcetra — still have a nice little snow & ice layer from Sunday (I spun out twice last night – once on Engle, and then on Canterbury)! Besides, if I’d known it was going to snow when I put in my request for this week, I would have taken today off. I told him I’d try to come and work inside, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I don’t think Dad & I are getting down to Princess Anne tomorrow. Tonight and tomorrow are some of those great “curl up in front of the TV and watch some DVDs” times in your life.