Multiply 365 Day 140 - The end times came and all I got was a lousy t shirt

I guess the apocolypse or the rapture or something was supposed to happen today. Therefore I was thinking that would be a good excuse to get out of blogging, but alas it did not come to pass, so now I am sitting here with about an hour left before this has to be posted with nothing written and I haven't even made dinner yet. After all, if today is the end times, who needs to eat, right? Apparently I do, because it isn't the end times after all.

It was a pretty good apocolypse Saturday all things considered. Sammy suggested going to breakfast on Friday, and since it was his turn to buy I went ahead and took him up on the offer, provided he could survive Friday that is. We received a bike from Pepsi via UPS the other day at work. The bike was a 15 speed mountain bike and was given to us because we are in the process of adding some more Polar Shock machines to our stores. For those who are unfamiliar, Polar Shock is Pepsi's version of Slush Puppy. It is a nice machine in that you don't have to do any manual mixing of the product, rather it is run a lot like a fountain machine, you order the syrup in boxes and the machine is tied into both the syrup box and your existing water line, so the machine does all of the mixing as well. And we are getting four of them, two more for our location (we already have one) as well as one for both Universal News and Gus Millers, our other two locations. To reward us for being such good customers, Pepsi decided to give us three mountain bikes, the first of which arrived on Wednesday. The thing is, the bikes only come partially assembled. The gears, breaks and frame are all attached, but we still had to attach the pedals, the front tire, the handle bars and the chain. And anyone who knows me and tools knows that is akin to oil and water, bad things man, bad things. But Ed wanted me to put the bike together because he had plans for it. Okay, I'll do what I can. But I did mention to Ed that the last time I rode my bike into work Sammy had mentioned that he would like tgo go out and buy a bike, and since we have three coming in, if one isn't accounted for, would it be possible for him to get one, seeing as how he busts his ass for us and all. Ed assured me that one of the bikes would go to Sammy, which is just one of the reasons I like Ed, he does take care of his peeps. So I go about putting the bike together, and I let Sammy know that one of the other bikes coming in will be going to him. I think he was excited about the prospect. Anyway, we get the bike built, sans air in the tires, because usually newsstands have little use for air pumps. But I had one at home, so I said I would bring mine in on Friday. That meant I had to take my bike out of mothballs again, because nothing would look more dorky than taking a bicycle pump on a city bus to work. So Friday I ride into work, and after a day from hell (8 different deliveries; two freezers, Bob Marley order, Pepsi order, Coke order, grocery order, Rainbow del Rey order, Pricemaster order) I finish the day by pumping up the tires on the new bike. Ed tells us that Sammy can have that bike, he will use the next one for whatever it is he plans on doing with it. So Sammy has a bike to ride home, the problem being it is a bike I built, so there is no saying he will get home in one piece.

But this morning, I hop on my bike again around 6am, make the ride into town in about 15 minutes, stash my bike in the basement at Smithfield, and go to meet Sammy at our designated meet up point for some breakfast. He is there and in one piece, so the bike didn't fall apart yet. In fact, he said it rode quite well, which is always an issue on the free stuff some of the vendors hand out, some of it just sucks. But apparently the bike was cool. And since the apocolypse hadn't arrived yet, we headed over to Deluca's for breakfast. I had the special (pepperoni omelet) and Sammy went with the Philly cheesteak omelet. Good eats, good chatting. A genuine nice start to the day if it were to be my last one on earth. We get back to Smithfield News around 8:30, and I start grabbing stuff from the basement to put on the floor. While I don't have to do any stocking on Saturday, technically all I have to do is my ordering, it helps knowing what we do and do not have by first bringing some stuff upstairs. Then I head to the basement and start doing the cigarette inventory and I see that Kenny's boom box is still in there. Kenny has a boom box with satellite radio on it, so I got to tune in the First Wave channel on Sirius and listen to some good music. The music was so good I didn't want to leave the basement, or as I call it, the "Land of the Mole People". Instead I set about organizing some shelves down there and just bee bopping along. Shortly thereafter, Belinda gives me her tobacco order, so I sit at the table down there that I call my office, since I do most of my paperwork there, and continue listening to cool music while getting the second part of my order done. The only bad part came when I eventually had to go upstairs and actually order stuff for the floor, just because it meant I had to give up the music for a while.

Finished, I bought a couple of things at work for this weekend and headed back to enjoy the rest of my rapturous day with a ride home on the bike (Note to the Port Authority Transit, you lost $9 the last two days thanks to me, expect it to happen more often). I get home, fire up the laptop and sit on the bed just catching up on some things on Facebook and checking out some blog posts and what not. Then it hits me that there should be a hockey game on, so I turn on the TV and sure enough, Boston and Tampa Bay are playing and after one period Boston is up 3-0. The game has all of the makings of a stinker. But a funny thing happened, Tampa rolled off the next 4 goals to take a 4-3 lead about halfway through the third period, and while Boston tried to get the tying goal, Tampa would instead notch an empty net tally late to make the final 5-3. So I tuned in just in time from an entertainment perspective. The last day on earth continues to go well. A little more web browsing later and all of a sudden I realize I haven't eaten yet, so I head over to the corner store to get some snacks for the coming end times. But the end times never come, and instead I am stuck with rushing this thing to press because it appears there will be people around tomorrow to read it. Fucking religious bastards anyway. Let me just say if the Mayans fuck this up in 2012, heads will roll. They think Chac was bad, they haven't dealt with a pissed off me.