Yakutraz Day IV

I triumphantly finished the vault sheet only to discover the next day that my calculator was adding decimal places wrong. This was, of course, after I announced to my manager and the VP of Operations that I discovered all these errors carried over from the previous days. I blame it on Yakutat. My IQ dropped 30 points when the plane touched down. It wasn't me, I swear. It was the calculator. I thought about taking it home just so everyone would believe me. I was gonna put it at my desk at work along with my other nic nacs and put up a little sign. "The Amazing Calculator That Doesn't Calculate! Do Not Feed!"

The new girl showed up that day nearly 30 minutes late. I had to enter the branch by myself and call around to see who could come in. She moseyed in just as I was getting off the phone w/ the VP of Ops. The girl did her teller studies all day and refused to answer the phone even when I was with a member. And even tho I showed her how. She didn't mind using the phone to make personal calls tho.

Amazingly, nothing else went wrong the rest of the day. I got out of there on time for the first time that week. I went to my room, ate one of my $5 TV dinners and watched my favorite of the Gene Hackman movies which I thought was going to be my most hated, Heartbreakers. Also starred Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hugeboobs. I found that I didn't much care for getting out of work on time since that left me with oodles of free time and nothing to do. I made a call to the gun store to make sure they got my email about faxing the FFL for the AR I was purchasing. The guy on the other end said, "I hope you're not calling from where it sounds like you're calling.... Prison." "Close enough," I said. "Yakutat."

Yakutraz Day III

The day started out nice enough. The sun was out, but I could tell it had rained the night before since the windows in my Expedition were dirty. And of course, the wipers worked on the windshield, but there was no washer fluid. The fluid worked on the back window, but not the wiper. Unrelated to those problems but still annoying was the fact that the cartridge for the CD player was missing. It wouldn't be so bad if Yakutat got more than one radio station. It played a variety of genres, including modern country, 40s blues and broadcasts of local committee meetings. Most of the time I opted to be alone with my thoughts than listen to it.

The morning was fairly slow at the CU. I had the chance to complain to the admin assistant about my room and the infestation there. She hopped on the phone and apparently gave the owners a good tongue lashing. The owners of the lodge called me and offered to set off a bug bomb and give me some more movies to watch.

The afternoon brought 3 people in all at once wanting to open new accounts. And w/ the snails pace computers it took forever. We had bunches, no, bushels of people waiting in line. They must have backed a whole foot out the door. The vault was off again that night and I had to stay until after 7. I couldn't figure it out so I took it home to stew over. At home I had a TV dinner and watched another Gene Hackman movie. The new selection of movies they brought wasn't very appealing. It included an instructional line dancing video, Kickerboxer II and a host of other titles even more forgettable. I snapped some photos of my room and of all the dead spiders I found after they set off the bug bomb. At least they're dead. Now all I have to worry about is irreversable chromosome damage.

Yakutat

Yakutraz Day II

I woke up the next morning and looked in the cupboards for some breakfast. Doritos and beef jerky. I was listening to my headphones after changing my clothes and went back into the kitchen. I jumped back and yelped when I saw a ginormous spider in the sink. It had been there the whole time I was rummaging around for food. After collecting myself I slowly reached for the Dawn soap. I snuck around to the other side of the sink and doused it so it couldn't escape. After he was sufficiently immobilized I flushed him down the drain. I then searched all of the crevasses for more spiders lurking. When I was certain the infestation had been quelled I set out for the day.

I headed for Canon Beach, which is apparently the only attraction in Yakutat since three people told me to visit it. I snapped a few photos while keeping a watchful eye out for bears, which I knew must number in the millions in this part of Alaska. Though I wasn't mulled this time, I wasn't taking any chances. Travelling back to town I passed a sign that was much more appropriate then the two "Welcome to Yakutat" signs just up the road. It said Middle of Nowhere. The second day at the credit union wasnt nearly so stressful, but I had to help all the members myself since the teller with all the 3 weeks experience wasn't working that day. I was still there until almost 7pm trying to work out all the vault problems. I'd like to say I got in some good overtime, but since the branch doesn't open up until late I wasn't even making my 8 hours some days.

I bought some groceries alt Mallot's General Store, the biggest business for the Yakutat CU. Marie Calendar TV dinners were $5 each. That's more than the inflated prices in Juneau. I can't wait until Wal-Mart opens. I miss Sam's Choice. I did find some itty bitty Hagen-Daz ice creams, tho. $1.49 for 4.23 oz. So I ate my ice cream and watched one of my Gene Hackman movies. With no alarm clock I set the timer on the kitchen stove to wake my up the next day.

