Season 4 Step 1 Blog 31: 8198388

 8198388

On January 25th, 2022, I clocked into Kroger for a final time. I bagged, did carts, the whole time anticipation was building for 9:53. Finally, 9:53 came and I walked to clock out. As I stood at the time clock, I thought back on my time at Kroger:

While I thought back on everything, it would take too long for me to tell you it all… So I'm only going to tell you three stories. The first one takes place about two weeks after I got the job. I was bagging and a customer asked me if I knew where the gift cards were. I did, and I got super excited because this was the first customer I could actually help. As I was leading him to the gift cards, a woman was coming towards us with a cart. I keep my keys on a carabiner, on the first belt-loop of my pants on my right side. I stepped to the left to avoid the cart, but my right hip rubbed against it and I heard my carabiner clip onto the cart. The woman didn't realize what had happened and continued pushing the cart dragging me along with it.

The second story takes place in December 2018, nearly a year after I got the job. One of my bosses told me to do “go-backs” which is when you take items that were either forgotten or were not wanted and put them back on the shelves. Now, I was never good at this. In fact, when I first started working at the store I called Mom a few times to ask her where some items were. In any case, I noticed that the basket for the baking needs aisle was full so I put it in a cart and took it back. When I got to the baking aisle before I had even looked in the basket, I saw a woman with her son. The woman said, “I have a holiday party and I need gingerbread house kits, but there are none on the shelf. Do you know where any are?” I told her that if it wasn't on the shelf we didn't have any as it was the Christmas season and a lot of people were buying gingerbread kits. She in response asked for a manager.

We were really busy that night and when I told my front-end bosses, they didn't really want to deal with her so they called the store manager and he and I return to the baking aisle. The store manager and I search for 20 minutes all around the store trying to find any gingerbread house kits. Eventually, the woman took her son and left the store in a huff. The store manager left and I walked to my cart. When I looked in the basket I realized that every single item in it was a gingerbread house kit!

The last story takes place in June of 2019. I walked out into the parking lot to start my cart shift. As I walked towards a cart corral I noticed a woman in her late 80s or early 90s, riding in an electric cart. When she saw me, she asked me if I could help her unload her groceries into her car. I said yes and after we had finished, I took the electric cart back into the store.

When I walked back out into the parking lot, I looked over and saw that the woman was clutching her steering wheel and shaking. I ran back to the car ready to call 911. “Ma'am, ma'am, are you okay?” I asked frantically.

“Mitchell,” She said, “I need you to go back into the store and get the electric cart.”

“Sure… but why?” I asked confused.

“This is the wrong car!” She exclaimed.

I grabbed the electric cart and we quickly unpacked the car. The entire time the lady and I were laughing hysterically because of how hard it would be to explain why we were in the car If the owner came out.

After this, I thought back on when about meeting Noah for the first time. I thought about the time my former coworker Lily and I broke the glass front door. I thought about when August came home for a surprise visit in the middle of a Kroger shift and about the “Rubber Ducky Incident.” I thought about all the people I have met and all the memories I've made and I smiled because if given the chance I wouldn't change a thing. With my reflection done, I entered my Kroger ID number one last time: 8198388.

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 30: Blind Soccer

 Blind Soccer

When I first met Noah and we were getting to know each other, it came out that he has dreams of playing on the blind paralympic soccer team in 2028! As soon as I found out he played blind soccer I looked videos up on YouTube. I'm not a big sports guy, but I will say I was thoroughly impressed by blind soccer right away.

For those of you who have not experienced blind soccer Let me explain; to be on the field you need to be at least partially blind. Everybody on the field has to wear blindfolds so that the people who are "partially-sighted" don't have an unfair advantage. The only people on the field who are “sighted” are the goalies. The soccer ball is basically a glorified baby rattle, so whenever it's kicked the beads move around, and the players know where it is.

Now to get ready for the 2028 games, all across the country there are these blind soccer camps. Each camp is just one or two soccer games (as far as I know). Noah isn't a hundred percent sure how it works, but the way he sees it, the more of the camps he does the more chances he gets to make an impression and potentially get on the team. Back in October, we found out that one of the camps was going to be in Columbus in January.

