Every day when I get home from work , I feel so frustrated, the boss is a jerk. And I get my sticks and I go to the shed. And I pound on that drum like it was the boss's head. Todd Rundgren.

I'm starting this post at 11:30 Thanksgiving night. My boss in his infinite wisdom decided that going to work is more important than spending time with family.

In case you didn't know, currently I work as parking lot sweeper. I clean shopping centers, Walmarts that sort of thing.  It can be a miserable job, I'm the guy that cleans up after the garbage man. To be a street sweeper I would have to get a promotion. But it's a necessary job and I take pride in my work ethic. But not tonight. Tonight it's not at all necessary, not on "Black Friday". 

My job depends on the lot being free of cars so I can get to where the trash is. Tonight there are 4 "Black Friday" sales going on at out of 6 stops starting at midnight. So there's not much I can do. But if I have sacrifice my holiday with my family, I'm gonna get paid for full night. So I'm sitting in a Target parking lot writing this post. 

The best part of this job is quiting time,  which just happens to coincide with the time my granddaughter wakes up. As I walk though the door I'm greeted by GoGo yelling "PopPop"  at the top of her lungs. She then breaks into a 23 months old's sprint across the living room to crash into me with a "super hug". With her arms wrapped  my leg she looks up at me and says "Ofv Yew!!!".

I look down and say" I love you too GoGo." 

She lets me go and I scratch the dogs ears as I tell her "PopPop has gotta go take his shoes off." 

She says to me "Shooz?"

"Yep, I'll be right back. "

As soon as I'm clad in flip flops she meets me at the fridge and  helps me make a bologna and cheese sandwich. 

"Loney?" she'll ask me. 

"Yep, bologna and cheese." I tell her. 

"Cheeze!" she says with authority. 

I hand her the cheese wrapper and she says "Trash." and throws it away as I close the bread and put the rest of the in stuff away. 

I sit in front of the TV and watch the news and eating my sandwich, she hangs on the arm of the chair. 

"Bite bite?" she says. 

"What do you say?" I'll ask. 

"Peas!" she replies and I rip her off a piece and hand it to her. 

She stuffs it into her mouth as she says "Tank yew" and returns to dancing to the music in the commercials. 

This happens 3 or 4 times per sandwich. When we get close to the last bite she will remind me "Woofwoof? Rounie, Chupie?"

"Yes we'll save a bite for  Brownie and Chupie a bite. They're good dogs."

Then we go out back so I can have a cigarette, "Will you help Grandpa?". She grabs my index finger and leads me to the back door. As I open the door she turns around and calls out "Rounie! Chupie!" and the dogs join us. 

The dogs head out the doggie door and I sit at the table. GoGo pats me on the knee and declares "Sit sitting."

I ask her "What do you say?".

Exasperated she'll say "Peeeese.".

I hoist her up in my lap and she knows which pocket to pick and she taps it and says "paPod."

I reach into that pocket and produce my iPod. 

I set it on the table in front of us and she hits the power button and works the slide button on the touch screen that unlocks the devise from the home page. Then she flips though the pages of apps and randomly launches what ever she happens to hit. Sometimes it's something she can play with and I let her go. But when it not something she can play with I say "Wait!", she replies "Waiting". I look at what she has opened and tell her "No, you're not buying a $45 audio book. Stay out of the app store."

After awhile of this she ends up asking me for what she wants specifically. Typically she wants to go though her favorite photo album. She'll say "Babies.". That means the album titled Family photos. 

I find it for her and open it and she'll swipe from photo to photo naming the persons in each picture. (Even some of her toys.)

What's more, to make it interesting, I'll ask to find a particular photo. She'll say "Finding!" as she swipes though the album till she finds the picture in question. I'll ask "GoGo, who is that?"

"Dik!" she replies triumphantly. 

"Who else?" I'll prod. 

"AmMah." she says condescendingly like I should recognize my own mother.  Knowing who her Great Grandmother is in a photograph doesn't surprise me that much. She sees her every day and really loves her. They go shopping together and split a tub of yogurt for lunch daily. But her Great Great Uncle Dick she has never met and had only seen one other 15 year old picture of. The picture on the iPod is from our family reunion last July. I never told her who was in the photo, but she knew him the first time she saw it. 

She is really quite the little smarty pants and she is one of the main reasons I am moving back home. I know she will really benefit from a smaller class size that she'll never have in the Florida school system. 

I thoroughly enjoy this my last hour of my day. Kaylynn's company soothes me and gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that helps me get rest I need to make it another night at my crappy job. 

As I head to bed I get another super hug and she looks up at me and says "Ofv yew PopPop, nie nie."

I say " PopPop loves you too. Try to keep the cuteness down to a minimum." She seldom does. 

Kaylynn snapped this picture while playing with my phone.