Yakutraz Day I

The plane left JNU true to its word, 50% on time. We flew above the clouds and even some of the mountains peaks could still be seen. After the clouds parted several glaciers could be seen carving out the mountain sides. While descending, all I saw were mountains, valleys and other prettyish kind of wilderness. I thought how could there be an airport here. There's nothing! Then suddenly we touched down on pavement and I saw this rusted airplane hangar w/ broken windows that I only hoped hadn't been used in ages. As I waited for my bag I looked around for the car rental person who was supposed to pick me up. Since neither one of us knew who we were looking for, we never found each other. I opened my cell phone to call the credit union..."searching for signal".

While still waiting for my bag, my cell phone vibrated. "Someone's calling me. Somebody loves me!" I thought. It was only my cell phone powering down. Apparently when I charged it the night before I had stuck the charger in the headphone jack instead of the charging jack. I walked over the the Yakutat Lodge which sported a sign saying, "Food, shelter, booze." All the necessities of life. I asked if I had a room there. I hadn't and I couldn't remember the name of the place I was staying. I knew it was something with Lodge in the title, but apparently everything has Lodge in the title there. I spent $3 calling Juneau trying to find out where I was staying. $3 to call less than 300 miles. Fortunately one of the ladies there at the lodge knew one of the tellers at the CU called her up. She even brought me to my rental car place. I was praying they wouldn't give me a minivan. But alas, I got there and the guy had me put my stuff in a faded green minivan. Luckily that was just to take me to my ride - a Ford Expedition, Eddie Bauer Edition.

I drove straight to the CU as I was supposed to meet the other teller there. I waited and waited and saw no one show up and the lights were dark inside (from what I could see through the house door leading into the CU). The CU was inside a general store type of shop. They had furniture right next to ammo, which was right next to the CU. I decided to check into my room. When I got there, they showed me around my room but gave me no key. I was situated in a building w/ two bedrooms with a bunk bed to each, a kitchen, bathroom and dining area. The dining room table, which had the word LIFETIME molded into the plastic (which must have been the brand b/c it certainly couldn't be the warranty), had an old TV on it that didn't get and TV channels. It only played VHS, of which I had 3 to choose from, Enemy of the State, Heist and Heartbreakers. All Gene Hackman movies.

I went back to the CU and it was still dark inside, but I saw movement. It was the teller who was supposed to meet me there. She'd apparently been there the whole time. She just likes to leave the door unlocked and the lights off (rather than the other way around) so no members will come in before they open. The branch consisted of 2 teller stations and the manager's office/vault room, which had no door. So members were able to see us loading piles of money into the vault. The new teller and I went to the post office to get our shipment of money from the fed, which consisted of over a hundred grand in currency and several thousand in coin. We transported it to the branch and huffed it up the stairs armed with nothing but my knife for protection from robbers and pree-verts. The members were lined up out the door and one of them exclaimed, "Holy cow!" when one of the bundles of money fell into view. That was nothing. It was only about 20,000 in fifties and hundreds. Of course, if it were Hollywood it would have been a million dollars.

The day consisted of counting money and helping members. We closed at 5, but didn't get out of there until nearly 7, and we still weren't done. We only had half the money counted and we didn't finish the vault b/c it was off from the day before. It was a mess. After that I needed a drink. On the CU of course. I couldn't find a store in town that sold alcohol, which shocked me immensely. How could anyone live in a town like that and not drink? So I went back to the Yakutat Lodge and had a beer and a ham-a-burger. That was the first thing I'd eaten all day, not counting the itty bitty bag of pretzels from the plane ride. The bartender even built me a frilly drink w/ pineapple juice. I had asked for a Mike's Hard Lemonade, but they didn't have it. The barkeep apparently hadn't even heard of it b/c she started naming off soft drinks they had instead. Too uptown for Yakutat I suppose. All the fishermen there were prolly thinking, "That's the girl who gets her salsa from New York City." After dinner I went home and fell right to sleep at 10 pm. I woke up the next morning at 9 am. I musta been tired. Normally I can't sleep for 11 hours unless I really try.

Sorry, my door doesn't swing that way.

I got back from Yakutat on Friday. I was gonna post several lengthy threads about my trip, but I just had to say this first. I got hit on by my first lesbian tonight at the bar. I mean a real lesbian, not the everyday bicurious I normally get hit on by. We'll call her Beverly for the purposes of this blog. I saw her dancing very closing to what I assumed was her girlfriend earlier in the night. It looked like bumper cars. Then later she came over and touched my friend's shoulder and asked her to dance. My friend of course turned her down and said we were leaving. Then Beverly asked me, begged me, to dance as she rubbed her hand up and down my side. I said we were leaving for The Imperial (another bar). Like I was gonna dance with her after she asked my friend first! After about a half hour at The Imperial I saw Beverly show up. She followed us! Luckily she didn't see me or I might have a mullet, a wallet chain and an adopted Korean daughter by now named LeeAnn because we wanted something oriental sounding.