My family saw Noah and Lori over Christmas break and we told them we were going to the game. As soon as we brought it up, Noah asked, “Mitch, which one of your brothers is a soccer goalie for St. Charles?” I told him it was Luke. It turned out that the previous week, Noah’s team had gone to a camp in Denver and their goalie had backed out and they needed a replacement… I think you can see where I'm going with this.

On the day of the game, Luke and I found the indoor soccer field. Noah was not on the field yet so I prompted Luke to go on and try to get to know the other team members. Since Noah was not with us, when Luke walked on a woman asked Luke who he was. I could tell that Luke was nervous so I intercepted the woman and introduced myself assuming that Noah had told her my name. As soon as I said my name she smiled. The woman introduced herself as Noah’s coach Katie. Surprisingly, Katie knew of me from some public speaking that I have done and through one of my teaching mentors Mr. (Pete) Livingston, with whom she went to church before he moved. After I talked to Katie for a minute, I found a seat with Mom and Dad along with, Noah's dad, stepmom, grandpa, and Lori’s immediate family.

Like I said, I'm not a big sports guy. While there are a few reasons that I have for this, a big one that I don't talk about a lot is sports stress me out! Literally every time someone got close to Luke's goal, I burned a couple months of my life. Still, it was really entertaining to watch. First of all, Noah lost where the ball was a few times when he was close to Luke. Luke would direct him on where it was and that made me really proud. Second of all while all the players were good, Noah was amazing. I understand as his friend I have a biased opinion. But, in all honesty, I could not keep my eyes off him, and I don't think our friendship had too much to do with that… Maybe a little bit, but the way he was playing I think I would have been watching him even if I didn't know him.

Even though I agree with Noah’s logic with going to as many camps as he can, I'm way more of a manifestation kind of guy. Like, I know he needs to go to these camps to get noticed, but I honestly believe he's going to be on a team, especially after seeing how well he played.

Have a Greattastic day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 29: Something Has Got To Break

 Something Has Got To Break

On January 3rd, 2018, I walked into my local Kroger grocery store for an interview. As you are probably aware at this point, As I've written many installments based at Kroger, I got the job. This past Wednesday, I woke up and got ready for the day. I worked my New Story shift and then spent the few hours between New Story and Kroger writing.

I got to Kroger, clocked in, said hi to a few co-workers as I walked to start bagging. There were only three checkouts opened and only one needed a bagger. Now, the software that Kroger uses for check-out is from the 90s. Don't ask me why we don't update it, I don't have the answer! About 30 mins into my shift a man came through my checkout lane with his baby daughter. The baby was crying and the man tried to soothe her as he put his groceries on the belt. Unfortunately in the middle of his order the computer that is connected to the scanner and cash register froze. To unfreeze it we had to tell one of our bosses and she had to reboot it. Now neither I nor the cashier I was working with, had ever been on a register when it needed to be rebooted. We just assumed it would take 2 to 3 minutes… It wasn't until later that we found out it takes about 15 to 20.

Ten minutes in the baby was still fussing and the cashier and I assumed that the man was getting annoyed, cuz who wouldn't be? To defuse the situation the cashier sincerely apologized for the wait. “No, you're fine I understand!” The man replied, “I used to work for Kroger.”

“Oh,” the cashier asked, “how long did you work for the company?”

“10 years.” The man replied.

As soon as he said it, my first thought was, Oh man, I'm a year away from being halfway there!

Kroger is an okay job, I know a lot of people who have worked their lifetimes there… I personally have two problems. Firstly, I got my job at Kroger at the beginning of the third quarter of my senior year in high school. The plan was for me to keep this job through college and then I would quit when I became a teacher. While I ended up dropping out of college, and I'm not technically a teacher, I still got a job that I love, working at a school!

