Family Valu Center

"Hi! Welcome to Family Valu Center." Where things are so cheap, we don't even put the e on value.

"Hi, there! How are you?" "Hi!" Hi!" My greetings shower the people as they walk in the door of the hole-in-the-wall gas station where I work. Most of them don't even look at me, few glance my way, and even fewer respond in kind. "I'm fine. How are you?"

One of the main lessons I've learned about people from working at the gas station is that most of them don't give a shit about the person behind the counter. And a large percentage of them don't care what loops I have to jump through or rules that I have to break to get them what they want. Last night, three moderately tipsy people walked in and as one of the women was waiting to pay for her husband's gas, the other couple was getting ice from the fountain machine.The couple walked up to me and said, "We just have two cups of ice."

"Ok, that'll be fifty cents."

"What?! Your're gonna charge us for ice?"

Sigh. "Yeah, sorry, that's the policy."

The woman paying for the gas says that she will pay for the ice and they don't have to worry about it. I said ok, and the man slams fifty says on the counter and thanks me for charging them for ice. Seriously. I know. They walked out the door and I wanted to say no problem, why don't you yell at me for the gas prices, too. Yet, another thing that I don't control.

I am honestly tired of having to bite my lip and manipulate my life so that those I meet in a customer service experience can have a better day, while totally destroying mine. I am a person with feelings and experiences and an outlook on life--not an object who jumps at the flick of a switch. I try to look at my experiences as an opportunity to brighten someone's day. A chance for me to make someone realize that they are not alone in this life--a chance to say hi, you are not invisible. This uphill battle is difficult when I am constantly bombarded with behavior that makes me feel invisible.

Each day is a brand new day which allows me to shake off the old rejections and open my heart to the hope of toucing the heart of someone else. As I contemplate these changes from day to day, a man walks in and starts examining theice cream cooler.

"Hi, how are you today?"

"I'm doing ok. Which one of these is the best? What would you suggest?"

"Ummm...My favorite is the Big Bopper--with the chocolate chip cookies and the ice cream? It's the most expensive, but I think it's totally worth it."

"Oh, well I don't really care how expensive it is...I'm just trying to cheer up my pouting daughter."

My heart warms and I smile. "Ahhh, well I think that that will definitely do it."

As the man returns to his car and his unhappy child, I smile and think about how comforting it is when another tries to make you feel better--even when they don't have to. My junior year of high school, I finally told this boy that I liked him--a big deal, I know, right?-- and after his rejection, I was depressed for weeks. The first night that I was licking my wounds in my room, my mom told me that she was making broccoli to go with dinner and if I wanted  her to, she would put cheese on it. Or there was the time I couldn't find any clothes that I liked for the first day of school and my mom took my out for ice cream. Or how about the day that my grandma died and at dinner my dad continuously asked me if I wanted more food.

Hmph. I guess there is an explanation for why I am what the polite people like to call plus-sized. I personally like to call it me-sized. I remember growing up in a house where there was always food and whenever there was a problem, the solution was something comforting to eat.

When I was younger, I totally destroyed my metabolism by eating whenever I was dealing with a stressful situation. Now, I deal with my issues, by smoking a lot of cigarettes. Even though I have learned that food is not a solution, I am still me-sized because my metabolism is the pace of a Chevy Astro.

I look in the mirror and think, hey I'm kinda cute and not that overweight. And then I leave for the day, come back and look in the mirror again. Then think, god, I'm so plus-sized and I wish I wasn't.

As I go through my day, I want to give others a little nudge to feel better about who they are and their station in life. I just wish that someone would take the time to do that for me.