Season 4 Blog 34: Step 1 Part 4: Goodbye Meadow Park (Season Finale)

Step 1 Part 4: Goodbye Meadow Park (Season Finale)

Over my last few months at Kroger Shane and I got to know each other even better. I found out that not only did we go to the same high school, but we went to the same preschool and he grew up two streets away from Meadow Park Drive, where I grew up. On top of that, Shane lives a quarter mile away from my friend Noah!

I knew that Shane needed a roommate, but at first, I was originally planning to move in with our former coworker Izzy (Step 1 Part 1) and when that fell through I planned to try to buy a house with Ryan and our Cousin Alex (Thanksgiving Special: Step 1 Part 2). While all that was going on Woody and Shane decided to move in together.

Last summer I had a girlfriend named Ishana. I haven't gone into details of how we broke up, other than saying that “things got pretty nasty.” After we broke up she started stalking me and I had to take drastic measures…the first of which was to change my number.

The Thursday before Christmas break while I was working at New Story my phone stopped responding when I would touch the screen. That Saturday Dad and I went to an Apple Store located at the mall. Dad and I walked around the mall while they tried to fix my phone. When we returned, an employee told me that they were going to give me a replacement phone and asked if I had an iCloud backup. Luckily I did.

The employee had me sign into my Apple ID on a laptop. To access my Apple ID, Apple sent a verification code to the phone number that I had registered on the ID. The problem was that I didn't know that I needed to update my phone number on my apple ID manually after I changed it. Basically what happened was the verification code got sent to my old number and Apple had to verify that it was me through another method. Unfortunately, this method apparently takes 27 days! This would have been partially okay if I would have been able to use the replacement phone during that time But, the employee had failed to activate my new phone, so for a month my phone was just an expensive paperweight. I relied solely on Facebook for communicating with people.

Now, during this month we decided that it probably wasn't a good idea for me Ryan, and Alex to buy a house. While that was probably the best decision, I wasn't too happy about it because I was once again back to square one. As soon as we made the decision I happened to check my voicemail, and by sheer grace, I had a new message from Shane.

It turned out that things with Woody becoming his roommate had not panned out and he still needed a roommate. A few weeks later my parents and I went to his house, met his parents, and after some discussion, I decided to move in. At the end of The Kid Kronicles # 2 I said, “and, next week I will be moving on to the next part of my life…” The bureaucracy of getting approved delayed my plans by a week, but yesterday (2/19/2022) was the big day!

After my parents and I finished setting my room up we drove back to my parent's house so I could pick up my car. After we said goodbye, I got in my car turned the key, and started driving. “Goodbye Meadow Park,” I said, “It's been fun!”

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri 

Season 4 Blog 33: Step 1 Part 3: Wait You Went To Graham

 Step 1 Part 3: Wait, You Went To Graham

I know that I just made a very big deal about quitting Kroger so it feels a little weird to write this installment, but it is oh so necessary. While I haven't mentioned this there are actually two Kroger grocery stores in Clintonville where I live. One of them is just a Kroger and the other is a Kroger Marketplace. Kroger Marketplaces are the Kroger Corporation’s equivalent of the Target Corporation’s Super Target (it's just a bigger store). I worked at the Kroger Marketplace.

One night in early September of 2021, I went to work my Kroger shift. Almost as soon as I clocked in, I was called to the service desk. One of my bosses told me to help a new co-worker who has Down Syndrome with “go-backs,” which is when you take items that were either forgotten or were not wanted and put them back on the shelves. I was never good at go-backs, but I was excited to make a new friend.

The co-worker's name was Shane and we immediately started bonding over our respective disabilities. When I felt like I had gotten to know him a little bit, I asked how long he had been working at the store. He told me that a few months before he had started working at the other Kroger in Clintonville, but then they cut his hours, so he came to the Kroger Marketplace at the end of August.

A couple of weeks passed and while I was working another Kroger shift, the same boss told Shane and I to go out on carts. When we had collected a few carts, we started talking before pushing them in. Mom and Dad coincidentally came to the store and when he saw us, Dad jokingly told us to get to work. As soon as I told Shane that they were my parents, he struck up a conversation with Dad as we all entered the store. Mom and Dad went to start shopping and Shane and I went back outside.