Secondly, I'm stretching myself super thin. I work at New Story from 8-3(ish), come home and write as much as I can, work at Kroger from 6 to 10, come home go to bed, and repeat. I don't really have enough time to promote my book, or look for a house, not to mention have a social life! Something has got to break and honestly if I keep going the way I am, it's going to be me! So the next day, after 4 years, I quit Kroger. While I still have two weeks before I am officially done, I can't wait to see what happens next!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1: Christmas Special: First Christmas In Two Years

 First Christmas In Two Years

Jingle Jam Ends

AJR played their last song and after a failed encore cheer from the crowd, we all filed out to go home. When we were almost at the door I saw Mom and I told Anna and Jordan I had to go. I hugged both of them goodbye and told Anna, “I'll see you in March!” Anna smiled and walked out the door to begin her next adventure…

New Story

Before I could get across the crowd to where Mom was out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone. I approached this person and sure enough, it was my coworker from New Story Mandy. We hugged and I asked her who she came to see. She said she loves AJR and I explained that Ryan plays in Cousin Simple. After we talked about that for a second Mandy asked, “Are you excited for next week?”

I was! The following week was our last week of school before break and so they were going to be some celebrations. I was so excited because as you may recall last Christmas everyone in my family, except for me got covid. Since they could all be together I was forced into the attic alone over the holiday. While I was able to look on the “Bright Side Of Life” at that moment, I was definitely looking forward to celebrating Christmas for the first time in two years!

The following week on Wednesday most of the staff at New Story brought in cookies. Thursday was Pajama day and Friday was ugly sweater day. After work on Friday, a few coworkers and I went out for a drink. After that, I went to my coworkers’ Clo and Lucy’s house with another coworker of ours.

Grandma Opper’s Cookies

My great-grandma Grandma Opper had her very own Christmas cookie recipe. Every year Mom's side of the family gets together and we make the cookies. We made the cookies at my aunt Melissa and uncle Andy's house. Their children, Alex, Maci, Nicholas, and Ellie, along with Alex's girlfriend, Emma, Josh’s girlfriend, Sophia, our grandma (Nimba), our cousin Lexi, our aunt Erin, aunt Cyndi and her children, Caitlin and Cameron all helped in the baking and decorating. After we finished making the cookies the cousins went to see Spider-Man The Way Home, which was awesome! After that Mom, Dad, Ryan and I, went to an ugly Christmas sweater party!

Shopping

Throughout our childhood, my “sister” Arden would take me Christmas shopping because she's really good at it and quite frankly it overwhelms me. As a result, I haven't gone Christmas shopping since Arden moved to Colorado in 2019. Dad owns an art studio called Kobolt and the day before Christmas Eve was their company Christmas party. We just went out to lunch, but it was a fun time! As we were walking back to the studio Mom asked me If had gotten all my Christmas shopping done. “No…” I said, “I don't know what to get anyone!” One of the employees told me just to go for it, and with Mom and Dad’s help, I bought gifts that mostly everyone was happy with!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Eve my family went to Mass, ate dinner, and got ready for bed. Christmas morning we said the rosary as we always do and then we went downstairs to open the presents. After we had opened all of our gifts and I had said hi to the Andersons, we drove back to Melissa & Andy's. We ate lunch/dinner and then started our yearly white elephant game. 

Most years there are a lot of joke gifts, and while there were a few this year, most of them were still usable. I said most… Cyndi's fiance, Jeremy managed to get the majority of the joke gifts. One of them was a twerking game. While it was kind of funny when people were playing it… I will say I'm officially scarred for life.

Every year, Alex, Emma, Maci, Nicholas, Ellie, my brothers and I, play a game of Blackjack with Uncle Andy as the dealer. I think this started as a way for Andy to teach us, the dangers of gambling. I usually leave fairly early in the game, And this time when I left, Cyndi and Mom were singing karaoke. I joined them and eventually so did the rest of the party. Cyndi kept the karaoke going until about 12:30 at night. I’m so happy that I got to spend Christmas with my friends and family!

Hope you had a Greattastic Christmas!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 28: Jingle Jam Part 2: Cousin Simple, Spencer Sutherland, and AJR!

 Jingle Jam Part 2: Cousin Simple, Spencer Sutherland, and AJR!

