Perpetual Ruminations

Saturday

The last day of madness. It comes every other Saturday, followed of course by chaos on Sunday. Its beginning is Friday night, but it does not manifest until Saturday. With the morning comes the onset of madness.

Every other weekend, but even the sane weekend is filled with chaos. Not anymore, not like it was. Today is the last day of the madness, tomorrow the chaos will follow, but it will be greatly decreased. It will also mark a new beginning, both of the week, and in our lives.

Rhonda is at the heart of all of it. She has done well, but it is taking a deep toll upon her. Deeper than on me, since she is in the midst of it all. I am caught up in it through her, and so I also am greatly affected by this, but not as much. Similarly, she will more deeply and quickly affected by the change, but I, in relationship, will also feel these affects shortly after.

She works at Target, and in the beginning, she was open to any and all hours they desired. I was out of work, staying home and holding things down. I was able to work, but unable to do many of the things a job would require, do to some health issues. Medical treatment and therapy helped, but it was a long road back for me. Rhonda had been forced into a change of careers, and took a job at Target after she was unable to work as a CNA.

She only made half the wages, and only part-time. So, she was willing and able to work anytime she could, and often came close to full-time hours. Last summer I went back to work. I had been looking for a position I could fill since the summer before. Last spring, almost one year ago, I found a spot that I could do, and found I enjoyed my new career. It was part-time, and it worked out pretty well.

About the same time, Target began having Rhonda go in early mornings here and there. It became regular for her to work late one night, then have to go in early the next morning, a pain for her since she lives twenty five miles away. It also began to conflict with my schedule.

See, up to then, she most often worked between the hours of one in the afternoon and ten at night. I worked six in the evenings until ten at night. the morning shift was difficult, but it only was one day a week. Then they started letting her out at nine or sooner, but had her going in around one. Time was wasted in waiting, her for me, me for her on these days, but we could do nothing about it, since we have one vehicle and had to ride together.

The vehicle broke down, and we had to purchase another, so now we have a payment each month. We knew it would be tight, but doable with our combined hours. They cut hers. Soon into winter, I was also cut back, we now closed an hour earlier. With Christmas approaching, Target began to keep Rhonda till closing, around ten. Now it was me who was done a little after nine and she worked to ten. Then it was eleven, then twelve and this held till after Christmas.

We thought it would go back to nine for her, but they would do one night at nine, one at ten, one at ten-thirty, and then Saturday would be eleven. At the same time, they had her come in later and later, so even though she was staying later, she was getting less and less hours. We watched our savings, meager as it was, vanish. She barely made enough to cover the gas and a few groceries. But, we held out, waiting for spring. Then, a couple of seeks ago, I returned to working to ten. They cut her back to nine and eight.

However, on every other weekend, I have to work from one to nine and then Sunday is two to eight. This is the point of madness. Friday nights she would work till ten-thirty. We would be late getting to bed, then late getting up and rushing to get to work on time. She would not start until three or four, so a long wait for her. Then I get done at nine and she not till eleven.

We come home and again get to bed late, get up late, and in the process are lucky to log six hours of sleep a night during the weekend. Sunday comes and we are tired, rushed and push ourselves to work. I get done at eight, but she is not done till nine-thirty. In the process, she finds she is working about twenty hours or less a week. The next weekend comes, the one I do not work, and she is home by nine or ten  on Friday, gets done by nine or ten on Saturday, and has Sunday off.

We discussed it and seen that if they even just rotated her weekends, we would do fine. She talked to them, can't do it. She changed her hours so that she would start later and get done sooner. Two until ten, that was it. They could not do it. In fact, they told her if she tried, it would not work out, but she would end up with less than twenty hours a week.

She told them, leave it be as is then. They told her thank you, and then cut her hours later in the afternoon, but put her on even more late nights. But only on the weeks it would disrupt my schedule. The opposite weeks, she would have four days off. Also, even though she left the schedule as is, they still cut her to less than twenty hours a week.

So, she gave them two weeks notice and today is the last day she works for Target. Last night she got home about eleven, we got up about nine and had our normal six hours of sleep. Tonight she will work to eleven, and we will again get little sleep. I will bring my laptop in and entertain myself for an hour and a half, to two hours waiting for her, we then come home, get another six hours of sleep and do it all over again.

Only, this time, I will go to work at two, as normal, she will be unemployed and stay home. At eight I will close up and be out of there by a eight-thirty at the latest and come home. I will be able to get to bed at an earlier time, and then have Monday and Tuesday off. I will have to go in on Tuesday to see if the new hire has completed all required training, passed the exam and can start working as a security guard. I know Rhonda will do fine.

Our schedules will still take up a lot of our time together, but at least there will be few if any conflicts. I know, I will be her boss and I do the scheduling. next month, I take the opening shift, she takes mine. I start at five in the morning, she gets done around ten-thirty at night. We will have a few hours in between to enjoy, as well as every other weekend. It will be more time for us, less stress and end to the madness and the chaos we live with now.

For her, it ends today, for me, it ends tomorrow. Monday she starts training and we begin a new chapter in our lives.