“So as I was saying…” I asked, “do you like this Kroger better than your old one?”

“It's about the same, but I have a few friends here,” Shane replied.

“Oh, who do you know?” I asked.

“Well, I went to high school with Connor Woodland.” He answered.

“Wait…You went to Graham with ‘Woody’?” I exclaimed.

Now Woody had worked at Kroger for two years before I even got the job. As I was getting to know him he told me that he got his nickname in high school, for his last name and the Toy Story character. I asked him what school he went to, and Woody said The Graham School. This is important because I also went to Graham. I came in as a freshman the school year after Woody and Shane graduated. Shane and I started talking about our respective times at Graham, and that was the beginning of our friendship.

To Be Continued…

Season 4 Step 1 Blog 32: The Kid Kronicles #2- Greattastic Adventures Arlo Vs. R4AGL Arlo

 The Kid Kronicles #2- Greattastic Adventures Arlo Vs. R4AGL Arlo

For any of this to make sense I need to state the obvious. Anything I write about my life is more like an artistic representation of what happened and not necessarily what happened beat for beat. Most of this comes down to the characters because to fit them into the short Rules for a Greattastic Life (R4AGL) installments, some characteristics need to be left on the cutting room floor. In other words the real-life versions of characters in my work are obviously superior to their R4AGL counterparts.

I prefer the characterizations of most of my “sisters” in “The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child” to R4AGL since that is a book so I had more space and less had to be left on the cutting room floor. However, for my youngest “sister” Arlo (Lo-lo/Kid) I prefer her R4AGL characterization over The Greattastic Adventures. Let me explain: In real life, while there was a time when all four girls hated me, I only ever hated the older three. I didn't necessarily like Lo-lo, as she was called then but because she was so young, it was more of guilt by association as opposed to real hatred.

At the beginning of “The Greattastic Adventures: Miracle Child,” Lo-lo is only six years old and by the end, she's seven. Because of her age in real life, she wasn't a major part of the events of that story. The only way to translate this into the book was to have Lo-lo in it, but have no real contribution to the story. What I'm saying is the only reason she is in Miracle Child is continuity! But because I never completely disliked her and I know how close we are in the present, “book Lo-lo” feels like a disservice to the real-life Arlo.

Throughout the rest of our childhood, while Arlo would become more relevant in the group, she wouldn't start developing her own agency (narratively speaking at least) until she was 13 years old when she asked to stop being called Lo-lo (and I gave her the nickname Kid). This agency wouldn’t be fully on display until Kid was about to turn 16 back in Season 2 of R4AGL. This was because August, Arden, and Aspen had all moved out.

When I discovered this to make up for how Kid’s Greattastic Adventures incarnation was turning out, I decided to make a mini-series within R4AGL called “The Kid Kronicles” to document our friendship isolated from the other girls. Covid obviously forced my plans for The Kid Kronicles back since August and Aspen moved back to Columbus for a while as result. I actually did write the first installment of The Kid Kronicles in December of 2020, because at the time August had moved and Aspen was supposed to go into the army in January, but that fell through, which is why this sequel is coming a year later.

There is one more reason I decided to do The Kid Kronicles. There are only two differences between “young Mitchell’s” characterization and Lo-lo's. 1. There is virtually no age gap between me and the older three girls, making the gap between them and Lo-lo seem bigger by comparison. 2. Miracle Child is told from my perspective, not Lo-lo’s. These two things together gave the illusion that I had agency in the story. I did fun things with the older three, but most of the stuff was their idea; I was just along for the ride. What I'm saying is even though I was more central to the story, Kid and I developed our narrative agency at approximately the same time.

While we are in different places in our lives we have had the same story ark throughout R4AGL. Season 1: We had to cope with the inevitability of the girls leaving. Season 2: We started to find ourselves after they moved. Season 3: Covid forced August and Aspen back to Columbus, placing Kid and me back to where we were in season 1. Season 4: With all of the girls gone again Kid and I picked up right where we left off and continued to move forward. Kid is a senior in high school, but she's taking college credit plus classes at Columbus State. And, next week I will be moving on to the next part of my life…

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

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