The only time I thought about Jingle Jam was when I would hear a Charlie Puth song and I would get bitter. All of that changed on October 1st, 2021. That day there was a behavior science conference held by New Story at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. On top of that, it was Noah's birthday so Lori and I were planning to hang out with him that night (Perfect Timing). I got up got dressed and got ready for the big day ahead of me, not expecting anything else to come up.

To my surprise when I went to eat breakfast, Mom and Dad were excited to announce that, Cousin Simple was going to play Jingle Jam 2021, with All Time Low and AJR. I was so excited about this and I couldn't believe that it was finally going to happen. All Time Low eventually said they couldn't do it and that gave me some PTSD, but WNCI pulled a rabbit out of the hat with an artist named Spencer Sutherland.

The night of December 9th finally arrived and I drove Luke and Mom's college best friend, Anita, to the show to meet everyone there. When we got through security, I walked around in the pit, calling my friend Anna on the phone. Anna and her best friend Jordan eventually found me, and we found a place to watch the show.

Cousin Simple played first. I was singing along to all of their songs, including the one that was released that night, Chapstick, and at the end of the set a boy in the crowd asked, “Do you know the band?”

“Yeah, my brother plays lead guitar!” I replied.

The boy and his girlfriend started asking me questions and they were fine, but then I realized a line was starting to form.  I answered a few more people's questions, but they started to be questions that I didn't know the answers to or ones that I didn't have the right to answer. Anna saw the panicked look on my face and she said, “Come on guys, let's get a drink.”

As we walked away I said to Anna, “I probably shouldn't have said that Ryan is my…”

“Mitchell!” Anna scolded, “Be quiet!”

When Spencer Sutherland started playing we return to the pit. While he was good, it was nothing in comparison to AJR! With all the lights and the sound I honestly thought I was going to have a seizure. Despite how miserable that description sounds it was a really fun night!

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 27: Jingle Jam Part 1: Well Of Course “We Don't Talk Anymore”

 Jingle Jam Part 1: Well Of Course “We Don't Talk Anymore”

WNCI (97.9) is Columbus’ local radio station. Every December WNCI hosts a holiday show called “Jingle Jam.” In 2019 Jingle Jam was scheduled for December 2nd. The lineup was for King & Country as an opener and Charlie Puth as the headliner.

On October 17th my parents, Luke, Josh, and I piled out of Mom’s minivan at WNCI’s office for a Cousin Simple show. We walked into the office before the fans started getting there, and we met up with the other Will (Frontman) Mitch (Piano/ukulele), and Joel’s (Former drummer) families. After a small walk around the office, we entered the room where the show would be.

It was a relatively small room and I knew it was going to get packed very quickly, so I stood in front of the stage to claim my usual spot immediately. Right before the boys were scheduled to play Chris Davis, one of WNCI’s radio show hosts, came out on stage introduced himself, and hyped us up. He then introduced the band and the core members (Will, Ryan, Mitch, and Joel) came on stage. The four of them sat down and after Chris Davis interviewed them for a little bit, it was time for them to play. Chris Davis left the stage and Fuad came on. Fuad was, at the time Will’s cousin’s fiance (now husband), and was there to play rhythm guitar.

The show was awesome as always, but it wasn't actually the highlight of the night. After they had finished playing, Chris Davis got back on stage and said, “We love your band so much we were wondering if you'd be willing to play WNCI’s Jingle Jam this year?!”

The crowd screamed and after they had calmed down a bit Will said, “We'd love to!”

I'm not the world's best secret-keeper. I've gotten a lot better…hiding the fact that I was writing a book for three years definitely helped, but it's still something that I have to be very conscientious about. This might take away some of the magic and I'm sorry, but Cousin Simple had already accepted the play Jingle Jam before Chris Davis asked. There were two reasons Chris Davis asking officially were important to me. 1. Everybody knew now, so there was no threat of me messing it up. 2. All of the fans screaming reaffirmed for me what we all had been saying behind the scenes, “They're opening for Charlie Puth…this is a huge deal!”

Starting the next day WNCI played Cousin Simple’s song “Star Destroyers” every day to build up hype for Jingle Jam. Unfortunately, about a week before Thanksgiving Charlie Puth canceled. December 2nd fell on the Monday after Thanksgiving, so with the holiday, WNCI was left with less than a week to find a new headliner which frankly was not possible.

Jingle Jam was canceled and we were all disappointed. The day before Thanksgiving Will's family hosted a “Friendsgiving.” For obvious reasons Jingle Jam being canceled was a huge topic that night. At some point, Will was standing with Ryan and people were talking to them about it. I sarcastically chimed in, “Well of course ‘We Don't Talk Anymore’ Charlie, You always cancel our plans!” I don’t think people appreciated that joke as much as they should have admittedly because it was too soon. While I was kind of mad about it for a while I'm glad he canceled because Jingle Jam 2021 was… well… Greattastic!

To Be Continued…

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 26: Boundless Friendship

 Boundless Friendship

Hello All!

How did I end up here writing this installment for my friend Mitchell?? It all started the night of the Create for a Cause event, which we both happened to be attending. The company that I recently started working for (King Business Interiors) has been putting on this event for a couple years, they choose different nonprofit organizations to partner with to help raise money for different causes. This year they chose to work with I am Boundless, a wonderful nonprofit organization that provides services for those on the spectrum. The goal of the evening was to raise money for I am Boundless. King Business Interiors had different people paint platers which in turn were auctioned off the evening of the event and let me just say they had some really beautiful platters there.

The event started at 7:00pm, and it was held at St. Charles Preparatory High School, which I had never been there before and I’ve lived in Columbus my whole life. Architecturally it's a beautiful building. When you walked in they had a table set up with folks to greet you as you arrived. Lots of lights, balloons, food, and people enjoying themselves.

I arrived with my boyfriend, Russell, and my sister and her husband, as you were allowed to invite relatives and friends to come. We made our way to the table where my parents, aunt, and uncle had been sitting. We chatted with them, enjoyed some drinks, and mingled a little. To be honest I was waiting for the music to start up. I had heard at work that they were going to have a live band there and they were amazing! I’m a dancer, not a trained dancer, just like to bust a move. You know like weddings, this is essentially what this event was, a wedding reception and all these lovely people were invited. I can easily get off topic...I’ll try not to anymore.

Okay, so we drank, ate, mingled and then the music started up. Not many people made their way to the dance floor, however, I didn't let an empty dance floor scare me, so off we went to dance. After dancing for a couple I was having a chat with my sister when a nice young gentleman approached us and kindly introduced himself to us, MITCHELL!! Mitchell has this energy and confidence like no one else, he has a smile that will literally make you smile even if you're in a bad mood, and dance moves like you’ve never seen before. As soon as we started talking I knew we were going to be friends. Mitchell told us about his podcast and blog, he began to tell us how it's about growing up as a person with autism. I wanted to know more about Mitchell. I have worked with friends on the spectrum for years, in fact, the non-profit of the evening, I am Boundless, I worked for them. Funny how things can come full circle. We continued our evening with dancing, taking short breaks to catch our breaths and refresh our beverages, we were breaking a sweat. None of us were ready for the evening to be over.

Mitchell:

When I first met Noah's girlfriend, Lori, I was uncharacteristically nervous. This happened because any “social grace” I had built up in my 22 and a half years of life before covid were long gone by the time the three of us sat down for that dinner. The reason I survived our meeting was that Lori and I have a lot of similarities and Noah knew us both enough to steer the conversation in the correct direction. In the almost year since I met Lori my confidence hadn't reached pre-pandemic levels. When I asked Deanna to do this installment, I knew that she was probably going to say something about my confidence on that night. When I was reading this over, however, I couldn't help but laugh because Deanna and presumably her family were obviously unaware of why I was so confident: THEM. When I approached them, I was super uncomfortable because I was just trying to mingle, but I had no idea what to say to anyone. Deanna and her family gave me a chance to work out any excess awkwardness I have developed over covid and let my confidence come back for the first time since March 12th, 2020!

Have a Greattastic Day and Be Safe! 

J. Mitchie Ulibarri & Deanna